Chapter 11: The Front Seat

On Tuesday I went back to school.

The hallway went quiet when I came in, and then somebody clapped, and then three more people did.

I kept my eyes on the floor and walked to my locker.

A girl I didn't know put a sticky note on my door that said: Thank you. It had a heart on it.

Noemi was waiting for me by the water fountain with her phone in her hand and her glasses crooked.

"I've been up since four," she said. "Come with me."

"Where?"

"To look for the front seat."

"Noemi, it was an anonymous text."

"It was a text from someone who knows something." She pulled me by the sleeve. "Nobody sends that sentence by accident."

We started in the theater, which was empty before first period.

Row A was the front row, red velvet seats, one after another.

The first seat on the aisle had a small brass plate screwed to its arm.

I crouched to read it.

RESERVED FOR THE PRINCIPAL'S GUEST.

"That's been there forever," I said. "My father uses it when the board visits."

"Does he?"

"I think so."

An old man in gray coveralls was winding a cord by the stage.

He had been the school custodian since before I was born.

"You're the Salcedo girl," he said, not unkindly.

"Yes, sir."

"That seat." He tilted his head at the plate. "You can ask me about that seat."

I looked at Noemi, and then back at him.

"Who sits in it?"

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