Other Fan Fiction ❯ Alex Lanes and the Trophy Stealer ❯ Whole Entire Story ( Chapter 1 )

[ A - All Readers ]

-ONE-

“Hey, Alex! Come on!” Rena Muffler urges. “Hurry up!”

“Why is Falling Food such a special place to you? It's just a normal fast-food restaurant like all the others!” I say and started to run up to Rena.

Rena rolls her eyes. “After the first time I ever ate food at Falling Food, I screamed! I love the food! Ever since, I'm dying to have an opportunity to eat for free there. You know, I don't have much money.”

That was true. She ran away from home because her parents lied to her about something. Now she never even wants to mention her family's name or the name of the house or whatever. But we did find out that Dan, a cop, is her long-lost brother. And to our sealed lips, we—Lila and I—promised her that we wouldn't ever tell anyone about it. Not even Dan, who has Elvis' Hair.

Lila Standers is really cool once you get to know her. Same with Rena. At first, Rena kept kicking me and punching me, but after we spent some time in detention talking to each other, we became best friends. And Lila? She was my best friend since Kindergarten. Long time, huh? Well, now we're in seventh grade. We're all thirteen. And I'm about to turn fourteen…well, in a couple of months, that is. Anyways, it's almost Lila's birthday—yippee!—and that's why Lila decided to open her party at Falling Food. Just to eat and, you know, hang out. And that's the reason why Rena got to eat free food there—because one of her best friend's throwing a party there.

“Alex, hurry up!” Rena cries and motions me to Falling Food. “Okay, okay!” I call to Rena. We were in the mall, racing to Falling Food, which is a store. That store's not that big—and not to mention it's not too small.

Finally we got to Falling Food. Lila was already there. I had no idea why she invited Naira Jenzy and Cilia Capps. She just did. And I hated that part about the party.

Lila offered me and Rena some French fries. “Want some?”

“Nah, I already ate,” I tell Lila.

Rena grabs a bunch of fries. “Thanks, Lila! I hope you don't mind if I have the rest of the fries…?”

Lila laughs and says, “Go ahead. Eat as much as you want.”

Mrs. Standers, Lila's mom, comes up to Rena and says, “Rena, Lila's right. You can eat as much as you want. You're still really skinny.” She turns to me and Lila. “Not to mention that you two are skinny, too. So eat up, kids!” After she went away, Lila groans, “I hate it when she forces me to eat.”

“Well, she's right about that. We're skinny,” Rena says.

“But it's a good thing,” I point out. “At least we get to eat as much as we want.”

“Good point,” Lila says and she turns to Rena. “I want my box of French fries back.”

“Lila! Go get another box yourself!” Rena laughs.

Lila made a cute doggy face. “But it took me a long time to shake all the salt in…please…?”

I roll my eyes and say, “I'll go get it,” and went over to the counter. I call, “Hello? I need something!”

A sixteen-year-old looking boy come out and says, “What do you want?” he asks, grumpily.
I back away from him. “No need to be mean, dude. I need a big box of French fries, please.”

“Okay.” He starts to back away until I tell him, “And my friend's hand got really sore because she kept shaking salt into the French fries. Can't you just shake it out? I don't want my hand to be sore, too. Oh yeah, and the box has to be big.”

“Okay, okay,” he says. “Whatever.”

He went away and I started to laugh out loud. It's not because I didn't want my hand to be sore-I just didn't want to shake the salt out because I was too lazy!

Anyways, five minutes already passed and I was getting pretty ticked off. “Hey, dude! What's taking so long?” I looked around. I saw a huge trophy that has a statue of a chef cooking and there's a tag that says: WORTH ONE MILLION DOLLARS!

I took a peek inside the trophy, thrilled to see what's inside. But, obviously, nothing's in there. Except a single candy wrapper. A cough drop wrapper. Yuck!

He comes back with a box of French fries. “I'm here, I'm here. If you try ordering any food again, please be patient or you might get kicked out, little girl.”

“Oh, and the so-called `little girl's' name is Alexandra! Alexandra Lanes!” and then I mutter to myself, “Wait a second, why am I giving a stranger my own information?” So I just lie to him, “Oh, did I say Kate Miry?” I laugh. “Sorry, that's my friend's name. My name's Kate…Miry….ry….”

I look at the French fries and shot him a look. “There isn't much salt in there.”

“What? But my arm!” he complains and holds up an arm. “It hurts.”

“Yeah, and my head hurts from all your whining,” I say and point at my head. “It hurts. Major.”

So when he's done sprinkling more salt in, I go back to Lila and Rena with a box full of fries. “Here,” I say. “French fries.”

Rena and Lila rub there stomachs. “Hey, we're full now. We're not hungry,” Rena says.

I swear my eyes almost popped out. “What? What'd you eat?”

Rena starts, “We ate—” and Lila cuts in, “We were waiting for so long, we decided to get our own food. We ate mozzarella sticks! Yum…!” Lila rubs her stomach. “I can still just taste it!”

I groan, “Well, it took me a long time to order the French fries…”

Rena and Lila say at the same time, “Sorry.” They exchange looks at each other.

“Well,” I say, “I'm glad you decided not to wait for me any longer…You know how I am…it takes me a long time to do something and-” and that's when the shop speaker goes, “Attention please! Attention! Please remain calm as the police come here.”

I looked at Rena and Lila like, what? They gave each other the same looks. “What's happening?” Naira whispers to Lila and Rena.

We all shrug. “Don't look at me, I don't know,” I say.

She snickers. “I wasn't talking to you. And I wasn't looking at you.”

Then all of a sudden, cops started to go in the store. Some of them were blocking the doorway so no one gets out.

-TWO-

“What's happening?” a man screams at us. It looked like he was pretty scared. “What's happening?” he screams again.

“Dude, calm down! Chill!” I tell him. I look at his tag. It read: EDDIE TURK. “Um…Eddie Turk…” I mumble.

“Yes?”

“Oh, nothing!”

The boy at the counter came running up to me, pointing. “It's her, officer! Her!”

I looked around. “Who? Where?”

He looks at me. “You!” The officer walks over to me. “What's your name?”

“Kat-Kate, uh…I-forgot-my-last-name? Yeah! Kate I-forgot-my-last-name.”

The officer squints at me. “Your name is Kate I-forgot-my-last-name?”

The counter-guy shakes his head. “No…before she told me her last name was something else!”

“My name is Kate! Why do I have anything to do with this? And speaking of which, what does anything have to do with this? What's happening?” I ask.

The officer groans. “It seems like someone stole the grand chef trophy and you are the first suspect.”
“What? I didn't steal it!”

“Everyone says that when they get blamed,” the counter-guy mutters to me.

I ignore him and say to the officer, “But I didn't do it! Really! Hey, look at him!” I pointed at that counter-guy. “What if he did it? He was the one working at the back counter the whole time! He could've just taken that trophy while everyone was too busy eating!”

The officer nods at me. “You've got a point,” he says and turns to the counter-boy. “I've got a few questions to ask you…”

To tell you the truth, the party wasn't much fun. All the things I told you are what had happened. And that's just it. The cops dismissed everyone except for me and Andy, the counter-guy.

“So Andy, tell us what you were doing from the pass hours,” Officer Karma, the other officer's partner, says to Andy.

Andy sighs and says innocently, “Well, I was at the counter where the party just started. The birthday girl comes up to me and orders a box of French fries. It took her hours to shake the salt out of its jar. Anyways, I was watching her as she was shaking.”

“Did you watch her while you made the food?” Officer Karma asks.

“Yeah, I kept a sharp eye on her. Anyways, she left and a minute later, she-” he points at me, giving me his evil I-know-you're-not-innocent look “-came up to me and ordered a box of French fries. She has this bad attitude. I know she stole the trophy. She is so mean and tough and-”

“We're not judging her personality,” Officer Karma interrupts. “Now continue on with your little story, Andy.” Her voice was really low. And it just stayed in the same tone-it didn't go higher or any lower.

“Fine, fine,” Andy snaps. “I wasn't watching her every move because she ordered me to do so many things! How can I listen when I'm ordered to do so many things?” He was getting pretty mean and loud.

Officer Karma just says, “Hmm…” like she's studying him pretty hard. It doesn't even seem like she's listening to him! But, she was, obviously, because officers are supposed to keep a sharp ear.

Andy shot me a look. “It was part of her plan! She planned to order lots of food so I can be busy and she'll get to steal the trophy!”

“Wha-? Wait! I didn't steal the trophy!” I say, trying to keep my voice down low. “I didn't!”
Officer Karma looks at me and points a pen. “Okay, it's your turn to tell us your story.”

“Okay,” I say and breathed out. “I went to this store and Lila, the birthday girl, offered me and our best friend, Rena, some French fries. And I told her I wasn't hungry. So-”

“Aha!” Andy exclaims.

I jump back a bit because I was a little surprised. You see, I'm just telling my little own story and all of a sudden, someone screams, “Aha!” I bet that'd startle you, too, if you were me.

“Aha!” Andy says again. “Didn't you hear what she just said? She wasn't hungry! If she wasn't hungry, then why'd she order food from me?”
Officer Karma's nodding slowly and I'm getting pretty ticked off by the way Andy just kept interrupting and misunderstanding me. “Look,” I say. “Just-just shut up and listen to me!”
“She does have an attitude...” Officer Karma sighs.

“Okay,” I say. “I wasn't hungry. And Rena took all of Lila's French fries and then Lila wanted it back. She was too lazy to order food herself so I ordered it. And while I was waiting for Andy to make the French fries for me, I looked around.” Andy puts a finger up and he's about to say something until I say to him, “Don't interrupt again.” I go back to my story. “I found the trophy for sure, but I didn't touch it. At all. And that's when he finally came back with food.”

“I still think she's lying,” Andy says.

All of a sudden, the door swings open and it swung so hard, it hit the wall. Bam! Right in the doorway stood an old pregnant woman. She jogs to Andy.

I had to laugh. An old pregnant woman jogging? Come on! That was too hilarious.

Anyways, she jogs to Andy and hugs him. “I heard about what happened so I decided to drop by to see how you're doing,” she says and squeezes his cheeks.

“Mom…stop!” Andy cries. “Stop, Mom. You're embarrassing me.”

“Anyways, I also came here to tell you about your fifteenth birthday.”

And right here, I'm thinking, fifteen? He's fifteen years old? And that's when she decides to surprise me even more. “Well,” she sighs, “I invited every kid in Lariat from ten to eighteen, if that's okay with you.” And then she looks at me straight in the eye. “What's your name, hon?”

“Kate-Kate. Kate I-don't-know,” I say quickly.

“Kate Idaho?” she repeats. She turns to Officer Karma and says, “Can you check that name off the phone book, please?”

So the officer checks and comes back, saying, “I can't find the name `Kate Idaho'.” She turns to me. “You're lying.”

“I'm not lying!” I say. “Of course I'm not!”

“Spill it. We're cops. We'll take good care of your secret info.”

I tell him, “I'm still not telling!”

“Wait a second,” Officer Karma says. She takes a step closer to me and slaps her leg. “I knew it! You're Alexandra Lanes! From the newspaper.” That's one reason why I hate being on Lariat Times-people know exactly who I am. And why am I on the newspaper or the news? Because I'm usually going to the cops and telling them who did this or that or whatever. And I usually put people into jail. Don't tell me I'm a bad girl, because I'm not. I'm perfectly fine.

“Look,” I say. “I don't like to be called Alexandra. I like to be called Alex.”

“Yeah,” Andy mutters. “You'd like to be called a tough name.”

I scowl at him. “You're the one being tough.”

“Because I'm a boy!” he insists. “What'd you think?'

I rolled my eyes and turned to his mom. “Hey, why do you want to know my name so much, anyway?”

“Hmmm…” she mumbles, “I don't think I've sent an invitation to you.” And then she adds in, “Yet.”

-THREE-

My eyes instantly formed as big as a huge bottle cap. And if you never saw bottle caps in Lariat, well, you'll be in for a surprise because some of the caps are huge. Some of them are even bigger than my ear! Trust me; I know what I'm saying here.

“But-but,” I cry, “I don't want to go! I've had enough birthday parties already. And besides, who'd want to go to his birthday party?”

“Everyone,” his mom replies. “Everyone wants to. We're somewhat wealthy.”

“So you're saying you're…?” I ask. “Well, I still don't want to go to some stupid fifteen-year-olds' party.”

His mom rummages through her purse, takes an invitation out and shoves it to me. “Keep it. And you better go. We give each kid fifty dollars for a welcoming. I think you might enjoy it, too.”

“Nah, I'd never enjoy a fifteen-year-olds' party…Well, unless I'm turning fifteen, but that's a long way to go.”

“How old are you, dear?” Andy's mom asks.

I shrug and looked around. “I don't know…” Actually, I do know how old I am. Thirteen. But why'd you think I'd tell a complete cuckoo-head stranger? I don't know what you think but I'm totally not falling for anymore questions.

“She's thirteen,” Officer Karma answers for me. “I read it on the newspaper.”
I roll my eyes, thinking, newspapers tells it all…and I hate newspapers.

“Oh my goodness!” Andy's mom cries. “You're only a year younger than my son!”
I looked at her like she's brainless. “I'm thirteen…? And he's fifteen…? How am I a year younger than your son?”

She laughs and says, “He's turning fifteen, sweat-heart-tomorrow afternoon.”

The officer nods, and says, “You know…it might be a good thing for Alexandra-”

“Alex-” I say.

“It might be a good thing for Alex to go to your son's birthday party,” the officer continues to Andy's mom.

“What?” I cry. “It's my decision whether I'd want to go or not. And I'm not going!”

“But, Alex,” Officer Karma argues, “I think it might be a good thing for you to just go to his party and make some new friends. It seems like you're always so cranky and lonely.”

“But I'm not cranky and lonely!” I argue back. “I've got two best friends and I'm not cranky!”

“Then why am I getting into an argument with you right now? Is it because you're cranky?”

I pause. “Well, no, but-yeah, but…”
“You're coming to the party. Period. But I'd have to talk to your parents first.”

I didn't want to tell her I'm parentless. I mean, yeah, I have parents. But they're all missing-well, except for my mom. I just found out that a complete enemy turns out to be my mother, Carrie. And why'd I want to tell her I'm her long-lost daughter? And about my father…He's still somewhere-probably in New Jersey. Well, let me tell you this-New Jersey is thousands of miles away from the town Lariat! And I think it's better if I never found my dad. For only one reason: what if I meet a guy who's really mean and then he turns out to be my dad? Well, I'd never want that to happen the way it happened to me and Carrie. Thank goodness she didn't find out who I am. Who I really am.

It's all a big blur. That's just the best way to describe the family problem between Mom, Dad, and me.

Anyways, I live alone in Aunt Jade's house. Only one problem-Aunt Jade died and no one knows I'm still living in her house. Except for Lila, Rena, Marcus (I think he's Lila's almost boyfriend), that is. And of course, me.

Anyhow, I didn't want her calling my mom. Because I didn't have any mom that knows I'm her daughter. So I hired (well, not hired because I never pay her money for her work) Jason, Lila's fifteen-year-old sister, to pretend to be my mom. So I'm pretending I'm living in Lila's house…sort of.

Anyways, again, I didn't want her calling Jason because Jason would probably let me go to the party anyway. So I jump up, saying, “Alright, I'll go!”

-FOURE-

That got Officer Karma and Andy's mom smiling. And that got me and Andy frowning, and I could swear I'd rather get accused of murdering.

As I walked home, all of a sudden, Lila and Rena jump from out of nowhere, exclaiming, “I got invited to Andy Slalom's birthday party! And they're rich!” Lila adds in, “And I heard he's really cute.”

I roll my eyes. “Lila, do you think that boy standing around the counter at your party was cute?” I ask.

Lila made a disgusted face at me. “Eww…..no.”

“I thought so.”
“Why'd you ask? You think he's cute or something?”

“No way! He's the rich Andy you were just talking about.”

“Did you get invited?”

“Yes,” I mutter.

“Are you coming?”

“I'm forced to go to his birthday party?”
“Why?”

So I tell them all about what had happened. And now they're thinking about just dumping their invitations in the dumpster. That's how good I describe mean people.

The next morning, when I woke up, I did all the morning stuff-comb my hair, tie it up, brush my teeth, wash my face, change into jeans and an oversized T-shirt (that's how I like it!), take a shower, comb my hair again (now I'm realizing it's just a waste of time combing my hair before I brush my teeth), eat breakfast, and all that stuff

I fed Ranger his favorite food, crackers, and a bowl of water.

By the time I'm finished with all that, it was one o'clock in the afternoon. The same time the party starts.

I sigh. It's just about time I'm supposed to go over his house. But hey, it's just a party, right? It'll end quickly! But, oh boy, do I know how to make mistakes or what?

-FIVE-

I called Lila and found out Rena was over her house. Like always. “Um…” I say. “Are you going to his party?”

“Nope. Not after you told us about it,” Rena answers. “I'm glad you told us, Alex. I'm really glad.”

