Numero Uno

Part one of the accidentally deleted!

I had a plan.
     I was suspicious of Bird Boy lately. He kept disappearing, for longer and longer every time. I wanted to ask, make it seem like it was no big deal, but I couldn't. I'd never trusted anyone like this before. He'd pushed through my wall, convinced me that he wouldn't hurt me. It was still so hard. I was used to pushing everyone away. The less I cared about people, the less I could get hurt. I had a rule; don’t love, and don't get attached. Crow had broken that rule.
     Now I suspected. He was hiding something. I could tell Crow wanted to tell me where he kept disappearing off to. Yet he didn't tell me. He hid the truth. That was what scared me the most.
   
     I set a trap so I could follow him. I wish I hadn’t. I would have found out anyway, I suppose, but it would have been simpler if Mackenzie's plan had just gone the way it was supposed to.
     I put some dust on the bottom of Crow's shoes. It was a powdery yellow, from the shops. 'Followers Dust, guaranteed to solve the mystery!' advertising is so weird.
     I woke up and went to his door. There were footprints, glowing now, like the bottle said they would. That meant Crow had been gone for at least five minutes. I followed, wondering where he had gone.
     The tracks went for a long way, and at a corner they did something strange. At this point the glowing was very faint, so whatever conversation had happened was recent. The footsteps stopped, hovering, and then finally headed down a different corridor. I could almost see him hesitating. Maybe Rose had dragged him off somewhere.
     I did some hesitating of my own, and then followed the even fainter yellow. I just had to finish what I started. Hunter's intuition or something.
     When I finally reached the end of the trail, I was at a door painted a pink that almost made me retch. I hated pink at the best of times, but that? Atrocious, and probably a crime against nature. The footsteps were nothing but powder that hardly showed in the think carpet. one thing that notified me of brownie territory was that carpet. The other thing was probably that door.