Mrs. Wheeler, Krystal, and I are on our knees, furiously scrubbing Alice’s blood from the ground. We work without speaking. Veronica’s inside taking a shower. She wanted to stay and help clean, but Mrs. Wheeler made her go. Bleach burns my nose. The sound of the bristles against the concrete is punctuated by sniffles and hiccupping sobs from me and Krystal. But we have a job to do. We’ve got to get the blood off the floor. The harder we scrub, the bigger the circle grows, but we don’t stop.
