A Hard Day’s Fright by Casey Daniels

about it except Will. Apparently, Lucy mentioned it to him. But then, that wasn’t anything new. Will was one of those guys the other kids confided in, a natural-born psychologist. From what I’d heard, any student brave enough to to see our principal needed some sort of therapy! Mr. Wannamaker didn’t believe in being friends with his students. He was tough and he was strict. Not the sort of person you’d just stop in on to chat. If she really did make that appointment  .  .  .” Ella sighed. “Lucy must have had a very good reason to want to talk to him.”
    “And do you think it might have had something to do with this Monroe character?”
    She shook her head and my hopes plummeted. “Even if it did, the police investigated Mr. Monroe thoroughly after Lucy disappeared. I mean, everyone was talking about how he’d been let go from his last job. That was no secret. The police heard the stories, and of course, they checked out Mr. Monroe. Even after school started that fall, I remember seeing cops in the hall, and once, I saw them talking to Mr. Monroe. They apparently never really thought it was him, though. Or they never found a way to connect him to Lucy. Otherwise, I don’t think they would have dropped it. Especially since Lucy took that summer school poetry class with Mr. Monroe.”
    This, too, was news, and I perked up, but apparently Ella didn’t notice since she was busy poking and stabbing. I urged her on with a hopeful, “And…”
    “Oh, the summer school class?” Like it was no big deal (and for all I knew, it wasn’t), Ella shrugged. “That’s the class Lucy got an F in and we thought she wouldn’t be allowed to go to the Beatles concert, but her parents let her go, anyway.” Her smile was bittersweet. “Fate is a funny thing, isn’t it? Lucy almost didn’t get to go to the concert. But she did go. And she had such a wonderful time! She even kissed Paul McCartney. And if she did die…I mean, I’m saying this theoretically, not because I believe it or anything…but if she did die that night, then the concert was her last happy memory.” She sighed and got back to work.
    And I got what looked an awful lot like an insight into why Lucy was stuck on that rapid. Her last happy memory, of course. Better she should be stuck there than in the horror of what happened after she got off the train.
    I actually might have gotten all melancholy if Ella hadn’t started talking again. “Then,” she said, “when Lucy and I were on the train and she said that thing about how she had a secret boyfriend and a broken heart—”
    “Whoa!” I put a hand on her arm to stop her. “You never told me that Lucy said anything about a secret boyfriend.”
    “Didn’t I?” Ella is a lousy liar. When she tried to play it cool, I called her on it with a no-nonsense look. She was probably a lousy poker player, too, because she caved in an instant. “She told me in confidence. And I did tell the police about it when they questioned me. I mean, I didn’t think the confidence extended that far. They obviously never thought anything of it.”
    “And you don’t think it had anything to do with her disappearance?”
    “It couldn’t have.” Ella was sure of herself. “Lucy told me they’d already broken up, so if it was over between them—”
    “Then her boyfriend might have been plenty pissed.”
    “No, no.” She dismissed the idea with a shake of her head. “Lucy was the one with the broken heart. That means he must have broke up with her.”
    “And she never said who it was?”
    There was a paper lying on the ground and Ella stabbed and lifted it. “Not a word,” she said.
    “And do you think she might have been talking about Patrick Monroe?”
    Ella was about to make another stab, and she stopped mid-stride. “I never thought of that.”
    “And when he came back to Shaker to talk to your senior class?”
    She shrugged. “I never said a word to him. I mean, I wouldn’t have dared. By