by Sarah Kapit
“I guess we do.” Lara gestured toward the paper. “So, I’ll correct your essay and you can make the changes before you turn it in. You need to redo the essay for your language arts teacher, so you must be really busy.”
About a nanosecond after the words were out of her mouth, Lara remembered that she wasn’t supposed to know about Aviva’s language arts essay. Fidgeting with her pen, Lara reflected on the fact that Georgia Ketteridge would never reveal investigation findings to a suspect. Not that Aviva was a suspect, exactly, but it was the same general idea.
“How do you know that I need to redo my language arts essay?” Aviva asked.
Lara’s mind raced, searching for a good enough lie. Unfortunately, she could only come up with the most unconvincing thing ever. “I just . . . I just guessed.”
For a moment, Aviva didn’t respond. She just kind of grunted under her breath. Finally, she spoke once again. “Please do not tell my mother about this.”
Lara wasn’t sure what she had expected. But it wasn’t that. “Okay,” she said. “No problem.”
“It’s not that I want to keep secrets from her,” Aviva said. “I just do not want her to worry about me. It is hard for her, being here. I do not want to add to her troubles.”
It was difficult for Lara to imagine ever-calm Aunt Miriam being troubled by anything, least of all something related to perfect Aviva. Well, almost-perfect Aviva. But she nodded.
“Your secret is completely safe with me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE:
VERMIN MOST FOUL
It took a lot of time, list-making, and looking up videos on YouTube. But finally, Caroline managed to come up with a perfect prank. Even though it involved blood—well, red paint—it was too perfect not to try.
Micah liked it, too. When Caroline had texted him her plans he’d replied with three thumbs-up emojis, plus a few laugh-crying faces for good measure. He said he just might try it on his brothers soon. Caroline smiled, then got to work making a prop for the prank. That was key if it was going to work at all.
Caroline had done an outstanding job on the art, if she did say so herself. Now they just had to pull the whole thing off without getting caught, murdered, or expelled.
We’ve done it once, Caroline reminded herself. And no one had suspected a single thing, with the possible exception of Ms. Williamson. And Lara. But Lara, while highly annoying, didn’t actually know anything.
The drive to school that morning probably was not any longer than usual. But it definitely felt longer. As they ran into a red light for approximately the billionth time that morning, Caroline bounced up and down in her seat. She didn’t have time for this—she needed to show Micah the results of last night’s art project. If you could call it that.
Lara shot Caroline a look, which Caroline proceeded to ignore. There was no way Lara could guess what she had planned, surely.
Finally, Ima pulled the station wagon up by the curb. “Have a good day, girls,” she said, glancing at her watch. “And remember to tell all your teachers that you’ll be gone for Rosh Hashanah tomorrow.”
“Yes, Aunt Ezter,” Aviva said, while Lara rolled her eyes.
Caroline ignored them both and went straight for the spot in the sixth-grade hallway where she and Micah met each morning. She’d started to think of it as their spot.
Sure enough, he was waiting for her. “Do you have it?”
She glanced around to make sure they weren’t being watched—you could never be too careful when plotting against Marissa. After determining that Marissa did not have spies lurking in the nearest trash can, Caroline pulled open her backpack and showed Micah the project that had consumed her entire evening.
His eyes widened when he took it all in. “It looks so real. How’d you do it?”
Caroline flipped open her tablet to answer. “Kugel has toys that look pretty realistic. But it took a lot of experimenting. I made three of them before I got one that looked right.”
“You nailed it,” Micah told her. “Caroline Finkel, you are an artist of exceptional ability.”
Perhaps Caroline should not have been pleased, but she flushed at the compliment.
“We should be able to complete the plan during art,” Caroline said.
“Yep. I think you should have the honors this time.”
Sweat practically erupted from Caroline’s palms, and she frowned. “Are you sure?”
“Of course, Caro! It was your idea, wasn’t it? You should be the one to have all the fun.”
