Some would find what Rose presented today terrifying. But perhaps a few would find it inspiring. If she could make them understand.

Her knees rocked as she waited her turn from the rear of the classroom.

She let everyone think she always sat in the back of the room to hide because she was ashamed of not being one of the popular kids. In reality, she chose that same seat in all her classes to direct her focus. Life was about focus.

This last at-bat at Beckinfield High would make them forget all the others as she knocked this pitch out of the park. They would only remember the one that ended up in the parking lot past the stands. Or was it the bleachers? That analogy reminded her of her dad—had it been ten years since she heard his voice? She now hated baseball, anyway. Focus.

She had worn her usual blazer over a dark sweater and ankle-length skirt for the presentation, even though the weather had warmed up. Her figure had matured over winter break, and the boys hadn’t noticed yet. Thank God. She didn’t have time for them. As the only student in her school accepted into Stanford next year, her self-imposed isolation turned the impossible into a to-do list.

Droning on in front of the class, Kicker Taggart had again plagiarized her work.

Oh, well. A lot of students plagiarized her past work. She had done this presentation on Hidden Star Lake in the seventh grade. Some of the words Kicker used even sounded like seventh-grade writing. Would he stick to the legend of the lake monster, Starla, or move on to the far more interesting ancient paintings in the cave next to the lake? No. Kicker would be all about the monster. Yawn. Sure, he looked good, in a muscle-bound-blond-hair-chiseled-jaw-hurry-for-Hollywood kind of way. But he went after and got the Lisa Sibbissons of the world. Didn’t bother Rose at all. Dating, marriage, and kids lay way down on her checklist. She would get there once their numbers came up. Focus.

Today she would finally complete her domination of the academic awards by bringing home the only A+ awarded in the senior class for this presentation. Her only real competition would be Martin’s brain, but she had something unexpected up her sleeve.

Kicker brushed his fingers through his hair as a silly excuse to flex a bicep. Obviously, he didn’t want anyone to listen to his words. His blue eyes captivated and dumbed down most females—even the teachers. Luckily, Rose had immunity to such things. Not that he ever glanced at her anyway.

While Kicker addressed the class, he put his thumb in his front pocket and rested his hand on his thigh. As he said the word monster, his forefinger extended to point at the bulge in his tight jeans.

“The Primbobi people,” he said, sounding like a cheesy weatherman, “were the indigenousness…um…settlers…of this land.”

Yup. Rose’s seventh-grade writing voice—like telling math students that one, two, and three top the list as the first positive integers. No kidding, blue-eyed jerk-face.

“They settled around the body of water they called Hidden Star Lake.”

No, they hadn’t called it that—the Primbobi called the mysterious body of water Elemento. Like all else in the area, White settlers cheapened the name to the tourist-drawing Hidden Star Lake. Had she even written that sentence, or was this idiot improvising? Although she had put a lot of time into the presentation in junior high, the result had been perfunctory but accurate.

“They began to bury their dead on the shores of the lake.”

No, they didn’t! The Primbobi would never bury anything next to their drinking water. She had even stressed in her report that doing so would create a toxic water supply.

“They created a toxic environment...”

Rose covered her mouth from laughing. He mixed up the entire point. Then, he took the concept and ran for the endzone.

“That allowed the creation of the monster, Starla. Like the Joker falling into a vat of toxic liquid and turning into a monster.”

Ah, Starla, the supervillain! Now, we’re on to something! What an idiot!

“There have been sightings every day since, on the same day every seven years.”

Rose wanted to leap up and call B.S. There had been so many more encounters than that with no consistency at all. He combined the ghost legend with the lake monster legend and just made stuff up to turn them both into cartoon characters.

Kicker went on. “Starla bellows out to announce her arrival. She swims from one side of the lake to the other. I’ve seen her in the lake behind my house. Sometimes, she flies out of the water and hovers. She always disappears into her cave before anyone can snap a clear picture of her. She’s too smart to let people capture evidence. Her brain is too big.” Then he smiled his fake-ass, pandering, humble charm at Ms. Evans in the front row. “She is female, after all.”

Rose buried her head into the crook of her arm on her desk. And still, she had to sit through more of his crap.

“Starla is not just another of Beckinfield’s legends. She is an honored member of the area’s impressive species list.”

Like jocks with no brains?

“In conclusion...”

Finally, words worthy of applause.

“Starla has been around for millions of years...”

Didn’t he just say the Primbobi created her? They were only around for thousands of years.

“And she’ll be around for millions of more.”

Except for one minor problem with his theory. Starla doesn’t exist!

“Thank you.”

He bowed. After that masterpiece, he actually bowed.

The class applauded, but Rose crossed her arms, shaking her head. The girls clapped louder than the boys. She glanced to her right as her only real friend, Alexa, gave a “Whoop!”

