Read Online Girl on the Other Side by Deborah Kerbel - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Deborah Kerbel
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could see an army of cameras pointed at me. My stomach dropped.
âH-how can I help you?â I asked, trying my best to keep my voice from shaking. But the officers didnât say a word. They just flashed a search warrant in my face and pushed their way past me; their heavy, black boots scuffing up our marble floors. I was amazed at how rude they were. I couldnât remember anybody ever treating me that way before.
It took the officers less than an hour to seize all the computers in our house â including my own laptop. That really freaked me out! Holy crap! Were they going to find out that it was me who leaked the information? Would I get arrested, too? My knees felt weak. What would happen if Catherine and David discovered that it was me who told on them?
As soon as the police left, I went back up to my room to watch for my parents. When Davidâs Bentley finally pulled up, reporters and photographers swarmed the car and set off a storm of flashbulbs in their eyes. With their hands covering their faces, my parents elbowed their way through the frenzy and ran inside the house. Sam and I tumbled down the stairs just in time to see them deadbolting the front door.
âDavid, help me lock all the windows and doors,â Catherine yelped. âAnd Beth, I want you to close all the curtains and shutters! I donât want any of those photographers out there getting our picture.â
When I heard that, I almost laughed out loud. Thankfully, I was smart enough to hold it in. Before all this happened, Catherine would have killed to have her picture taken by the press. Two years ago when my parents took me to the Toronto Film Festival, I remember how she would wear dark sunglasses and walk really fast past all the celebrity hotspots, hoping the paparazzi would think she was someone worth photographing. Man, things were really changing!
As David and Nanny carried out their orders, our house slowly morphed into a virtual prison for four. When the lockdown was complete, Catherine gathered us together and spelled out our sentence. Until the media frenzy calmed down, none of us could leave the house, open a window, or even pull back a curtain. We could make outgoing calls, but we had to stop answering the phone in case reporters were trying to get to us. Nanny was put in charge of screening all calls.
âBut what about school?â I asked.
âYou can miss a few days,â Catherine replied.
And that was that. We were trapped like animals in a cage. All of us. For the first time I could remember, my parents had nowhere to go and nothing but time on their hands.
We hunkered down in our hideout. David spent all day in his monogrammed bathrobe and slippers. He gave up shaving and, from the looks of his eyes, I think he stopped sleeping, too. With every day that passed, his beard got bushier and the circles under his eyes got darker until he started to look like some kind of psycho-freak caveman. He spent most of his time pacing from room to room in whispery phone conversations with his lawyer. His brown leather slippers swished loudly as he marched back and forth across the marble floors, speeding up whenever he got agitated. When he wasnât on the phone, he was sitting on the couch in front of the TV with his eyes glazed over like he wasnât really watching the screen.
Catherine wasnât looking much better. For the first time that I could remember, she stopped wearing makeup and high heels and I could see the stress showing through her skin in little lines on her forehead and under her eyes â proof that not even Botox could fight off the pressures of a federal indictment. But that wasnât the only change in her. Even though I was pretty sure she had never lifted a mop in her life, suddenly cleaning became her passion. And the really weird thing was that the house wasnât even dirty â like, at all. But there she was on her hands and knees scrubbing the already-clean
âH-how can I help you?â I asked, trying my best to keep my voice from shaking. But the officers didnât say a word. They just flashed a search warrant in my face and pushed their way past me; their heavy, black boots scuffing up our marble floors. I was amazed at how rude they were. I couldnât remember anybody ever treating me that way before.
It took the officers less than an hour to seize all the computers in our house â including my own laptop. That really freaked me out! Holy crap! Were they going to find out that it was me who leaked the information? Would I get arrested, too? My knees felt weak. What would happen if Catherine and David discovered that it was me who told on them?
As soon as the police left, I went back up to my room to watch for my parents. When Davidâs Bentley finally pulled up, reporters and photographers swarmed the car and set off a storm of flashbulbs in their eyes. With their hands covering their faces, my parents elbowed their way through the frenzy and ran inside the house. Sam and I tumbled down the stairs just in time to see them deadbolting the front door.
âDavid, help me lock all the windows and doors,â Catherine yelped. âAnd Beth, I want you to close all the curtains and shutters! I donât want any of those photographers out there getting our picture.â
When I heard that, I almost laughed out loud. Thankfully, I was smart enough to hold it in. Before all this happened, Catherine would have killed to have her picture taken by the press. Two years ago when my parents took me to the Toronto Film Festival, I remember how she would wear dark sunglasses and walk really fast past all the celebrity hotspots, hoping the paparazzi would think she was someone worth photographing. Man, things were really changing!
As David and Nanny carried out their orders, our house slowly morphed into a virtual prison for four. When the lockdown was complete, Catherine gathered us together and spelled out our sentence. Until the media frenzy calmed down, none of us could leave the house, open a window, or even pull back a curtain. We could make outgoing calls, but we had to stop answering the phone in case reporters were trying to get to us. Nanny was put in charge of screening all calls.
âBut what about school?â I asked.
âYou can miss a few days,â Catherine replied.
And that was that. We were trapped like animals in a cage. All of us. For the first time I could remember, my parents had nowhere to go and nothing but time on their hands.
We hunkered down in our hideout. David spent all day in his monogrammed bathrobe and slippers. He gave up shaving and, from the looks of his eyes, I think he stopped sleeping, too. With every day that passed, his beard got bushier and the circles under his eyes got darker until he started to look like some kind of psycho-freak caveman. He spent most of his time pacing from room to room in whispery phone conversations with his lawyer. His brown leather slippers swished loudly as he marched back and forth across the marble floors, speeding up whenever he got agitated. When he wasnât on the phone, he was sitting on the couch in front of the TV with his eyes glazed over like he wasnât really watching the screen.
Catherine wasnât looking much better. For the first time that I could remember, she stopped wearing makeup and high heels and I could see the stress showing through her skin in little lines on her forehead and under her eyes â proof that not even Botox could fight off the pressures of a federal indictment. But that wasnât the only change in her. Even though I was pretty sure she had never lifted a mop in her life, suddenly cleaning became her passion. And the really weird thing was that the house wasnât even dirty â like, at all. But there she was on her hands and knees scrubbing the already-clean
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