“Oh. I really hope you come,” I sigh.

“Why?”

“Because I don't want to go to his party alone. What if I'm the only thirteen-year-old kid? What if Andy's planning some kind of prank and humiliates me in front of everyone?”

“Uh…” I could tell Rena doesn't want to come to his party. But she also doesn't want to say “no” to me and just drop off. But a decisions' a decision, right? We have to choose something.

“Uh…” Rena says again, “Well, let me ask Lila and see what she has to say with that.”

There was a long pause and then Rena finally comes back on, saying, “Okay, we'll go. But we're only coming there for a few minutes, okay? I don't want to spend my whole afternoon with some jerk and his friends.”

“You chose the right answer,” I tell her. “Thanks.” I hang up and went outside, carrying my teeny teddy bear named Teddy Bear. If I'm going somewhere I totally don't want to go, Teddy Bear always makes things perfect. Or at least I thought so. I keep him in my pocket. For luck.

I jogged all the way up the street, turned, jogged up again, turned, jogged up again, and turned. I turned to a house this time. And, yeah, it's pretty big. Wait, what am I saying? It's gigantic! Not just “pretty big”!
Anyways, I took a deep breath and rang the doorbell. Mrs. Slalom, Andy's mom, answered the door and held the screen door wider so I can come in. “Come in, come in,” she says to me, all cheerfully. Just then, the telephone rings and she answers it. I watch her as she said stuff. “Yes…uh huh…oh?...okay…okay… bye!” She hangs up the phone and turns to me. “Sweetie, I gotta go. Tell Andy that, okay? I think he can manage a party himself. He's a very mature and nice boy.”

When she was gone, I imitate her in a high voice, “Sweetie, I gotta go. Tell Andy that, okay? I think he can manage a party himself. He's a very mature and nice boy.” Then I talk to myself, “I'm not her daughter. Why does she keep calling me sweetie and stuff?” I roll my eyes. “Andy's such a loser. He's not nice.”

The door rings and I open it. It was Rena and Lila. They were smiling cheerfully. “Alex!” Lila exclaims. “You're already here?”

“Uh huh.”

“Where's Mrs. Slalom? Is she shopping or something?” Rena asks.

“Mrs. Slalom's gone. Who knows where she's going!” I say. Rena and Lila came in and then stepped out. “Okay, we've been here for a while now. We gotta go!” They crossed the Slaloms' lawn.

“Where are you going?” I call to them.

“My mom made a dentist appointment for me and Rena!” Lila calls.

“What about me?”

“I asked Mom, but she said you're already going to a party.”
“How'd she know that? Wait! I want to come too!”
Too late. They're already in their car. And now their car's driving slowly up the street.

I tried chasing the car, but that's impossible. So I ran back to the house. I walked around and bumped into a girl. “Sorry,” I say and that's when I realized it was Naira. Naira and her jerky friend, Cilia.

-SIX-

“What are you doing here?” Naira sneers, glaring at me. “I didn't know losers were even allowed to get invited.” She looks at her friend and they both started laughing. Naira thinks she's so funny when she's not.

“Look,” I say, “I was forced to go to this party and-”

“Forced?” Naira asks. “Forced by your mommy?”

I rolled my eyes. No matter what I try to say, she's never going to listen. What's the point? I ask myself. I don't even want to explain it to her!

So I managed to shut up for once and just move along.

“Hey!” I heard a boy shouting at me.

I turned around.

It was Andy. “I didn't know you were going to come here! I thought you'd just ignore Mom.”

I can tell Naira's dying to burst into a conversation with Andy. She likes to impress boys.

“Speaking of your mom, she told me to tell you that she's going somewhere.”

“Cool! Now I get to make the party out of control!” he says. He sighs loudly. “Look, my mom talked to me about you last night. And she's right.”

“About what?”

“She told me that I should be nice to you more.”

I backed away from him. “Uh I gotta go-”

He puts his arms around me. “Do you wanna go out someday?”

I can see Naira's eyes about to pop out. She even choked on the water she was drinking.

I shout out loud, “Gross…!” and ran away from him. I ran around the corner and down the stairs and that's when I noticed a lot of people my age there, partying. They were all dancing and singing. And doing lots of disgusting stuff.

All of a sudden, Andy comes downstairs, shouting, “Mom's gone! Let's get our bodies shakin'!” And everyone starts screaming, “Yea…!” and stuff like that.

Andy winks at me and I rolled my eyes at him. In my head, I can just picture him wearing his underpants in his head, with boogers sticking out of his nose and all of a sudden, a shark flies by and swallows him to death. That made me laugh. Evilly.

Andy carries a huge pot of candy and everyone dived in. All except for me, that is. Who'd want to eat a disgusting weirdo's candies? No one!

And that's when I saw Jesse. He was the ugliest kid. Well, actually, he was the ugliest human. That's how bad he is. He is so ugly, I can even swear he's the ugliest human in the universe! Well, to me and Lila, that is. I don't know if Rena thinks he's the ugliest person. That's probably because Rena never even looked at him-or at least paid much attention to him. To her, it's as if he's invisible.

All of a sudden, I felt a warm hand go around my wrist. I turned to see who it was, and, obviously, there stood Andy, staring at me. “Yuck! You're so gross! Your, like, a hundred years older than me! Pul-ease! I don't even like boys so get away from me!”

But still, he didn't get away from me. He still smiled at me like I was an angel. He holds out a candy between his index finger and his middle finger. “Cough drop?”

I roll my eyes. “No way. Besides, I don't have a coughing problem. Now get away from me!”

“Sorry. No can do.”

That's it! I punched him right in the stomach. Hard.

He squeals and screams, calling for help. And that's when I thought, uh oh! I started to run. I ran upstairs and around the hall and then I ran upstairs again, all the way to the fifth floor. When I went into some room, I sighed of relief. That was close. I can just picture myself, screaming for help, and being chased by a hundred of people holding oversized needles, threatening to poke me with it.

I looked around the room to see whose room it was. It was Mr. Slalom's room. I wonder why Mr. Slalom doesn't share his room with his wife. The room looked pretty clean and organized. As if no one ever goes in his room. I found a spot full of dust. I blew the dust off. And there, they were, standing (or lying) proud as always.

MR. AND MRS. SLALOM'S COMPANY FOR JOY!

Huh. That's a lame name. `Mr. and Mrs. Slalom's Company for Joy!'. Like that'd bring a million people to his company.

The words were carved neatly in Mr. Slalom's desk.

I was just about to check out more stuff when someone shouted, “Andy Time!”

And I asked myself, what the heck? Andy Time? What kind of name is that? It's so lame!

But I decided it was safe enough for me to go downstairs.

I ran down all the way to the huge basement. Everyone was sitting in rows on the ground, cross-legged.

I sat on the ground, in the farther end.

That's when a girl, maybe eight-teen years old, pulled up a chair beside me. A kid called for her and she walked away. I got up and sat on the chair and someone in front of me warns, “Macy's sitting there. You don't want to bother her.”

I nod, saying, “Fine, fine,” and got off the chair. I waited for a couple of minutes and she didn't come back. So I just took my teddy bear out from my pocket and put him in the chair. I took off my sweatshirt and made it a blanket for Teddy Bear.

I looked at the door to see if Macy was coming back. And she wasn't.

I waited for a several minutes but she still didn't come back. So I focused on the stage. That's right, a stage. There's a stage in the basement and we're all sitting right in front of it, which, obviously, means something's going to happen on stage. Finally, a girl comes out in the stage and says in the microphone, “Hey, people! I'm Esmeralda Stone. Let's present Andy Slalom on stage to talk about what he wants for his birthday!”

Everyone cheers while I just mumble, “Bor-ring!”

All of a sudden, out of the corner of my eyes, I saw Macy, just about to sit on my teddy bear. I quickly pushed the chair away and Macy fell on to the ground. She glares at me. I guess it was obvious I pushed it away because I hung right on to the chair. “I was, you know, protecting my teddy bear from getting…squished…? By a big butt…?”

Macy pounded her fist into her hand and starts running up to me. So here I am, running for my life by a big girl.

I looked behind my back, and there she is, coming closer and closer. I kept running and looking behind my back. And bam! I ran right into…someone. “Hey!”

I looked up and there stood a man. “Are you invited to this party?” I ask him. “Because I heard only ten to eighteen year-olds are invited.”

He growls under his breath, “I'm Mr. Slalom.”

“Oh! Um…sorry.”

He was wearing huge sunglasses the size of my ear. He had an oversized T-shirt on and shorts…Or boxers…

“Are those boxers?” I ask, disgusted. I pointed at his shorts. “Yuck! Do you know anything about your own privacy? Do you go walking around the mansion wearing boxers?”

He grunts and asks, “Cigarette?” He holds a cigarette box.
“Dude! I'm only a kid! I can't believe you're actually a dad…dads don't offer kids cigarettes.”

He rolls his eyes and mumbles, “Whatever.” He walks away. I turned around. Macy was gone. I guess she was too nervous to think about pounding me while a parent was around.

-SEVEN-

“Alex!” I heard a whisper. “Alex!”

“Hello?” I ask. “Who is it?” I looked over the corner wall and found a girl who's probably about ten years old. “Hey, I know how jerky Andy was to you.”

“Yeah, he was jerky at first and disgusting at the end, if you know what I mean,” I tell her.
She laughs. “I know. I was following you the whole time,” she explains.

“You were? Why?” I ask. I was pretty curious about why she was following me. I mean, I wouldn't have followed a complete stranger-well, unless it's important.

“Andy was complaining about you the whole night! If you look in his room, you can see insults about you written on the walls. So I was curious. I wondered if you were that bad. And it turns out that you're so cool! You really have an awesome attitude. I wish I can stand up on my brother like you do.”

I felt pretty awkward. In a good way. I mean, there's a girl out in the world who really appreciates me! “I know your brother?” I ask her.

“Yeah. He's Andy.”

“Aw…you have to survive a life with him…hah! At least I'm safe,” I mutter sarcastically.

. “Did you know that Andy has an evil brother who lives on planet Mars?”

I squint at her.

“Never mind.”

She holds out her hand. “I'm Madison. Madison Slalom.”

“And I'm-”

“I know. Alexandra Lanes…or Alex.”

I played with my fingers for a few minutes and then I ask Madison, “What's the date today? When's the New Year?”

Madison grins and says, “We have school tomorrow. And the next day, we don't have school! New Years day!”

“Awesome! Gotta go!” I wave at her. “See-ya!” I ran downstairs and another floor downs until I got to the door where you go in and out.

I snuck out quietly.

I walked home alone, and by the time I got into bed, it was already nine o'clock in the afternoon. Wow. So much for a party.

I quickly race onto my bed and began to sleep. That morning, when I went to school, I just had an awkward feeling. Like something exciting, plus bad, would happen.

I ran all the way to Lila—she was at her locker—and whisper, “What's up with this school? It seems really empty!”

Lila laughs and says, “Well…..You should really read the school papers more often, Alex.”

“Huh?” I ask her. “Why…?”

Lila closes her locker and slaps a purple paper pinned to her locker. “You see? They pinned these papers all over the school! Didn't they pin a paper on your locker?”

I glance at my locker and saw the paper. “Uh……yeah, but I don't read them.”

“Why?”

“Once, a teacher forced me to read them and you should've seen my face. I was drooling.”

Lila cracks up when I showed her the face I was like. I was tipping my head to the side, drooling.

I wipe my mouth with my sleeves and asks, “So, aren't you going to tell me where the other students are?”

She shrugs and says, “They're all in the cafeteria. You know? The school assembly?”

“Oh! So why aren't you there?”

She shrugs again. “My teacher ordered me to do something so, you know, I was kinda busy.”

“Well, you're done now so let's go!” I scream and while we're racing down to the lunchroom, we were talking and saying, “You're going down!”

I raced in first, screaming, “Yea! I win!” I pump my hands in the air and started to sing, “Oh yeah, oh yeah, Alex won, Alex won!”

Lila came in, all out of breath. She bends down and puts her hands on her knees and breathed.

I looked around and there everyone was, staring at us with total disgust.

Lila comes up and says, “Don't stare at her! Do you guys know who she is? The famous detective, Alexandra Lanes!” and Rena jumps in and adds, “So stop staring at her.”

So there I was, with Lila's hand on one of my shoulder and Rena holding on the other.

I was pretty embarrassed. Detective? They've got to be kidding! I mean, I don't want to be popular.

Naira Jenzy comes up to me with her best friend, Cilia, and says in disgust, “And like I'd believe that?” In every word she says, she was moving her shoulders up and down.

I stare at her. And then Rena, Lila, and I started moving our shoulders up and down, and while that, I say, “Oh, your pumping shoulders up and down would look cool for dancing,” and I add in, “In the Revolutionary time.”

Rena whispers, “That's in the eighteen hundreds,” and I whisper back to her, “Whatever.”

I started to do the robot dance and I added the “Pumping Shoulders” move in it. “Ooh, look, I'm pumping my-ow! I think I cracked my shoulder. Bring me to the hospital!”

Mr. Mortis, our vice-principal, clears his throat. “Ahem.”

We all look at him. He was on the stage. “Can we continue? Alexandra, Lila, I'm very glad you had just joined our assembly-but next time, don't disturb anybody. Got it?”

I shrug. “Yeah. Whatever.” And mutter to Lila and Rena, “In the eighteen hundreds.”
Lila and Rena giggles behind me.

I sat down on the chair and say to Mr. Mortis, “So, continue on with your little show.”

Mr. Mortis stares at me. “Are you really that excited about all this?”

“Um, no, actually not. Take all your time, Mr. Mortis. You're wasting most of my periods, but hey, that's a completely good thing, right?”

Mr. Mortis clears his throat and says, “Well…..I was just talking about the camp and-”

“Camp?” I scream. “Cool!”

Mr. Mortis blinks at me.

I walk up to him and pat his back. “You know what? I am so glad you're camping. Uh….not that I'm happy you're not going to be in school for a while. I just think you're working so much that…..you should take a hike.”

Mr. Mortis tells me to sit back in my chair, and what's the chance? I did it.

Mr. Mortis continues, “Well, I'm not the only person who's going camping.”

“Awesome…!” I interrupt again. “You mean all the teachers are going camping?” I scream. “No school!” I shoot my hands up in the air.

Mr. Mortis says sharply, “Alexandra, stop interrupting.”

I mutter to Rena and Lila, “He almost called me something he never called me before—Alex…”

Mr. Mortis snaps, “Alexandra, stop talking or I'll tape your mouth!”

I slap my stomach, throw my head back and laugh. “Ha, ha, ha! Isn't that just the funniest joke he ever said?”

Everyone stares at me again. I clear my throat and tell him, “I won't speak anymore. Really.”

Mr. Mortis says, “In fact, every student in this school will go camping. Starting tomorrow. We'll be camping for a few days.”

When the last bell rang, I go up to Lila and Rena and tell her, “I can't believe it! It's kind of like no school tomorrow!”

Rena starts to laugh. “I know! That's one great thing about going camping.”

When I got home, I packed three T-shirts, two long jeans, and that's practically it. Of course, I'm always wearing my blue slash green slip-in shoes.

The next day, when our whole school got outside and walked one mile far into the forest, well, we set up our camps. Rena was out because of some reason. I didn't know why. And about the worst thing ever happened. I had to sleep in a tent with—

“Andy Slaloms, Alexandra. Andy Slaloms. Don't make me repeat that again.”

-EIGHT-

I set up the tent alone and went inside. I wrap my arms around my leg. It was pretty cold and by the time Andy was in the tent, it had rained and the teachers had warned everyone not to get out of our tents when it's raining.

He sat down. I scooted further away from him. “Don't come any closer. Don't even touch me!” I warn him.

He squints at me. “Why…? I'm not, like, a lusty lover. You sure act like I am.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “Huh? Wait—first you were really mean to me and then you're just disgusting and now....you're just mean as before.”

“Oh gosh, did my twin brother meet you at any chance?”

“Twin brother? I think-I think so. I think he's the one who's been flirting all day!”

“Flirting?” he cries. “Flirting! Don't tell me if he likes you……Does he like you?”

I roll my eyes. “Like, duh…!”

He sighs loudly. “My brother is such a lover—I swear he's been dating every single girl in his class. I can't believe he'd like you.”

“Why…?”

He shot me a look. “Because you're evil. I repeat, evil!”

“Hey. If you watched a video of how you act each day, then I bet you'd regret saying that for life!” I mutter.

He growled angrily at me and since I don't want him to start picking fights, I tried to change the subject. Peacefully.

“So…What's your brother's name?” I ask. “Andrew? Something around the range of Andy?”

He mutters, “His name is Andy.”

I stare at him for a long time and then I threw back my head and laughed. “Oh, gosh! For a minute, I thought you were serious!” and I started to crack up again. I slap my leg. “Hey, you're pretty funny when you're acting serious, you know that?”

He stares at me for the longest time and I stopped. “Wait… Don't tell me you're really serious.”

He just shrugs. That's all. He holds out a wrapped piece of candy. “Cough drop?” he asks.

