Dangerous Deception

DUTTON CHILDREN'S BOOKS

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Copyright © 2014 by Peg Kehret

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kehret, Peg.

Dangerous deception / by Peg Kehret.

pages cm

Summary: Sixth-grader Emmy and her classmates start a secret community service project to help a hungry family, but soon Emmy finds herself involved in a home burglary ring operated by the family's neighbor.

ISBN 978-0-698-14581-8

[1. Charity–Fiction. 2. Burglary–Fiction. 3. Service learning–Fiction. 4. Schools–Fiction. 5. Family life–Fiction. 6. Kidnapping–Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.K2518Dap 2014

[Fic]–dc23 2013049856

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

For Seth Robert
August 10, 2011

I
only intended to help two children who were hungry and had no money for food. That's an admirable goal for a sixth-grade girl, isn't it? You can't get in trouble for doing unto others as you would have them do unto you. Right?

Wrong! I may have had noble intentions, but I still ended up causing a car crash, being abducted by a thug, and smuggling a scared cat on a city bus by sticking him inside my T-shirt, a maneuver I do not recommend unless you're wearing a steel undershirt.

I wasn't.

It all began when Mom got sick. I know it wasn't her fault. Nobody would choose to spend half the day moaning in bed and the other half dashing to the bathroom. Still, it was a terrible time for her to get the flu. I suppose there isn't a good time to have the flu, but Mom is especially busy in April.

She works in the children's department at Dunbar's, the biggest department store in Cedar Hill. Every April Dunbar's has a big contest, “Make Your Dunbar's Dream Come True.” The entry forms look like this:

If I could have anything I want from Dunbar's Department Store, I would choose . . .

Finish the sentence in one hundred words or less, telling what you want and why. Then bring your completed entry to Dunbar's and drop it in the big red Dunbar's Dream box on the second floor or mail it to the address below.

One lucky winner will have his/her Dunbar's Dream come true.

Two runners-up each receive a $25.00 gift card.

There's a place for the person's name, address, and phone number, and then in small print, it says, “All entries are confidential. Contestants must be eighteen or older.” That's followed by Dunbar's mailing address.

The first year that Dunbar's had the contest, April sales increased by 35 percent. Apparently, people looked at all the merchandise to decide what they wanted most and then ended up buying it when they didn't win. Naturally there is now a Dunbar's Dream Contest every year.

Since the big red box where people leave their contest entries is in Dunbar's children's department, Mom was asked to empty it each evening and go through the entries to choose the best ones. The top ten get passed along to Dunbar's manager, Mrs. Murphy, who selects the winner.

The first year, Mom volunteered her time. By the second year, the number of contest entries increased so much that Dunbar's agreed to pay her extra for judging the contest. At that time, she also promised in writing not to tell anyone that she was a judge or to share the contents of the entries with anyone other than Mrs. Murphy.

The day she got the flu was the first week of this year's Dunbar's Dream Contest. Piles of entries covered our dining room table. I'd had to eat breakfast standing at the kitchen counter, which made me cranky, and I was even crankier when I got home from school. It had been a rotten day.

Somewhere between leaving home that morning and arriving in my third-period history class, I had lost the history homework that I'd done the night before. I found it later, tucked inside my library book, but by then third period was over, so even though I turned in my assignment, I got an automatic grade deduction for being late.

Then it was Cook's Surprise Day in the school cafeteria, which meant I had Gag Casserole for lunch. No sane person wants to make this, but in case you are curious, here is the recipe:

GAG CASSEROLE RECIPE

Mix cooked macaroni in a lumpy white sauce with leftover peas, carrots, corn, and whatever else you can find from the day before. (Sometimes called Clean-out-the-Fridge Casserole.) Bake until heated through. Drop globs onto plates. To lessen chance of gagging, hold nose while eating.

Some kids swear the cook actually puts table scraps from kids' plates into a big bowl and then stirs it all together to make Gag Casserole. I don't believe that, but I always bring a sandwich on Cook's Surprise Day. Not this time. Mom's the one who remembers to check the school menus and make me a lunch if the entrée isn't something I like, but that morning she didn't get up because she wasn't feeling well. She was in bed when I left and still in bed when I got home.

