Lara surveyed the hodgepodge of materials he’d gathered: a month’s worth of empty cereal boxes, shiny black marbles, several rolls of twine. He’d also borrowed—or just taken—buttons from Aunt Miriam’s sewing kit, Caroline’s empty acrylic tubes, and . . . wait. What was that silver oval on the far side of the floor?
She moved closer and her mouth dropped. Although the turquoise engravings had become blackened and gunky, she felt reasonably certain that this was Ima’s missing brooch. Somehow, Benny had found it. Now he was using it as part of his weird machine thing.
“You’re not supposed to see the machine until it’s done.”
Lara jumped at the sound of Benny’s voice. She’d been so distracted by this newest revelation that she hadn’t noticed him come in.
Her brother looked perfectly oblivious as always. Maybe he didn’t even realize that he was using Ima’s treasured heirloom like it was just another piece of junk. She should probably tell him. Or Ima.
Later, she decided. Right now there were other priorities. She smiled at him and handed over the hair clips. “Thanks for the help.”
“No problemo. If you ever need me to crash my car around again, tell me!”
It was silly, perhaps, but Lara didn’t fully release her breath until she returned to her room. Caroline wasn’t there. Good. If the stuff about Dad was really bad, then she wouldn’t have to tell her sister.
As her foot tapped out a nervous dance, Lara pulled up her email. Clicked on the message she’d sent from Dad’s computer. And started to read.
“Dear Mr. Finkel . . .” the letter began. Blah blah blah. That wasn’t important.
Then, about halfway down the page, she found it. A section called “reason for termination.” Lara read.
“Despite the high quality of your work, your consistent inability to meet deadlines and complete administrative tasks have caused problems . . .”
Lara stared. She couldn’t say she was surprised. Paperwork and deadlines definitely weren’t Dad-things. It all made sense now—Ima’s irritation, Dad’s embarrassment, all the secret-keeping. Even so, Lara couldn’t help but feel as though she’d been kicked.
She had solved the mystery. But she had absolutely no idea how she—or anyone else—could fix it.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: A CRIME MOST BLOODY
Caroline wanted the rest of the world to go away forever. Unfortunately, the world wasn’t inclined to go away just because she wished it so. And she did not quite have the energy to yell at Lara for her continued meddling into everyone else’s business, no matter how much the idea appealed to her.
As the next-best option, Caroline threw herself into research. She had promised Micah that she would help figure out how to get back at Marissa and she intended to do just that. If her stomach still clenched a bit at the thought, well, that was easy enough to ignore.
After all, she told herself, she and Micah were just going to do a harmless prank. It wasn’t as if they were going to do something really mean. Like calling Marissa useless.
Caroline gulped. She did not want to think about Dad and Ima, she did not.
Legs bouncing, Caroline stared intently at her phone. Like always, she was texting with Micah. However, their current topic of conversation was not one of Caroline’s favorites.
So, what should we do to Marissa? We have to get back at her.
Although Caroline had hoped that Micah would eventually drop his plan for revenge, he had not. It definitely didn’t help that Marissa had loudly referred to them as “losers” in the cafeteria today. When Micah snapped back at her, she’d shrugged and said that she didn’t realize Caroline understood the word loser. At which point Caroline barely managed to restrain her friend from punching Marissa in the face.
So she was pretty sure there was no talking Micah out of anything. Caroline bounce-walked over to her computer and entered “pranks for school” into Google. Maybe it was better if she, not Micah, decided on the prank. Surely she could find something that wasn’t too mean. They’d still give Marissa a small fright, of course, but they wouldn’t do any lasting damage in the process.
After watching three different videos on YouTube, Caroline had an idea. She reached for the phone again.
Let’s mess with her pens.
Like take a black pen and make it purple.
I found out how to do it on YouTube.
Micah wrote back almost immediately.
Cool idea.
Caroline beamed. She’d done it. Micah liked her idea, he was still her friend, and they weren’t going to do anything too mean to Marissa. Caroline thought she’d like it if someone made a boring black pen turn purple. Marissa probably wouldn’t, but even she couldn’t possibly get particularly angry at such a minor nuisance. Right?
Still, Caroline couldn’t entirely shake the lump that had taken up residence in her chest—the one that had nothing to do with Micah or Marissa or any of this. No, this particular lump had formed while she stood outside her parents’ bedroom, listening as everything fell apart in the worst way possible.
It was a blank-canvas-brain moment if ever there was one.
Don’t think about it, Caroline!
Her favorite therapist always said that whenever things got to be too much, she ought to find something relaxing to do. Something that would make her forget about her worries, if only for a brief moment. But what?
A ping from her phone tore Caroline away from her spiraling thoughts. Micah, it seemed, had a lot to say about the plan to avenge Helena the zebra. Okay, so not exactly the distraction she’d been looking for, but still a distraction.
I
