The light was fading in the thick woods. Somewhere out there was a mad dog, and maybe even a murderer. He didn’t want to walk home anymore.

The adults on the other side of the tape weren’t paying any attention to him or Wendy. Dennis hung around just outside the tape, trying to get a better look as the deputies did their jobs.

Cody Roache had run all the way back to the street and nearly got himself run over by Dennis’s father in his squad car. Tommy had heard the deputies telling each other. Mr. Farman had come straight to the scene, but Cody had not come back.

“I wonder who she is,” Wendy said quietly. She sat on the stump of a tree that had been cut down over the summer. “I wonder how she died.”

“Somebody killed her,” Tommy said.

“I think I want to go home now,” Wendy said. “Don’t you?”

Tommy didn’t answer her. He felt like he was inside of a bubble, and if he tried to move the bubble would burst and all sorts of feelings would wash over him and drown him.

People had come into the park to see what was going on. They stood up on the bank-teenagers, a mailman, one of the janitors from school.

As he watched them, Miss Navarre appeared at the edge of the group. She spotted him and Wendy right away and made her way down to them.

“Are you guys all right?” she asked.

“Tommy fell on a dead person!” Wendy said.

Tommy said nothing. He had started to shake all over. Inside his head all he could see was the dead woman’s face-the blood, the gash in her cheek, the ants crawling on her.

“A deputy came into the school and said something had happened,” Miss Navarre said, looking over at the place where the dead lady was. She turned back then and touched Tommy’s forehead and brushed some dead leaves out of his hair. “You’re really pale, Tommy. You should sit down.”