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soon.”
    That’s when the last two fish-fingers and a whole lot of gunk exploded from my mouth like a missile and landed on Detective Moustache’s bright spit-polish black shoes.
    The good part about Mum and Ken arriving at that moment was that Detective Moustache wasn’t allowed to kill me. The bad part was that Mum looked as if she would do it for him.
    Ken hurried over, pulled me into his arms and gave me a grizzly bear hug that had me burying my head in his chest and smelling the comforting scent of his favorite old woolly jumper.
    All Mum said was, “I trusted you, Chiana.”
    The sparks spitting from her eyes told me exactly what she thought about me finding a dead body at Patsy’s instead of playing CDs at Tayla’s.
    Two minutes later Tayla’s mother arrived, dressed in a faded denim mini skirt, a tiny white crop top and knee high boots. Both detectives suddenly seemed to be having great difficulty with their breathing.
    “Naughty girl,” was all she said to Tayla, before fluttering her long black eyelashes at Detective Moustache.
    Tayla gave me a wobbly smile and rolled her eyes. Her mum must have been boy-crazy as a teenager and never grew out of it. She seemed to get bored hanging out with the same guy for more than a few months. Even Tayla’s dad. She met him at a dance, married him a week later and split before the honeymoon was over.
    In the car on the way home it was icier than an Arctic igloo. Mum chilled right out and even Ken was quiet behind the wheel. I hunched in the back seat with a blanket wrapped around my shoulders and tears threatening to spill over. Tried and sentenced without a word in my defense. A prisoner on the way to a year’s grounding.
    The questions started as soon as Mum slammed the front door behind her. She threw her coat at the chair then rounded on me.
    “What were you doing at Patsy’s? You told me you were sleeping at Tayla’s.”
    “We were cleaning the house.”
    “At night?”
    “Well, when else could we clean it? We’re at school during the day.”
    Mum wasn’t being fair. Didn’t she care that I’d just been eyeballing a two-day-old corpse? My head ached. My stomach was playing hopscotch with my kidneys. And I couldn’t stop shaking.
    “Don’t give me any of your lip, young lady,” Mum snapped, digging me in the chest with one very mean finger. “The point is I trusted you and you let me down.”
    “Easy, Marg,” put in Ken, his voice soft and soothing. He touched Mum on the shoulder. “Cha’s been through enough tonight. Why don’t we continue this conversation in the morning?”
    “There’ll be no television, no computer, no phone-calls, no pocket money, no friends over, no—”
    “ Muuuum! That’s not fair! ”
    That’s when I noticed the raw fear in Mum’s eyes. Suddenly I realized I’d caused that fear. I sniffed and moved toward her.
    “I’m sorry.”
    Somehow we found ourselves in each other’s arms. The warmth of her body stopped me shaking. The security of her arms wiped away the nightmarish images. Pressed hard against her chest I had trouble breathing, but I didn’t care. My mum loved me. She might be grounding me for a year—but she loved me.

Thirteen
    Two days later things had returned to normal. Sarah was still the flavor of the month and I was still the evil stepsister. Although, when Sarah complained to Mum about me wearing her frog necklace, Mum slipped me a smile and said frogs reminded her of that book she used to read to me when I was little, The Frog Princess .
    Then again…I was still grounded.
    And I knew what it was like to be a lion trapped in a cage.
    I paced from one room to the next. I roared at Sarah when she said the purple top I wore clashed with my red shorts. I scowled at Ken when he suggested I clean the kitchen cupboards. And I snarled at Leroy when he swallowed my dressing gown cord.
    Lately, I’d been teaching Leroy tricks in return for his daily Tim Tam. Just for something to do. Today’s trick