The Boy Who Killed Grant Parker by Kat Spears Page A

student council president. Maybe it’s his job to welcome new people.”
    â€œIt’s possible,” Don said doubtfully. “We’ve never had a new person before, so maybe there’s some kind of student council rule I don’t know about.”
    â€œI still don’t see what the big deal is,” I said, feigning indifference, though inwardly I couldn’t help but feel a little excited. I thought, Maybe this is it . Now the popular crowd would take notice of me. Once they got to know me, knew that I wasn’t a toolbag like Don and his buddies, they’d accept me among the in crowd.
    I glanced casually over my shoulder to study Grant Parker and his friends. They sat at the table closest to the large window overlooking the football field, hogging the only space in the room that was in a warm patch of sunlight.
    I could absolutely imagine myself among them.

 
    9
    Saturday night I rode my bike to Parr’s Drive-In. It really was a drive-in diner where you could pull into a parking space and order through a brightly painted speaker. The waitresses did not come out on roller skates—slightly disappointing—but they wore uniforms with short skirts that violated all principles of modern feminism. I was standing against the wall, trying to exude cool and nursing a soda I didn’t really want, when Grant pulled into a parking space right in front of me in a shiny silver pickup truck with a king cab, a spotlight, and gun rack on the roof. The gun rack was empty, thankfully.
    The door to the truck opened, and a waft of country music floated out onto the night air. Grant stuck his head out of the door and, without so much as a hello, said, “Get in.”
    I found myself crammed into the backseat of the king cab with two guys who were folded uncomfortably into the small space, both with cans of beer in hand. Grant threw introductions over the seat back, nearly lost in the noise from the speakers. Skip and Chet. Chet and Skip. It sounded like the name of a reality television show, like they could star in their own version of Duck Dynasty, hating gays and liberals for sport.
    One of them, Chet or Skip, though I was unsure which, was blond, the other dark-haired. Their faces were largely hidden by baseball caps, both of them wearing hats with blaze orange accents. I wasn’t country enough to know at the time what that meant, but blaze orange is the companion color of every man who hunts defenseless woodland creatures.
    Penny was tucked in the front passenger seat and turned to look at me between the seat backs.
    â€œHi, Luke,” she said with a sweet smile.
    I smiled and said hello in return, then I noticed Grant’s eyes on me in the rearview mirror, the ridge over his brow furrowed. I sat back so that my face was no longer visible in the mirror and looked out the window to keep my gaze away from Penny.
    Grant drove us out of town with two cars caravanning behind us. The boys kept up a steady stream of chatter with each other, inside jokes falling like grenades into the conversation. They were so familiar with each other, had known each other for so long, that it made anything they said among them overtly private and exclusive. I sat silently, trying not to let my eyes stray to Penny, who scrolled idly through her phone.
    Soon we were on a dirt road that wound over the hills. The road ended and I thought we would stop, but Grant kept on, the snick of dry autumn grass slapping against the body of the truck.
    At the top of a small rise Grant shut off the truck but left the headlights burning and the radio playing. Everyone piled out of the trucks and cars, and Grant’s buddies got to work building a small campfire under his supervision. The truck bed held several coolers filled with beer on ice, and everyone got down to the business of partying.
    I took a can of beer and drank it quickly, grateful for something to do with my hands and my mouth, feeling like a