Nora was in my room before I was sure she had knocked. “Let’s stay here,” I countered. It was four thirty in the afternoon — that magical free time between the end of sports and the start of dinner. We could go anywhere on campus. But the thing was, daylight savings had ended, and it was almost sunset already. I was busy with homework. And fantasizing that Mark Elliott might stop by to say hello. You know, on a white steed with a couple of roses. “Come with me,” she said again. Nora was a big fan of repeated blunt-force verbal assaults for winning arguments. She grabbed my shoes out of the closet and tossed them in my lap. Luckily, they were my regular old sneakers and not those pumps with a gold coin sitting at the bottom of the left one. Even the thought of it getting lost made me break out in a shivery sweat. “Don’t throw stuff at me,” I muttered. But the thing was, Nora didn’t look good. Her face was pinched with worry, and she wrung one wrist with long, thin fingers, making a manacle for herself.