I bit lips and shake my head. “No way. Wait a second….The disgusting Andy said the same thing! Are you sure you're really not Andy…? The mean one?”

“I'm Andy! Okay? Not the gross Andy. The…Nice-”

“Mean,” I tell him.

“Whatever. The `Mean' Andy.”

There's something suspicious about Andy. Andy One and Andy Two. (Andy One is the mean one and Andy Two is the gross one, if you're wondering.) I mean, I remembered seeing a cough drop wrapper in the trophy….and I can see that Andy One and Andy Two's family has a lot of cough drops. Definitely.

“Alexandra! Alexandra!”

I crawled out of the tent and there's Mr. Mortis, running at me, waving his hands everywhere. “You got a phone call!”

I ran to him and tell him, “Well, who is it?”

Mr. Mortis scratches his head and answers, “I-I think it's Rena.”

“Rena?” I bolted to the Quarters Tent where the office is. The phone was still on and I grabbed it. “Rena? What? What is it?”

First there was a long pause but then Rena whispers, “Car-Carrie. It's Carrie. She's major ill, Alex. Seriously.”

“No! You're kidding!” I cry. “No wait, how come I'm so emotional? I shouldn't be sad. I mean, she's my mom but, you know how mean she is. She doesn't even know I'm her daughter.”

“But you should still meet her, Alex. I mean, if it wasn't for her, you'd probably never exist!”

And that's all she had to say because I ran to Mr. Mortis and tell him, “I need to go home! My mom is seriously ill!” And I finally told him the truth about my mom. I mean, whenever I speak about my mom, I'm lying because my pretend-mom is always Lila's older sister, Jason.

Anyway, Mr. Mortis thought about it for a few minutes and then decided it was alright for me. “Just make sure you come back!” he warns. “Or you'll be in big trouble.”

When he walks away, I mouth, Or you'll be in big trouble-big deal! I'm used to detention.

I didn't know the way while I was running so I asked people for directions. I looked around to make sure the Liard St. sign is nearby. But what did I see instead?

A store called MR. AND MRS. SLALOM'S COMPANY FOR JOY! You recognize it? Because I sure did. And I decided, hey, it won't hurt to just drop by, right? So I went in and what did I see? Tons and tons of boxes.

Filled with cough drops.

-NINE-

I knew Andy One and Andy Two's mom and dad had owned a cough drop factory. So that meant Andy One, Andy Two, and their mom and dad had something to do with the cough drops. I don't know why they're so obsessed with it—I mean, think about it! Both Andy One and Andy Two had offered me cough drops as if cough drops are normal everyday candies. Even though it's actually some kind of medical sucking candy!

I finished my way to Mrs. Larson's house. Carrie is awkwardly my homeroom's teacher's sister if you can believe that. I've been to Mrs. Larson's house before—when I was spying on Carrie but that is totally a different story.

I knocked on the door. After six knocks, Mrs. Larson opens the door. She squints at me. “Alexandra? What are you doing here?” she asks.

I shrug and tell her, “How is Carrie doing? Is she getting better…?”

“Oh. You knew about it? Carrie's—well, no, actually no. She's not doing that well. She's coughing like mad! Alexandra, you really have some surprises in you, you know that?”

“Huh?”

“I didn't know you'd be so concerned about Carrie.”

I laugh a little and ask her, “Well, if she gets even sicker, then maybe I'll drop by with some medicine.”
And I can tell Mrs. Larson was just about to ask me why I actually cared about Carrie but I decided it'd be better if I kept my mouth shut. So how do I stop her from asking me all those questions? Answer: Run off before she can ask me. So that's what I did and once I ran all the way back to camp, it had started to pour and I could have sworn I saw a strike of lightning hit a tree on my way over.

The teachers decided the tents won't keep the lightning away so they told us we had to pack up and jump on a bus to go back home. And that's what we did.

I told Lila everything I know about the Slalom's and what I think about the family and she suggests, “Maybe you should spend more time with the Slalom's so you can know more about them…?”

“You know what? That's a really good idea! So where do we start off?”

And before Lila can suggest something else, it was Lila's stop and I decided that it wouldn't hurt to check her house out. Besides, I always bring my cat, Ranger, to Lila's house to play when I'm going to school.

So I got off the bus with Lila and there's Rena, waiting on the side of the porch. “Hey—you guys!” she calls and waves her hands in the air. “Over here!”

So we huddled together, thinking of a plan of how I can spend more time with the Slalom's without them thinking suspiciously about me.

And when Lila gave me the I-have-an-idea look, I almost puked. Because the look on her face, I tell you, it did not look good.

“Maybe you should go on a date with Andy,” Lila says.

“With Andy One because the way you explained me about Andy Two just makes me barf!”

“No way!” I hiss. “Never.” I laugh. “Not in a lifetime.”

“But that'd be so cool!” Rena insists. “I mean, you keep telling us how much you like to play pranks on people! Now's your chance!”

“Yeah!” Lila jumps in. “You really want him to be heartbroken, right?”

I shrug and tell her, “Yeah. Yeah, I guess.”

“So what if he actually likes you?” Lila went on. “And when you're done gathering enough information about the Slaloms, then you just dump him! And that'll break his heart so bad.”

“That'd definitely happen,” Rena insists. “Just do it!”

And all of a sudden, Naira walks out from out of nowhere. “I think that's a good ideal,” she tells me.

What does she mean? She actually wants me to go out with Andy One? I thought she wanted him all for herself! And now she's insisting me to go out with him! This is just too scary. “What'd you mean? Are you serious?” I ask her.

Naira sighs and sits down on the porch right next to me. “Well,” she lets out a big huff, “I asked him out be he refused to go out with me. And let me tell you, no one refuses to do something when I ask them to. And let's just say we have a little revenge together, okay? We'll both have something we want! I'll have my revenge and you'll have the info.”

I couldn't talk for a very long time.

“Hey. Let's just put it this way, alright? I dare you to go out with him.”

I shake my head and stand up. “No way. The plan's off.”

“What!” she screams. She stands up, too. “You scared?” she hisses.

I gave her a bad look and tell her, “No! The plan is on!”

-NINE-

Rena, Lila, and Naira helped me make a script of what to say to Andy. It was the first and probably the last time Naira ever helped me with something. Sometimes she helps me and is actually nice to me, but she's only doing that so I can trust her—she actually had set me up! But now I know more. I never got my revenge on her but hey, now she's helping me with something. I don't even know why I care so much about getting the Slalom's info. Just because something suspicious is going on. Maybe because I want to catch the thief who stole the trophy. I mean, the cops can actually believe that I stole the trophy and then I'm in major trouble. They'll be calling my parents—even though no one's my real parents—and when the finally figure out that I'm parentless, then, they'll send me to the foster's home.

The next day in school, I talked to Lila and Rena about how nervous I was about asking Andy One out. But then I stopped because there he is, walking right by.

Lila and Rena gives me the signal to ask him out right now so I gulped hard and walked ran after him. “Hey, Andy One!”

He stopped and turned to me with an eyebrow up. “Who's Andy One?”

“You!” I tell him. I look down and sigh. “Look,” I tell him and look up, “I only call you Andy One because you're the mean Andy….I think…no wait a second—are you the mean one or the gross icky one?”

“The gross and icky one? Oh, that's my brother. Andy. Or whatever you call him. So, what's up? You here to `accuse' me of something I didn't do? Go ahead. I'm not afraid.”

“No…” I tell him. I glance at Rena and Lila and they're winking at me, giving me the thumbs-up. I gave them back the you're-lucky-you-don't-have-to-do-this! look.

Andy One bends over and took one look at Lila and Rena and mutter, “They your friends?”

I nod. “Yeah.”

“So whad'ya want?” he asks.

“Um…Are you—are you free on…Saturday?”

Andy laughs and rolls his eye. In a mean way. “You're asking me out? No way!”

I shrug and tell him, “Fine, have it your way. I don't care,” and just when I was about to walk into homeroom, he stops me and tells me, “Hey. I'm free. I'll meet you at Falling Food? Great. See ya!” before I even got to say, “Whatever.”

On Saturday night, I got things ready. Andy picked me up in a huge black van. And all I'm thinking is, stay away from that freaky guy!

“Okay, off to Falling Food!” Andy One booms at the driver. The driver had earphones on and yet, he can still hear Andy One. He looks at me like, impressive, huh? And I tell him, “Yeah, its impressive if you lose the booming, ya got it?”

When we got to Falling Food, I sat down at a table far away from other tables so people wouldn't see me very well.

“Did'ya know on Saturday nights there's always a dance at Falling Food?” Andy One asks.

And all I'm thinking is, why does it have to be Saturday night? Why? I shake my head. “No, and I don't want to dance.”

“Aw…come on.” He was just about to put his arm around my waist when I tell him, “Don't, don't, don't!”

“What's wrong?” he asks.

“Uh….my waist is…..fake.” I patted my waist cheerfully. “Yeah. And I won't have another surgery until next year.”

He held my hand but I yanked off. “And did I tell you that….my hand has…stitches? It is horrifying, I tell you. It has blood and it has—”

“Stop! I don't wanna know!” he says and puts hand up. “So is there…any part of you body that's—you know—available?”

“My hair? Too bad only one piece of hair is available,” I tell him and pull one hair out and gave it to him. “Take good care of my hair, you got it? Let's just sit down and talk…without touching each other. I heard we could get a disease by that. Do you want to have a disease?”

“No!”

“Okay, then. Let's talk!” I started messing around with the macaroni like making faces and stuff. I made a picture of Andy One getting hit by a bomb. I grinned at the macaroni picture and looked up at Andy One.

His jaws was dangling in the air and he was giving me the, Who is that? look.

I looked down and shrugged. I mean, why should I tell him that that was him?

The night went by long. I couldn't stand him making insulting jokes (that were boring) about Andy Two.

I left the store quickly and bolted to my house to get a good night sleep.

The next day, we didn't have school because it was pouring out. There's still a thunderstorm. But it was pretty cool how the storm ended right after school was supposed to start. And the principle wasn't allowed to send the kids back to school after the real time school started, if you know what I mean.

I stormed out of the house, on my way to Lila's because I was bored, but that was when a limousine pulled up in front of me—even though I was on the sidewalks—and out stepped ol' Andy One. He smiles. “Hey, I was on my way around the whole town to find you. I wanted to tell you that my mom and I—we're going to be busy watching the new clowns we hired for our next party.”

I frown. “Ne-ne-next party?” I ask. “How many parties are you planning, anyway?”

He shrugged. “Just a lot. So if you're thinking about meeting me, I'm busy. See ya!” he says and gives me a thumbs-up. He hops in the limousine.

I watched the limousine drive off the street and before I knew it, it was just a piece of dot.

I smiled slyly and held up a walky-talky and pressed the `TALKY' button and say, “I have an idea. Over.”

I heard some breathing noises through the sound-screen and heard Lila say, “Really? Cool. Over.” And then Rena says, “That fast? Okay, uh, meet you all at Alex's house? Over.”

And so Lila and I say at the same time, “Sure. Over.”

I jogged back to my house and waited on the porch the whole time. It only took five minutes for Lila to ride over to my house with her new bike.

It took Rena, like, twenty minutes. Since she lives sort of far away and walking isn't exactly some verb that I'd call fast.

“Hey, Lila. Hey, Rena.”
We huddled up while I told them my plan.

Rena laughs. “Are you sure? I mean, how would you find that costume?” We both turned our heads to Lila.

Her eyes almost popped out as she pointed at herself with two hands, asking, “Me?”

I laid my hands on my hips, squinting at her. “Well, you don't have to. I mean, if me and Rena didn't have it, you probably won't have it, either.”

“Well, you see,” Lila explains, moving her hands up and down as she talked, “my mom and dad never really bought me that. First of all, I didn't even want it. I mean, who would want to wear something so…ugly? No offense, if you like it. And besides, if my mom and dad would let me buy it, I don't think they'll let you borrow it. My parents are like that—all strict and—”

“Lila!” Rena puts a hand in her face. “Stop talking. If you don't have it, that's okay. You don't have to throw random facts about you in!”

I laugh. “True.”

And then, a big idea popped into my head. It shifted all around my brain. And I knew that if something shifted around my head, I had to do it.

And in this sort of way, I'm talking about a big idea.

Evil, sneaky, unprotected, and worst of all—risky.

-TEN-

“Oh, no, Alex. I know that look,” Lila says and backs away. “And I have a feeling I know what it is.”

“Me too,” Rena sighs.

I shrug. “Well, that's all I can think of! I mean, if I have big ideas, I can't stop it! I have to do it! No matter how much I don't want to do it or how much I want to do it, I end up doing it anyway.”

“Alex, Alex, Alex,” Lila says, as she shake her head five times. She puts a hand on my shoulder. “We'll help you. Right, Rena?” She glances at Rena.

She shrugs, nodding.

“And, Alex.” Lila puts another hand on my shoulder. So now I was standing right in front of her while she was resting her hands on my shoulder. “We'll disturb you all day long. We won't let you out of our sight. And trust me—if we keep a sharp eye on you, you wouldn't do it!”

I shrug. “I guess…”

“Hey, do you want to walk around town? Or jog?”

“Yeah, sure,” I tell her and waved her hands out of my shoulder. I ran up the sidewalk, calling, “Come on, Rena! We're going around the town!”

Rena ran up to me, laughing. Lila ran up to me, too. We jogged down five blocks and turned. By the time we were actually where all the shops where—like Mary's Market, Carl Wash, the Hair Dory, Raymond's Rock'n'Roll Music, Barnaby Books, Movie Moves (the movie theatre), Shinin' Clothes, and, like, way more but those are the shops that I usually hang around most.

“Ooh…! Barnaby Books! Maybe we should go there! I mean, I have this really awesome book I'm reading at school but too bad I left it on my desk. I'm sure its at Barnaby Books!” Rena screams, jumping up and down.

“Okay. Let's just stop by—but only for a few minutes, okay?” Lila warns, “My feet are so sore! The bus will be here in about a couple of hours.”

I looked around and saw Naira. She was hanging around the Hair Dory, which was weird. I mean, she barely ever go to the Hairy Dory. Well, yeah, I've seen her at the Hairy Dory before but that was probably because a lot of people were crowding and going in the Hair Dory so she was just probably checking the place out. But this time, by the way she kept glancing at her wristwatch, it seems like she was waiting for a person. I looked all around to see if a person around Naira's age was walking by.

“Alex! Alex! Come on!” Lila cries, as she held out her hand. There was a huge mob of people rushing right past us. And before I knew it, Lila and Rena were gone—just out of sight by the people. I wondered where they went. I laughed at the thought of the people and how they might accidentally push Lila and Rena with them because they were all in a hurry.

But just because I laughed at a stupid thought doesn't mean I'm not worried because I'm plenty worried. I mean, what if the people actually kidnap Lila and Rena?

Nah, I thought, that wouldn't happen. That couldn't happen! Kidnapping isn't common in Lariat. Seriously.

And then, all of a sudden, my feet starting moving. Walking. All the way to Shinin' Clothes. I couldn't stop myself. And before I knew it, I was rummaging through all the racks until I found it—a costume of a clown.

I quickly stuffed it in my shirt and started walking around in a panic.

People started staring at me.

I stared at them back. “What? Can't a fat teenager get any privacy around here?” I ask them. I started to rub my stomach. “You know what I had for breakfast? A soda, three bowls of… cereal, six tacos, four pizzas—and I mean a whole pizza—and—” and I was still talking about everything I had (fake-ly) ate until I was at the door, getting ready to go out. When I stepped into the fresh air, I couldn't believe what I just did. I actually stole a costume. I ran around the corner and pushed the costume out from under my shirt and started checking everywhere for the label. I found it and held it up in the light: $89.99. I couldn't believe it. Ninety dollars? I wanted to scream at the costume, “You've got to be kidding!” But I didn't.

I started to have an idea to just return it before anyone notices until I spotted Naira looking right at me. She had a suspicious sign written all over her face as if she knew what I was doing.

I run up to her, asking, “Why are you staring at me?”

She turns her head sideways and then looks back at me. “You didn't just steal something, did you?”

-ELEVEN-

At first, my throat was all dry and I couldn't think of anything to say. I wanted to tell the truth but then again, I wouldn't say anything to a bragger anymore I would say to the cops. So I just held it up to her face, saying, “Well, I just got it. Okay?” I didn't really feel so good after I just lied. I mean, I lie a lot. I lie each day about five times, I guess. But this time, its big news. Something I could get in jail from.

I decided to shut up and just ignore every single word everyone says to me.

So I quickly ran off to the Barnaby Books where I thought Lila and Rena might be. I searched around for a long time. A hand touched my back and I was so surprised, I leaped up, probably about fifty feet? Fine, maybe not. But its close to that far.

“Alex…? Are you okay? You don't look too good.”

It was Lila and Rena.

“Oh, hi…” I say, forcing on a smile, as I lean against the wall as if nothing ever happened. “I'm okay. Really,” I say and I was just about to add in, “Not!” but I stopped myself just in time.

