Read The Big Splash for Free Online

was gone. I grabbed the boy closest to me. He was chanting with a fervor that bordered on maniacal.
    â€œA kid just passed here!” I yelled in his face. “Who was it?”
    â€œPEE-PEE PANTS! PEE-PEE PANTS!” was his response.
    I pushed him aside and ran to the intersecting hallway. The assassin was gone.
    I ran back to the scene. The crowd was chanting even louder now, pushing closer. From inside the semicircle, Jenny cried, “Get away from her!” As I was trying to figure out what to do, a hall monitor came around the corner. It was Kelley Diana, a third-year badge who I had met last year while working a case. She was even-tempered, but could get nasty in a hurry. She was going to need to. “Hey! Break it up!” she shouted. The crowd kept chanting, pretending not to hear her.
    â€œLet’s go!” Kelley pushed kids out of her way, sucking energy out of the crowd. “I said, break it u—” Kelley froze in mid-shout when she finally shoved her way to the center of the circle and saw Nikki Fingers lying on the ground, the front of her pants splattered with liquid. Kelley’s mouth hung open. “Holy mother of God,” was all she could muster.
    Kids stuck around, hoping that the law could be forgotten just for today. They were about to be disappointed. Kelley turned around, a new ferocity in her eyes, as if she felt guilty for something she had been thinking and needed to make up for it. “Everybody get the hell out of here! NOW!”
    Usually when a mob of kids gets broken up, you can see the shame on their faces as they disperse. It’s like they get caught up in the madness of the moment, and once that moment passes, they’re all embarrassed by their loss of control. There was no shame on these kids’ faces, only pure joy. I waded back to Nicole and Jenny. Kelley was still there, calling in backup.
    Nicole was completely out of it, as if her mind had hopped on a bike and fled the scene. Jenny, holding her sister’s head in her lap, looked up at me with tear-filledeyes. Her voice was thick with sadness, anger, and disbelief: “Who did this? who’s responsible?”
    A bitter laugh slipped out before I could stop it. “She is,” I answered, nodding toward the girl who used to be Nikki Fingers.

a few minutes, we were surrounded by hall monitors securing the scene, making their reports, doing all the official business they do when it’s too late to do anything else. I was asked by five different monitors to give a statement as an official witness, an old trick they used to try to catch kids in a lie. I told them the truth of what happened, leaving out the parts about why I was there, partially to protect my client, partially to protect myself. All the while, Jenny was cradling Nicole in her arms, like the world’s biggest newborn. I was replayingthe event in my head, trying to recall any clues I might have seen, when Jenny looked up at me. “You’re Matt Stevens,” she said.
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œI want to hire you.”
    â€œSorry. I don’t take revenge cases.”
    â€œI don’t want revenge.”
    â€œWhat do you want, then? Justice?”
    â€œI don’t know,” she said in a voice barely above a whisper.
    â€œLet me clue you into something, kid … Justice is a snack,” I said. “You get justice, and five minutes later you realize you’re still hungry. Revenge, on the other hand, is a full meal.”
    Jenny looked at me blankly. She was too young, too innocent to get what I was saying. Nicole would have gotten it, but she was no longer taking in information from the outside world. Her eyes resembled the eyes of a stuffed animal; they reflected the overhead lights with no indication that they saw them.
    â€œPlease,” Jenny said, fresh tears flowing down her cheeks. “Please. I’ll pay whatever you want. Just find the kid who did this.” I left