A Vicious Lullaby

Vandalism and Burn wounds

The bell rings and I jump out of my seat. I'm the first one out the door into the hallway and have my marker ready. I uncap the black dry-erase marker and draw two circles, one inside the other, and head to the bathroom. y'see Kenzi and I made up a sort of code so we can meet up and talk shit about other people. Two circles means bathroom (It's supposed to look kinda like a toilet), a semi-circle means the auditorium (it looks like and ampetheater) a diamond means the park (baseball diamond) a triangle means the yellow barn (it has a pointy roof) and an x means my house. We never go to her house. We write them anywhere we know the other will see, as temporary as we can. Once you see it you erase it and go meet the person. We both carry around chalk and dry-erase markers. Sometimes we can write it in other ways too, like with sticks or something. I go to the bathroom and head to the fourth stall. Nobody uses the fourth stall. In fact, if you see someone go into the fourth stall you have to leave the bathroom completely. If someone catches you eavesdropping they can push you in the bonfire on Prairie Day. Rule #8. It's happened before and it will happen again and the Prairie View hospital is sick of treating burn wounds. Most aren't too bad and heal without a scar but last year Jackson Beckenforth held Kyle Collins in the fire and wouldn't let him get out and they both got burned pretty bad. Nobody presses charges in this town. When they came back to school everybody thought their scars were cool. For the record, they were not. Kenzi enters the stall and immediately asks 

"Is this about the new kid?" I tell her everything. She's baffled. "He had no idea your mom is-"

"No." I tell her "I don't even think he knows about any of the LeCrone stuff." she thinks a moment. 

"So he's the only one who'll date you?" She asks. I playfully slap her arm. 

"That's not the point! The point is he could fuck everything up! What if he finds out the truth and blabs to the whole school? What if he doesn't know better!" I ask.

"He'll have to pee at some time and surely someone will tell him about the fourth stall and he'll read it and then he will know better." She assures me. The bell rings and we both leave the bathroom she gives me a look as if to say "Tap that." and I respond with a look that says "You're on thin ice."