Masked by Norah McClintock

doesn’t stop until she hits the ground and her head cracks against the edge of an ice-cream freezer. We all stare at her. We’re probably all doing what I’m doing, which is trying to see if her chest is moving, if she’s breathing. But I can’t tell.
    Mr. Mirelli runs to her and kneels down. He says, “Someone call an ambulance.” His face is white as he bends to feel for a pulse.
    I pull out my cell phone and make the call. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Corey dart for the door. Then I hear a bang, louder than anything I’ve ever heard before, and Corey crumples.
    Leon stands there for a moment, the gun still out in front of him. It seems to take forever for him to lower it. He pulls the mask off his head. His eyes are red. His face is wet, maybe from tears or maybe from sweat. He doesn’t even try to run.
    â€œI was going to look after her,” he says, his voice as limp as his hair. “I was going to take care of her and the baby. He was only going to hurt the baby. Why do they always go for the ones who hurt them?”
    He’s not looking at me when he asks it. He’s looking at Corey. So I keep my mouth shut. I mean, he’s still holding that gun, and if I didn’t know it before, I know it now—it’s loaded.
    Leon is still standing in the exact same place when the police and the ambulance arrive.
    The cops see the gun in his hand and out come their guns. They’re yelling at him, “Put the gun down! Put the gun down!” When he stoops and lays it on the ground, one of them grabs it. Then they yell at him to get face down on the floor. Suddenly they’re all over him, handcuffing him, reading him his rights, getting him out of the store and into a cop car.
    Meanwhile the ambulance crew has split up. One guy is checking out Rosie. The other is on Corey. As far as I can tell, they’re both still alive. It’s harder to figure out from what the ambulance guys are saying how badly hurt they are. A second ambulance arrives. There’s a lot of activity. Then Rosie and Corey are bundled into the ambulances and whisked to the hospital. Mr. Mirelli wants to go with Rosie, but the cops won’t let him, not yet, not until they ask him a few questions. They ask hundreds of them, to both him and me. They ask the same ones over and over. My brain feels like it’s going to shut down long before they finish.

Chapter Sixteen
Daniel
    Rosie lost her baby. She was off school for a long time. Today is her first day back. She doesn’t look like she used to. If she’s wearing any makeup, it’s not the kind you’d notice. It’s weird, but she looks even prettier now than she did before, even though she’s thinner and paler and doesn’t work at being the center of attention. In fact, she’s superquiet.
    Corey lost the use of his right arm. He never came back to school. If Rosie ever saw him again, she kept it to herself.
    Leon was arrested on a bunch of charges. His mother tried to get Mr. Mirelli to drop the ones relating to the attempted robbery, but he refused. She tried to get Leon out on bail, too, but that didn’t work out either. His mom told my mom that he believed Rosie when she told him about her father and that, given what he experienced with his own dad, he just wanted to save her. But he went about it the wrong way. Maybe he was trying to do something good. But the fact is, he scared everyone to death. And he shot Corey.
    I’m sitting in the cafeteria the day Rosie comes back to school. I have a mystery-shopper assignment scheduled for after school, and I’m looking over my checklist to see what I have to report on. A shadow falls across my table.
    It’s Rosie.
    She’s holding an apple and a container of skimmed milk. She says, “Is it okay if I sit with you, Daniel?”
    I guess I stare stupidly at her. I’m too surprised to say anything.
    â€œIf you don’t want me