Chapter Thirteen

Hazel and Susie walked down the stairs from St. Fiacre's to the campus of Cyrus College in single file.

Over her shoulder, Susie in the front said "I really appreciate your taking the time to talk to me."

"I hope we talk again. Maybe just over good things, like your college plans, or just about life."

On the one landing between the blufftop and the terrace level where the college buildings stood, Susie turned and smiled at Hazel. "I don't really like plants much; is it okay if I don't want to go to Cyrus College?"

"Honey," Hazel said, smiling even more broadly, "I don't even know that I would have wanted to go to Cyrus College."

They walked more companionably on down the last flights of wooden stairs to the broad level creekbank openness where the college lodges stood, in two rows facing each other across The Range that ended, to the west, at the mounded foundation of the four story Old Main.

Susie said, in an apologetic tone: "It all looks kind of seedy and decrepit."

Hazel replied: "I'm just loving that you know the word decrepit."

The two women walked across the graveled path of The Range, and then to the footbridge across Auter Creek. Before they stepped onto the bridge deck, Susie said to Hazel: "I hope it makes sense, I mean, to you, that this stuff isn't really anything I want to make a big deal of."

"If we can keep talking about it all, I'm okay with that. But if you get more of this sort of treatment online, is it okay if I get some other adults involved?"

She thought for a moment, and then said to her on the bridge "Sure. I can work with that."

Hazel added, as they began to finish the trip across the water: "Let's just hope that it all winds down with the school getting involved and going after those kids. Once they know it's not something they can get away with, that should make them stop and think."

"I hope so, too," said Susie. She looked up at Hazel with a crooked smile. "Except, they think they did get away with it. Which they kinda did."

Then she turned and walked on across onto the opposite shore, as Hazel stood frowning.