Her voice sounded quavery when I let myself in. “Is that you, Emmy?”

I stood in the doorway of her bedroom. “How are you feeling?” I asked.

“Awful.”

“Did you go to work for a while?”

Mom shook her head. “I didn't even get dressed.”

“How did you get more contest entries? There's a whole new bag of them on the table.”

“Colleen dropped them off. She worked for me today.”

“Did it not occur to her that, since you have the flu, she could offer to read the entries this time, or pass them along to Mrs. Murphy?”

“Colleen's only worked there a couple of months,” she said. “She probably doesn't realize how much time the contest takes.”

Waggy, our goofy black Lab mix, stood by the door making the little woof sounds that he makes when he needs to go out, so I snapped the leash on him and took him for a quick walk. Yes, I know that Waggy is not a particularly clever name for a dog, but I was only six when we adopted him. At least I didn't call him Blackie.

When I returned, I fixed Mom a cup of tea and a slice of toast, but the sight of food made her more nauseated than she already was and she bolted for the bathroom. I gave the crusts to Waggy, ate the rest of the toast myself, and watered our houseplants with the tea.

“How did your day go?” Mom asked, after she staggered back to bed.

I rolled my eyes. “We have to do a community service project,” I said, “and I'm in the same group with Jelly Bean Logan and Shoeless Parsh. They spent most of our allotted time arguing that we could go to Dairy Queen after school and have it count as a project for feeding the hungry. I'm in the worst group of the whole class.”

“Is it only the three of you?”

“No,” I said. “Lauren and Abby are in my group, too. So is Hunter Kramer.”

“Then the four of you can outvote Jelly Bean and Shoeless,” Mom said.

“They are such blockheads,” I said.

“How did Shoeless get that ridiculous nickname?” Mom asked.

“He stomped in mud during recess on his first day of kindergarten, and the teacher made him leave his shoes off for the rest of the day.”

“Kindergarten was six years ago.”

“He's every bit as wacky now as he was then,” I said. “His only talent is to wiggle both ears at the same time. They go up and down really fast.”

Mom closed her eyes, as if she couldn't bear to hear another word about Shoeless. I can't say that I blame her.

“I guess I'm on my own for dinner,” I said.

“Yes.”

If Dad had been here, I would have lobbied to have pizza delivered, but Dad was in Alaska for two weeks. He installs and maintains complicated computer programs in hospital pharmacies and teaches the hospital personnel how to use them. He's often away for a week or more at a time.

I knew there was no point asking if I could order pizza. For the last six months, Mom's been on a mission to encourage me to lose weight. She's never actually said she thinks I'm too fat, but she constantly reads food labels out loud, especially the calorie count and the grams of sugar and fat. I hate it when she does that.

The thing is, I know I weigh more than I should. I know my thighs are flabby and my butt's too big. I don't need Mom or anybody else to point it out to me. I can see myself in the mirror and, one of these days, I plan to get in shape, but I'll do it when I decide I want to, not because somebody else doesn't like the way I look. I wish the media would quit telling us about the obesity epidemic of America's children. I am not obese, but because of all the hype, my parents are afraid I will be.

I poured a glass of orange juice, then picked the broccoli out of some leftover mac-and-cheese before I zapped it. Mom tries to sneak broccoli into everything, claiming that the taste of the mac-and-cheese or spaghetti or whatever else she's contaminating will overpower the taste of broccoli. It doesn't work. Luckily for me, Waggy likes broccoli.

I pushed some of the contest entries aside to make room for my plate.

While I ate I started reading the entries. The first one said, “I would choose a dishwasher because it would save me a lot of time. My lazy husband never helps with the dishes, and I end up spending half the night cleaning up the kitchen while he watches TV. What I really need is a new husband, but a dishwasher would help a lot.”

The second entrant was a girl named Allison. I could tell by the handwriting that she was a kid, even though the contest rules state you have to be eighteen or older. Allison said she would choose a Barbie and a makeup kit. I was tempted to send her a letter, since her address was on the entry form.

Dear Allison:

Barbies and makeup kits are fine, but why not ask for a microscope, too, or a basketball? Let's not limit ourselves here, girl.

Of course I couldn't do that so I read the next entry in the pile. Then I read it again.

