Page 23 of All These Beautiful Strangers

“Told you.”

I got the package of bacon from Mimi’s out of our mini fridge and pulled several strips from the pack. I placed them in a Ziploc bag, which I folded and tucked into the pocket of my pullover.

“So, I’ll see you at the Ledge in an hour?” I asked as I headed toward our window.

Drew pursed her lips and smacked them loudly, a kiss goodbye.

Nancy was just where I knew she’d be: in the backyard of the headmaster’s house, lounging in the shadow of an elm. It was lucky for me that things had gone down the way they had last Christmas with Nancy’s diamond collar and Mrs. Collins’s vacuum cleaner. Mrs. Collins’s unabated wrath over the whole thing was the reason Nancy was driven to sleep outside in the yard when the weather was nice enough instead of slumbering on a silk pillow at the foot of the Collinses’ bed.

Getting up and over the fence was an easy enough job. Nancy didn’t even stir from her place beneath the elm. She just lifted her head and watched me lazily. The Collinses’ back porch light came on, triggered by my movement, and I went very still and crouched down, in case one of the Collinses happened to look out. I made my way toward Nancy slowly, crawling along the ground.

When I got closer to her, Nancy growled, a low rumble in the back of her throat. She stood, her muscles rigid, as if at any moment she might lunge at me. I stopped where I was, just a few feet from her.

“Easy, girl,” I said.

I slowly pulled my phone out of my pocket and clicked open the dog-whistle app I had downloaded earlier that day. Just as Nancy sprang toward me, I hit the button.

Of course, I couldn’t hear anything, so for one terrifying moment, I thought it might not have worked. But then Nancy froze. She sat back on her haunches and whined, cocking her head to the side. I clicked the button again to silence the whistle.

“There’s no reason we can’t both get what we want here,” I said.

I withdrew the Ziploc bag of bacon from my pocket and opened it. Nancy sniffed at the air. Her tongue lapped at the sides of her mouth. I took a few strips out and laid them on the ground at my feet. Nancy came forward eagerly and started to feast.

“Sorry about that pureed-carrot diet they have you on,” I said. “I’m afraid that’s my fault.”

I leaned down cautiously. I could see the buckle clasp for Nancy’s diamond collar at the nape of her neck. I imagined reaching for it, and Nancy whipping around and catching my hand in her razor-sharp teeth. I shook the thought from my mind. Nancy would have to take a few of my fingers before I’d risk failing a ticket and being excluded from the A’s.

I reached forward slowly until my hands were on the back of Nancy’s neck. She didn’t growl or draw away from me; she was so preoccupied with the bacon that she didn’t seem to notice me at all. I made quick work of the clasp and slid the heavy collar off her neck and into my pocket.

“Good girl,” I said.

Nancy looked up at me then, and something seemed to shift behind her eyes. I noticed she had finished the bacon, and I fished nervously in the Ziploc bag for the last few strips. I threw them on the ground at her feet, but Nancy didn’t seem to notice them.

A low growl ripped through her belly. The folds around her eyes drew back across her forehead; she bared her teeth and let out one mean bark. I tried to reach around in my pocket for my phone and the dog whistle app, but my fingers were slippery with bacon grease. Instead, I turned on my heel and I ran as fast as I could toward the fence.

As close as I was, I knew I wasn’t fast enough to beat Nancy with her four legs to my two. I could feel her teeth in the flesh of my ankle as she lunged and nipped at my feet. I let out a gasp at her bite and stumbled forward.

I was at the fence now. I got my footing in the railing and lifted myself up and over before Nancy could bring herself to strike again. Still, I could hear her pacing there, just on the other side of the fence, waiting to see if I’d come back.

I limped a few feet from the fence and pulled up the leg of my jeans to survey the damage. In the stray light from the Collinses’ backyard, I could make out the pink half moon of flesh in the shape of Nancy’s front right incisor just behind my right anklebone.

When I was a safe distance away, I chanced a glance back into the yard. Nancy had returned to her place beneath the elm, where she was quickly devouring the only evidence I had left behind of my presence there that night: the last strips of bacon from Mimi’s Supermarket.

Out of the eight initiates, seven of us made it to the Ledge by the deadline. We laid our spoils on a picnic blanket on the hood of Ren’s car:

One diamond collar stolen from the neck of the headmaster’s prized pit bull

One set of the janitor’s keys

One framed picture of Mr. Franklin, the trig teacher, shaking hands with President Nixon after returning from service overseas

One file on Ren Montgomery stolen from the school counselor’s office, still sealed

One pass code to the academic dean’s computer

One set of hall passes, signed by the headmaster

One beige scarf with a distinctive red wine stain