She Heard Nothing novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: The Back of the Lid

The bunk room was dark when Lottie and I came in, and nobody was asleep.

Eleven girls sat up on their cots with their knees pulled in and their phones glowing.

The one in the bunk by the door held out a granola bar without saying anything.

"I believed her," she said. "On Wednesday. I told everyone you were weird."

"Okay," I said.

"I'm sorry."

"Thank you for the granola bar."

She nodded hard and lay back down, and I heard her sniff into her pillow.

That was how the next few minutes went.

Somebody offered me a clean towel.

Somebody else said the video from the tent was already at forty thousand views, and her voice cracked on the number.

Lottie swung up onto the top bunk above mine and hung her head over the edge.

"You're famous," she said. "Don't read the comments. Some of them are our side, and I can't stand how nice they are."

I laughed, and then I found I could not stop, and then I was not laughing anymore.

Lottie climbed down and sat on the edge of my cot and said nothing for a long time.

When I could talk, I put the tin on my knees.

"I never looked at the lining," I said. "I read the bracelet and the note, and I shoved the paper in my pocket."

"The lining?"

"The round piece of paper that was glued in the lid. Gran told me not to peel it. I peeled it, and then I forgot it."

I dug it out of my back pocket.

It was a circle of old gray paper, creased in half and soft at the fold, the size of a coaster.

Keep reading free with an account. Start She Heard Nothing from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.