I would choose food, any kind. My little sister, Trudy, cries in her bed at night because she's hungry. I take an empty sack to school every day and pretend to have a lunch. All of Mama's pay this month went for our rent. She will find a second job as soon as she gets well. We need cat food, too. My cat is hungry.

The entry was signed
Sophie
. No last name. She lived at 1135 East Sycamore, Apt. 3.

Dunbar's doesn't have a grocery section, but there is a small coffee stand just inside the main entrance that sells pastries and a few pre-packaged sandwiches, in addition to specialty coffee drinks. Maybe Sophie hoped to win tuna-salad sandwiches and lemon pound cake.

I thought about the people who had won the Dunbar's Dream Contest in the previous six years. One got a dining room set. Another received an upright freezer. Nearly all of the entrants chose expensive items, such as appliances or furniture.

You don't need a dining room set or a freezer if you have no food. Sophie needed bread and apples and cans of soup. She and her sister needed bananas and oatmeal and peanut butter. Feeling guilty, I realized they'd probably even be glad to get broccoli.

Thinking about all that food made me hungry, so I took the package of shortbread cookies out of my backpack and opened it. Mom had quit keeping any kind of dessert in the house, so I was forced to spend my own money on treats. Usually I stopped at the mini-mart after school, even though the prices there were higher than at the supermarket.

By evening, Mom felt better. I took her some apple juice and while she sipped it, I said, “I read a few of the contest entries. There's one from a girl who says her family needs food.”

“Some of those entries break my heart,” Mom said.

“You mean you've had entries like that before, from needy kids who don't have enough to eat?”

“Not from kids. But there are plenty of people in Cedar Hill who can't afford warm clothes or beds.”

“When you get entries like that, what do you do?”

“In prior years the Help Your Neighbor organization contacted the person and offered to supply what they needed, but this year their donations are way down. They've already used most of this year's budget.”

“Then who helps people like Sophie? Will you and Dad buy food for her family?”

“I wish I could help, but I can't.”

“Why not?” We aren't wealthy, but I knew Mom and Dad contributed to several charitable organizations. I couldn't imagine why she would not help kids who need food so badly that they enter a contest to get it.

“Dunbar's won't let me.”

“What? Why would anyone care if you helped a hungry child?”

“It has to do with Dunbar's privacy policy. Dunbar's can give someone's name to a registered nonprofit organization such as Help Your Neighbor, but they can't give it to individuals. The first year that I read the contest entries, one asked for shoes for her little boy. She said her son's only shoes were too small, so she had cut the toes out and now the kids at school made fun of him. Out of all the merchandise in Dunbar's what that woman wanted most was shoes for her little boy.”

“So, did Help Your Neighbor give him new shoes?”

“Help Your Neighbor was not yet involved, so I showed the letter to Mrs. Murphy and told her I planned to mail that woman a gift card to use for shoes.”

“Good idea.”

“I didn't do it, though. Mrs. Murphy reminded me that I had signed a confidentiality agreement when Dunbar's hired me, agreeing that I would not disclose any Dunbar's business to anyone other than my supervisor. I'm already bending the rules by discussing the entries with you; giving gifts to people who entered the contest would be cause for my dismissal.”

“That's ridiculous!” I said. “Why would they fire you for helping a little boy get a pair of shoes?”

“Dunbar's states in the contest rules that what the entrants ask for will be kept secret. I didn't push the matter because I feared if I made a fuss about it, the higher-ups would decide I couldn't help with the contests. I enjoy screening the entries, and the extra money has been nice.”

“Doesn't it break the confidentiality agreement to tell Help Your Neighbor about some of the requests?”

“Their attorney drew up an agreement with Help Your Neighbor. They never mention Dunbar's contest. They contact people as part of a random survey and then discover what the people need. Now that they've almost run out of funds, I don't know what will happen.”

In bed that night, I thought about Sophie's contest entry. I often complained at bedtime that I was starving and had to have hot chocolate or popcorn before I could fall asleep, but I had never actually gone to bed hungry. I thought of little Trudy crying from hunger pangs. I stroked Waggy, who was stretched out beside me, and thought how awful it would be to have no food for a hungry pet. I had to help Sophie, no matter what Dunbar's privacy rules said.