Read Online Fatality by Caroline B. Cooney - Free Book Online Page A

realized that she had given the two principals a clue. They didn’t hear it, she told herself. They won’t remember it. “Thank you, Alan, but I have community service. I’m on my way to the corner right now to get picked up by the transport van.” Tell him you’ll go out with him another time, she ordered herself. Tell him—
    But she didn’t.
    “You of all people,” said Alan. “I can’t stand the thought of the creeps you’ll be with. What will you actually be doing?”
    “Picking up trash along highways.”
    “Really? What highway?”
    “Wherever the van drops me, I guess.” She had to extricate herself from this before she flung herself against his chest and begged him to go with her. “I’m late, Alan, thanks for, umm, you know, being so nice. See you. Bye.”
    She walked away from him before he could walk away from her, but there was no safety in any direction. Ming had been watching the whole thing from down the corridor.
    “He asked you out and you said no?” hissed Ming when Rose had nowhere to go except up to her.
    “He didn’t actually ask me out. He promised Tabor he’d—” Rose stopped. She didn’t have the energy for this.
    “Oh, well. Let’s go to my house,” said Ming. “My parents don’t get home from work till six-thirty. You and I can really talk because it’ll be absolutely private and you can tell me everything.”
    “There isn’t anything to tell, Ming. Anyway, I can’t go to your house today because I have community service. I’m picking up trash on roadways. It sounds kind of interesting. You wear these orange—”
    “I don’t care what you wear to pick up trash,” snapped Ming. “And don’t pretend you don’t remember taking the police car. What are you going to plead? Memory loss? Insanity? You remember every detail of it, Rose, and you know it.”
    Oddly enough, Rose did not remember every detail. In fact the details, both now and four years ago, had evaporated quickly.
    How grateful she had been for seventh grade after her Lofft visit weekend, because school was as filling as doughnuts. By the end of any school day, Rose felt entirely full, heavy in her stomach, as if she’d eaten an entire dozen.
    Only weeks later, Christmas of her seventh grade, somebody gave Dad a telescope, on the theory that he wanted to watch hawks soaring in the sky. “What did I ever say to make anybody think that?” Dad mumbled. He set the telescope by the bay window, and there it gathered dust. Now and then, Rose would focus on a distant tree or roof.
    For four years, she had seen her mother and father as if through that scope. Close up and painfully clear.
    Then they would slide out of view, and finding them again was difficult.
    Yet as the weeks and months passed, Rose actually forgot.
    Every now and then some phrase or glance would hit her in the face. Rose would want to sink to her knees and cry out, but she would force herself to think of Nannie. No matter how steep the stairs, Nannie labored up and down. No matter how stiff her knees, Nannie gripped that racket. No matter how painful her fingers, Nannie played the piano. So no matter how stiff Rose’s heart, she must keep going.
    “Have you written me off?” said Ming fiercely. “I’m not good enough to tell things to? I’m the last one to find out that you’ve started stealing vehicles, going to judges, getting probation, and having your friends interrogated?”
    “I’m sorry, Ming, but I can’t be late. The judge—”
    “They didn’t come to my house, of course. I guess they only interviewed the important people in your life.”
    If she did not get out of here soon, Rose was going to lie down on the floor and assume fetal position. “I’m sorry, Ming,” said Rose, who was.
    They lived in an age where passing information was the most important thing on the planet. People spent their lives in the exchange of knowledge. If something happened, everybody deserved to know. Some people deserved to know