Chapter 50: Paid by the Hour
April knew something was wrong before she saw it, because the cafeteria went quiet in the wrong direction.
Noise at St. Jude's usually rolled outward from the middle of the room, from the tables where the loudest people sat. This noise went the other way. It started at the glass wall by the rankings board and moved inward, one table at a time, like a tide being pulled back.
Chloe saw it first. She had been halfway through a sentence about Isabelle Hartley's presentation habits, and she stopped, and the highlighter slid out of her hand.
"April," she said. "Don't turn around."
April turned around.
They covered the glass wall. Twenty, maybe thirty sheets, taped edge to edge across the rankings board so that the numbers underneath were hidden behind a wall of paper. Each one had the same photograph at the top, printed in color on the school's good paper.
April in a green Daily Grind apron, mid-pour, her hair tied back with a rubber band.
