Pip stepped back from Naomi’s knife.
“Be careful,” she said.
“Oh no!” Naomi shook her head. “The eyes are uneven.”
She spun the pumpkin around so Pip and Cara could see its face.
“Looks like a blobfish,” Cara cackled.
“It’s supposed to be an evil cat.” Naomi placed her knife down next to the bowl of pumpkin guts.
“Don’t quit your day job,” Cara said, wiping pumpkin goo from her hands and sauntering over to the cupboard.
“I don’t have a day job.”
“Oh for god’s sake,” Cara grumbled, on tiptoes, looking through the cupboard. “Where did that pack of Butterfingers go? I was literally with Dad two days ago when we bought them.”
“I don’t know. I haven’t eaten them.” Naomi came over to admire Pip’s pumpkin. “What on earth is yours, Pip?”
“Sauron’s eye,” she said quietly.
“Or a vagina on fire,” Cara said, grabbing a banana instead.
“Now, that is scary,” Naomi laughed.
No, this was.
Naomi had had the pumpkins and knives laid out and ready for when Cara and Pip got in from school. Pip hadn’t had a chance to sneak off to check the printer yet.
“Naomi,” she said, “thanks for calling the other day. I got that email from your friend’s cousin about Columbia. It was really helpful.”
“Oh good.” She smiled. “No problem.”
“So when will your phone be fixed?”
“Tomorrow, actually, the shop says. It’s taken long enough.”
Pip nodded, tensing her chin. “Well, at least you had your old phone with a SIM card that still worked. Lucky you held on to it.”
“Well, lucky Dad had a spare pay-as-you-go micro-SIM lying around. And bonus: twenty-five-dollar credit on it. There was just an expired contract one in my phone.”
The knife almost fell from Pip’s hand. A climbing hum in her ears.
“Your dad’s SIM card?”
“Yeah,” Naomi said, scoring the knife along her pumpkin’s face, her tongue out as she concentrated. “Cara found it in his desk. At the bottom of his junk drawer. It’s full of old, useless chargers and foreign currency and stuff.”
The hum split into a ringing sound, shrieking and stuffing her head. Pip felt sick, a metallic taste in her mouth.
Mr. Ward’s SIM card.
Mr. Ward’s old phone number scribbled out in Andie’s planner.
Andie calling Mr. Ward an asshole to her friends the week she disappeared.
Mr. Ward.
“You OK, Pip?” Cara asked as she dropped a lit candle into her pumpkin and it glowed into life.
“Yeah.” Pip nodded too hard. “I’m just, um…just hungry.”
“Well, I would offer you a Butterfinger, but they seem to have disappeared, as always. Chips?”
“Uh…no thanks.”
“I feed you because I love you,” Cara said.
Pip’s mouth filled, tacky and sickly. No, it might not mean what she was thinking. Maybe Mr. Ward was just offering to tutor Andie and that’s why she wrote his number down. It couldn’t be him. She needed to calm down, try to breathe. This wasn’t proof of anything.
But she had a way to find proof.
“I think we should have spooky Halloween music on while we do this,” Pip said. “Cara, can I go get your laptop?”
“Yeah, it’s on my bed.”
Pip closed the kitchen door behind her.
She raced up the stairs to Cara’s room, creeping back down with the laptop, her heart thudding, fighting to be louder than the ringing in her ears.
She slipped into Mr. Ward’s study and gently closed the door, staring for a moment at the printer on his desk. Mrs. Ward’s rainbow-colored paintings watched her as she opened up Cara’s laptop on the leather chair and kneeled on the floor before it.
Once it awoke she clicked to the control panel and into Devices and Printers. Hovering the mouse over Freddie Prints Jr., she right-clicked and, holding her breath, selected the top item in the drop-down menu: See what’s printing.
A small box popped up with six columns: Document Name, Status, Owner, Pages, Size, and Date Submitted.
It was filled with entries. One yesterday from Cara called Personal Essay rough draft. One a few days ago from Elliot Comp: Gluten-free cookies recipe. Several in a row from Naomi: Résumé 2019, Charity Job application, Cover letter, Cover letter 2.
The note was put in Pip’s locker on Friday, October 18. She scrolled down.
Her fingers drew up. On October 17, at 11:40 p.m., Elliot Comp had printed Microsoft Word—Document 1.
An unnamed, unsaved document.
Her fingers left sweaty tracks on the mousepad as she right-clicked on the document. Another small drop-down menu appeared. Her heart in her throat, she bit down on her tongue and clicked the Restart option.
The printer clacked behind her and she flinched.
It hissed, sucking in the top piece of paper.
She moved toward it as it started to sputter the page through, a glimpse of fresh black ink, upside down. The printer finished and spat it out.
Pip reached for it.
She turned it around.
This is your final warning, Pippa. Walk away.