Micah might be Caroline’s best—only?—friend, but she questioned his ideas about what made for a fun thing to do.
“Okay,” she typed.
Maybe pranking Marissa wasn’t going to be fun, exactly. But she was going to do it. Caro did not back down from a good challenge.
* * *
* * *
The fact that Caroline made it until art class without exploding qualified as a minor miracle. Still, her legs were definitely more jittery than usual as she worked on her sculpture. (Or, well, pretended to work.)
In some ways, this plan was actually easier to pull off than the bloody-pen prank. Thanks to Caroline’s careful planning, she wouldn’t actually have to get close to Marissa.
She would, however, need to get into Marissa’s backpack.
“When are you going to do it?” Micah whispered to her as soon as he slid into the seat next to hers.
After looking around to make sure that no one had overheard, Caroline typed a single word into her tablet: “Soon.”
Waiting would just make her lose any shred of bravery she possessed, while causing the bad sort of nerves to skyrocket. Caroline felt quite sure of that. So she had to make her move soon.
Luckily, everyone kept their backpacks at the front of the classroom during class. Ms. Williamson said she didn’t want anyone ending up with purple paint splattered on their bags. Caroline personally wouldn’t mind a little purple paint to decorate her bag, but today her entire plan depended on this arrangement. Even better: There was a movable cork wall between the bag area and the rest of the classroom.
Obviously, the purpose of the wall was not to hide students who were in the process of doing a not-so-nice thing to a classmate. Caroline knew that, and it made her insides squirm. The artist in the back of her brain kept painting tight spirals in puke green—a fair expression of her mood, to be sure.
Don’t be a baby, she scolded herself. It wasn’t like Marissa was going to actually get hurt or anything.
Soon after class began, Ms. Williamson disappeared to the far side of the room to help a boy use the wire cutters. It was the perfect opportunity.
Micah knew it too. He smiled at her.
Caroline took in a deep breath and scurried to the bag area.
It wasn’t hard at all to find Marissa’s backpack. Her name was monogrammed right on it, in white cursive lettering. Caroline’s hands shook a little as she unzipped the bag and searched for Marissa’s lunch box.
Ah. There it was—one of those fancy lunch boxes with padded fabric. Caroline opened it, careful to avoid touching Marissa’s actual food. After all, there was no need to spread germs. (Well, at least not any more than she was already doing.)
Before she could think too much about it, Caroline slipped in her creation. She sealed up the box, zipped the bag, and tiptoed away from it as fast as she could possibly manage—nearly tripping on the way back to her seat.
“Did you do it?” Micah asked her.
Caroline nodded.
Micah gave a laugh that veered toward an honest-to-goodness cackle. Caroline tried to smile back at him.
“This is going to be awesome!” he said. “I can’t wait for lunch.”
Caroline tried to agree, but couldn’t quite manage to figure out the right words. Wild curls in bloodred filled her mind, making it impossible to concentrate. She ha
d absolutely no idea how she was going to make it to lunch.
Yet make it she did—though not without a whole lot of hand-flapping, leg-bouncing, and general lack of ability to pay attention to anything. But finally, she and Micah made it to the cafeteria.
Act normal, Caroline told herself. And for goodness’ sake, don’t look at Marissa.
Of course, she couldn’t look away from Marissa.
There wasn’t much to look at, not at first. A crowd of girls surrounded Marissa—she, naturally, was at the very center of the group. Soon enough, the cafeteria became so crowded that Caroline couldn’t see anything aside from a sea of moving bodies. All the colors and smells swirled together, making it almost impossible to concentrate.
“Are you okay?” Micah asked her.
Caroline did not respond. Nor did she look at her own lunch bag. She just waited.
Soon enough, it came. A familiar shriek rang through the cafeteria. Then, a beat of silence.
It didn’t last long. “Someone put a dead rat in my lunch!” Marissa said. Well, screamed.
