Stopping to talk with Lindsey, one of her former best friends, is making Cass late to her audition. Seeing her other former best friend isn’t helping matters. Cass is also unprepared for the sudden tragedy that strikes one of them just minutes later…

Jesse Redding, also known as “Red” to his delinquent skate buddies—because he’s so cool, you see—mirrors my scowl. His dark eyes narrow as he glares at me, eyebrows stitching together. Jesse’s coal-black hair sticks up in spikes so gelled he could ram me with them like a triceratops.

And he just might, based on the look on his face.

A red and black checkered flannel tied lazily around his waist flutters behind him as the crew skates past. He still wears crimson half-Cab Vans, which he’s done since sixth grade. He gets one new pair every year, wears them till they fall apart, and buys a new pair every August before school.

Jesse suddenly seems to realize that it’s not just me, but me and Lindsey standing here watching the skaters go by.

The three of us freeze in time as Jesse rolls past.

For one moment, we’re back in elementary school and junior high, laughing at lunch until we spit milk out. Or racing around the school playground. Or hanging out in the library reciting word-for-word scenes from The Breakfast Club and laughing until we get shushed.

It was all only a year and a half ago, but seems so much longer.

The spell breaks, and Jesse is gone with his crew around the corner of the performing arts department, headed for the student parking lot. I let go of a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.

I check my watch.

I’m four minutes late to auditions.

“Look, since I’ve got you…” Lindz says, and her hands tighten on the white grips of her handlebars. She nibbles one corner of her lip. “Maybe we could hang out sometime?”

Oh my gosh, yes, that would be great!

Is what I should say.

Is what I want to say.

But I can’t. And I don’t. Especially not after trading glares with Jesse Redding.

I’ve talked to Lindz a few times since eighth grade, but mostly just “Hi” or “Hey” if we happened to pass each other at school. She always tries to say more, but I hurry off. Every time. Frankly, I can’t believe she’s still trying right now.

After the way I’ve treated her?

Lindsey sort of got caught in the crossfire between me and Jesse. Then when we all started at Camelback, we went our own ways: me into drama, Lindz into choir, and Jesse into being a law-abiding, upstanding paragon of virtue.

Kidding. Jesse Redding is none of those things. Jackass.

I look at my watch again. Now I’m five minutes late. We have to meet in the auditorium for announcements before we perform. Goldie—Mrs. Goldsen—doesn’t abide lateness.

“Hang out? Sure, maybe,” I hear myself saying to Lindsey, and wince. I sound awful. “What I mean is, auditions are today, so I kind of have to…”

I nod toward the performing arts doors.

“It’s okay,” Lindsey says. Her chin dips. “I get it. Can I call you later, though?”

“Of course!” I say over my shoulder as I hustle to the department doors. She’s called before, but I always found an excuse to hop off the call as soon as I could. Or if Mom, or Dad, or Brian answers, I tell them to say I’m not there.

Her calls have gotten farther and farther between. And I don’t blame her.

It’s not her fault.

It’s Jesse Redding’s!

And maybe to a certain degree…

Mine?

Ugh! Stupid Jesse Redding. Screwing things up good and proper since 1990!

Leaving Lindsey and her orange bike behind, I hurry into the building. I haven’t even gotten to the auditorium, and already my audition is off to a terrible start.

The double doors of the performing arts department lead into a short hallway ending in a T-intersection. On the left are choir and band rooms; on the right, speech and drama.

I bolt to the right and rush for the backstage doors. My footsteps echo in the long hallway. Goldie’s classroom and the little theatre are empty.

Everyone’s already in the auditorium.

I’m screwed.

Not, not, not good.

Throwing open the auditorium doors, I immediately see that all the legs are flown—meaning the curtains that usually hang down to mask backstage are raised. The stage is just one big blank space, except for Goldie standing down center and addressing the fifty or sixty people sitting in the auditorium seats who’ve come for auditions.

Nowhere to hide as Goldie stops and turns. All eyes go to me.

So long, Emily Webb. I barely knew ye.

“Cass?” Goldie says as everyone glares at me.

“Yeah, hi, sorry, I got…sorry.”

No need to blather. I hurry to the short flight of steps leading off the stage and into the house, where five hundred blue upholstered seats remind me of ocean waves.

I grab a seat in the sixth row and slink down.

“As I was saying,” Goldie goes on, giving me a look.

She talks about expectations from the cast and crew, and reminds us to fill out both a cast card and a crew card if we want to be considered for tech or backstage jobs.

On the advice of my older brother, I’d filled out both cards for the past three shows: two freshman year, and one last semester. “Being on a crew shows Tully and Goldie you’re here for the long haul,” he’d told me last year. “So fill out both cards. And then, no matter if you get cast in the show or work on a crew, you bust your ass for them.”

Which is what I’d done. I’d worked on the sound crew for both shows freshman year, plus a walk-on part for Macbeth and small speaking roles in Fahrenheit 451 and Twelfth Night.

When the white index cards get handed around, I start by filling out the cast card. My heart’s set on Emily Webb, but if I’m going to follow Brian’s footsteps, I’ll do whatever Goldie—and her counterpart, Mrs. Tully—tell me to do. So I’ll fill out the crew card next.

Goldie is wrapping her announcements when sirens outside pierce through the auditorium walls. Usually any fire trucks or police cars that happen to go past campus keep on moving, and the disturbance is minimal.

These sirens aren’t stopping.

And sound like they’re practically in the parking lot.

Goldie raises her voice over the noise, then stops and covers her forehead with one hand. A mass of short gold curls on top of her head wriggles as she shakes her head.

“Eli, please?” she says.

Without any further instruction, one of the techies instantly runs up the center aisle to the doors at the back of the house. He pushes one open. A beam of sunlight flashes into the auditorium, making Goldie shade her eyes.

“Whoa,” Eli says, just loud enough to echo in the auditorium.

Eli’s one of those unflappable kids, which is probably why he’s a techie. The techies aren’t prone to lots of emotion like the actors.

So when a guy like Eli says Whoa, it must be something to see.

Everyone gets up at the same time and floods to the doors. Goldie doesn’t even bother trying to corral us. Instead she sighs and marches up the aisle.

We all pour onto a little patio area overlooking the student parking lot. There’s no question about the source of the sirens: right near the main gate of the parking lot is an ambulance, a cop car, and a full-blown fire truck.

And an orange bike.

The bike is pinned under the front tire of a big white pickup truck. Lying on the ground near the tire is a brown leather cap.

Two paramedics are lifting a gurney and wheeling it to the ambulance. A cop talks to an older guy near the truck. The older guy, with long gray hair, is holding his head in both hands. Every couple seconds he gestures wildly toward the gate, then his hands go back to his head.

A few yards from the truck, a second cop is holding his arms out, trying to keep back a group of guys with skateboards who are trying to get a closer look at the scene.

I see familiar red half-Cabs and a checkered flannel in the cluster of skaters.

I see the paramedics load the gurney and close the ambulance doors.

I don’t see Lindsey.

“No…” I whisper, and break into a run.