So now what? I had the costume. The thing I needed. But I felt like I couldn't use it. That if it wasn't mine, then I shouldn't even be touching it. I started thinking that right after we leave the Barnaby Books, I'll just go back to Shinin' Clothes and return it. But that wasn't really how I'd imagine it would go.

I had the clown costume right behind my back.

“Uh…what's that?” Rena asks, leaning over me to see what it is. “Ooh! A clown costume! Where'd you get that? Did you buy it? Find it?”

I just shrugged. That's all.

Rena took that shrug as a, “I found it.”

“Where'd you find it?” she asks. “On the street?”

“Hey! Maybe you should do your plan!” Lila says. “This will be so cool!”

And before I could say, “Uh, no. I need to go,” they pushed me right into the dressing room and started dressing me. They didn't take my clothes off or anything—they just pulled the costume over my clothes.

And before I knew it, they started painting my face. Lila found an old painting can that was supposed to be used for the walls.

I felt really heavy in the costume. I started to walk in the direction of the door, but I fell down. I looked up at Rena and Lila and tell them, “This is hopeless!” I pointed at my stomach. “It's too big! Jeez, Rena, how much paper towels did you put in there?”

Rena took that as a joke and slapped my shoulder, laughing.

“Hey, that hurts,” I tell her.

She stopped laughing and cleared her throat. “Um…I think about forty…?”

I sighed. “This'll be a very long afternoon.”

-TWELVE-

They helped me sneak into the Slalom's house. It took a very long time for Rena to use her old trick to break doorknobs. At first, I suggested to just break the door down like we did in Maine because I knew how bad Rena is at doorknob-breaking. And even Lila thought karate chopping the door was better than the doorknob-breaking plan. But we decided to give Rena three more chances and at the third try, Rena did. She actually did it! It wouldn't be so exciting and surprising for you but it is for us.

And in case you're wondering, we usually do these things—breaking doorknobs (and doors), trespass other people's property, and stuff.

I snuck inside and held out my walky-talky, waving it in the air which means, Do you have your walky-talky? They waved their walky-talkies in the air, grinning. So they closed the door and I was all alone. I gave a quick dive at the bathroom door when I heard footsteps.

I heard Mrs. Slalom, saying, “No, no, no. That's not how you're supposed to tell jokes!”

I knew she was talking to one of the clowns.

I snuck upstairs and peeked in the room where I heard Mrs. Slalom ordering the clowns to say the right jokes.

I held out my walky-talky and pressed the button while I whisper into it, “I'm at the door, getting ready to make my move. Got it? Over.”

Rena and Lila say, “Got it. Over.”

I pushed the walky-talky in my pocket around my pants. But each time I pushed it in, it would just pop right back out. At the tenth try, it still didn't work. I mutter, “I bet Rena stuffed more than forty paper-towels around me.” And then I started wondering if Rena actually stuffed the paper-towels in my butt. I shook that idea off. I knew the paper-towels just fell right down around my bottom.

I walked in the room, saying in a low voice, “Hey, what's up, clowns? I'm a clown, too. Sorry I'm late.”

Mrs. Slalom looks at me, all confused. “I thought I only hired two clowns.”

“Uh…you did! I'm just a….backup if anyone gets hurt,” I tell her.

Mrs. Slalom took one look at the other clowns and says, “Bomber and Louis aren't hurt.”

I walked right behind a big bushy clown and kicked him right in the leg. He fell down, squealing, “My leg is gone! My leg is gone!” He looks at his leg. “Nope. My legs aren't gone.”

I look at Mrs. Slalom, grinning. “Well, now a clown's hurt.” I tried to push the My-Leg-Is-Gone Clown but he was pretty heavy for an old man. And before I knew it, I was sitting on top of him, saying, “Move that way, old man. No, that way. Are you deaf? I said, that way. To the right!” and when he finally pushed towards the right side—which took hours—I suck my cheeks in and squeak, “Sorry, I'm not so good with lefts and rights.” And he knew what that meant.

He started moving towards the left—where the door was—and then I shooed him off. But it took a long time for him to make it downstairs so I had to call the emergency room and order some people to carry him home.

I turned to Mrs. Slalom. She was squinting at me. “Uh, Andy, dear? Can you come here? Do you know this unexpected clown?”

I started running around the room, thinking about where I should hide.

And then the bed just popped in my mind.

I bolted to the bed and hid myself under the sheets.

I peeked out to see a big butt getting ready to squish me. I started moving my head and by the time my head was where me feet used to be, I heard a huge crack as the butt sat on my feet. And to tell you, I get pretty mad when someone cracks my finger or toes or anything! And in this case, it was my toes that made the cracking sound.

So I sat straight up from the bed and whoever just sat on me just flew to the floor. He didn't just fall—he flew. I'm talking five feet high from the floor and ten-second lasting in the air.

And who was he?

Andy. Andy One.

-THIRTEEN-

I quickly hid behind the big ol' clown. The clown that was left alone with me. And Mrs. Slalom and Andy One.

“Wait, who are you?” Andy One asks.

I couldn't just ignore him. I had to do something. The first thing that hit my mind was the clown's hair. Now, I'm expecting he'd cry out, “She pulled my hair out!” but did he?

No.

Instead, when I pulled on his hair, he just stood there as if nothing happened—as if he didn't feel it. So he was still staring at Andy One at that point.

I held the wig up to my face.

“Whoa, dude, you look familiar!” Andy One says.

“Of course! I came to your birthday party!”

“I thought I only invited…kids around my age.”

I paused. I was getting pretty embarrassed until something hit my head. “What—kids your age can't have beards?” I scream right at his face.

The clown takes one look at me and laughs. “Whoa….I can't believe you just grew a beard, man…! I mean, it took me, like, five years to grow a hairy beard like that. It only took you, like, a minute!”

I stared at him as if he had brain damage. People these days actually believe a kid could grow a beard in one minute?

Please.
The clown rubs his chin. “Only too bad my wife made me shave my beauty beard right off.” He laughs. “I could have sworn, women were staring at me in a very attractive way…Oh, how I miss my beauty beard…!”

“Well, maybe women stared at you in disgust…thinking, `Oh, who would wanna marry that hairy chimpanzee?'” I mutter to myself. It was pretty funny 'cause when I was muttering about the “women thinking” part, I was saying that in a high (funny) womanlike voice.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

The clown starts rubbing his head and when he finally figured out that his wig was gone, he just started waving his hand frantically, smacking the air. He was about to hit me, but I knew better than that—I ducked out of the way. Too bad Andy One was so “oh-I'm-so-cool-I-should-just-stand-still-while-the-clown-whacks-me&# 8221; that he didn't even duck.

A silver watch just snaps from the clown's wrist and it fell and hit the glass floor.

He screams.

And faints.

When Mrs. Slalom finally got the clown to wake up, she tells him, “The watch broke. If you'd like, I'll keep it down in the basement for my silver collection.”

He checks the watch over and sure enough, it's broken. So he lets Mrs. Slalom keep his watch for her silver collection.

I didn't really find out much about the Slaloms' information. Too bad for me, right? I mean, I tried so hard and what did I find out? That I should've never gone to their house and spy on them in the first place. That's some pretty hot info, huh? NOT!

The next day was boring. Really boring. There wasn't anything to do—except watch stupid old shows on TV. I was getting pretty lonely—of course, I had Ranger, but he was asleep—and then I thought about visiting Lila and Rena.

So I got up from the sofa and ran outside. It was a nice, warm day—a day that was totally rare in Lariat. Nowadays, it's really cold. Trust me. Winter was cold but it hardly ever snows. And how long's it been cold? Oh, simple: since Halloween. And I'm not lying.

I ran along the sidewalks until I reached Lila's house. As usual, Rena was over, sitting in Lila's porch, talking to her.

I wonder if Rena lives there. Probably.

“Hey, Rena. Hey, Lila. What's up?”

“Nothing,” Lila answers, smooth and calm. “Just talkin'.”

“Oh,” I sigh and roll my eyes. “I didn't have anything to do so I just thought I could check things out—you know, see how things' doing.”

Lila and Rena both raise an eyebrow.

“Oh,” I say in amazement. To me, they're just like robots now—doing the same thing as each other. It's pretty annoying. “About last afternoon,” I sigh and sat on a chair, “it was pretty lame. It was cool and fun—I guess—but its still lame 'cause I didn't figure anything out.” I let out a huge sigh. “I'm doing things I'm not supposed to, guys. And for wrong reasons, I did it for nothing…!”

“What?” Rena asks, barely moving her lips. “What'd you do?”

So I started telling them about the point when I stole the costume—and that's when Rena starts yelling, “Oh my gosh! That is so cool!” and Lila starts screaming, “I can't believe you did that! Oh my lord!” and that was in a bad way—or at least when Lila said it—and then I started telling them what had happened at Andy One's house.

They were really laughing their teeth out at that point.

“Come on, guys,” I say and sat straight up on the chair, “it's not that funny anymore. Because right now I have to—I have to figure out what I have to do with that clown costume. Whenever I look at it, it just gives me the creeps. Seriously.”

They stopped laughing and just stares at me.

“Oh,” Rena broke down, “I—I—I don't think I can help you with that problem.”

“Same here,” Lila says as she sort of raises a hand. Then she starts playing with her fingernails again. “Maybe—maybe you should just tell the employees the truth and might forgive you…? I dunno……It's just a suggestion.”

I shrug.

And then Rena comes up with a complete opposite plan of Lila's. “Or you should just put it back without anyone seeing,” she suggests, shrugging.

“Rena,” I say, trying not to hurt her, “I don't think your plan is that good. I mean, how can I put it back? They'll have to see it! Didn't you just see the size of the costume? It's huge. I can't just hide it!”

“You got a point,” she agrees.

So come back to the store with the clown costume, folded neatly in my backpack. Rena and Lila went with me—which is almost the only good thing they ever did to me…Or at least for a very long time.

I slammed my backpack against the counter. The cashier stares at me for a very long time and finally asks, “Are you selling that thing to us? I have to break it to ya but we're not buyin' it.”

“I'm not here to sell anything,” I tell her quietly. “I'm only here to return something…something I've accidentally took without paying.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Is that so…?”

“Here, I'll show you,” I tell her and unzipped my backpack. I took out the clown costume and tell her, “I never want to see this thing again, okay? It haunts me.”

Then she raises another eyebrow so now she looks as if she just saw someone's head explodes. “If it's haunting you, I don't think we need this anymore,” she says and just tosses it into a pile of junk.

I smile. “Good.” I ran out of the store before she could scold me about what I had done. Rena and Lila followed me. “So where are we going now?” Lila asks. “It's a nice day out—I don't wanna waste my day inside.”

“Yeah, me too,” I tell her.

“Ooh…!” Rena exclaims, jumping up and down. “I know where we should go!”

Both of us turned to her with a sad expression on our faces. “Where?” we ask.

She pointed a hand up at the sky. “Falling Food!”

“Oh, no, not that place. After all that burglary stuff? No way!” I yell.

“But, Alex…!” she whines. “That fast-food store is so cool! It's got great food, drinks, and stuff!”

“But what if another big problem happens? I'm already in enough trouble!”

“Trust me, it won't happen.”

“Are you sure? Or are you only guessing?”

“Alex! Listen—how many times does that stuff happen to you?”

“Rena, they happen to me all the time.”

“Oh, yeah. Well…fine, see ya tomorrow!” She gave me her last shrug of the day and ran off to where? I don't know. Out of all the people I've known, Rena's the most mystery-ish person. Why? Because, written all around her whole body is mystery, mystery, tough, and mystery! I don't know where she lives—but I'm always finding her at Lila's house when I visit—and I have no idea how she gets food, how she gets money, how she even enters the school, and all that stuff! It's weird. Really weird.

Lila smiles at me and says, “Rena's like that, Alex. Don't worry about it. O, I'll see you at school?”

“Sure,” I say, tilting my head a little. “I'll see ya.”

At my house, I was pretty bored. Okay, I was really bored. I didn't know what to do. All I did was sit on my sofa, and stared at my TV. Too bad I was pretty much out of batteries. That's pretty much it.

When I woke up, I found Ranger sitting on my stomach. At first, I was thinking, what the booger did Ranger just do? because Ranger was looking at me with gigantic eyes and a huge sly grin written all over his head.

It was pretty obvious that Ranger peed all over my clothes while I was sleeping on the sofa.

I got up, squealing, “Eww…! Ranger!” Ranger leaped off of my stomach.

I took a long everlasting show—okay, maybe only three minutes—and then I got ready for school. There's only two and half days left of school 'till its January and we get four days off of school! Isn't that awesome? I know it is!

I walked Ranger down the street, to Lila's house to let Lila's parents baby-sit Ranger until I get home from school.

Lila was on her porch and for the first time, Rena wasn't there. That killed me, not seeing Rena there.

“So,” I ask, “where's Rena? Did she go to school early or something?”

“I don't know…” Lila shrugs. “She was sleeping over my house last night. Three hours ago, she woke me up to tell her she was leaving.”

“I wonder where she's staying.” I scratch my head. “Do you think she's at school?”

“Can be. C'mon!” She picks up two skateboards and hands one to me.

“Thanks,” I say. “After school, wanna go to the Hair Dory store?”

Lila's jaws fell open. “What…did you just say?”

I laugh. “Uh….I'm not looking for hair supplies. Just games. So, how 'bout that?”

“Sure.”

I turned around, and saw Marcus and tucked right in his hand was a baseball glove. He had a baseball and called to us, “Fetch!” and aimed the ball right at my face. Well, apparently, it did hit—my eye—and now I have to go to school with the darnest thing ever—a black eye. I fell back like a ship, sinking…and sinking…and sinking…and—okay, I gotta stop 'cause it's making me cry right now.

-FOURTEEN-

Well, it turns out that nobody really notices my black eye in school. They just thought I had a rough sleep—and I did…a really wet sleep—and just had dark bags from it. Right….bags. But there was one person who was smart enough to find out that it was a black eye. Gerry Blotsmith.

He started laughing we he saw me. “You…have…a black eye!” he declares, still laughing.

“Suck your pinky, punk!” I tell him.

He finally cools down and trust me—it took hours. “Ah…. that felt nice.”

I looked at him like he just ate dirt for breakfast.

“Sick,” I mutter and ran to Lila's locker. “Lila!”

“What?”

“Rena was here, right?”

“I think so…?”

“That's weird. And when I turned around, out popped out of nowhere came Rena.

And she scared my eyeballs out for sure. “Whoa! Rena! You could've killed me!”

Rena laughs. “My brother called this morning.”

Lila and gave her a stare that made her spill the whole story. “Wait,” I say, “your—your brother?”

“Yeah. He called Lila's house. I don't know…he told me he heard that I was at Lila's house 24/7, so he called.”

“How'd he…what? I'm still confused,” Lila says. “Who'd know that you're staying at my house? And why would anybody tell him?”

“How should I know? The good news is, he's taking me back to his new house and I'm gonna be staying there. Don't worry! I'll have fun, I guess. I just hope he has games instead of gadgets!”

We all busted up.

“Say,” Lila says, “Alex and I are going to the Hair Dory after school. Wanna come? After the Hair Dory, I am so gonna be at your brother's place. I'll call my mum and ask her if I can sleepover. Is your brother gonna be okay with that?”

“Sure!”

I smiled.

Rena and Lila both turned to me and gave me a long, Well? look.

“Okay, I'll come over too. Rena, I'm really glad that you have a place to stay at now. You don't have to find your own food anymore…wait, how do you get your food?” And for the first time, I'm asking Rena about the questions that have been haunting me ever since I met her. “Where do you sleep? Or even live? Where do you get your food her take baths or earn money or get clothes and stuff?” I ask.

Rena whispers, “Shh….! It's a secret!” and winks at us.

When school was over, we rode on our skateboards to the Hair Dory.

Once we got there, we all got quiet because we didn't want to bother any of the people. They all wore long skirts and blouses, or at least the girls, uh, females, and the men wore only sweater pants and a weird looking shirt—and trust me, they were all old. Well, only seven people were young—the clerks. Right…Teenager clerks…Imagine that…

Anyway, I went to isle 8, the kids' place. It was exactly the isle where Rena, Lila, and I gathered gadgets to hit people the last time we were here. Now that I think back to it, it looks so fun, throwing basketballs at people and even avoiding gunshots looks so fun! I'd just hope there'd be another time, well, plenty of times, where I'd be throwing balls at people again, from a different store, of course.

Rena and I checked out the toy guns—which was actually cool—while Lila was browsing at the earrings. I wanted to buy the gigantic circlet sunglasses because it really adds perfection to my head. Although Rena thought I only looked cool.

So, I ended up with five to two dollars with me buying the perfect sunglasses for one dollar, a tango skirt—I'd never plan on wearing it but I only bought it because it was funny to look at—and it costs three bucks, and then I bought a dark, almost black, brown wig which was one. Everything was on sale. Either that or it was always cheap.

