In school I will be on either the Crimson or the Gold team but I hope I am on the same team as Morgan. She said that we can eat lunch together even if we are on different teams. I will get a binder from PB Teen with my name stenciled on it, which is what Morgan said all the girls get for middle school. I have already picked mine out online. It is ombré and starts off dark purple but becomes teal by the end. My first name will go sideways on the Velcro pocket. Or my initials. But I think I will use my first name because that is the part that has always belonged to me. Actually, my initials are the same even if my last name is different now.

Inside the binder are places to put all of your pens and pencils and erasers and a ruler punched with three holes, which Morgan says is definitely going to be on the school supply list. She said that when we get the list we can go shopping together. I asked Mom when we can order the binder and she said, Soon, which I hope she means because Morgan says the binders sell out very quickly, and sometimes Mom says, Soon, about something and then it never happens. She is distracted a lot since we moved here.

I’ve never had a diary before. I always thought they were kind of dumb. Morgan gave me this notebook when I went over to her house. She has a lot of notebooks. She also has a bed with a canopy and a trampoline in her backyard and a big beautiful kitchen that reminds me of the kitchen we used to have before we moved. Morgan’s house makes me miss our old house, which I am not supposed to think about anymore.

She also has an older sister who is really beautiful and fancy.

(Alexa smiled at this.)

And also a little bit scary.

(Alexa frowned.)

When I brought the notebook home I thought I would draw in it. The lady with the brown eyes told me it would be good for me to draw whenever I was feeling sad or confused.

(The lady with the brown eyes was probably some sort of child psychologist Katie saw because of the divorce.)

So, hello, diary. It’s nice to meet you. Thank you for keeping all of my secrets.

Here is secret #1:

Even though I don’t miss Daddy that much I miss him sometimes. Also sometimes I have bad dreams. I don’t like to talk about what the dreams are about, even to Mom. When I scream in the night Miss Josephine bangs on the wall and then I try to quiet down.

Here is secret #2:

I was allowed to keep my hair because I’m a kid. I just wear it in a braid all the time now instead of down and curly the way I liked it. Mom had to change hers. She used to have beautiful blond hair and now she has boring ugly brown hair. She changed it for the first time in the motel room and when she came out of the bathroom I cried and cried because I wanted my old mother back, the glamorous one who used to wear dresses and super-high heels and always had nail polish on her fingers and her toes and wore a gold bikini on vacation. But I can’t have her back because of the crime.

Here is secret #3:

My job now is very simple. My job is to fit in. My job is to not think about Daddy in jail. I am to be Katie Griffin. Katie Griffin is nice and friendly and popular and doesn’t feel scared if she wakes up in the middle of the night. Everybody likes Katie Griffin and wants to get to know her. It’s okay that she doesn’t know how to surf because she moved from Ohio, which is in the middle of the country and has no ocean around it. It’s okay that she asks if there are sharks in the water. It’s okay that she doesn’t have a dad because Morgan doesn’t have a dad either. This is all normal.

I asked Mom if she can call me by my other name, the name from New Jersey, sometimes, just when we’re alone. She got a scary look in her eyes and she said, no, never, don’t you ever ask that again, Katie. Don’t you ever even say that name out loud again. You have to promise me. Right now, Katie, you have to promise me.

So I can’t say it, because I promised her. I can’t tell anyone, because I have to keep us safe. I can’t ever tell who my father is or what he did. I can’t talk about the Witness Protection Program. But I can write my name here. Katie Giordano. Katie Giordano. Katie Giordano.

Alexa slammed the notebook shut and shoved it back where she found it. Her hands were trembling. Something was going on here, and she didn’t know what.

“Katie!” she called.

There was no answer.

“Katie!” Still nothing. Alexa flew down the stairs and rounded the corner to the living room. Katie’s chair was empty. “Katie!”

“Sup?” said Katie. She was coming out of the kitchen, elbow deep in a box of Cheez-Its. “I’m right here.” She held the box out to Alexa. “You want some?”

Alexa Thornhill, did this evening’s babysitting gig meet your expectations? On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your experience?

35.

The Squad

It was early July when we began to notice that Alexa’s interest in the Griffins had become, well, for lack of a better word, surprising. One of us saw her leaving their house on Olive Street on a Monday evening. Another one of us, getting cones with her daughter and a friend at the Cottage during Alexa’s afternoon shift, heard her tell her coworker, a standout on the Pingree girls’ lacrosse team named Hannah, that she was babysitting the following evening as a favor to her mother’s friend. Gina reported it to a few of us via text, but not on the main text. A subtext, if you will. Tension between Gina and Rebecca had been high since the sleeping bag incident of 2019. Like we’ve told you, we have no idea how that story got out. And even if a couple of the moms knew, we never told our children. We thought maybe Rebecca was holding the whole thing needlessly against Gina. Not that we blamed her! She was grieving!