Finding the Forger (5 page)

Later in that class, I saw Sarah and managed to pass her a note
asking if she’d thought any more about Kerrie’s party. Mr. Baker, meanwhile, took us through a rendition of “Feeling Groovy” because he wanted to do some “popular music” in the spring. Yup. Popular music. Maybe when he was a kid. Hmm . . . Mr. Baker as a kid. I saw him in knee pants and bow tie . . . Anyway, Baker caught Sarah trying to write me back and made her put away her notebook.

And finally, I happened to see Kerrie later that morning heading into study hall—with Doug! Doug talking to her real confidential-like, leaning down toward her. And she looked all weepy-eyed again, which meant she was still vacuuming up all his sympathy supply, and again leaving none for me!

So my morning was a linear progression from goofy teacher, to information void, to potential heartbreak.

Maybe lunch would be better, right?

Wrong. Whatever happened with Kerrie and her dad had ratcheted up her animosity toward Sarah. For the first time since enrolling at St. John’s, together, Kerrie spent a lunch hour at another table. When I saw her heading for a group of girls in her homeroom, I cheerily waved her over to our usual table at the back of the bright-white cafeteria near the doors to the auditorium lobby.

“Sorry, Bianca,” she said kind of coldly, “I have a group project due before Christmas and I thought I’d get a head start on it.”

Since when does any student use lunch period to get a head start on a class project?

Normally, I would have tried to nudge Kerrie back into the straight and narrow path of our friendship. But today, after seeing how she’d used my boyfriend as a sympathy sop, I decided I couldn’t care less who she ate lunch with as long as it wasn’t Doug.

Then Sarah plopped down at my table with a tray loaded up
for a nuclear winter—pizza, salad, corn chips, a giant chocolate chip cookie, and a container of milk. I opened my bag and pulled out my PB&J on nearly stale whole wheat. We only eat whole wheat bread at my house because of Connie’s fascination with health food. If I want white bread, I have to bring it in special, like contraband shipped across enemy lines.

“Mrs. Taney made a comment about your bandana,” Sarah said as she opened her milk carton. “She’s not sure it’s legal.”

“Gee, thanks, Sarah. Maybe you want to go eat with Kerrie, too, huh?” I was in no mood for teasing, or even a “helpful” heads-up from a friend warning me of a potential dress code violation and detention.

“Whoa. Calm down. I’m just trying to help. You might want to stay away from Taney, that’s all.” Sarah looked over at Kerrie and her eyes narrowed.

“Okay. I give up,” I said after washing my sandwich down with a half liter of iced tea. “What’s happening with Kerrie, and let’s talk some more about the museum thing, okay?” That’s what I needed—other people’s problems to keep my mind off my own.

“I still don’t know what’s up with Kerrie. Doug might know, though. She seemed to be talking to him a lot today.” Although Sarah said it noncommittally, I couldn’t help wondering if she was trying to plant seeds of doubt in my mind about Kerrie. After all, if she and Kerrie were in Tension Universe, she might want to have me in her Command Central, aligned against Kerrie. Hmm . . . I really did need that negotiator, or special envoy, or
someone
, for crying out loud.

On to Topic Number Two, which I was increasingly interested in because my motto was fast becoming “when in doubt, snoop.”

“What did the cops find when they came to the museum yesterday?”
I asked.

Sarah wiped her mouth and broke off a piece of cookie. She obviously subscribed to the life advice about eating dessert first. I liked that advice, too. I wished I’d had some dessert with which to implement it, but I only had an apple, and an apple just isn’t the same thing as a cookie—I don’t care what nutritionists tell you.

“Some alarm tripped. Nothing special. Electrical snafu or something.”

“Who told you that?”

“Hector.” As soon as she said it, her face reddened. Hector— the “Latino” she was afraid her boss was fingering for . . . whatever.

“Is Hector a good worker?”

“Yeah! Why do you ask?”

“Just wondering if that’s why you overheard your boss talking about him—you know, complaining.”

“I don’t know why she was talking about him. That’s part of the problem!” Clearly, talking about this upset Sarah. She suspected something, but was afraid to voice it. I’d have to back up and get her to calm down if I wanted to get more out of her.

Ever since I got involved in Sarah’s own mystery earlier in the fall, I found I had a hankering for mysteries in general. I thought I might have some talent in that regard—figuring things out. And I wanted my sister Connie to hire me to help out in her fledgling private eye business next summer. It would be a lot better than working at Burger Boy, which was Tony’s place of part-time employment. And a lot better than baby-sitting, which was what my mother was trying to line up for me.

Me as a babysitter? That had disaster written all over it. The only thing I knew about miniature people was that they leaked—their
noses ran, their mouths drooled, and other parts were always wet and needing changing. Not the right kind of job for “glam girl.”

No, I saw myself in trench coat and Fedora finding Maltese Falcons and kidnapped heiresses. Which brought me back to the museum, Sarah, and Hector.

“Does your boss know that you and Hector are friends?” I asked.

“No. Don’t think so. It’s all business in the office. I stay pretty busy. And Hector has his rounds and all.”

“So when do you get to talk to him?”

“On his breaks. He takes his breaks outside in this small parking lot in the back. Next to the dumpster.”

Wow. How romantic. A rendezvous near the dumpster.

“Does your boss see you?”

“No. Why?”

“Well, if she doesn’t know you’re friends with Hector, you might be able to get some info out of her. Ask her some pointed questions.”

Sarah brightened. “Like what?”

“Well, you could get her talking about the alarm. Ask her if she suspects foul play—if someone tripped it on purpose.”

