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talk to her, which meant he was either going to have to pedal very slowly or very fast to avoid a conversation. He tried the first method, but at the Stop sign she braked. Seeing him, she waved and waited.
    Almost as though she’d been looking for him.
    He rode up to her. “Yeah?”
    “That’s friendly,” she said.
    “What are you doing?” he asked.
    “Just riding around.” She was all red. It was pretty hot out.
    “Well, I have to get home for dinner,” he said.
    “Were you at your uncle’s?” she asked.
    He nodded and started to ride away.
    “Well, bye,” she said.
     
    H OW OBVIOUS CAN YOU GET , Sissy Atherton? she asked herself as she turned her bicycle, riding toward the gas station on Y2 for a soda. He probably knows you were hoping to see him.
    She shouldn’t have tried to run into him. He hadn’t been friendly. He doesn’t like you, Sissy. He’s never going to like you. And now he must think she was chasing him. She would have to come up with a story to explain why she’d been out on Y Road, but she’d already told him she was just riding around. Maybe she’d say she’d let one of the dogs loose and was looking for it and hadn’t wanted Elijah to know so her parents wouldn’t find out and she wouldn’t get into trouble. But that plan could backfire, too, since her parents might hear the story anyway. They’d be mad if she told them she’d lied, but they’d be madder if they thought she’d been careless with the dogs.
    She drank her soda at the gas station where Mr. Harrelson’s son was working on cars. Mike was seventeen and very good-looking. All the girls thought so.
    Sissy finished her drink and pedaled home by the dirt lane between the Harrelsons’ land and the Corys’ place with its weeds. Her father said Max Cory had taken good care of the property, but he’d died and his son was letting the place go to seed. Sissy thought Vincent Cory was scary, and he kept mean dogs chained in his yard.
    So when she saw a doglike shape ahead of her on the dirt lane, she stopped her bike, wondering what to do. If she turned around and rode away, the dog would chase her. If she rode past, the dog might attack her.
    She wondered if she could turn around without the dog noticing her, but before she could move, it started toward her. There was something wrong with it, though, with the way it was moving, and its face looked wrong. It also seemed thin.
    She held still, then stooped to pick up some rocks.She ordinarily wouldn’t consider hurting a dog, but Vincent Cory’s dogs were mean.
    But this one’s face was all black.
    No, that was dried blood and flies.
     
    E LIJAH’S FATHER’S PICKUP TRUCK finally pulled into the gas station. Sissy had tried to call Kennedy first, but the line was busy, probably because Kennedy was talking to her boyfriend.
    When Mr. Harrelson saw the trembling, skeletally thin dog Sissy had been holding by its collar with one hand, he’d said, “Honey, can’t no one do nothing for her.”
    The animal was a reddish pit bull bitch, Sissy thought, and she’d believed at first it must be one of Vincent Cory’s. But Sissy had never seen it before, and she was too afraid to go to the Cory house and ask. Nor could she possibly walk away from the dog. She had no idea what could do such a thing to an animal.
    Sissy wasn’t going to let Mr. Harrelson shoot the dog, which he had expressed willingness to do; Sissy couldn’t stand it if that happened. The pit bull was missing an ear, and Sissy couldn’t find her features in her face. It was the worst thing Sissy had ever seen, but surely a vet could help her.
    So she’d called Elijah, reasoning it was okay because this time she wasn’t chasing him; she was just concerned about the injured pit bull. Also, his job was looking after dogs, so maybe he would know whose bitch it was.
    And now the green pickup truck was here, the bed full of tools and lengths of pipe and other stuff as usual. Elijah’s father was a pipe-fitter