Rena was lucky that her brother, Fan, wait—oh yeah, Dan, gave her twenty bucks to school and then dropped by in the afternoon to deliver her welcome-home present. Which was fifty bucks.

So she spent 11 dollars and fifty cents on a bracelet, one fifty, two pairs of earrings, four bucks, a pair of slip-ins—sorta like mine only it was navy and purple—which was five, and one red body-draw crayon which was one. The package of the red crayon says it fools parents in believing their children have chicken pox and the hard thing to imagine is, Rena believes it. I didn't tell her, though, that it said it's for 5 years of age and under. She'd just get confused and start asking me where it says that and then she'd ask the employees and stuff—big problem.

Lila didn't buy anything except those earrings she was lookin' at.

I was on my way out until I saw Mrs. Slalom and her daughter, Madison. So I tell Rena and Lila to go without me and ran to the Slaloms' and say, “Hey, what's up?” Madison crossed her arms and says, “Nothing. Just shopping, if you ever heard of that.”

“I meant, like, what are you shopping for?”

Mrs. Slalom was mostly studying the goody baskets. She tried looking like she was looking at the bowls which was next to the goody baskets but she kept glancing at the baskets which was obvious that she was embarrassed somehow of looking at it. I don't know…is the Slalom family embarrassed of shopping for goody baskets? I guess so.

“Um, Mrs. Slalom, you wanted the goody basket, didn't you?”

She looked alarmed. “No, I wasn't. I was looking at the bowls, didn't you see?” she snaps.

“Whoa, I didn't mean to be rude but I can buy it for you if you're too embarrassed to buy it. Goody baskets. They're common items. People buy it every day. What's the shame?”

I studied them. “Which one do you like, Mrs. Slalom?”

Mrs. Slalom didn't say anything for a long pause but then she finally answers, “The big round one right there!” and pointed at it.

I nod, shrugging. “A big one. That's smart.”

I was taking a long time trying to pick it out because I was deciding if I should buy it for her or not 'cause, hey, it's her business—not mine. And why should I buy something so expensive—a dollar and twenty-five cents—for a jogging old pregnant woman who I barely know and is yelling at me right now at this very moment?

But I didn't have long to think because Mrs. Slalom snatches the goody basket and shoves it in my hands, saying, “Hurry up, Alex, go!”

“Wait, wait, hold on a second. I don't have any more money. I wasted it all on my stuff. Do you have two dollars?”

She thinks about and then says, “No…”

“Five?”

“No. But I have a ten! Here, and keep the change.” She tosses a ten dollar bill in the air for me to catch it.

So I went up to the cash register and hand the goody basket to the clerk.

She checks it in while I give her ten bucks. She looked fine until she finally figures out that I gave her a ten dollar bill. “Why are you paying me ten bucks for a one twenty-five dollar basket?”

“It's a goody basket, for one, and second, what's wrong with a ten dollar bill? I'll bet you're just gonna say you don't have enough change for ten,” I laugh, rolling my eyes.

But when she didn't say anything for a long time, I say, “Oh no.” I grabbed her collar and whisper, “You have to have change for ten bucks. If you don't, I won't get to keep the change!”
“Wait, what…?”

“Never mind! Just give me change!”

“I can't do that—”

“Would you give your own money to me as change if I tell you where you can get a better job…at the…mall—?”

“Deal,” she says and hands me over eight bucks and seventy-seventy five cents. “So what's the job?”

“Do—do you know the Diamond store?”

Her eyes get wide. “Ooh…! At the Diamond store? I'll win thousands from that store—and my friends will so be jealous!”

“Uh…do you know the Locks 'il Shop?”

“Yeah! I love it! I go to it all the time!”

“How 'bout the Falling Food?”

“Yeah.”

“Azuay?”

“Yeah…”

“Canine Carp?”

“Yeah.”

“GA's Tailors?”

“Yeah.”

“Paul's Store?”

“Yeah.”

“So….there. Bye!”

“Wait, wait! Hold on a minute! Which one is it? All of them?”

“No! I told you. Paul's store. His store might not be the most popular but, hey, he's really nice! You'll make a great maid. No money-back—or whatever it's called!” I grabbed the goody basket and tossed it at Mrs. Slalom and ran out of the store. All I can hear from Mrs. Slalom is, “Thanks!”

I found Rena and Lila half asleep outside the Hair Dory. Or maybe just Lila was. She was hunched up onto Rena, so I couldn't tell whether Rena had died or not.

“C'mon, guys,” I tell them.

Well, for one thing, Rena didn't die and second, Lila was the one who almost died. On our way to my Rena's brother's house, they told me how Lila's back hurt so much on Rena's stomach that she couldn't move for a while. I thought that was pretty funny because imagining Lila had a soar back was pure genius.

Lila and I found out that Rena's brother's place that Rena is now staying at was really close to Lila's and my house. So it was like, Lila's house is in the left side and my house was on the right side while Rena's is in the middle. Pretty cool, huh? So it was neat how I can just walk up the street to see Rena and then walked even further up to see Lila.

Well, the house was big in the outside and just small in the inside. Not a bad thing, though, because the house was awesome. It had lots of snakes painted on the walls and the dining table was barely even four feet. It was only three. I can hardly believe it! Just imagine a twenty year old cop, I think, eating at a kid's table…hmm…not too easy to picture, huh? It's also not too dining. And his room is so small that the only thing you would imagine in it is a bed and a half-sized dressing drawer. Right. Uh huh. But then you put gazillion boxers everywhere on the floor and a gigantic wall-sized screen TV and video games and CDs and a computer on the dressing drawer, well, that's what you see when you look in his room. Yup. Seriously.

Anyhow, we all had dinner at six thirty and the only thing we really ate for dinner was two pancakes, a glass of water, and cheese. That's right—cheese.

But the thing I couldn't believe was, the only thing Dan had in his fridge and freezer was all the stuff we ate. That's weird, huh? So I ask him, “How come you barely have anything in your fridge? Don't you ever get tired of eating these…things?”

“I eat a lot of different food! What are you, my mom?”

Rena laughs and says, “He gets mad when someone talks about…how he should act. You know? Like Mom? I don't blame him!” She laughs again.

And in my head, all I'm thinking is, what the heck is his problem?

Okay, so, he didn't have any room for us to sleep in his bed so he asked if we wanted to sleep on the floor. But we all had to put that down because no one wants to sleep on his underpants.

So I had to sleep on his couch with Rena and Lila. It was the squishiest night of my life, crammed with two people on one small couch! We had to sit up to have enough room when we slept. But I couldn't sleep and I'm pretty sure Rena and Lila couldn't sleep either. But all I can say is, it was a long, long night.

Was it worth staying at his house?

Not a chance.

-FIFTEEN-

I woke up in the morning and don't ask me how I went to sleep because I don't know how I went to sleep. But I was pretty sure I only had five minutes to sleep.

Anyhow, when I woke up, Rena was already having breakfast. When I looked over my shoulder, I saw Lila still snuggling up on the couch.

I got up and shuffled to Rena, asking, “Hey, Rena, do you have an extra brand-new toothbrush that I could use?”

“Yeah, sure. It's in the bathroom drawer. It's purple.”

That caught my eyes awake. “Purple?”

Rena laughs. “I know. But it's better than pink, right?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” I mutter. When I looked back, Lila was already walking to the bathroom. I ran to catch up with her. She couldn't decide whether she should use the purple one or the pink one because she hates those colors, too, like me. But I told her she can use the pink one because pink is not my color. Same with purple but it's better than looking at myself in the mirror, scrubbing hot pinkness all over my teeth.

But I got over that stuff and brushed my teeth really fast and had a late breakfast.

“Uh oh,” Dan says to me, when he opens the fridge up. “I think we're all outta food. Can you manage water?”

“Oh my…..well, don't you at least have milk and bread?”

“N—no…”

“Fine, pour me five cups of water.” I gave in a loud sigh.

“Guess what?” Rena asks.

“What?” Lila and I both say.

“I just found out that Mr. Hessian's retiring. I don't know why…he doesn't even look old. I don't think he is. He's probably only thirty or something. Young for a teacher, ya'know?”

“Wait, Mr. Hessian?” Lila asks. “I heard he's the third to youngest teacher. That's crazy. Why?” She slurps a bit from her cup.

“Well, it's not exactly retiring but they just call it that. He's only gonna be away for three months. Maybe more. I think it's because he has to take care of his kids.”

“Kids?” I ask.

“Yeah. His wife's off to Hawaii.”

Lila rolls her eyes. “Wouldn't she be at home taking care of the kids instead of surfing up at Hawaii? That's just dumb.”

“Dumb?” I tell her. “It's stupid. He should get a divorce with her for acting like a nineteen year-old. I bet she's planning on making out with twenty year-olds in Hawaii right now.”

Lila busts up at that joke but I couldn't tell whether Rena's really grinning or not.

“I heard his wife is nineteen years old. Either that or eighteen. I'm not sure.”

Lila and I stared at her and then at each other.

Why are we talking about this? Because. We tell each other everything. And after we talk about them, we start talking about everything else connected to it. It's just a little tradition we do after we heard a huge gossip.

Anyway, the bad thing is, I pretty much figured out that wh-en we got outside, everything was cool and all, but on our way to Lila's house, it just started raining for some reason—pouring, act-ually. So, yeah. As things didn't get bad enough, all of a sudden, a black cat scuttled by. At first, we didn't say anything but after five minutes of staying still in horror, we all started screaming. It's not like we believe in those voo-doos. It's just that, it might really give us bad luck so there's really a point of believing it.

Now, a black cat ran by, it started pouring, and now what else that's bad to find? That's easy. Super easy.

We ran to Lila's house in one horrific second, and then, just then, Lila nearly faints.

“What's wrong?” I ask. “What, you're still not over that black cat thing?”

“No! We can't get in the house! Read my lips guys—there…is …no…key…”

“WHAT?” we all shout.

So we ended up sitting on her porch for nearly two hours when Rena asks, “Hey, why can't we just go back to my house or maybe Alex's house?”

“Sure. If we have the key to your bro's place or even my p-lace,” I tell her.

She squints at me. “…What…?”

“Nothing,” I gasp. “We don't have any key to any of our houses. So…where's your brother at again?”

“Oh,” Rena laughs, half rolling her eyes, “my brother's at some `cop' meeting. I know. It's weird. But it's gonna, like, happen every single day so I might as well get used to it.”

“Aw…that's too bad,” Lila coos, giggling a bit. She sighs and stomps on her porch. “Unless, maybe, we go to…”

-SIXTEEN-

“So, explain me why you guys are here again?” Marcus asks.

“Don't ask,” I tell him. “Long story.”

Rena laughs. “Not really…”

So Lila starts spilling him in on every single thing that happened between four o'clock to now. And every time and then, Marcus would go, “Okay,” as if he's sorta bored, kinda interested, and most likely about to fall asleep. But then Lila would go, “Yeah,” after he says, “Okay,” and then Lila gets back into her story.

If I would've known Lila better, I would pull Lila back and not let her tell the story because every single time she's explaining something—or tell a story—she actually takes a pretty long time because then their come the explanation—or story—but right after that, she talks about something else and because of her wide eyes, the way she's really wanting to tell the story, well, we don't really stop her from talking.

So instead of pulling her away, I tell her, “Sure, tell him,” and that started the whole thing.

The whole time Lila was explaining, Rena was pretty much watching a one hour and a half movie. But she only watched half of it when Lila was finally talking about another story about the other time when she saw a black cat and how all the bad things that had happened after that.

Marcus gasps and says, “Okay, um, so, yeah, sure. I'll let you guys stay until Danny comes back. Maybe longer. But they're coming soon.”
“Who?” we all ask at the same time.

“Didn't I tell you just now? Oh wait, I forgot—I was too busy listening to Lila.”

“Well...? Who's coming over, Mark?” Lila asks. (And yeah, she calls him Mark.)

“Otis. And Gerry. Oh, and Keith and Reed, too.”

“Okay, did you say Otis? Like, I mean, Otis-Otis? You know, the one with blonde—”

“Yeah. Him. Why? I'm pretty sure you all know him—right? Or at least, like, remember him?”

We all stared at each other for a second and then we started saying, “No…of course not,” “Who? Otis? Oh, must've been a different guy,” “Who the heck is Otis?” “Two words—no-way,” even though the truth is, we do know him. All of us. But it's pretty embarrassing because Otis is the biggest flirt out of the whole eighth grade I've ever met. Other than Andy Two. Wait, Andy Two's the flirty one, right? Never mind.

But the thing is, Otis loves every single girl he sees. Sort of. Well, just most. But technically, for one, he's been flirting with all of us so it's really embarrassing.

So we kept our mouths shut about knowing him but then the doorbell rings and we jumped off the couch. Good thing we're all dried up—except the hair.

Anyways, we ran to the Marcus's bedroom and all hid there. That's the safest place to hide because, like Danny's—except how it's three times cleaner—it's still messy.

But then Marcus opens the door and we can hear, like, tons of boys shouting and whooping, and the worst part is, they all started running into Marcus's room, pretending to shoot hoops.

Now, I know Marcus, I know Otis, but then there's one more person that looked familiar. I don't know who it is, but, he's just familiar looking.

So Rena, Lila, and I started crawling under the bed, still hidden under all Marcus's clothes. I have no idea how we all fit under one tiny bed but we did.

All of a sudden, the boys closed all the curtains and shut off the lights and then sort of sat on the bed. I heard the boys laughing and stuff and then Otis started telling spooky stories. In the middle of the story, Lila was half screaming silently because I knew that scary stories aren't her favorite thing. Movies are, but not stories. Movies to Lila are a piece of cake. Maybe not when she was, like, nine, but then there's how every Wednesday she goes to the Movie Mack and rents some horror movies.

To me, I don't know what the difference is between horror stories or movies but to Lila, it's simple. “Alex, Alex, Alex—most horror movies are made-up. Stories aren't. They're legends. So it's technically true and it can happen to me,” she had said.

So Rena and I were really interested in the stories but Lila probably checked out her finger nails the entire time.

But then, right in the middle of the story, Marcus asks, “Where's the girls?”

“What girls?” a boy asks.

“Lila, Alex, and Rena?”

“Okay, Marcus, exactly who are they?” Otis asks.

“You'll see them.”

So they started searching the house but when someone checks under the bed and saw us, we screamed which made that boy scream and fall back—it's a long, long painful five minutes because we screamed so loud and got so surprised by him that we sorta bonked our heads on the bed-roof.

We crawled out, rubbing our heads, saying, “Ow…”

Otis takes one look at us and then asks, “Wait, those girls?”

We rolled our eyes and I say to him, “So what?”

Marcus squints at us and asks Lila, “So you know him?”

“What—um, I don't understand,” Lila says. “We just happened to see him walk by at school. Is that a problem? Do you call that knowing someone?”

“No, I guess.”

“Yeah. Same here.”

Reed was staring at me the entire time and I just tried to ignore him.

Rena and I laugh but then Otis starts walking between us and puts one arm over my shoulder and the other over Rena's. Embarrassing moment for us two.

“Hey, ladies,” Otis says, “what's up?”

I pulled his arm away and tell him, “Get a life, sicko.” I gave him the evil glare and that made him look away.

The same boy that looked under the bed just looks at me and says, “You look familiar…”

“Yeah. Probably saw me on the news. Not that surprising.”

“Wait—you're Alex, right?”

Pause.

“Why?” I ask.

“Nothing. Just wanted to know.”

I squinted at him and walked to Lila. “Hey, maybe Danny's home. I think we should call?”

“Yeah, I think so too,” she says and she ran downstairs and called while Rena and I stayed here.

We didn't do anything much, I guess. We just sat on the bed and stared at our shoes.

Otis grins at me and Rena and we just gave him the cuckoo sign.

“Dude, that's nasty,” a boy says.

Gerry agrees with him while Marcus just laughs. Otis tells him, “Whatever, Keith.”

Keith scans me again and then says, “Yeah, I saw you on the news but I think I met you somewhere else…”

“Wow. How thrilling. Hey, you know a lot people so it's not that surprising, Keith,” I tell him.

He rolls his eyes and tells me, “Shut up, freak.”

“Who're you calling a freak, you—”

“Alex, Alex! Calm down!” Rena says.

“My bad.”

We didn't stand a chance staying at Marcus's house for any longer so we packed up our stuff and say to them, “Bye. We gotta go! Um, I'll see you when school starts,” and then leaped out of the house. It was still pouring buckets out but hey, it's better than getting stuck in some house full of insane spook tellers.

But Reed ran out after us and says, “Hey, guys. Um, one of you guys left—never mind. Later!” and he races back inside the house. We all squinted and shrugged at each other and left.

“Hey, what do you think Reed meant just now?” I ask.

“I don't know.” Rena shrugs.

I stopped. “Did any of you leave anything in there?”

So we started looking through our backpacks and then I just screamed. Why? Because. I was the one that left something inside the house. And guess what it was? The most embarrassing and disturbing thing ever.

My Go-out-with-Andy-One script.

-SEVENTEEN-

“My script! My script—it's gone,” I tell them.