Alexa grinned as she applauded.

Though Rose would give her crap—probably nothing wrong with supporting your quarterback. Alexa spent far too much time creating routines for the football sidelines and cheering for Kicker and his posse not to be supportive even at complete incompetence. And, frankly, Alexa had said she enjoyed the moment each year when they had to stand up in front of the class and do these “Legends of Beckinfield” presentations to witness him compensating for his lack of scholarly abilities by finding a reason to flex his bicep. He had gotten more blatant every time.

It could be Alexa’s turn soon. No problem. Rose had coached her to death, and that girl would stand right where she belonged, in front of an audience. The best genes of her gorgeous Mexican parents molded them into her form. And for some reason, people endowed trust in her. People liked talking to her, and she loved getting to know anyone and everyone. She didn’t have a judgmental bone in her body. That’s why she remained Rose’s only friend. And Rose seemed to be her favorite friend.

“Miss Nevarro, you’re up,” Ms. Evans said from the front row.

“Oh, shit,” Alexa said aloud and covered her mouth with her hand. “Sorry, Ms. Evans.” Holding the hem to keep her short cheerleading skirt from flicking up, she stood. She grabbed her iPad from her desk and bounced on the balls of her sneakers to the front, her shoulders rocking. The boys sat up a bit straighter, and the girls smiled.

Alexa always brings game, Rose thought.

Alexa double-checked to make sure her iPad synced to the big screen hanging in front of the blackboard and launched her presentation deck. Alexa Nevarro scrawled across the monitor in Bradley Hand font.

She twirled to face the audience, and her skirt whirled up higher than appropriate. “Oopsie.” She grinned. “Hi,” she began the required introduction, adding her usual spin. “I’m Alexa, but-you-can-call-me-Siri, Nevarro.”

No matter how many times she used that line, she always got a chuckle.

“My talk this year is on our town’s First Daughter, Rebecca Beckin.”

She pressed the arrow button on her iPad. The only known photo of “Becca” filled the screen. Rose assumed everyone in the room knew the grainy, black-and-white portrait. The lovely eighteen-year-old, Becca, stared at the camera. With her long dark hair pulled tightly behind her head, she wore a grey high-collared dress with no jewelry, and instead of smiling, her brown eyes accused.

Alexa cocked her head. She took in the photo, then looked directly at Rose.

Rose glanced down and realized how similarly dressed she was to the young woman in the photo. Even her hair was pulled back in the same way.

Rose shrugged it off. With the amount of time she had spent reading Becca’s diary, that shouldn’t be much of a surprise.

Alexa went on. “Becca was born in Pennsylvania in 1837 to Bradford and Elizabeth Beckin. The family migrated to the West Coast with a wagon train in 1840. And none of that sounds terribly interesting.” The class laughed.

“But that wagon train took the same route the Donner Party took a few years later. Unlike the Donner Party, the weather held out, and they made the trek over the mountains without having to eat each other to survive. This story would have gotten a lot more interesting quickly.”

Everyone giggled again.

Rose noticed the glint in Alexa’s eye. She had them.

Alexa pressed the arrow button, and a shot of an obituary appeared. “It is well known that Becca committed suicide by hanging in 1855. She was only eighteen. Our age. Rumor has it that she was facing having to do one of these reports in front of her class.”

The class laughed. Ms. Evans did not.

“After her death, things got interesting. Her father made the donation of the lease to the property to the town, and his house became the foundation for our school. The library on the third floor is the very spot where her mother tutored Becca as a child, and then she hung herself. It was there that the first sighting of her spirit occurred, at least the first documented sighting.”

She brought up a photo of The Beckinfield Chronicle dated June 28th, 1893.

“The headline to the story read, ‘Spirit of Town Founder’s Daughter Returns.’ Two female teachers spotted her, and of course, nobody believed them. Until the next day, when a male reported seeing her, only then, of course,” she said, emphasizing her frustration, “it became worthy of print.”

One news clipping after another appeared on the screen.

“For the next several years in a row, she materialized at various locations around town, always on June 28th. Everyone assumed that her manifestations were just elaborate hoaxes perpetrated by graduating senior students. Except eight years later, her regular sightings simply stopped. Seniors kept graduating. Nothing changed other than the regularity of her appearances.”

A news clipping popped up from 1939.

“Here is a report from the late nineteen-thirties. For historical reference, the Great Depression was coming to an end, and whether to enter World War Two divided the United States. Having no knowledge of the Holocaust at the time, and with Pearl Harbor still a couple of years away, we didn’t have a reason, nor could we afford to commit to a conflict overseas. We were looking for something to take our minds away from the horror in Europe. Becca gave our town something to do, and she reportedly showed up every night for two weeks.”