“Yeah.” Sarah liked that idea, and frankly, so did I. While I had every intention of pumping my sister for info if she got the museum job, I also could use my own powers of investigation—by using Sarah as my agent, my plant, my mole—my whatever!

“And then you could casually ask her if they ever had that problem before—someone tripping the alarm. And then kind of casually say something like ‘who would even know how to do that—the guards?’ and see what she says, see if she says anything
about Hector.” I was getting excited about this. I knew exactly how I would handle the investigation. I could even envision myself “casually” asking all those questions.

“Thanks, Bianca. I’ll try that the next time I’m there.”

Okay, that mystery was percolating, so onto the next one—like what was up with Kerrie. After gulping down my sandwich, which was no mean feat considering it was dry as kindling, I sashayed over to Kerrie’s new lunch table. I didn’t care what she thought. I was going to get to the bottom of this. Hmm . . . this hair thing had an “up” side. It was emboldening me, giving me a “devil may care” attitude about life. I mean, after you suffer through hair humiliation, the only way to go is up, right?

“Kerrie, do you have a sec?” I asked, standing next to her table. She looked surprised.

“Uh. Yeah. What do you want?”

“I need to talk to you. Privately.”

Reddening, she stood and followed me out of the caf to the dim lobby in front of the auditorium. Maybe she was motivated by fear that I would berate her about my hair in front of her new friends, warning them to stay away from the newest Hair Terminator. “See what she’s done to me? Go back! Go back!” I could have yelled, ripping the bandana from my head with a flourish. Hmm . . . not a bad scenario. I’d have to remember it in case Kerrie continued to act goofy.

“What?” she asked, folding her arms across her chest.

“What’s up with you?” I asked. “You come into school all weepy, then sit with others at lunch. Did I do something?” Of course I didn’t do anything. She’s the one who did something. But I needed to ask this question to make her wrong-headed attitude completely clear to her.

“No, you didn’t! It’s just that . . .” Her eyes started to water and I wanted to scream. Here we go again. “Sarah. You’re sitting with Sarah. And she did something really nasty to me last night.”

I mentally rolled my eyes. Okay, maybe I really rolled my eyes. But I made sure Kerrie wasn’t looking when I did it. “What did she do?” I asked, trying to sound understanding but not too sympathetic.

“She roped my dad into taking her to Boston for the weekend.”

With that one sentence, I had the full picture. Here it is: Mr. Daniels suggests to Sarah that she look at a few Boston-area colleges. He sets up the appointments. Kerrie asks him to take her somewhere. He reveals his other plans. She blames Sarah since she can’t bring herself to blame Dad. And when she expresses her disappointment, Dad chides her. Big argument. Tears. Doug sympathy.

“Well, Ker, she
is
applying to colleges kind of late,” I said as gently as I could. “But she’ll be finished with it soon enough. And look at it this way—your dad is learning a lot about how to help you with it when your time comes.”

This did not help. In fact, if anything, it seemed to make Kerrie madder.

“That’s what my father said!” she fumed. “But that’s not the point. We always go Christmas shopping together the weekend after Thanksgiving weekend. And now he won’t even be in town!”

All right, I’m a softie. Despite the fact that Kerrie was being obtuse (I just learned that word in English class, by the way—it can mean “insensitive” and “stupid”), she and I went back a long ways. Well, since freshman year, anyway. Looking at her now, I thought of how hard it must be to adjust to siblinghood after living in Only Child Land for so long. I thought of what a good relationship she
had with her dad. Who was I to scoff at that? My dad died when I was too young to know him. If he was around, I’d probably be guarding my moments with him like a sentry, too, right? Maybe we didn’t need a special negotiator flown in. Maybe I just needed to be a better friend.

“Why don’t you go shopping with
me?
” I asked tentatively. Then I reached over and squeezed her arm. She smiled ruefully (another new word, it means “mournfully” or “regretfully”).

“Thanks, Bianca. That’s sweet of you. Maybe.”

“Doug and I were supposed to go to the mall this weekend,” I continued. “You could come along.”

“Yeah, he mentioned that.”

Screeching halt to the Sympathy Train. Doug mentioned our mall date? As in “why don’t you come along on it”? No, no, no! This was all wrong. Doug, being the boyfriend, could not open our dates up to other girls without permission from me. He could only open them up to other boys. I, the girlfriend, was the designated inviter of other girls. Hadn’t he read the dating rules book? Did he need some remedial work here?

“Uh. That’s good,” I said, pasting a smile on my face. “I’ll call you about a time.”

“He said noonish.”

Splat. That was the sound of my heart hitting the floor. Doug even told her the time? He hadn’t even told
me
that!

“Yeah. Noonish,” I sputtered. Just then, the buzzer deafened us. It was time to clear out and head to the next class.

“Thanks, Bianca. You made me feel better,” Kerrie said as we headed back into the cafeteria to get our things. “And don’t worry about your hair. Doug said that’s not why he likes you, anyway.”

If that was supposed to be comforting, it failed miserably. By
the time I arrived at my next class, Honors Geometry, I was convinced Kerrie and Doug had a secret thing going, and she’d ruined my hair on purpose.

F
OR A GUY to comment on a girl’s hair, it had to be really, really good or really, really bad. Doug really, really didn’t like my hair. That had to be the case if he’d mentioned it to Kerrie. That lame “that’s not why he likes you, anyway” line that Kerrie had thrown at me told the whole story. His misguided attempts at sympathy later in the day clinched my case. Outside after school, before heading to his bus, he talked to me, but he kept looking at my hair while he talked and his eyes kept scrunching up kind of funny, like he expected it to reach out and grab him or something.