“What? How would your script end up in their house?” Lila asks.

“How should I know? I'm wondering the same thing! And I don't remember a time when someone went through my bag. So now what?”

Rena smiles evilly. “We wrap 'em.”

Rena ran up to the house and rung the bell. Keith answers it and when he finds out that it was Rena, he rubs his eyes, asking, “What do you want?”

“Oh, my gosh, is that a whale I see, right up in your kitchen?” Rena asks, pointing. Reed takes a look. “Hey I don't see anything,” Reed says and looks back. “Hey—ugh!”

Lila laughs, snapping a wink at me. “Good punch.”

Yup. That was right. I punched him right in the guts.

I smoothed out my hair, laughing, “That's what I was born for!”

Lila and I look at Rena and ask, “Whale?”

“Yeah, that's all I could think of the whole day!”

So we dragged Keith inside the living room and tried rolling him up the couch. But the thing is, three girls won't be able to push up a ninety-five pound kid up the couch. So we just left him lying right in front of the couch instead. We snuck upstairs and saw Reed, Otis, Gerry, and Marcus, sitting around Marcus's bedroom, playing video games.

The next minute passed and Otis, Reed, Gerry, and Marcus ended up tied to chairs.

“Okay, you have one minute to explain to us what you guys read out of my script,” I tell them.

Rena nods and says, “If you don't, it's alright. We'll just have Naira come over and kiss your eyeballs out. Don't worry—'cause we have her number.”

We walked around them a few more times in silence so Lila finally says, “Guys, just tell us! It's important!”

“What are you talking about…?” Reed asks.

“Don't play dumb. You know what we're talking about.”

“No, we don't,” Marcus insists.

Lila smiles at him and got right up to his face. “I'm not letting Naira touch you one bit so don't worry!”

I laughed at her joke. “Okay, heads up, guys. We want you to keep this as a secret.”

“What, you mean about that Andy script?” Otis asks.

“Hey, shut up, man!” Reed snaps at him.

Otis gives him a look and then tells me, “I can't believe you're dating Andy just to dump him at the end, Alex.” He meant that in a good way, though. “That's sweet!” He pauses. “Wait, you better not do that to me though…”

I laugh. “I won't do that to you—'cause I'll never date you in bazillion years!”

“Huh. The strange thing is, I don't find that really surprising.”

“Yah…” I say, nodding.

“Okay, guys,” Rena says, “you better not tell. It'll be just our little secret, okay?”

“And if you tell,” Lila says, holding out her cell, “you'll be visiting Naira.” She dialed a number.

“Wait! We won't tell!” Gerry insists.

“Are you sure?”

“Um…what're we talking about again?”

Lila dials three more numbers.

“What if we tell, like, a friend? Only a friend?” Otis asks.

“No way,” Lila says, dialing the fifth and sixth number.

“How 'bout we tell Andy about it the day before the you break up with him?”

“One,” I say, “I'm not breaking up with him because he's not ever gonna be my boyfriend and two—”

“No!” Rena finishes the sentence for me.

Lila nods at us and dialed in the last number. We waited a few minutes while the boys started shouting, “No…!” and finally, Naira picked up.

Rena and I leaned our ears in to hear.

“Hi, this is Naira.”

“Hey, Naira! How's it goin'?”

“Great! And…what do you want?”

“Well, there's three boys waiting to ask you out. Right in Marcus's room—at his house.”

“Psyched! I'll be there in a second!” Naira says and hangs up.

“Um, Lila? Three boys?”

“Oh. Marcus is off limits right now,” Lila laughs.

We waited five minutes until Naira finally burst into the room. She scans the boys for a sec. and then takes a look at Lila. “Are you crazy? Is this some kind of joke? I'm so outta here.” And so one minute later, she was gone.

The boys finally promised to keep that secret in mind. Now, that, took long.

-EIGHTEEN-

Okay. I got home to my house just when it hit six. Great. Perfect timing for dinner. I'm starving! So I helped myself up with one bowl of cereal and another of oatmeal. That's what I usually eat at nights.

And right when I was in the middle of washing the dishes, the phone rang. It took me, like, ten minutes to finally get the phone to go on without making it bubbly and wet.

“Hello?”

“Alex!”

“Jason? What do you want? Why are you calling me at this time?”

“Guess what, Alex? I've got great news!”

“Okay—what is it?”

“I checked out your school's bulletin board and there's an add.”

“What? What add?”

“Well, you pretty much earn money. That's all I have to say,” she laughs.

“How much?” Okay, one thing's for sure—I'd do almost anything to have fun. And have money. Because a single kid working for money is a lot of work. And it takes only half a year to find at least five jobs that would allow kids to work at. So it's exciting news.

“I'd say about, probably, five dollars a week?”

“Seriously? That much? Oh my gosh—sign me up!”

“Okay.”

Yes! I finally found a job!

“Wait, Alex.”

“What?”

“You start working tomorrow, at one. Yeah, so, everyday at one.”

“Great!”

Lila's sister sure helps sometimes. Actually a lot. Jason has a good eye for style, and she's a great listener. She also tries helping other people even if it takes a whole lifetime. But that's how Jason is, always trying to help.

So I finished washing all the dishes and then dried my hands. After that, I took a quick shower and watched TV all night 'till I fell asleep. Which didn't take so long.

The next morning I got up at eleven. I had to say it was the hardest morning to get up at of the month. 'Course, it's only the beginning of January.

I went to change and then I had a huge breakfast. I called Lila and Rena—using a three-way—and told them all about the huge `job' thing. They got all excited and wanted me to tell them everything about it after work.

“It's only a job, guys. Besides, you two don't ask much about Paul's store,” I tell them.

“No…but this is a new job posted at the school so it might as well be more fun—and because there's a lot of other kids there, maybe older than you!” Lila explains.

Rena agrees with her.

So we talked for about an hour and then I finally hung up.

I spent my next thirty minutes sitting out on the porch, playing with Ranger. Ranger didn't like the sun blocking his eyes so I had to let him use my visor. Pretty weird cat, huh?

Ranger ended up coughing up a fur-ball on my visor so I just gave it to him anyway. Besides, he looks pretty cool in it. So I added in some sunglasses but they kept falling off.

So I got some cracker treats and taught him some tricks but the only trick I taught him is to chase a person and that person happens to be me. So yeah, it was pretty fun…and tiring…and it was to kill for!

When it struck to twelve thirty, I rode Ranger, on my scooter, all the way to Lila's house for Jason to baby-sit Ranger.

I rang the bell. “Hurry up, Jason!” I call. “I might be late for work.”

Jason finally answers the door and let Ranger in while I got back on my scooter and rode to school.

I checked out the school bulletin board and found out that I was supposed to be meeting in Room 122. When I got there, there was a bunch of people sitting around, doodling on papers.

But then it struck my mind that I didn't know what I'm supposed to do at work.

Mrs. Larson, al l of a sudden, jumps out from outer space into my view.

“Alexandra? What are you doing here? You need tutor?”

“Tutor? What are you talking about? I'm here for a job,” I say.

Everyone stops and looks at me. “What?”

That…was an embarrassing moment.

Mrs. Larson cracks up, saying, “Oh, that job? It's a tutoring job…only for adults! Not kids.”

“So? I'm desperate for a job.”

“Alexandra, Alexandra—you would be the last person on earth, that I could think of, getting this job,” she laughs.

I looked at her with my jaw dropping down. “Are you saying I'm dumb?”

Mrs. Larson stops laughing. “Fine. You get the job. Now go tutor someone.”

“Who?”

“Well, whoever's a `kid',” she jokes.

I was about to go around asking if anyone needs tutor, until my homeroom teacher calls out, “Wait. Their's this kid who's depressed because he can barely do anything.”

“Okay, Mrs. Larson. Who?”

“That kid over there.” She pointed.

“Who, him?” I shout. “Is this—?”

“Mandatory.”

“That sucks.”

So I came up to that kid. Well, I shouldn't even be callingkid because he's, like, in eighth grade. Keith.

“I can't believe I'm tutoring you,” I say.

“I can't believe I'm looking at you. Weren't you the one that killed me the other day?”

“Um…you were dreaming, Keith,” I insist.

“No, I'm pretty sure it wasn't a dream. 'Cause when I woke up, I had a big bruise. You're so violent…”

“What? I'm not violent. I'm just—”

“Dangerous,” he says in for me.

“Not uh! You're the one who believed Rena that there was a whale in the kitchen. You know what I call that? Stupido!”

“Wait—you're calling me stupid?”

“What'd ya think?”

“You're the one insane enough to think of dating Andy as a prank, loser.”

“What?” I scream. I raise my hand, running to Mrs. Larson. “I can't work with him, Mrs. Larson. He's disobeying me. Make him stop!”

She slaps her head. “Can you two, like, work together instead of fighting?”

“No…way,” I tell her. “He's the hardest—thing I've ever worked with! And you're telling me to work with him?”

“Well, the fight's gotta end. You two fix it.”

I stomped all the way to Keith and order, “You, right there, go do your homework.”

“The only reason I'm here in the first place is to have help with my homework. Before school starts.”

“That'll be on Wednesday, Keith. Like, a long way to go. It's the New Years, Keith. You'll have your homework done soon, right?”

“No. I can't even do it!”

“Your problem.”

“No way. You're supposed to help me with my homework!”

I checked out the time. “You know what? Yeah—it's my break time so go buy out yourself a lunch while I go home and stay there.”

So I made sure Mrs. Larson understands my so-called “break time” and then rode all the way home.

I called Andy One, asking him, “Hey. What's up?”

“Nothing. You?”

“Nothing.” And since we were so bored, I just hung up.

I went to Lila's house and then just right after that second, the phone rings and I pick it up. “What? And yes, I hung up on you because it was getting boring! You're getting on my nerves, Andy.”

Lila and Rena looks at each other and then just watches me have a conversation with Andy.

“What? Is that some way you speak to a prime judge?” someone says on the phone.

I swear, my eyeballs could've poked out. “I'm so sorry! I didn't know…I thought you were someone…else.”

“Well, anyway, your trial's today. At three.”

“Three? Its two thirty right now. Can't it be tomorrow? I'm tired.”

“Fine, fine. I'll be right there.”

Rena laughs, asking, “Who was it?”

“The judge. I can't believe I'm having my own trial.”

“I feel sad for you,” Lila says, patting my shoulder. “We'll be there, cheering for you.”

So we paddled down there on bikes and when I got inside, Andy One was already there, and so was the judge.

“Good afternoon, Alex,” the Judge says. “I'm Judge Peterson.”

“Hey, Judge Peterson,” I mumble and then got up to the front counter.

Lila and Rena sat together, side by side, mouthing, “Go Alex!”

I laugh.

And then there was a bell.

“Okay. The trial has just begun,” Judge Peterson announces. “Now. This trial is about the case of the robbery of Falling Food?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, just get on with it. I'm supposed to be going to work tomorrow and if you keep talking like this, I won't be there in time,” I insist. “I might've just starved to death.”

Judge Peterson glares at me and says, “I heard you two were dating right after this little incident. Why are you two dating? Is it just some kind of casual thing?”

Everyone in the crowd starts, “Ooh!” and soon, the judge was oohing.

I was pretty ticked off 'cause guess what? The whole world knows about it now.

“I was never dating Alex,” Andy One says calmly to the judge. “That's just gossip. But who did Alex really date? My twin brother. And so the whole time, Alex thought she was dating me but it was sincerely my brother.”

I stared at him, with wide eyes, dropped jaws, while the whole crowd laughs half to death.

“Okay. First of all, I was only dating you because—you know what? I'm leaving,” I say and leaped off the chair and I was on my way down the aisle when Judge Peterson demands, “Stop! You are not to leave until I dismiss you, Alex. Come back here.”

I closed my eyes hard and then turned around and sat back on my seat. “Look, there's nothing I can tell you except that I didn't steal that trophy. Besides, who would want to steal that ugly thing? And it's doomed to get stolen anyway. Next time, tell the employees not to put a tag that says, `WORTH ONE MILLION DOLLARS!' Due to my surprise, it hadn't gotten stolen the first time they opened the business.”

Judge Peterson sighs loudly. “So you're that smart, huh?”

I shrug.

“Then tell me, who stole it?”

“How should I know? I'm only a kid.”

“No you're not—you're a clever kid. Now host up some chicken and the next time the trial begins, you better know who the real thief is or,” he says, “you're a suspect again—not that you are not a suspect already…”

I glared at him.

“Dismiss!” he orders and we all packed our stuff out and went out. All except me, of course. I was still standing there, glaring at him.

“That mean look won't stop me, clever kid. Now go.” He was about to go until I grabbed his arm.

“Wait,” I say. “I might be a suspect to you but you'll still always gonna be a suspect to me.” And then I left. Just like that. When I glanced back over my shoulder, he was staring at where I was before I left, dropping his mouth into a shape of an O.

I just laughed.

-NINETEEN-

I called Lila and told her all that's happened to me at the courtroom. And, yes, I do tell her almost everything. Just almost.

Lila cracked up and says, “No way, you did not say that to the judge!”

“Well,” I say, “I did.”

“And what about that Keith guy, huh?”

“What about him?”

“I don't know…he looks cute, that's all.”

“Lila!” I laugh. “I can't believe it. He might look…good, I guess but he's still evil and cold-blooded. He can't even do his homework, Lila. Who can't top that?”

Lila giggles through the other line. “Yeah, I guess he's a little cold-blooded and mind-broken but he's a boy, Alex—you can't blame a boy's judgment.”

“Let's talk about something else like…what did you do while I was at the trial?”

“Um, nothing much. I was mostly waiting for you to come back.”

“Oh—”

“What?” Lila asks.

“Rena's calling. Let me do a three-way again,” I say.

A second later, Rena was on and Lila and I filled in some of the judge part.

“Seriously?” Rena asks.

I laugh, “Yup.”

“Wow, I can't believe even you would say that to the judge,” Rena says hysterically. “Jeez, Alex, since when did all these stuff start happening to you? Since you were born?” she jokes.

I didn't say anything.

“Okay, then,” Rena says, “Now I'm talking seriously—since when did these stuff start happening to you?”

I had a little flashback to when it was my sixth birthday when I got kidnapped and the very same day, Mom told me she was going to New Jersey. And the last words I remembered from her were, “Just for a while.” Right. Just for a while.

“Alex?”

“Oh—um, it started ever since I was six, Rena. I got kidnapped—big deal,” I say as if it wasn't a big deal at all.

“Really? You got kidnapped?”

“Yeah. Back then, I thought it was the most dangerous thing that's happened to me. Right—look where I am now,” I say, rolling my eyes.

Rena laughs. “At least your life is better now.”

“What'd you mean?”

“Aw, come, Alex!” Lila says. “You've got us. I mean, you've always had me since then but remember, there's still Rena, right?”

“Yeah,” I laugh. “But still, I wish I was never into these troubles.”

There was a long silence so I tease Lila, “Remember back in fourth grade you had a huge crush on Gerry?”

“Alex!” Lila laughs and then Rena goes, “Lila, are you serious? He might look good on the outside but he is nasty in the outside!”

“Just like Keith,” Lila adds.

But all of a sudden, we hear, “Hi guys,” and who was it? Marcus.

“Okay, Lila,” I say, “when'd you say Marcus was at your house?”

“I didn't. But how should I know he was listening from the other line?”

And then after five seconds, we all realized what Lila just said and screamed.

“AHHH!”

“AHHHHH!”

“AHH!”

“What's so scary?” Marcus asks.

And then we heard Keith say, “Yeah, what's so scary?”

“Lila,” I say, “when'd you say Keith was here?”

“I didn't,” Lila says and then says to Keith, “Did you break into my house?”

“No, Marcus let me in,” Keith answers. “Reed and Gerry's in here too.”

“Yah,” Gerry says. “Lila, your speaker sounds great from here.”

Rena says, “What, so you guys were listening to our whole conversation?”

“Yup,” they all answer.

“Oh my gosh…” Lila repeats, “Oh my gosh…”

“What?” I ask.

“This is so humiliating! Okay, I just checked on the boys and they were all sitting in my room in a circle—listening on to the speaker machine!”

Rena and I laugh. “Just let them go for once, Lila,” I say. “It's not like they're gonna tell the whole school, right?”

“Um, uh, yeah we are,” Reed says.

“You better not or I'll punch your whole inside out, Reed,” Rena coughs up. “You're gonna be in big trouble!”

“Well, I'll see you guys later,” I say. “I'm pretty tired. I'm just gonna read, I guess.”

“Read? Read? How can you read at this time?” Lila asks. “We've got, like, five boys in my room listening to our conversation,” Lila insists.

“I say we just give them a little treaty-treat they deserve,” Rena says.

“Um, maybe later.” So I hung up.

But the next thing I notice is that I ran out of batteries and that's really important to me so I packed up my bag and settled out the door. But I had to drop Ranger off at Lila's first.

So I was on my way to the market when I realized that Andy, only earth knows which Andy he is, went into Falling Food. Now, it's not strange to see an employee go to its workshop but it is strange to find him lurking around to Falling Food.

