Picture This by Norah McClintock

shook my head. “I thought he was some crazy meth-head or something. I didn’t want to worry them.”
    â€œYou told me on the phone that you think he’s the guy who shot at you downtown.”
    I nodded.
    â€œWell, if that’s true,” Officer Firelli said, “and if he had the same gun today as he did last week, ballistics should have no trouble matching it.”
    â€œHe knew where to find me,” I said. I told him how I thought that had happened. “He was waiting for me in the ravine.”
    â€œBut why?” Officer Firelli said. “Why is he so interested in you?”
    â€œI don’t know,” I said. “In the alley, he was ready to shoot me over my backpack. I tried to tell him there was nothing in it.”
    â€œNothing?”
    â€œJust my camera.”
    â€œYour camera?”
    I explained what I had been doing all summer.
    â€œBut I don’t know why he’d be so interested in that,” I told Officer Firelli.
    â€œ Was he interested?”
    â€œA cop went to the youth center and asked the program director if he could see the pictures I’d taken.”
    â€œDid the program director show him your pictures?”
    â€œHe couldn’t. They were in my camera. I hadn’t backed them up. DeVon—that’s the program director—is always bugging me about that, but I don’t like people to see my stuff until I’m ready to show it.”
    â€œI’d like to take a look at that camera,” Officer Firelli said.
    â€œYou can’t. He smashed it.” I showed him what was left of it.
    Officer Firelli sighed. “I guess we’re just going to have to wait until Miller wakes up,” he said.
    I looked at Officer Firelli. I thought about what he had told the other cops about Miller. I thought about the shovel I’d hit Miller with. An idea took shape in my head.
    â€œYou don’t have to wait,” I said.

Chapter Eleven
    Because it was Sunday, Officer Firelli had to track down the director of the youth center at home. He asked him to come to the youth center and let us in. He also asked the director to find DeVon and get him to join us.
    The director unlocked the youth center door. Then he unlocked the door to the Picture This room. I turned on the computer. The director had to type in a password before we could get to any files.
    â€œDeVon said if anything happened to my camera, I’d lose all my pictures,” I said. “So for once I listened to him. I backed everything up on Friday before I went home.”
    I clicked with the mouse. Another password box came up, and this time I typed in the password. Officer Firelli pulled up a chair and sat down next to me.
    â€œShow me everything that was in your camera,” he said.
    I showed him my pictures one by one. He was a lot smarter than I thought. He recognized where they had been taken.
    â€œThat’s where we found you today,” he said.
    I nodded.
    Officer Firelli frowned.
    â€œWhy would Miller be interested in pictures of trees and hawks?” he said.
    â€œI don’t think he was,” I said. I kept clicking through my pictures until I found the one I was looking for.
    Suddenly Officer Firelli perked up when he saw it. He pointed to a small figure in one corner of the frame. It was a man holding a shovel—the same man that Mrs. Ashdale had noticed and asked me about. Officer Firelli squinted at him.
    â€œCan you make that bigger?” he said.
    I increased the size of the picture and stared at the man with the shovel. My hunch had been right. It was the same person who had been digging my grave a few hours ago. It was Robert Miller.
    DeVon arrived. Officer Firelli asked him to describe the police officer who had come to the youth center to ask about me. The person DeVon described sounded an awful lot like Robert Miller. Then Officer Firelli asked him to look at the picture on the computer screen.
    â€œThat’s