More news clippings.

“The community went Becca Beckin crazy. She terrified many. She teased some. And, according to one less than reliable sixteen-year-old, even put out. At least that’s what the reports allude to.”

The class all giggled but appeared confused. Ms. Evans didn’t seem pleased.

“You’re thinking, how does a ghost or spirit or mystical being…you know…do it?” She shrugged. “Guess you’ll have to use your imagination.”

She clicked the button.

“She was spotted one more time. In 1964, again in our library. Well, her library. The maintenance worker claimed that Becca was looking for something toward the left underside of the bottom bookshelf. ‘Something she hid there,’ she reportedly said. I was planning on talking about all the scary sightings of her ghost and stuff. But as Rose and I were researching—Oh, and give it up for Rose Branter!”

Alexa gave a quick cheerleader, “Whoop!” and applauded. About half of the kids clapped perfunctorily.

Rose shrank down in her seat. Nobody turned to look anyway.

“As we were digging,” Alexa continued, “we found something that neither of us knew. Though she committed suicide at age eighteen, they discovered her diary many years later under the bottom bookshelf on the left side of the library.”

She hit the arrow key. A closeup of the top title section of a newspaper came up—The Beckinfield Chronicle—May 9, 1945.

“There was an article buried in the Chronicle talking all about it. But nobody cared. Why?” She tapped her screen.

The closeup of the photo pulled back to reveal the headline “Japan Surrenders! Peace at last!”

“People had other things on their minds. So, when it came to the diary of a long-dead teenager, nobody gave a shit.” The class tittered, and she covered her mouth with her hand again, and her eyes darted to her teacher. “Oops. Sorry, Ms. Evans.”

“Continue,” the stern voice said in return.

Alexa took a deep breath, steadied herself, and brought up the next photo—a small purple, beaten-up, hard-backed book. “In addition to chronicling the life of an angst-filled teen, her journal has pages and pages of words and symbols attributed to the Primbobi. And though we can only translate a few simple words here and there, with the diary, they found a treasure trove of indigenous artifacts.”

Again, the image zoomed out to reveal dozens of items, including a hand-strung bow, handmade jewelry, pottery, and a Native American dress stitched together with diamond swatches of purple and green material.

“Just about everything we know about the Primbobi culture initiated from Becca Beckin. Everyone’s heard about the epic Battle of Beckinfield, famously won by her father, Bradford...”

She brought up the next photo of the bronze statue of Bradford Beckin, riding his horse, wielding his musket in mid-battle. “It led to the founding of our town, but his daughter tragically hung herself less than a year later. And no one understood why. But I think her diary hints at the answer.”

She brought up the next screen—a page of hand-scribbled text filled with one highlighted line. Everyone in class leaned forward, wide-eyed, trying to decipher it. Alexa waited as long as she thought she could get away with, then, without turning to read it, verbalized the five words.

“I will never love again.”

They all seemed to let out a breath at the same time.

“I think she lost her soulmate in the Battle of Beckinfield. And what did her father do—founded a town on that very spot to commemorate it. She couldn’t bear to live here. But she also couldn’t risk saying why. I think the person taken in that conflict gave her these...”

The next image came up, one her audience had already seen. All the Native American artifacts lay about. The following slide emphasized the green and purple patterned garment.

“If you study her diary, you see that Becca Beckin was not only in love with one of the warriors from the Primbobi tribe, but she married him in a ceremony on a new moon in this dress. She said that her life ended that night, only to begin anew. Thank you.” She grabbed the hem of her skirt and did a small curtsey.

The stunned students started applauding.

Rose craned to look at her teacher.

Ms. Evans stared at Alexa, confused, like she hadn’t heard that theory before. Yes!

The reaction built, and a student stood. Then another. Alexa got the first full standing ovation Rose could ever remember at one of these Legends of Beckinfield presentations. Rose got up as well, clapping and nodding.

Her friend would never tell—her secret was safe forever. Rose had done all the work. Rose had written the report and asked Alexa to present the work. Alexa merely had to put the script into her own words and charm the hell out of the class. Just like getting one of her cheerleading routines into her body, after a week of practice, she fused all the images and photos that Rose had given her into a seamless presentation. And had made Rose proud.

The rest of the class sat down. Alexa took her iPad, bounced her way down the aisle, and lowered into her seat. She held up her right hand, waiting for Rose.

“Gonna leave me hanging?”

Finally, Rose raised her hand to give an incompetent high five.

The teacher turned to the students. “All right, Martin. You’re up.”

The short geek said, “I’ve got to follow that?”

But Rose sighed in relief. She wouldn’t have to go until after Martin. Her stomach jumped again. What she had to present was as astonishing as it was horrifying.