she was. She felt so seen, and he had such a nice way about him, like a gentleman. Up close, his eyes were as brown as a Hershey bar.
Sasha gestured at the other boy. “Julian, where are your manners? Introduce yourself to Allie Garvey.”
“Julian Browne,” the other boy said, flashing a big grin, and Allie started to wonder if the cool kids were just big smiles hanging in the air, like the Cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland. Jill used to read it to Allie when she was little, and Allie had thought the title was Allison Wonderland.
Julian kept smiling. “I don’t know if you can keep a secret, Sasha.”
“Of course.” Sasha snorted. “And if you don’t tell me what it is, I’ll come back and dig it up myself.”
David turned to Allie. “Can you keep a secret?”
“Yes.” Allie hid her excitement that he was talking to her.
“Okay, then. Come look.” Julian moved the backpack, crouched, and started digging with his hands. “I had this project for Environmental Bio. Indigenous wildflower identification. I was looking for bluets.”
“What’s that?” Sasha asked.
“It’s a blue flower.” Julian kept digging as he spoke. “It’s like a cornflower or a forget-me-not.”
“And you have to do this over the summer? Is this a private school thing?” Sasha made a face, but Allie didn’t think anything bad about private school. Her parents had talked about private school for Jill, but they ended up with tutors, which was how Allie learned some French. She and Jill used to say tant pis because it sounded like tant pee, then Jill started saying tant penis, which cracked them up.
Julian kept digging. “My mother told me that bluets don’t bloom late in the summer, so I should look now, in the woods. Of course it’s not a real woods. We have to leave a certain percentage of the woods or the township won’t let us build.”
Sasha said to Allie, “Julian’s father built the development.”
“His company did,” Julian corrected her. “He does business as Browne Land Management.”
“Oh,” Allie said, impressed. Her father was an orthodontist in Exton, and he didn’t do business as anything but Dr. Garvey. It bugged him that he hadn’t gone to medical school, only dental, and one time, at their hotel in Orlando, one of the guests got sick and the manager called her father. He had to admit he wasn’t a medical doctor.
“I saw a patch of bluets under this tree. I started taking pictures, then I noticed this paper sticking out of the dirt.” Julian finished digging, and both boys moved away from the hole, revealing a wrinkled piece of newspaper wrapped around something. They unwrapped it like a gift, but it was a gun.
Allie gasped, her hand flying to her mouth.
“Whoa!” Sasha hooted. “Let me have it!”
CHAPTER 3
Sasha Barrow
Let me have it!” Sasha felt a bolt of excitement when she saw the gun, which had a short shiny barrel and a dark wooden handle. She leaned over to pick it up, but Julian caught her hand.
“No, don’t.”
“I want to hold it.”
“Why?”
“Why not?” Sasha couldn’t believe that Julian was asking her such a stupid question. She couldn’t believe that he was saying no to her, either. He’d been in love with her forever. “Have you ever held a gun?”
“Not before this one.”
“David, have you?” Sasha turned to him.
“Sure. My uncle hunts. He has rifles and a handgun just like this.”
“What kind of gun is it?”
“A .38 special. A revolver. It’s old.”
“How old?”
“I don’t know. This newspaper is from June 2, 1995.” David held up a crumpled sports page. “Doesn’t mean it was buried that day, but whatever.”
Sasha returned her attention to Julian. “Julian, it’s not yours just because you found it.”
Julian smiled. “Ever hear of finders keepers?”
“How old are you? Twelve?”
Julian’s smile evaporated, and Sasha reminded herself to be nicer. Her father always said you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar and that her mother should try it sometime. Sasha knew her parents were going to get divorced someday, because her mother was human vinegar.
Sasha forced a smile. “Can I please just hold it?”
“Guys?” Allie raised her hand. “If you found a gun, I think you should take it to the police. I mean, you guys heard about Columbine. You can’t have a gun. It’s zero-tolerance. Just turn it in.”
“Who asked you?” Sasha glared at Allie, who wasn’t even a friend of theirs.
“But it could be a murder weapon.” Allie shuddered. “Why would somebody bury a gun? Is it loaded?”