Page 22 of The Chaperones

The kids who have collected rocks drop them to the ground as they all sprint into line. I watch in disbelief as they’ve already got plates, some with burgers on them, wondering how I lost control of the situation so swiftly. I feel a hand on my shoulder. What now?

Cassie holds the rock with my painting on it out to me. I hadn’t realized I’d dropped it.

“We can’t escape Mona even when she isn’t here,” Cassie says as I take the rock from her. She stares at Yoo-Jin, who is instructing the children to each grab one bun. I can’t help but laugh. I’m not catty. I don’t like it, particularly not when it’s woman-on-woman pettiness, which it almost always is. This is Cassie, though. Catty or not, she’s confided in me. Claimed me on her side.

“You’re a saint for giving up your weekend to be with us,” Cassie says.

“Just doing my job,” I say sheepishly. Now’s my chance. Out with it. Tell her.

“I hope you know this isn’t your job,” Cassie interjects before I’ve decided what to say to her. “But we wouldn’t be able to do this weekend without you. Thank you. I’ll make sure there’s a nice dinner coming your way, compliments of the PO.”

Right, I forgot about her campaign to take over the PO. Our head of school, Jill, thinks it’s a good idea. I don’t understand why, with all her charities and causes, her company, Cassie would want to add the headache of the Chester School Parents Organization to her roster of responsibilities.

“Don’t worry,” Cassie continues. “It won’t be for Zhao Bistro.” Her sarcasm surprises me. I knew she didn’t like Mona. I didn’t realize she had issues with Raymond too.

Cassie squeezes my shoulder as she walks away. My heart races, and before I lose my chance, I call out to her.

“Hey, Cassie?”

She twirls around expectantly.

“Do you think I could talk to you about something?”

Her face shifts ever so slightly, and I realize my misstep. Everyone wants something from Cassie. A donation, a job, or a contact. When she brings in supplies, when she took over the sneaker project for Travis, I always thanked her and never asked for more, even though I’d love to have one of my paintings mounted in her flagship store on Melrose. I know better than to ask. With all these parents. Wait until they offer help, which they do because they love to feel like they can make your career. A few actually can. I never would have been invited to the group show at the Lillith Nasser Gallery, would never have taken that fated call, if it wasn’t for a particular fifth-grade parent with hands deep in the art world.

“It’s nothing, really,” I stammer. “I don’t need anything. I just wanted to tell you something that’s going on with me.” I’m rambling, but it softens Cassie. For a terrible, terrorizing moment I think she already knows.

“Why don’t we take a stroll after lunch?” she suggests.

“That would be great.”

I watch her walk away. Instead of being relieved, I’m panicked. We have a plan. Now I really have to tell her.

Someone tugs my shirt.

“Miss Stella?” Wyatt’s voice quavers as he releases my hem. He has the petrified look on his face that makes me think he’s had an accident and doesn’t want anyone to know.

“Yes, my friend.” I kneel down to his level, getting a strong whiff of dirt and stale breath. Poor Wyatt. He really does smell.

Wyatt points to the hill behind my tent. I’d waited until all the parents had set up their camps before claiming my own. There was one lone eucalyptus tree behind the kitchen area, with its own picnic table, so I staked my two-person tent beside its trunk in my best attempt at privacy.

I follow Wyatt’s finger toward the thick brush not thirty feet above my tent.

“There was a man,” he says.

I squint, trying to locate the spot in the thick green bushes he reconfigured into a person. The hillside is a lush mix of emerald and chartreuse, punctuated by patches of brown. I don’t see anything that looks like a man.

“What do you mean?”

“Sawyer told me there’s a hunter from a thousand years ago who steals boys when they sleep. I saw him. When we looked for a rock. He was there. He went—” He puts his index finger up to his lips. It sends a chill down my spine.

It’s just a silly ghost story, the kind a nasty girl like Sawyer might make up to taunt her little brother. Still, there’s something about that detail, finger to lips, that’s unnerving.

“I bet it was one of the older boys, playing a trick on you.” I put my hand on his shoulder. “Let’s not give them the satisfaction.”

“It was the hunter,” he insists. “His hat, like on YouTube.”

It takes me a moment to work out what he means. “You mean it was camouflage?”

He nods, even though I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know what camouflage means. Together, we stare at the brush, waiting for someone to jump out at us. I feel jittery, not quite ready to believe Wyatt, but agitated nonetheless. It could be paparazzi. A Raymond Zhao stan. A nosy camper.

Suddenly, we both jump as a blue jay soars out of the brush.

“Wyatt,” Yoo-Jin shouts. Her voice is shrill, like Mona’s. “Come get lunch.”

He hugs me, then trots off to Yoo-Jin, who gives him a plate and helps him assemble his burger. I scan the hill again. I want to see the dead spot in the brush that Wyatt transformed into a hat, the danger he saw in this transcendental hillside.

“Stella.” I hear someone else call me now and find Raymond trying to get my attention. “Come, I’ll make you a plate.”

It continues to thrill me. Raymond Zhao knows who I am. And not just that, he’s fixing me lunch. I don’t normally get starstruck. I don’t gawk when I see Anne Hathaway at a restaurant or Emma Roberts at an art opening. For me, it’s the behind-the-scenes creators. The Raymond Zhaos. The Joan Jonases. The Cassie Bents. Reflexively, I turn toward Cassie’s tent at the far edge of the campsite. She’s at one of the picnic tables in the common area, sitting with Dave and Lily, the PO moms. Sensing she’s being watched, she surveys the camp until she finds me. She points to her tent and then her plate, indicating that I should come find her after lunch.

I grab my plate from Raymond, knowing I’m too nervous and excited to take more than a few bites. This is really happening. I am actually going to tell Cassie.