I took no chance at all. I started into Falling Food.

-TWENTY-

I made sure I was invisible by hiding behind a giant lady. At first, Andy didn't seem to notice me spying on him but I guess he had the someone's-following-me feeling and just turns around when I was behind him.

“Alex, what are you doing here?” he asks.

“Why? It's none of your business.”

“Okay, Alex, I'm not sure what your brain-type is around here is but when someone's following you, it is my business.”

“Who says I'm following you?”

“Why are you standing right behind me?”

I thought about that question but couldn't think of a natural lie so I tell him, “You know what? You have to get back to me on that one.”

“Well. My Andy with—ugh. Who are you?”

We both turned around and saw Mr. Slalom coming over to us.

“Oh…! Mr. Slalom! Remember me? I'm Alex—we met at Andy One's birthday party?”

“Andy who?” he asks, sounding as if this is some rude insult or something.

“Oh. You know, Andy and Andy? Yeah.”

“It's Andy and Andrew. We renamed him just now.”

“Um…Andrew…” I say, utterly trying to insult him. “So which one's Andrew?”

“The kid that flirts,” Mr. Slalom answers. “No, wait, Andrew the Flirty one? That doesn't sound right.

“Andy, you're switching names with Andrew now,” he says to Andy.

“Right, Dad,” the new Andrew says.

“So,” I say to Mr. Slalom, “what's with, `Well. My Andy—Andrew—with—ugh…,' huh?”

“Oh. Nothing. Seeing you two together makes me feel sick. I mean, come on! You're nothing but a girl wearing rags!”

“What did you say?” I say through my clenching teeth. “You call these rags?” I ask, patting my shirt. “You're only saying that because you're filthy rich.”

“Well, then,” he says with a smile, “why can't have that, can we?”

“Huh?” I pause. “Are—are—are you taking me somewhere? Because I'm here because—” I glance at Andrew and saw him giving me a big evil grin. “Huh,” I say, smiling at Mr. Slalom, “I'm here because I'm buying batteries and not—” I glance at Andrew “—because I was spying on someone.”

“Well, we'd better go quickly. I'm going to a business meeting in half an hour so come on, kids, let's go,” Mr. Slalom says, waving us to go.

As we went around the mall for what seems like hours, trying to check out the stores that look nice and cheap enough to buy, but Mr. Picky, here, keeps on saying, “Ugh! You'd think they even sell those here?” so we keep on searching for more.

I roll my eyes. “Come on, Mr. Slalom. Have some pride…some joy! Because I can't waste my New Years vacation any second or I'll die, sir.”

So we go into Garand*Nape and search for clothes. On our way out of the store, carrying tons of bags of clothes, I tell Mr. Slalom, “Thanks for buying me these clothes.”

Andrew snickers and then budges in, “But you are going to pay us back, right?”

“Um…”

“That's alright.” Mr. Slalom coughs. “Just as long as you want to stay with my son, you have to wear better clothes. Clothes that says boldly, `I'm rich and I don't deny it!'”

“Sir, I'm not even with your son,” I snap. I check my imaginary watch and say, “Well, I gotta go,” and started on my way home. And then I changed my mind—I mean I was on my way over for grocery, right?

But then I see Judge Peterson zipping across the road, even though there was a “No Walking” sign. So there he was, dodging cars when I suddenly call, “Judge Peterson!”

He shoots his head towards my way and then just gives out a little wave and goes back into dodging cars.

“Wait, Judge Peterson!” I shout. “What are you doing—?”

He looks at me for a second and then just as I was on my way over, it just happened. I don't know how it happened so quickly when in my mind, it seems so long and breath-taking—his accident.

-TWENTY ONE-

“Is he okay?” I ask one of the nurse. “I mean, is he dead? Is he hurt…?” Even though in my mind, I knew he was hurt, but I just asked anyway, just to be sure.

“Are you his daughter?” she asks.

“Yes. Can I see him?”

“Not yet. They're still in there, trying to figure out if he's alive or not—you know, testing. You don't have to worry.”

“Well, can I just go in and look, at least?”

“No, love. Just wait.”

When she turned away, I kept staring at her in disgust, wondering if I was the kind of kid she would call “love”. But as I stand there, still wondering, I had a deep thick knot in my throat, wondering if I should leave or stay here longer. I knew that by thirty minutes with not feeding Ranger, Ranger would starve.

I glance around, and finally caught my eyes on a cart full of white long coats, a what it seems to be shower caps, and safety goggles.

That's when I have a little tingling idea of what to do.

I leaped onto the cart and hide there, sliding my arms through the holes of the coats, tying my hair up into a bun, placing the shower cap on. And then my last step: pull on my goggles.

I walked into Judge Peterson's nursing room, sorta fidgeting, realizing that I still look a little too short to be at least twenty one years old.

Doctors were all staring at me—even one was measuring and comparing my height against his with his hands, and found out that I was at least one foot and a half shorter than he was.

I walked right up to Judge Peterson, saying, “Hello sir.”

He peeks up at me. “Alex?”

“Yeah, it's me. Sorry about that.”

“What a piece of crap,” he says, almost silent. So here he was, whispering out all kinds of swears at me when he finally whispers, “The trial…the trial…”

I nod, promising him that I'd be there. But before I left the hospital, I say, “What were you doing out on the street, anyway? It seems like you're in a rush.”

He laughs. “I was. Until now—I'm not in a rush anymore. I was just…busy. A meeting.”

“Really? That's neat. Mr. Slalom went to a meeting, too.”

“Oh, him,” he scowls.

“What's wrong with him?”

“Nothing. Just a man that's untrustworthy. He's extremely untrustworthy.”

“Why?”

He doesn't answer at all. After I waited for about a three minutes for an answer, and he still doesn't, I just leave. I grab my backpack and started heading out until that same nurse that told me to wait before visiting “my dad” grabs on my shirt and tugs me back. “What are you doing, wearing that? Didn't I just tell you to wait?”

“No, I don't think so. You told me that I should wait a minute before heading in wearing these clothes for disguise.”

“Really? Okay. Off you go now—but just remember to put the coat and cap back. But keep the goggles if you want.”

I decided to keep the goggles in case of emergency and left the building, still heading to the electronic store.

I jog to the electronic store and picked out some batteries. But as soon as I went up to the counter to buy it, someone cut in line.

Naira.

“Oh…my…gosh,” she says, eying me. “What are you doing here?”

“I should ask the same question.” I smile.

Her teeth tighten. “Okay, I don't know what you're up to but you better get your butt out of my life, you got it?”

“Gosh, Naira, I didn't know you were that afraid of me.”

“Who says I'm afraid?” she argues back.

“Hey, hey, hey,” the cash register guy says. “Can you guys stop the fighting?”

I slam the counter. “No!” I say and turn to Naira. “Everyone says you're afraid of people you insult, Naira. Face it—you're scared.”

“No way,” Naira says, glaring at me.

The cash register guy joins us. He says, excitedly, “You guys are both gonna get kicked out if you don't stop fighting—no way!”

We both stare at him. “That's horrible.”

He smiles. “So are you two gonna stop fighting?”

I looked at Naira. “Deal.”

Naira rolls her eyes. “Fine, deal. But I'm only saying that because I have to buy something.”

After that, I went home to change the batteries. It was a pretty long day and I didn't want it to get any longer so I just ate my dinner—oatmeal—and then watched T.V. the whole night.

-TWENTY TWO-

I woke up twelve thirty today. I got up and brushed my teeth, take a quick shower, dry myself, change into a pair of long jeans and a polo shirt, comb my hair, and I'm done.

For breakfast, I ate Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

“Ranger!” I call.

Ranger came trotting over to me like a horse. He purrs, scratching his back on my leg.

I laugh and pick him up.

I ran to Lila's house and ring the bell.

“Alex,” Lila says, grinning, when she opens the door. “And I'm guessing you want me to take care of Ranger while you're off to work?”

I shrug. “Yeah.” I hand Ranger to him. “He'll have crackers and water for breakfast…please?”

Lila laughs, “Sure.”

“Hello, Alex,” Mrs. Larson greets me when I walk in. “You're three minutes late.”

“Three? Is that a problem?” I ask, curiously.

“No, it's not. But try being on time and you'll get paid more money.” Mrs. Larson points at Keith. “Now you two work together!”

“What if we don't?” I ask.

Mrs. Larson hesitates. “Well, we'll see.”

So I walk over to Keith and sit down next to him. “I'm willing to work this time if you stop whining. Deal?”

“Deal,” Keith says, slapping my hand. “Mr. Arnold gave everyone a sheet of multiplication and long division.”

“Don't tell me you don't know how,” I say.

He laughs. “I know how. I just need your help.”

“Fine,” I sigh. “Do you need me to do half of it?”

“Are you sure? I was thinking something else…”

“Well, I'll do half of it anyway. But you owe me something.” I held my hand out and he passed me a pencil.

So I did half of it while he did the other half and I thought it was a pretty good deal because the multiplication and the long division is pretty easy to me.

When we were all done, I ask him, “So that's your only homework assignment, right?”

He shrugs. “Well, there is this project about nine/eleven.”

I hesitate. “Nine/eleven?”

“Yeah,” he says, shrugging.

“I know a lot about nine/eleven—trust me,” I say. “It'll be easy.”

So he gets a thick black marker and a poster and I tell him what he should write and all that stuff and end the end, bingo, he's done.

“So what would you do if you were on United Ninety-three?” I ask. He can probably tell I'm very curious about lots of stuff.

He hesitates. “I don't know…I obviously would be the one to think of fighting back if I were on the plane.”

“Right,” I laugh. “Same here.”

He smiles. “Well, thanks. For helping me with my projects and stuff.

“Hey,” I remind him, “you still owe me something.”

“What?”

I shrug. “I don't know…when the time comes, I'll tell you what you owe me.”

I walk back to Mrs. Larson and ask her, “You saw that, right?”

Mrs. Larson laughs. “I'm proud of you, Alex. Your mother would be very proud, too. Do you want me to call and tell her?”

“Oh, no need,” I say, forcing on a smile. “She's probably mostly around you now.”

“What do you mean?” Mrs. Larson asks, her smile fading.

“Nothing,” I say, even though I should tell her that my long-lost mom is her sister, I don't.

“So who else do you want me to help out?” I ask her.

“Anybody. You have completed your assigned mission and moved on to the next task.”

I walk around, wondering if anybody needs help. But it looks like everyone has got themselves a tutor already. And then the next minute, Lila comes barging through the doors and she ran up to me.

“Hi!” she laughs. “It looks like you're the only kid that's a tutor.”

I laugh, too. “I am. So what're you doing up here? Like, at school?”

She shrugs. “No reason. I was just bored.”

“Is Ranger okay?”

“Yup. My sis has got him right now. She's probably bathing him—again.”

I scrunch up my nose. “Yuck.”

As soon as we left the school, we head down to Falling Food. We met Rena there and some other people, too. Like Mrs. and Mr. Slalom, like Eddie Turk—the guy who freaked out the other day when the place was being robbed, like Mr. Sanders, a mean old soon-to-be Naira's dad. Mr. Sanders is my new history teacher and no one—I mean no one—likes him, except for Mr. Sanders' fiancé and Naira herself.

We ordered three hot chocolates and took a seat.

Mr. Sanders went up to us and glares at me since he thinks I'm the troubled kid. “Oh, what're you doing here?” he asks like this is the last place in the world I would be at.

“Oh, ho hum!” Rena says, laughing. She stands up. “We can't imagine you being here any more than her being here.”

“Hey…!” I joke.

“Sorry,” Rena laughs again, shrugging. Rena takes a seat next to me and Lila again.

Mr. Sanders gave us one last glare before turning away to sit at his table.

We all share our laughter, clinking our hot chocolate glasses together. “Cheers!” we shout.

I glance at Mrs. Slalom, wondering what she's doing. She's holding a bowlful of…dust, I think. I take a closer look and sure enough, its dust. What in the name of George is she doing with that bowl of dust?

“Hey, Mrs. Slalom?” I call and walk up to her. “What're you doing?”

She grins and says, “Well, this is a bowl of dust, as you may guess. It's quite natural, really. I'm testing the dust.”

“On what?” I ask, taking a quick look at the dust and then back to her.

She points to a book on her table. Body Touching Bacteria and Loss of Privileges by Gwen Greta.

“What?” I ask. “What's that all about?”

She laughs. “It has a long title, doesn't it? I think you know what it's about.”

I gave a dirty look at her. “It's sick.”

She shrugs. “I'm studying it for my job. It's not that hard. I used to be a police, you know. It has something to do with dust and body, Alex.” She holds the book up and takes a quick peek inside the book. “It's a matter of time I'd be quitting,” she sighs. “I'm pregnant…I'm tired…I'm useless…who knows? It's better quitting than getting fired.”

“Well,” I say, focusing on the book, “you shouldn't give up just yet. And if you thought about quitting, then why read that?”

She throws her head back and laughs. “I wouldn't quit until I'm done with this presentation! Because this presentation will earn me tons and it'll be helpless if I just quit now.”

“Well, you should rethink about it again—you don't realize how hard it is to find a job, do you? Because it is hard—with a capital H.”

She shrugs. “I'll give it a second shot.” She laughs. “What? Have you ever tried to find a job? Because it seems like you have.”

I laugh. “Well…let's just say that…I've been trying. You know, trying to get a job. And I finally did. The only think I hate about it is that I'm the only kid who works there and other people—and I hate to say especially my homeroom teacher—laughs about how young I am. They're like—thirty for goodness sake. Um—I'm not trying to be offensive, Mrs. Slalom,” I say, knowing that she's older than thirty. “Well, you shouldn't quit, Mrs. Slalom. I mean, I didn't quit! And I'm, like, so busy all the time but I know that if I quit, I might never have a job again.”

Mrs. Slalom laughs. “You call doing you homework busy?”

I shake my head, laughing too. “No. Not just homework, Mrs. Slalom. Well, yeah, homework is one of the things that keep me busy, and then there's my job, and then there's my pet cat Ranger, and then there's…something I'm trying to keep very secretive, and then there's the trial which I have no idea when it'll start.”

Mrs. Slalom blinks at me. “Did you do something so wrong that made you go into trial?”

I shake my head. “I don't know—I guess people think I'm the stealer of the trophy so I'm trying to prove the wrong somehow. Even though it feels like no one's on my side. But I still can't give up, you know?” I lean over the table to hold the book but then I accidentally pressed down on the bowl of dust. Dust came pouring out everywhere on the table.

I gasp. “Oh—I'm so sorry!”

“That's okay,” Mrs. Slalom says. She gets a trashcan and pours it all in with her hand.

It was pretty disgusting, having dust planted all over your hands.

As Mrs. Larson tried to get some other heap of dust in the trash can, she accidentally pushes the table a bit to the left. She dropped the trashcan and clutches her stomach.

“Are you okay?” I cry.

“Don't worry about me. Can you just help me clean up the mess of dust? And push the table back?”

So I help her push the table back, sweep the dust into the trashcan, and then I wipe my hands on a napkin paper.

When I came back to Lila and Rena, they were staring at me.

“Wow—you're a mess, Alex,” Lila says, examining me.

“Don't just look,” Rena points out, “clean her up!” Rena gets a tissue paper and cleaned the back of my shirt. “Gosh,” Rena says, “you should've never talked to that woman, Alex.”

My eyes almost bugged out. “You watched the whole scene?” I ask.

She laughs. “Um, everyone did.”

Mr. Slalom comes up to me and says, “Yo. 'Sup?”

I twitch my eyes. “Are you okay? Mr. Slalom?”

Mr. Slalom gave me a bottle to hold it and instantly, when I held it, he took it back. “Well, it looks like you're having a trial.”

“Oh,” I say, “I'm guessing you saw the whole thing too.”

He shrugs. “I can't believe they're still in about the whole stealing thing. Don't you think it's the lamest thing ever in the world? I mean, come on! A trophy gets stolen—big whoop.” He laughs and before he left, he takes one last glare at me.

-TWENTY THREE-

“What's his problem?” Rena asks.

“I don't know…” Lila says. “Maybe he's having some women problems. Who knows?”

“There's obviously something behind the Slalom family. And I'm not just talking about the parents—I'm talking about their twins, too. Ever since the `incident', I don't think I can ever face him again.” I sigh, looking down at my shoes.

“Who's him?” Lila asks, touching my shoulder.

I shrug. “Both of the Slalom twins. I don't like them—you all know that. I just feel so tricked when they…you know…that…”

Lila and Rena laughs.

“Don't worry about it!” Rena insists. “Everything will be fine. Besides, you can't have a family ruin your whole life, can you? Who wants to go out for a quick jog?”

We finally gave in on Rena's suggestion and jogged around the town. Only for the first few miles it was okay until we got to the third mile and that's when we all got tired and started walking and talking.

“I've got a date with Marcus tonight,” Lila tells us. She smiles and adjusts the laces of her black tank-top and then ties her hair up into a pony-tail.

