Pearl slithered down from the seat.
“Where are you going?”
“Ssssh!” she hissed at me, a finger to her lips. The same finger pointed to a group of tightly clumped birch trees.
I wanted to scream out, loud enough for Mrs. Worthington to hear me, for Mrs. Worthington to stop doing what we both knew she did. Pearl waved at me to follow. I did. If she must see, she would not do it alone.
Lifting our skirts, stepping high but soft, twigs cracking, leaves crunching beneath our feet, we made it to the cover of the birch trees without notice. Pearl bent sideways, peered around the tree trunks, and gasped.
“What, what is it?” I tugged on her sleeve.
She turned to me. Bright in the darkness, her eyes blazed with a white-hot anger.
“Lispenard Stewart!” her whisper was a scream.
O Dio mio, I sa
