Swipe

mind the Markless the way most people did, partly because her mother had been one until recently, and partly because, living where she did, Hailey just saw so many of them. Sure, her house was robbed—every couple of months, in fact— and yes, Hailey had been accosted while coming home late one night just a few weeks before. But since there wasn’t any paper money left for anyone to steal, and since Hailey and her mother had so little besides lentils and garbage sculptures lying around the house, Hailey figured she just didn’t have that much left to lose.
    Even so, Hailey wasn’t much interested tonight in crossing the expressway to explore Spokie’s dark outskirts, and she soon found herself ambling the other direction, toward the fancy center square downtown, thinking happily that it would be a rather nice night for window-shopping.
    She was almost there when Hailey ran into a fellow eighth-grade student looking lost and flustered and a little frightened just outside Spokie Central Park.
    “You okay?” Hailey asked. “Need any help?”
    “I lost my iguana,” the girl said. “You’re from Spokie Middle, right?”
    Hailey said that she was.
    “It’s all right, though. He’s wearing a tracker. I can follow him on my tablet, see?” The girl showed Hailey her tablet and pointed to a satellite picture with a little glowing dot moving around inside the park beside them.
    “I’m Hailey.”
    “Oh. Erin. Hi.” Erin began walking in the direction of the dot on her map.
    “What are you doing with an iguana?” Hailey asked. “And why is it wearing a . . . tracker?”
    “Not just a tracker,” Erin said distractedly. “He’s got some powder on him too— wait! ” Erin cocked her head and listened for a moment. Hailey heard nothing. “He’s by running water. Is there a fountain in this park?”
    “You’re new here, aren’t you?” Hailey said.
    “Yes. From Beacon.”
    “They let you take iguanas for walks in Beacon?”
    “I didn’t take him for a walk —he escaped ! Or . . . well, I sorta let him out into the hallway, but I didn’t think—look, it doesn’t matter! And no, Beacon doesn’t—oh, forget it,” Erin said.
    “Come on,” Hailey told her, laughing a little. “I’ll take you to the fountain.”
    7
    Back on Logan’s street, Logan and Dane were trying to beat the sunset and retrieve Dane’s hoverdisk before it got too dark. But its perch in the tree was awfully high.
    “I don’t know why I’m the one up here,” Logan said, as Dane laughed sympathetically from the sidewalk. “You’re the one who missed the catch.”
    “Yeah, ’cause your throw was off!”
    “It’s a hoverdisk. It’s supposed to veer off.”
    “It was on the lowest setting!”
    “Whatever!” Logan said. He was standing on the highest branch that could possibly have supported him, ten or so feet off the ground, and straining to touch the sports disk just out of reach.
    “And anyway, you lost rock-tablet-laser.”
    “I did not !” Logan said. “Who ever heard of a rock-tablet-laser match where you don’t play best two out of three?” He wasn’t actually angry, but the banter took his mind off his precarious foothold.
    “Well, when you get back down here, we can have a rematch.” Dane laughed.
    “Great, thanks,” Logan said, but his own laughter stopped short.
    “What’s up? You knock it loose?”
    Logan hadn’t knocked it loose. Logan hadn’t touched the hoverdisk at all. Instead, in the fast-approaching darkness of night, he’d stumbled upon something else, high up in the tree.
    A can. A tin can, like the kind you’d find tomato soup in, or beans. It was hanging off a twig above him. It was hanging from fishing line.
    Logan unwrapped the line from the tree and pulled the can to his ear. The clear twine travelled off across the street toward Logan’s house and pulled tight against him.
    “Honey, do you know where the boys went?” said a distant voice in the tin can.
    “They’re on the roof.”
    “They aren’t, though. Wait a second—I see Dane outside.”
    Logan looked on in horror as his dad stepped out onto the stairwell outside Logan’s room.
    “Dane!” he called from across the street. “Do you know where Logan went?”
    Dane flashed a glance to Logan in the tree and immediately thought better of admitting it.
    “We’re, uh, racing, Mr. Langly. We took a lap around the block. He’s still catching up.”
    “Well, you boys come in when you’re done. Dinner soon.