Maureen Johnson - The Name of the Star

“I have no idea,” Jazza said. She didn’t have time to mess around with her contacts, so she slapped on her glasses.

“Are they really going to have some assembly at six in the morning?” I asked. “Isn’t that a crime against humanity?”

“We have to be in trouble. Someone did something. We did something.”

“They’re not having an assembly at six in the morning to yell at us, Jaz.”

“You don’t know that.”

It looked like the zombie apocalypse in the hall, everyone shambling toward the steps, looking confused, blank, deadeyed. One or two people had put on their uniforms, but mostly people wore sweatpants or pajamas. Jazza and I were of the pajama variety, with our PE fleeces on top for warmth and snuggle factor. Outside, it was one of those drizzly, it’s-rainingeven-though-it’s-not-raining English days I’d been getting used to. The cold and wet woke me up a little, but it was mostly the sight of the police . . . that, and the small white tent and work lights that had been erected in the middle of the green, and the people in the sterile suits that were coming in and out of it.

“Oh, my God,” Jazza said, grabbing my arm. “Oh, my God, Rory, that’s . . .”

It was one of those forensic tents, is what it was, like you saw in crime shows and news bulletins. Everyone processed this fact at the exact same moment. There was one large intake of breath, then a teetering hysteria that Claudia tried to shortcircuit by waving us into the dining hall with huge, semaphorelike motions.

“Come on,” she said. “Come on, girls, come on, come on.”

We allowed Claudia to herd us into the dining hall, which was full of people who had all just received this jolt of adrenaline. There was a lot of noise, people running from table to table, a lot of phone checking. All the faculty who lived nearby were there as well, sitting up on the dais, looking as surprised as the rest of us. When everyone had been shoved inside, the door was slammed shut loudly, and Mount Everest gave us an “all right, all right, quiet down,” which had very limited effect.

“This is Detective Chief Inspector Simon Cole,” he yelled over the noise, “and he needs to speak with you. You will give him your full attention.”

There was the man from the news, the suited and seriousfaced chief inspector, flanked by two uniformed officers. This was the real thing. That brought the silence down.

“At two fifteen this morning,” the inspector began soberly, “a body was found in your school green. We believe this relates to an ongoing investigation, which you are probably aware of . . .”

He didn’t say “Ripper.” He didn’t need to. A shock wave passed over the room—waves of people inhaling all at once, then a buzzing murmur and a scraping of benches as people turned around to look at each other.

“Was it someone from Wexford?” a guy shouted.

“No,” the inspector said. “It was not someone from your school. But this area is now a crime scene. You will not be permitted to cross the square while our forensic team is working. There will be a police presence here for several days. Today, several detectives will be stationed in the library, ready to take statements from any of you who saw anything out of the ordinary last night. We want to know if you saw or heard anything at all, no matter how unimportant it seems. Any people you saw. Any strange noises. Nothing is too trivial.”

Mount Everest jumped in again.

“Any of you who might be afraid of coming forward to the police because you were violating a school policy at the time . . . you will not be punished. Come forward and tell the police everything you know. There will be no repercussions from the school if you aid the police. Everyone will stay on school grounds today. We will arrange for breakfast items to be brought to your houses, so there will be no breakfast in the refectory today, in order to limit the amount of traffic through the green this morning. Lunch will go on as normal. If you have something to tell the police, step forward. And remember, there is no reason for alarm .”

We were dismissed. We’d only been there for a few minutes, but everything had changed. Everyone was awake and unsure. There was a lot of low, confused mumbling. But unlike every other time the entire school was assembled, no one was snickering or talking too loudly. Several more police were already by the refectory door, eyeing us all as we passed out of the building.

I realized I was shaking when I stepped back inside Hawthorne. At first I thought I was cold, but it didn’t stop, even after I sat on the radiator for five minutes. Jazza was acting the same way, sitting on the heater on her side of the room. We sat there, in the half dark, perched awkwardly for several minutes.

“What about the guy?” I finally asked her.

Jazza looked at me, judging whether or not I was being serious.

“Jaz, he was right behind me. He said good night. You’re sure you didn’t see or hear him?”

“I didn’t,” she said. “I swear.”

I bit my lip and ran through the memory again. It still didn’t make any sense, Jazza not seeing or hearing the guy. I knew I hadn’t imagined it.

“I suppose I just wasn’t paying attention,” she said after a moment. “I was only looking at you. I was nervous. If you feel you have to . . .”

She trailed off as the implication of this hit her.

“If you feel you have to say something, you should,” she said, more firmly. “Even if it means . . .”

“They said we wouldn’t get in trouble.”

“Even if it did,” she said.

It took me about ten minutes to get up the courage to go downstairs. Before I could leave the building, I had to check in with Call Me Claudia. She was in her office on the phone, roaring away to some equally loud friend of hers about what had happened the night before.

“Yes, Aurora?”

“I . . . saw something.”

Claudia considered me for a moment.

“Last night?” she asked.

“Last night,” I repeated. I left the rest of the sentence alone while she considered this.

“Well, then,” Claudia said. “You’d better go over to the library.”

The activity outside had already increased. Police officers in fluorescent green jackets with reflective stripes were all over the place, putting up even more blue and white crime scene tape, marking off paths around the grounds. I continued past them, taking the long way around to the library. Two uniformed officers were stationed outside the doors. They admitted me. Another officer talked to me when I entered and escorted me to one of the worktables, where various people—I assumed more police officers—had already set up shop. These people were in normal clothes, suits and business wear. I was placed at a table, and a tall black woman with closely cropped hair and rimless glasses sat down across from me. She looked like she was in her twenties, but she wore a no-nonsense navy blue suit with a white blouse that made her seem older and more serious. She set down a few forms and a pen.

“I’m DI Young,” she said politely. “What’s your name?”

I told her my name.

“American or Canadian?” she asked.

“American.”

“And you saw or heard something last night?”

“I saw a man,” I said.

She pulled out one of the forms and put it on a clipboard, so I couldn’t see what she was writing.

“A man,” she said. “Where and when was this?”

“I think it was two . . . just after two. It was right when everyone was looking for the fourth body. The fourth murder was supposed to be at one forty-five, right? Because we waited for a few minutes before we came back . . .”

“Came back from where?”

“We snuck out. Just to go over to Aldshot. Just for a little while.”