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He didn’t need to say anything else. The maple tree stood at the far end of the playground, right up against the woods that surrounded Ben Withers Middle School. They liked to meet in its branches when they needed to have a private conversation.
Brian had a bad morning. He was tired. The jolt of seeing Phil’s drawings had brought back memories—rake hands grabbing, scarecrows bending nearer with their blank, unchanging smiles. Being stuck in a corn maze, held tight by scarecrows, watching Ollie climb, desperately, and knowing he couldn’t do anything to help her.
He’d tried to talk to Phil again after class, but Phil wouldn’t. He just put his head down and went to the library. And wasn’t that weird too? Phil Greenblatt, choosing to spend recess inside?
Frowning, Brian went out into the playground, crossed to the maple tree, and shimmied up. Ollie and Coco got to the maple tree right after he did. Coco had to jump for the lowest branch, while Ollie could just reach up and grab it. But they both climbed to Brian’s perch and settled in.
Coco said breathlessly, “I think I got part of it—the circle, I mean. The message.”
“Yeah?” said Brian, with sudden hope. “Which part?”
“Well, the last two words, flower moon, if those are actually a phrase—well then, flower moon is a thing. Every full moon used to have a name,” explained Coco. “I looked it up. September is Harvest Moon and October is Hunter Moon and January is Wolf Moon, for example.”
“Which one’s Flower Moon?” asked Ollie.
“May,” said Coco.
They looked at each other. May 1 was that Friday.
Suddenly Ollie said, “Saturn day—Saturday? Hang on.” She pulled out her phone. “Yes,” she said, scrolling. “Saturn’s day—or Saturday—is the only day in the calendar still dedicated to its original Roman god. Saturn is the god of generation and of dissolution and—” She broke off.
“It’s a time, sounds like,” said Brian. “Saturn day flower moon. A Saturday in May . . . ? But what about the rest? I don’t know anything about bells—or dogs. Do you?”
The girls shook their heads.
“Let’s stick together in safe places on Saturdays in May,” said Coco.
Ollie nodded instant agreement. “Good thing we’re going sailing on this one,” she said. “Far from creepy farms and creepy lodges.”
“Yup,” said Brian. He told them what he’d seen in Phil’s homework on the bus that morning. “I asked him if he remembered—October. But he only said that he’d been having nightmares.”
“Pretty specific nightmares,” said Ollie. “If he drew all those scarecrows.”
“But I thought—I thought no one remembered!” said Coco. She was the highest in the tree, peering down at them, like a bird, through the branches. “What if it’s not just us?”
“It’s us,” said Ollie firmly, leaning against the tree trunk. “We saved everyone else. We’re the ones the smiling man hates. It’s us.”
“But,” said Coco, “how do we know for sure? Brian, Phil is your friend. You could talk to him.”
“Yeah,” said Brian. “But didn’t we decide that talking to people put them in danger?”
“Not if he’s already drawing pictures of scarecrows,” said Coco. “He’s already been in danger. Maybe he still is.”
“But Phil doesn’t want to talk to me. He blew right by me earlier.”
“Well,” said Coco, “you hang out with us now, and Phil was mean to me in the fall. Maybe he thinks you’re not his friend anymore.”
That hadn’t occurred to Brian. Of course he was Phil’s friend. But—
“We’re not his friends,” broke in Ollie. “Coco, he was a bully.”
“Maybe he feels bad about it now?” said Coco, a little uncertainly. Coco always tried to see the best in people.
Hastily Brian said, “Let’s just try and solve the black circle first. We have a warning. We need to know what it means. What do bell and dog mean?”
The girls looked at each other. Slowly they shook their heads.
“But we’ll figure it out,” said Ollie determinedly. “We will.”
