Gone

hovered there, unmoving, unattached to anything, no strings. Not a lamp or a lightbulb, just a tiny ball of pure light.
    It was impossible. It was something that could not exist. And yet there it was. The light that had simply appeared when Sam had needed it, and had not gone away.
    He touched it, but not really. His fingers just went through it, feeling only a warm glow, no hotter than bathwater.
    “Yes, Sam,” he whispered to himself, “still there.”
    Astrid and Quinn thought today was the beginning, but Sam knew better. Normal life had started coming apart eight months ago. Then, normalcy again. And then, this light.
    Fourteen years of normal for Sam. Then normal had started to slip off its track.
    Today, normal had crashed and burned.
    “Sam?”
    It was Astrid calling from the living room. He glanced at the doorway, anxious lest she come in and see. He did his hurried best to hide the light again, and went back to his companions.
    “Your mom was writing on her laptop,” Astrid said.
    “Probably checking email.” But when he sat down at the table and looked at the screen, it was open to a Word document, not a browser.
    It was a diary. Just three paragraphs on the page.
    It happened again last night. I wish I could take this to G. But she’ll think I’m crazy. I could lose my job. She’ll think I’m on drugs. If I had a way to put cameras all over, I could get some proof. But I have no proof, and C’s “mother” is rich and generous to CA. I’d be out the door. Even if I tell someone the whole truth, they’ll just put me down as an overwrought mother.
    Sooner or later, C or one of the others will do something serious. Someone will get hurt. Just like S with T.
    Maybe I’ll confront C. I don’t think he’ll confess. Would it make any difference if he knew everything?
    Sam stared at the page. It hadn’t been saved. Sam hunted around on the computer’s desktop and found the folder labeled “Journal.” He clicked on it. It was password protected. If his mother had saved this final page, it too would have been under a password.
    “CA” was easy. Coates Academy. And “G” was probably the head of the school, Grace. “S,” too, was easy: Sam. But who was “C”?
    One line seemed to vibrate as he stared at it: “Just like S with T.”
    Astrid was reading over his shoulder. She was trying to be subtle, but she was definitely peeking. He closed the laptop.
    “Let’s go.”
    “Where?” Quinn asked.
    “Anywhere but here,” Sam said.

FOUR
    297 HOURS , 40 MINUTES
    “LET’S HEAD FOR the plaza,” Sam said. He closed the door of his home behind him, locked it, and stuck the key in his jeans.
    “Why?” Quinn asked.
    “It’s where people will probably go,” Astrid said. “There’s nowhere else, is there? Unless they go back to the school. If anyone knows anything, or if there are any adults, that’s where they’d be.”
    Perdido Beach occupied a headland southwest of the coastal highway. On the north side of the highway the hills rose sharply, dry brown and patchy green, and formed a series of ridges that ran into the sea northwest and southeast of town, limiting the town to just this space, confining it to just this bulge.
    There were just over three thousand residents in Perdido Beach—far fewer now. The nearest mall was in San Luis. The nearest major shopping center was down the coast twentymiles. North, up the coast, the mountains pressed so close to the sea that there was no space for building, except for the narrow strip where the nuclear power plant sat. Beyond that was national parkland, a forest of ancient redwoods.
    Perdido Beach had remained a sleepy little town of straight, tree-lined streets and mostly older, Spanish-style stucco bungalows with sloped orange tile roofs or old-style flat roofs. Most people had a lawn they kept well-trimmed and green. Most people had a fenced backyard. In the tiny downtown, ringing the plaza, there were palm trees and plenty of angled parking spaces.
    Perdido Beach had a resort hotel south of town, and Coates Academy up in the hills, and the power plant, but aside from that, only a smattering of businesses: the Ace hardware, the McDonald’s, a coffee shop called Bean There, a Subway sandwich shop, a couple of convenience stores, one grocery store, and a Chevron station on the highway.
    The closer Sam and Astrid and Quinn got, the more kids they encountered walking toward the plaza. It was like somehow all the kids in town had figured