“Nick.” Mom’s voice turns hard. “Enough.”

Both of them are staring at me, wearing twin expressions of disappointment. I don’t know when every grown-up masters that look. Maybe it’s part of the college curriculum. I almost blurt it out: how Dara uses the rose trellis as a ladder; how she probably stole my sweatshirt and then got drunk and forgot it.

But years ago, back when we were kids, Dara and I swore that we would never rat each other out. There was never a formal declaration like a pact or a pinkie-swear. It was an implicit understanding, deeper than anything that could be stated.

Even when she started to get in trouble, even when I found cigarettes stubbed out on her windowsill or little plastic bags filled with unidentifiable pills stashed beneath the pencil cup on her desk, I didn’t tell. Sometimes it killed me, lying awake and listening to the creak of the trellis, a muffled burst of laughter outside and the low roar of an engine peeling away into the night. But I couldn’t bring myself to tell on her; I felt I’d be breaking something that could never be replaced.

Like as long as I kept her secrets, she would stay safe. She would stay mine.

So I say, “Okay. Yeah, okay. I was there.”

“I don’t believe this.” Mom turns a little half circle. “First Dara. Now you. I just don’t fucking believe it. Sorry.” This directed at the cop, who doesn’t even blink.

“It’s no big deal, Mom.” Ridiculous that I’m defending myself for something I didn’t even do. “People party at the Drink all the time.”

“It’s trespassing,” the cop says. She’s obviously enjoying herself.

“It is a big deal.” Mom’s voice is creeping higher and higher. When she’s really angry, it sounds like she’s whistling instead of speaking. “After what happened in March, everything is a big deal.”

“If you were drinking,” the cop goes on, she and Mom like a tag team of shitty, “you could have been in a lot of trouble.”

“Well, I wasn’t.” I shoot her a glare, hoping she’ll shove off now that she’s gotten to play bad cop this morning.

But she remains resolutely, squarely where she is, solid and unmoving, like a human boulder. “You ever do any community service, Nicole?”

I stare at her. “You can’t be serious,” I say. “This isn’t Judge Judy. You can’t make me—”

“I can’t make you,” the cop interrupts me. “But I can ask you, and I can tell you that if you don’t help out, I’m going to write you up for partying at the Drink last night. Sweatshirt proves it, as far as I’m concerned.” For a moment, her expression softens. “Look, we’re just trying to keep you kids safe.”

“She’s right, Nick,” Mom says, in a strangled voice. “She’s just doing her job.”

She turns back to the cop. “It won’t happen again. Will it, Nick?”

I’m not going to swear off doing something I didn’t do in the first place. “I’m going to be late for work,” I say, shouldering my bag. For a second, the cop looks like she might stop me from going. Then she sidesteps me and I feel a rush of triumph, as if I really have gotten away with doing something wrong.

But she grabs my elbow before I can pass her.

“Wait a minute.” She presses a flyer into my hand—from the way it’s folded, it looks as if she’s been carting it around in her back pocket. “Don’t forget,” she says. “You do good, I do good for you. See you tomorrow.”

I wait until I’m halfway across the lawn before unfolding the flyer.

Join the Search for Madeline Snow.

“We’re going to talk about this later, Nick!” Mom calls.

I don’t answer her.

Instead I fish my phone out of my bag and key in a text to Dara—who’s still asleep, I’m sure, her hair tangled on a cigarette-scented pillowcase, her breath still smelling like beer or vodka or whatever else she managed to flirt off of someone last night.

You owe me, I write. Big-time.

www.FindMadeline.tumblr.com

HELP US FIND MADELINE! JOIN THE SEARCH.

Hi all,

Thank you for all of the outpouring of support you’ve shown to the site, the Snows, and to Madeline in the past few days. It means the world to us.

Many of you have been asking how you can help. We are not currently accepting donations. But please join our search party July 22 at 4 p.m.! We will assemble in the parking lot at Big Scoop Ice Cream & Candy, 66598 Route 101, East Norwalk.

Please help spread the word to friends, families, and neighbors, and remember to follow @FindMadelineSnow on Twitter for the latest updates.

Let’s bring Madeline home safely.

I’ll be there!!!!!

posted by: allegoryrules at 11:05 a.m.

Me too. ┎

posted by: katywinnfever at 11:33 a.m.

>>>>comment deleted by admin<<<<

JULY 21

Nick

There’s a fundamental rule of the universe that goes like this: if you’re running late, you will miss your bus. You’ll also miss your bus if it’s raining or if you have somewhere really important to go, like the SATs or a driver’s test. Dara and I have a word for that kind of luck: crapdiment. Just crap smeared on top of more crap.

My morning is already full of crapdiment.

By the time I get to FanLand, I’m nearly twenty-five minutes late. The traffic was bad along the shore. It was announced that Madeline Snow vanished from her sister’s car two days ago outside Big Scoop Ice Cream & Candy, and the news has blown up across the entire state. Even more tourists are flooding the beach than usual. Sick how people like tragedies—maybe it makes them feel better about the crapdiment of their own lives.