My heart stopped.
---
“You’re Randy’s mom, right?” she whispered, her voice trembling.
I could only nod, staring at the backpack like it was a ghost.
She stepped forward hesitantly. “I’m Sophie. I was in the class next to his. He… he made me promise to keep this safe. He said if anything ever happened to him, I had to bring it to you on Mother’s Day. He said you’d understand.”
Tears spilled down my cheeks. “How… how do you have this?”
Sophie looked down at the backpack, then back at me. Her lower lip quivered. “You’ve been searching for this, haven’t you? You deserve to know the truth.”
She held it out to me with both hands, as if it were the most precious thing in the world.
I took it. The familiar weight, the smell of crayons and peanut butter crackers. My fingers shook so badly I could barely unzip it.
Inside were Randy’s usual things: a crumpled spelling test with a gold star, his water bottle, a half-eaten granola bar. But at the bottom, tucked inside a plastic sleeve, was a small notebook and a cheap kids’ digital camera I’d bought him for his birthday.
I opened the notebook first.
Page after page was filled with Randy’s careful handwriting and drawings.
*“Mrs. Harlan yells at me when I ask questions. She says I’m lying.”*
*“Today she pushed me against the wall because I told her I was going to tell my mom about the closet.”*
*“I’m scared. But I have to be brave like Spider-Man.”*
My stomach twisted. Mrs. Harlan. The principal.
