To Right the Wrongs by Sheryl Scarborough

Author:Sheryl Scarborough
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

25

Computers are so sophisticated at recognizing faces that facial recognition is already replacing fingerprints as the ID of choice.

—VICTOR FLEMMING

The Iron Rain Memorial Day festival is the official kickoff to summer. After this there are only two weeks of school left—one for cramming for finals and one for the finals themselves. Then finally a big celebration for Journey’s graduation.

The fairgrounds have been transformed. There are games, rides, and rows upon rows of booths. You can find food, crafts, and even a farmers’ market. And today, you can sign your kid up for CSI summer camp, right here in Iron Rain.

The flyers we passed out last week said sign-ups would begin today, at the festival. Victor and Coach Wilkins are sharing a booth for camp sign-ups. Cheerleaders and athletes work on one side of the booth, talking about sports camp; while Journey, Lysa, Spam, and I work the other and talk about CSI camp.

It’s weird studying Coach Wilkins today after what we learned last night. He’s beyond competitive, practically dragging kids into the booth and trying to strong-arm them into signing up for sports camp. He’s sweaty, loud, and obnoxious. And he keeps coming over to our side to see how many sign-ups we have.

He claims he’s going to beat Victor, or else.

Since we were recently in the news and in the newspaper, we’re sort of minor celebrities in town. Lysa made the four of us matching T-shirts to promote the camp. She used a bleach pen to draw the chalk outline of a body onto black T-shirts. They look smudgy and amazing.

We sign up fifteen kids in ten minutes. Most of our brochures are gone, along with my voice. And yet the crowd around our booth continues to grow.

What I keep hearing over and over is: Hey, you’re those girls from the news.

As uncomfortable as this makes me, I try to smile through it. Rachel says my healing needs to begin with my acceptance that this is what life has dealt me. I’m not there yet, but I’m working on being able to say my name out loud without cringing and to claim my identity with a smile. People might still react with waves of pity. But I no longer view myself as a victim. I have to remember that bringing down Principal Roberts was a way to erase that stigma for me. It’s hard to suddenly stop looking over your shoulder after a lifetime of doing it. But realistically, there should be no reason for someone to be stalking me anymore. My life shouldn’t be any more dangerous than the average high school student’s.

I step back for a second just to take it all in and reflect.

Maybe I’m not some freaky weirdo crime geek after all. I hear it over and over: Lots of people are interested in learning more about forensics. The fact that I get to be a part of that is something special.

Spam suddenly grabs my arm, her fingers digging into my flesh.

“Ouch. What?”

She tilts her face up to me, frozen, eyes wild.

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