“That's nice,” I say, nudging Rena and then we both giggle.

“Hey,” Lila says and then stops. “Do you think Keith likes you, Alex?”

That was about the most random question any girl would ask one of her closest friends.

“Yeah, I mean, he's nice and all. But he's a friend, Lila,” I say. “Keith doesn't like me.”

“Oh?” Rena says, giggling. “Then who does?”

“No one! Or at least I think so.” I turn to Lila. “Why would you think so?”

Lila shrugs. “No reason at all.” She looks at Rena and then asks her, “Do you think—”

“Hey, ladies,” Otis says, interrupting our conversation. We all stop and look at the three boys.

“What?” I ask, sighing.

“Whoa, hold on up there—what's with the sad faces?” he jokes. He grins at all of us. “We just came by earlier and heard you guys talk about…people.” He eyes Keith and Marcus.

“So you guys eavesdropped on our conversation? On what we said about Alex and Keith? And me and Marcus?” Lila asks, curiously.

I slap my head and tug Lila back.

Otis shrugs, laughing. “Maybe.”

“Well,” Lila says and looks at Marcus. “I have a date with you, right?”

“Not if we're late…”

Lila smiles and winks at Rena.

Rena's eyes widen and then she says, “Well, Otis and I gotta go…” and then she grabs Otis by the arm and tugs him out the way. So it was just me and Keith.

“Um, so,” I start. “Maybe I should get going…”

“Sure,” Keith says.

We walk around a bit.

“Keith,” I say. “Is Otis your friend?”

“Is there any reason why you want to know?” He teases me by saying, “You like him.”

I punch his arm lightly. “No way. I'm just asking because to me, he's pretty flirty.”

Keith laughs. “Yeah. He is.”

“And why are you his friend?”

“That's a dumb question.” He moves his hair out his eyes.

“Hey!” I say.

“I didn't mean to take that seriously but yeah, that's pretty weird to ask someone.” He laughs. “I'm his friend…because I'm his friend.”

“Keith, just—let's start over, okay?” I ask. I stick out a hand to him. “I'm Alexandra Lanes and I was born and raised here, in Lariat, ever since. And I'm thirteen. You?”

Keith scratches his head. “Let's see—my name's Keith Ryan and I lived in LA for about three years until my mom and dad moved here.” He smiles at me. “And I'm thirteen too. It's weird—you're thirteen and a lot of other eight graders are thirteen…what? Did you get stayed back or something?”

“No,” I say, shaking my head. “Everyone in the elementary school I went to is one year older than normally. Isn't it weird? I mean, when I was in fourth grade, I was ten turning eleven.”

I stop. “Wait, um, I think I should walk home from here.”

He looks around. “Your house is near this place, right?”

I nod. “Thanks for walking me home…or at least close to home.”

“So exactly where do you live?” Keith asks.

“Um, it's private,” I say. I looked at the sidewalk and saw something shiny on it. “Wait a minute,” I say, walking to it. I picked it up. Glass. “Ouch!” I yelp, accidentally pressing it into my palm.

Keith comes over and checks out my hand. “It's a small cut,” Keith says, examining it. “Just get the Anti-Infected bottle and smear it around your hand. That'll do.”

Then we heard sirens. A police car. A big fat cop leaps out and then flashes a flashlight at us and then says to me, “You must be Alexandra Lanes—is that right?”

I nod.

He turns to Keith. “And you are…?”

“I'm Keith,” he says. He held my hand tighter.

The cop looks at me and then at Keith five times over and then finally says, “Get in the car. Both of you.” He pushes us into the car.

-TWENTY FOUR-

“Hey!” I say. “What did I do?”

“Another trophy in the next block had gotten stolen. We figured out that whoever stole the trophy over there had stolen the trophy over at Falling Food.”

“So?” I ask. “What does that have to do with anything about me and Keith?”

The cop continues. “We finally found the trophy of Falling Food and it looks like it had been ceiled tight by a plastic bag. On the zipper part, we examined the fingerprints and it just so happens to be yours.”

“What?” I scream.

“Next time, try using gloves,” the cop suggests, holding a pair of gloves up. Once we take a long look at it, he tosses the gloves into the back of the car for us.

“So where are you taking us?” Keith asks, holding up the gloves.

“We're gonna take you to prison. Tomorrow morning, we'll have you ready for the trial. But until then, good luck.” He parks the car. “And oh, yes—enjoy your daily dinner.”

He drags us to a dark place and then locks me up in one cell and Keith in the other.

“Wait,” Keith says. “You didn't mention me in the story! That means I'm not guilty of doing anything.”

“No,” the cop says. He pats his fat tummy. “But—as for Alex's boyfriend—you should be in on this somewhere. We'll see.”

“Wait—what does that mean?” Keith calls after him, holding onto the bars.

“What boyfriend would not help his girlfriend?” And Fat Cop just left us like that.

Keith squints at me. “Who says I'm your boyfriend?”

I shrug. “I don't know. I never remembered you declaring it or anything.” I look back at him. “Or did you…?”

Keith shakes his head. “No.”

We both look at another fat cop, sleeping on his chair. When he woke up, he looked at both of us surprisingly. “Oh! What on earth are you two couples doing in here?”

Keith and I look back at each other again and then focused on Yawning Cop again.

Yawning Cop squints at us and then says, “Never mind. Just don't bother me when I'm sleeping. Which is now.” He turns to sleep again but then I call, “Wait! What about our dinner? We didn't eat anything yet.”

Yawning Cop glares at us. “So what?”

“Well, so what if your head is gigantic? So what if you're fat? So what if you look so ugly? So what if you're—” I say.

“Okay, okay, okay,” Yawning Cop says. “I get it. I'll call your dinner right now. He grabs his phone and chats to another officer for a while. When the food finally came, I ate it all up even though it was disgusting.

“Sorry,” I say to Keith.

“About what?”

“About all this.”

Keith shrugs. “Let's not think about that. Let's think about who would be desperate enough to frame you.”

I think about it and then say, “No one—if you don't include Naira in it. But I doubt she'd do that dirty stuff.” And that's when it all just clicked—when it all just finally goes in together as one huge big piece of connection.

“What're you thinking about?” Keith asks, as though he knows I know who did it.

“I think I know who did it,” I say. “I've got a great alibi in my head right now. But I don't have proof.”

“Well, we'll think about the proof early in the morning tomorrow. But right now, I think we should get some sleep. I am so busted once I get home—unless you win the trial.” Keith yawns.

I shrug. “I sure hope so.”

When we woke up, we didn't have time to think at all. They pulled us out of our cells and drag us to the courtroom. Everyone stared at us in disgust, as if we're a bunch of stupid imitating jerks.

I look at Keith who was sitting on one of the benches and then I sigh, hoping—knowing—I can win this thing.

When Judge Peterson says, “All rise,” I stand up.

Judge Peterson points at Andrew. “Let's hear your alibi, Andrew,” Judge Peterson says.

Andrew hesitates and then says, “Well, I was working at Falling Food when all of a sudden, some immature girls barges in.” He takes a quick look at me.

I look behind myself and saw Rena and Lila going in, waving to me. Marcus, Reed, and Otis followed, too.

Andrew talks and talks more about what he did that day and in the end, he says, “But think about it. If I were the thief, why would I steal it just then? I mean, I've been working there for a year and a half now. If I wanted to steal it, I would've stolen it a long time ago.”

Judge Peterson nods, completely understanding his alibi and his thoughts. The Judge turns to me. “And Alex?” He plumps back into his seat and mutters, “Let's hear you're story, Alex,” as if I'm gonna take a longer time. He probably thinks I'm gonna make a wacky alibi up—which I might.

“Well,” I say, smiling. “I went in and—wait; didn't I already tell you my alibi the other time I went here?”

The judge nods and then says, “Fine. I remember I told you something about figuring out the whole mystery, right?”

I nod, gulping.

“And who is the thief, Alex?”

I looked around and pointed at her. “She's the thief who stole the two trophies. Mrs. Slalom.”

-TWENTY FIVE-

Judge Peterson cracks up. “Is that so?”

I nod. “I'm serious, Judge Peterson. She stole the trophies! See, I remember a time when she told me she collected silver stuff. And that trophy from the Falling Food? Yeah—that's pure silver.”

Andrew's mouth drops and he shouts, “My mom did not steal! She doesn't steal anything!”

Mrs. Slalom looks up at me and says, “And when did I say that, may I ask?”

“You said that when I was at your house.”

“Oh? I believe the only time you went to my house is when I threw a birthday party for Andrew. And I did leave early, didn't I?”

I nod. “You did. But then there's another time.”

Judge Peterson rubs his forehead and mutters—loudly—to himself, “What? She put on a disguise suit or something?” and laughs quietly to himself.

“Actually, yeah,” I say, turning back to him. “I put on a clown disguise. And—” I turn back to Mrs. Slalom “—that's where you told me it.”

“Why, you little—!”

“If you don't believe me, ask one of the clowns,” I say to Judge Peterson.

Judge Peterson nods and says, “I believe you.”

“There's also another time when she told me that she was about to quit her job after her big presentation. She told me that if she dropped out before doing the presentation, she wouldn't earn tons of money she would have if she did the presentation. It legally means she's desperate for money. If she had two trophies, she could sell it for tons,” I say, mocking her. “What even bothers me more is that she told me she was a police. She read a book, something about…body and dust, I guess? And after I told her about my next trial, she just hesitates and that's when the mess all began. I spilled a bowl of dust she had with her and I'm guessing that she spilled the bowl—not me. I think she just pushed it in closer to my hand to make me spill it.”

“So?” Judge Peterson asks. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Hello? Can you just listen?” I ask. “So, anyhow, I have dust all over my hands now and she's probably hoping for that to happen, too. But then she so-calls `accidentally' pushed the table a bit and she made me push it back—with my dusty fingers. And dust is one of the simplest ways of getting my fingerprints. She used to be a cop, people, and cops easily can get other people's fingerprints onto stuff if they actually learn. And I'm guessing that book about body and dust helped her in on that too.”

Judge Peterson nods. “Sounds fair and realistic enough.”

“Wait!” Mr. Slalom screams, running up to me. “Didn't you suspect me when I gave you that bottle to hold? And then I took it back?”

I look at him like he's insane. “What do you think I am—dumb? I'm not stupid enough to fall in trick of making me think you're the suspect. You think I was born yesterday?”

I start calling him names but then Judge Peterson makes me stop. “Do you have proof?”

I shrug. “Well, I know one thing—Mrs. Slalom's not pregnant. It's pretty obvious. I mean, bumping her stomach on the table, pretending to get hurt by falling down in wails of pain? Pul-ease!” I say. “Her belly's made out of baskets. Don't ask how I know it's a basket—she made me buy one for her once.” I turn back to Mrs. Slalom. “But thanks for the change!”

So Judge Peterson orders a cop—female—to search her shirt and sure enough, it's a basket.

Mrs. Slalom wails, leaning over the bench. “I didn't want to frame Alex! I really didn't! I was only doing that so she would stop meddling into my business!”

I shrug. “Nice try, Mrs. Slalom. But as I said, I wasn't born yesterday!”

Keith comes up to me and flashes me a smile. “You were awesome out there!”

Rena, Lila, Marcus, Otis, and Reed came up to me too, complimenting about how good I was, talking to the judge and all that.

A reporter came up to me and sticks a microphone an inch away from my lips. “So, did you really date Andrew Slalom?”

I gave her a disgusted look and then say, “That is the sickest think I've ever heard,” and stuck my tongue out at Andrew.

-TWENTY SIX-

“Oh, man!” Rena says, slurping the icing off her slice of cake. “I never knew there'd be an after-party for the trial! I can't believe it, Alex, you won.”

I shrug and put my arms around Lila and Rena. “Not without your help!”

We all laugh and started eating and drinking just like best friends do.

“So, what'd you do last night with Keith?” Lila asks.

“Nothing!” I say. “He was only walking me home and then a cop strolled by and told us to get into the car.”

“What did that have to do with him, though?”

I shrug. “I don't know…they thought he was my boyfriend because he just held my hand a bit so they thought he had something to do with this, too.”

Lila almost chokes on her milk. “He held your hand?” She tugs on Rena's shirt to make her listen. “Keith held her hand, Rena,” she tells her.

Rena's eyes got wide and she says, “Go on—tell.”

I laugh. “It's nothing. My hand was only bleeding so he came over and `held' my hand to look at it.”

“Oh my lord! He cares about you!” Lila says.

Wow. I haven't heard her say that in a while.

I bit my lips and say, “Hey, speaking of Keith, where is he?”

Rena cocks her head at him and there he is, talking to his mom about something. It looks like they're arguing or something. So I hopped off my stool and walk to him, asking, “What's wrong?”

His mom left to let us talk.

“Nothing,” Keith says, shrugging.

“Keith, I know you more than that,” I say. “Let me guess—you're grounded?”

Keith shakes his head.

“Wait, wait, you're—”

“I'm going back to California.” He sighs.

“What? Why?” I ask.

“She's worried about me so she thinks it's better if we lived in LA again.”

“Oh.” I glance back at Rena and Lila. “That means you're not going to junior high anymore? Or at least in Lariat?”

He laughs. “No.”

“Oh—oh. Well, bye.” I shake his hand and went to leave until he calls me.

I turn around. “What?”

He asks, “What's your phone number? I can still call you, I think.”

“It's um…”

“Private?”

I nod. “Yeah.”

He looks away. “Oh. Well, bye.”

“Wait,” I say. “I think I can make an exception.”

“You can?” He grins.

I nod. “But there's something I have to tell you.” I sat down next to him. “According to my records, I'm dead.”

He laughs. “What?”

“I'm serious. See, my mom and dad left me and then my aunt who was supposed to take care of me died and so I live alone now. In an empty house that no one wants to buy. My house. So they think I'm dead.”

“Then how do you go to school?”

“Lila's mom helps me tons.”

“Oh. Oh—no wonder you were keeping thins private. That's neat.”

So I made him not to tell and wrote down in a piece of paper my phone number and my address, in case he comes back to Lariat, and then I walked over to Lila and Rena and tell them all about how he's leaving.

“That must be so sad for you,” Lila says. “Your boyfriend leaving you…”

“For the last time, Lila, he's not my boyfriend!”

Rena pats me on the back and insists, “Well, at least I don't tease you by it—” she glances at Lila “—but I'm sure it must be sad that one of you close friends are leaving you to state that's, like, in the other part of the country.”

We all say our last goodbyes to Keith and then I come home alone. Today was fun and sad, at the same time. But I know, just know, that this wasn't just it. There'd be more things happening to me, just waiting for that day to come to really introduce themselves to me.

I sigh, as I finished brushing my teeth and got into bed.

I can't believe I actually won a trial. And I'm lucky there was only one reporter there at that time. And I'm lucky that Judge Peterson was nice enough to throw an after-party for me and Keith. I'm still sad about having Keith leaving the state but I still consider this day as a great day, maybe one of the greatest days of my life ever.

Mrs. Slalom went to jail for about five years since she gave them back the trophies but still, five years is enough for a person to learn their consequences.

Mr. Slalom had to pay a lot for having to lie just to cover his wife and Andrew and Andy had a tough time to finally understand that their mom was the thief for two trophies.

In the morning, after I did all the morning stuff and changed into jeans and a polo shirt, I walked outside and sat on the front steps of my porch.

I saw a mailman walk by. He took out a mail and mutters, “Why on earth is someone sending this to an empty house?” and that's when I jump up and say, “That's for me, sir!” I grab the mail and sure enough, it says, From Keith Ryan. Lila walks over to say hi but she stops when she sees me looking at the letter. She leans over to look and teases, “Ooh…”

I unfold the letter and make sure Lila's out of my way as I'm reading it in my head.

Hey Alex!

How's it going over there in Lariat? I sure hope you get this letter. I'm doing awesome in LA and I've gotten used to the time difference.

I'd have to say that in the beginning, we were arguing a lot and calling each other names but I really don't regret meeting you. Oh yeah! Thanks for helping me with my homework and projects…again! Even though I never really had the time to return it in, I still owe you something for using up all your effort to help me.

In LA, my mom told me there's a tutoring class on the weekends too. But it starts at three o'clock p.m. I may never have the worst tutor ever again, but take that as a compliment. Also, when I asked my mom if any kids my age would be tutoring, she said no, so I hope that wherever you are, even in California, you'd understand that there'd be no kids tutoring in case you wanted to sign it up for a job. *ha, ha*.

Well, I really miss you. Tell Otis, Gerry, Marcus, and Reed I miss them too. And also, tell Lila and Rena I miss them—but with less feeling. *laugh, laugh*.

I'll call you later. Remember to write back, too, Alex!

Peace,

Keith Ryan

P.S. Happy New Years!

I fold it up again, trying to keep my tears in. But I should be happy that he's calling, right?

Instantly, the phone rings.

I ran up to the phone and ask, “Hello? Keith?”

“Yeah. I just wanted to let you know that I might be visiting. I said might.”

I laugh.

“Well, Happy New Years!”