Chapter 3 - MILO’S CARDS
Milo Chen was nine.
Quiet.
Fourth grade.
Collected baseball cards despite knowing almost nothing about baseball.
His grandfather gave him old packs.
One Monday, three cards disappeared from his binder.
Milo told his teacher:
“Brady took them.”
Brady said:
“Milo traded them.”
Jasper said he saw the trade.
Another student said Milo had shown the cards around.
No adult saw an exchange.
Milo changed his story by afternoon.
Maybe he traded them.
Maybe he forgot.
Maybe Brady was going to give them back.
The school returned to:
insufficient information.
Then Rosalie spoke.
She told Assistant Principal Ellis:
“Brady made Milo give them.”
Ellis asked:
“Did you see that?”
“Yes.”
“What exactly?”
“He said give me the shiny ones or I tell everyone you cry on the bus.”
Did Milo cry on the bus?
Yes.
Once, after a substitute driver missed his street and he panicked.
Brady knew.
School contacted Kathleen Collins.
Kathleen said Brady denied it.
Then she complained that Rosalie was:
“developing a fixation on my sons.”
The phrase made it into an email.
I read it.
I got angry.
May you like
Then Rosalie shoved Jasper.
That complicated everything.
