Gia Cribbs - The Disappearance Of Sloane Sullivan

He brushed off the tiny J + S . “I’m letting everyone know that we’re going to be best friends forever.” He pushed the tip of his dad’s pocket knife into the S , making it deeper.

“You don’t have to hurt the poor tree to prove that, Jase. The whole fourth grade knows that already. Everybody knows that already.”

Jason glanced up, grinning, and the knife slipped, slicing into his left hand. He jerked his hand away. The knife dropped to the ground, covered in blood.

My heart skipped a beat. “Hold on!” I pressed the edge of my T-shirt against the bloody spot above his left thumb. Blood soaked through the shirt almost instantly.

“Mrs. Stacy!” I yelled, knowing Jason’s mom would hear me through the open windows. All the color had drained from Jason’s face. “Bet I can annoy more nurses at the hospital than you,” I whispered.

He gave me the tiniest hint of a smile.

“It’ll be okay,” I promised as his mom came rushing down the steps toward us. “We’re best friends, remember? I won’t leave you.”

“Have you ever done that? Carved your initials into a tree?” Jason asked, pulling me out of the memory. He pointed to the Kissing Tree carvings.

I hadn’t thought of that day in years. My eyes darted to his left hand, which hung at his side. Does he still have the scar by his thumb? “No,” I replied. Which was the truth. He had, not me. “Have you?”

He kicked the ground with one of his sneakers. “Yeah.”

“Let me guess. There’s a J loves L on here somewhere.” I pretended to search the tree.

“No. Livie and I aren’t... It’s not...”

I peeked around the tree at him. “I was only teasing. You don’t have to explain.”

A wrinkle appeared in between his eyebrows. “It’s...complicated.” His eyes locked on mine. “But I’m not sure it’s an immortalize-it-in-wood-forever kind of thing.”

“Oh.” Oh. “I just thought... I mean, Livie was kind of throwing off an it’s-serious vibe when she was talking about the senior trip.”

Jason’s cheeks turned pink. “Yeah. She’s got lots of ideas about the senior trip that she’ll apparently share with anyone.”

“I can be your wingman on the trip if you want,” I blurted. “If things are still complicated, just give me the secret signal and I’ll mummify her in rolls of duct tape so she can’t leave our room.”

He laughed. “You’d do that for me?”

I shrugged. “Sure. What are friends for?” Friends . Saying that word to Jason made my pulse race. I rubbed the back of my neck with one hand as I gestured to the tree with the other. “Well, hopefully friends are for taking pictures of tree carvings when their partners choose to exit the world of cell phone ownership.”

Jason pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Friends are definitely for that. Why don’t you move closer? I’ll get you too.”

I took a large step away from the tree. “Nope. I don’t do pictures.” Pictures end up in yearbooks and on the internet and other places immortalized forever where people can find them, with names I don’t want them to know. “I’m not very photogenic. I always blink or make a face. It’s a mess.”

“I highly doubt that,” Jason muttered as he captured proof of the school’s first couple.

We got pictures of the next eight items on our list in no time, including Jason’s favorite: “Ms. Benton’s agreeable band,” which turned out to be his science teacher’s collection of Beatles bobblehead dolls. “What’s the last item?” I asked as we left the chemistry room.

“‘The Z ’s bees,’” Jason read aloud. He stopped walking.

“Oh,” I replied, turning toward the hall that would take us to the front office.

Jason stayed still, his eyebrows scrunched together. “Huh.” He scratched his head.

“Wait.” A slow grin spread across my face. “You don’t know what that means?”

“No.” He glanced up from the list. “Do you?”

My smile grew wider.

“Tell me.”

“Hold on.” I held my hands out to my sides. “I want to spend a moment basking in the glory of knowing something about this school you don’t. Me, the new girl . Who knows nothing about finding anything on our list.”

Jason shot me a look. “What does it mean?”

I leaned toward him. “Not yet. Still basking.”

He reached up and gently yanked twice on my earlobe. It was a familiar gesture, one he’d picked up from his dad, and one that had always annoyed me as a kid.

I smacked his hand away with a laugh. “God, Jase. Cut it out.”

He was already reaching for my ear again when he stopped midreach and lowered his hands to his sides.

“What?” I asked.

“You called me Jase.”

Crap! Lesson number eight, Sloane , I reminded myself. Don’t get complacent.

It had always been like that with Jason, easy when everyone else required a little more work. Being around him was effortless. Now, that was dangerous.

You have to stay on your toes if you’re going to pull this off. And you need to pull this off. So stop making mistakes!

Before I could come up with an excuse for using my childhood nickname for him, Oliver Clarke appeared trailing behind his scavenger hunt partner. I didn’t know where he’d come from, but the deserted hallway was long enough that it was possible he’d seen my whole exchange with Jason, ear yanking and nickname calling included.

Oliver eyed us as he approached, pressing his lips together to hold back a laugh. He remained silent until he was right next to us, then said in a low voice meant only for me, “Hey, Sweet Potato.”

The snort escaped me before I could stop it.

Oliver’s eyes lit up.

I knew I was supposed to be avoiding him because of the whole gossip and mean ex-girlfriend thing, but no one else was around other than Jason and Oliver’s teammate, a guy I recognized from the a cappella group. And I couldn’t just ignore him after a reaction like that. I tipped my head in his direction. “Choir Boy.”

Oliver’s mouth dropped open. “Insults are not a good start to our friendship. I think you mean Singer of Very Manly Songs.”

I pointed at the corner his partner had just disappeared around. “Or maybe I mean Misplacer of Teammates.”

“Oh, shoot,” Oliver grumbled as he hurried around the corner.

I shook my head and peeked at Jason, who was biting his lip, watching the spot where Oliver disappeared. “Sorry about the Jase thing,” I said. “I have a cousin named Jason and that’s what I call him. It just slipped out.”

“It’s okay. It’s what my mom calls me.”

I know. She stole it from me. “That’s because it’s a good nickname.”

Jason smiled. “Yeah, it is.”

“So.” I clapped my hands together. “We need to find some bees, right?”

He raised one eyebrow. “Are you done basking?”

“No, but the basking can continue on our way to the office.”

When I opened the office door, Mrs. Zalinsky smiled at me from behind the tall counter. “Sloane, dear. Back so soon?”

The genuine warmth in her voice melted away my lingering annoyance at her part in giving me a First Day Buddy. She was only trying to help and it hadn’t been that bad. “We need a picture of your bees for the scavenger hunt,” I explained, pointing to Mrs. Zalinsky’s nameplate for Jason.

“Ah,” he mumbled. “I never would’ve gotten that. I haven’t been in here in forever.”

Mrs. Zalinsky eyed Jason as he took the requisite picture. “I told you you wouldn’t need that map,” she whispered to me.