Murmurs rippled through the room, soon followed by the unmistakable chime of giggling. Caroline smiled, although her conscience winced.
All the chaos made it hard to follow what happened next, but Caroline guessed that a teacher went over to Marissa. “It’s not a rat,” an unfamiliar voice declared. “Although it does look very realistic.”
“Nice job,” Micah whispered.
Caroline felt absurdly proud of her handiwork. Because of course she hadn’t actually put a dead animal in Marissa’s lunch—she would never do something so obviously mean and unsanitary. No, instead she’d merely taken one of Kugel’s mouse toys and made it look like it was dead. Large quantities of red paint had been involved.
It was just a joke. Wasn’t it?
“You screamed because of a fake rat?” a boy Caroline didn’t know asked rather loudly. “Next time maybe someone should try a rubber chicken—you know, like they sell in joke shops for the little kids.”
A ripple of laughter erupted. It suddenly occurred to Caroline that she and Micah were probably not the only students at Pinecone Arts Academy who resented Marissa and her meanness.
“Shut up, Dylan,” Marissa said. But her voice was so thin that Caroline thought it might evaporate.
“Enough,” said the teacher. “Everybody, return to your tables for now. If you know anything about this, tell me. This is not funny. There will be consequences for this behavior.”
Caroline gulped—but next to her, Micah grinned. Widely.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR:
IN WHICH THE INVESTIGATION TAKES AN UNEXPECTED TURN
LOCATION: Bedroom, 9:00 p.m. last night
EVENT: C. had red paint stains on her hands. Just red.
QUESTION FOR FURTHER INVESTIGATION: Why?
Something was weird about Caroline again. Lara knew it. And so she watched her sister very, very carefully throughout the entire day. Even now that school was over, she tried to keep an eye on Caroline. Sneakily, of course.
An uncomfortable silence lingered between them as they waited for Aviva by the entrance. It was not for lack of trying on Lara’s part. Yet Caroline kept responding to her inquiries with one-word answers. How very annoying!
“Ahem.”
Lara glanced up to find Principal Jenkins. At first, she tensed. Was she in trouble? She hadn’t done anything wrong lately! At least, not as far as she could remember.
Then she realized: Principal Jenkins wasn’t talking to Lara. Her scarily serious look was directed at Caroline.
“Miss Finkel,” she said. “I would like to talk with you in my office.”
In no time at all, Caroline’s face became a particularly unhappy shade of pale. Lara squeezed her on the shoulder. Sure, her sister was so obviously hiding something. But that did not mean Lara was about to allow Principal Jenkins to do . . . whatever it was she was planning to do.
“If Caroline goes, I go,” she said.
Principal Jenkins nodded. “That really is not necessary. Your sister is not in trouble. But if it would make you feel better . . .”
“It would.”
Without her tablet in hand, Caroline remained silent. Lara straightened her back as they walked into the office. She could totally handle this.
Principal Jenkins gestured for them to sit down in the squishy chairs across from her desk. Lara sank into one and tried to keep her focus. She would not be lured into complacency, and she intended to let Principal Jenkins know it.
“If you don’t follow the Americans with Disabilities Act, I am going to let our lawyer know about it,” Lara informed her.
The Finkels did not actually have a lawyer. But Principal Jenkins didn’t need to know that. The principal sighed and looked at Lara.
“Neither of you is in trouble,” she said. “I just wanted to have a talk with Caroline.”
Lara did not relax a single millimeter, and neither did her sister. She crossed her arms across her chest but did not speak.
The principal focused her attention on Caroline. “I understand that you’ve made a new friend . . . Micah Perkowski, is it?”
Ah. So that was the boy Caroline sent thirty katrillion texts to every day. The boy who had done something or other with fake blood, even if Caroline wouldn’t admit to anything. Lara immediately disliked him.
Hands shaking, Caroline pulled out her tablet and started to type. “Yes,” she said.
