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Riley

RILEY’S HEAD SWIVELED UP and she glared at the window. There was a smudge in the top right corner of the glass, dark red, looked like blood, and a small crack a few inches long. She hadn’t seen whatever struck, but it didn’t sound like something hard. Instead, it sounded muffled, heavy, like a bag filled with something wet.

Riley’s legs didn’t want to work, but she forced them to. She slowly climbed to her feet and peered out the corner of the glass, careful not to expose any more of herself than she had to.

Three small figures were standing on the sidewalk in front of her house, deep in the shadows of the Millers’ red maple. Kids, no taller than her. She couldn’t see their faces, but she could make out that much. One was holding a baseball bat, resting on it like a cane. Looked like a boy, but Riley couldn’t be sure. The middle one wore a blue-and-white sundress, one she recognized. Riley couldn’t see the girl’s face, but she was certain that was Evelyn Harper. She was a year older than Riley, should have been a sixth grader, but got held back in kindergarten for missing too many days. She picked on Riley and half the other girls at Hollows Bend Elementary; she wore that same dress at least once each week, sometimes twice. The third was short, probably Evelyn’s eight-year-old little brother, Robby. He got in trouble last year for bringing a dead cat to school in his backpack. He told everyone it got hit by a car, but Evelyn let it slip he beat it with a hammer in the vacant yard behind their house. Nobody believed her; Robby wasn’t like that. Either way, he got suspended for a week. He had the same backpack with him, resting against his leg, his hand twisted around the strap.

Evelyn stepped forward, peeled from the shadows of the large maple, and glared back at Riley, her head at an odd angle.