“I am glad to see you make friends,” Principal Jenkins said. “Although I wonder if perhaps he is not the best choice.”
Caroline’s fingers flew across the screen. “He is a very good friend to me.”
“Okay. However, I do have . . . questions. I’m sure you know what happened at lunch today.”
Lara scrunched her face into a frown. School gossip rarely reached her, let alone sixth-grade gossip. But even she had heard about some unusual events. Something involving a screaming girl and a lunch box and a dead rat that was neither dead nor a rat. It all sounded rather bizarre.
Of course, it was ridiculous that such a thing could be at all connected to Caroline. And yet Lara could not help but recall the Mystery of the Red Paint.
At first, Caroline didn’t respond to the principal. But Lara could practically feel her muscles tense up. Maybe it was sisterly psychic powers. Maybe it was just that she knew Caroline so well. Whatever the cause, she just knew that her sister was heading toward a very bad place.
Lara should do something. Protect Caroline now, get answers from her later.
“I don’t think my sister had anything to do with that dead rat. Or whatever it was. You don’t know her like I do,” Lara insisted.
Unless I don’t know her as well as I thought, a voice in Lara’s head whispered.
Principal Jenkins looked at her with pursed lips. “I’m not accusing Caroline of anything. I’m sure she didn’t have anything to do with the incident. I’ve been talking to her art teacher, though. And I was wondering if perhaps any of Caroline’s new friends might have been involved.”
Obviously she meant Micah. Lara tapped her fingers against her leg and thought about it. She didn’t know very much about this Micah character. But just last week, he’d been running around with fake blood. Perhaps he really was just the sort of little jerk who would go around putting fake rats into people’s lunch bags.
Caroline typed at top speed. “You have no proof that Micah did anything,” she said. As soon as she was finished, she started glaring at the stapler on Principal Jenkins’s desk. It was a very impressive glare.
Principal Jenkins gave a not-really smile. “I don’t claim to know what happened. But your art teacher did mention her suspicions about your friend. She said that just last week, there was an incident. She thought Micah might be involved.”
Lara could feel Ca
roline shake next to her, just like when they were little and used to huddle together during a particularly scary rainstorm.
“Can’t you see you’re upsetting my sister?” Lara asked.
“I apologize,” Principal Jenkins said in a not-sorry voice. “But I do have to know these things.”
“Micah didn’t put the rat in Marissa’s lunch box,” Caroline said finally.
As always, her British computer voice gave nothing away. But Lara couldn’t help but wonder. Caroline had been awfully careful with her words. Too careful.
Principal Jenkins looked most unhappy—a fact that pleased Lara more than it ought to. “Well. If you say so . . .” she said.
“I do.”
Time to put an end to this interrogation session. If anyone was going to interrogate Caroline on this subject, it would be Lara.
She stood up and placed her hands on her hips. “My sister doesn’t know anything. Can we go now? Our cousin is waiting for us.”
Principal Jenkins sighed, but at last she nodded. “Well. Please do let me know if there’s something else you’d like to share with me,” she told Caroline.
“Sure,” Caroline said. Lara almost snorted.
Lara’s head spun in a thousand different directions as she escorted Caroline out of the office. Something about the whole thing just seemed, well, suspicious. Georgia Ketteridge would say that it reeked like bad ham on Christmas. Lara had no personal experience with bad ham, or Christmas, but she imagined that such a thing really would reek.
She replayed Caroline’s words in her head. Micah didn’t put the rat in Marissa’s lunch box.
All at once, Lara remembered something. Last night, she’d wanted to play with Kugel. But she couldn’t find any of his mouse toys anywhere. Now, that was hardly unusual. Kugel was notoriously good at losing toys. Ima always threatened to stop buying them for him, but he got away with such irresponsibility on account of being so cute. And also a cat.
Then, of course, there had been Caroline’s paint-stained hands. Her very obviously red hands.