Stitches and Stones (10 page)

She finally got her opportunity to talk to her dad when they were in the car on the way to A Stitch in Time.

“Dad, I need to talk to you about something.”

“Go ahead, Zo. Shoot.”

“Well . . . it's my blog. It just started this week, but . . . there have been all these horrible comments
on it. Really mean stuff. It's been awful. I've tried blocking the users, but then new users come and say the same kinds of things. I don't know who is doing it . . . but I hate it! It's making Sew Zoey not fun anymore.”

“Honey—that's terrible! Why didn't you say something to me before now?”

“You haven't been home that much this week,” Zoey pointed out. “And when you have been home, you've been really tired. And I didn't know what to say. I was also a little embarrassed, and I thought I could take care of it myself.”

“I'm so sorry, Zoey. I got a little behind on reading your blog since work has been crazy. But I thought I was mostly caught up and”—he paused as he came to a realization—“Oh! I guess I usually just read the blog posts, not the comments.”

“That's okay, Dad,” Zoey said, remembering her blog posts often received dozens of comments—sometimes more than a hundred. “Besides, I think I deleted all the bad ones, so you might have missed them. I just don't know what else to do. Can you please help me make it stop?”

At that, she burst into tears. They were tears of hurt and tears of relief and tears of frustration, and she couldn't stop them from flowing.

“Of course I will, Zo. I'll do everything I can to get to the bottom of this,” her father said. “I'm sorry work has been so crazy that I haven't been around as much this week.”

He stopped the car at the red light and looked at her, dabbing her eyes with a tissue before rubbing her back.

“Zoey, I want you to remember you and Marcus are always my number-one priority, no matter what else is going on, so if you're upset about something, you can tell me about it no matter how tired I am from work. Do you understand that?”

Zoey nodded. She felt like if she spoke again, she'd let loose another flood of tears. Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing.

“Okay, then. I mean it. Anything. Don't forget.”

The light changed, and they continued up the street, then turned into the parking lot for A Stitch in Time.

“Leave this to me, Zoey,” her dad said as he
pulled into a spot. “I have an idea about what we can do.”

Zoey was so relieved that her dad was handling everything now and that he hadn't totally freaked out and told her she couldn't ever blog again. She wished she
had
spoken to him earlier.

They stayed in the parked car for a few minutes. Mr. Webber gave Zoey one of his famous bear hugs, and Zoey felt better than she had in days.

“Just take some deep breaths, and we'll go in when you're ready,” he said.

“Do I look okay?” Zoey asked, glancing at her red-rimmed eyes in the mirror on the passenger-side's visor.

“You look beautiful, baby,” he said. “Inside and out.”

Feeling like a weight had been taken off her shoulders, Zoey had a smile on her face when she walked through the doors of A Stitch in Time. She was immediately greeted with a big smile in return from the owner, Jan.

“Zoey! I hear you've come to meet another of
my favorite customers, Allie,” Jan said.

“That's right. We're both going to be in a feature about young designers for the online edition of
Très Chic
,” Zoey said.

“I saw it in your blog,” Jan said. “So exciting! Allie said they're going to shoot a few pictures in the store.” Then she turned to Zoey's dad. “And you must be Mr. Webber.”

“I prefer to go by the name Dad of the Designer,” Zoey's dad joked. “But Mr. Webber works too.”

Jan laughed as she came out from behind the counter.

“Allie and her mom are in the notions aisle. Come on and I'll introduce you.”

“Jan, if you don't mind—can I leave Zoey in your capable hands while I make a quick phone call?” Mr. Webber asked. “I'll be back soon.”

“It would be my pleasure,” Jan said, tucking Zoey's hand in the crook of her elbow and leading her toward the notions.

Allie was looking at decorative trim, one of Zoey's favorite sections, as her mom perused the buttons. Allie was almost as tall as Libby, with
really long, really curly brown hair.

“Allie Lovallo, I'd like you to meet Zoey Webber,” Jan said. “Two of my favorite young customers.”

“Hi, Zoey!” Allie said, her face lighting up with a wide smile. “It's so great to meet you. I love your blog.”

“It's nice to meet you, too,” Zoey said. “Your bags are amazing.”

“How long have you been blogging?” Allie asked.

“Not very long,” Zoey said. “One of my friends, Priti, suggested it as a way of showing off my designs. Her mom has a food blog.”

“I love the name Sew Zoey.”

“One of my other friends, Kate, came up with that. I guess it was kind of a group effort!” Zoey said, smiling as she remembered. It wasn't that long ago, but so much had happened because of it. “How about you?”

“I started a few years ago, because I wanted to show my bags and accessories to people besides my family and friends. I've linked my blog to an Etsy store now, so I'm even starting to sell things. The money will come in handy for college.”

“Wow. That's awesome,” Zoey said. “College seems so far away to me.”

“Before you know it, you'll be a junior like me, and then it'll be right around the corner,” Allie said.

“Where are you thinking about going?” Zoey asked.

“My top choice is Parsons The New School for Design,” Allie said. “But I'm looking at a whole list of schools.”

“Wait. . . . You mean I could go to college to study fashion design?”

Allie laughed. “Sure! That's why I want to go to Parsons. Because when I graduate and get a job, I want to be doing the thing I love doing best in the whole world—designing accessories.”

Zoey tried to imagine going to school all day and getting to study fashion design instead of social studies with Mr. Dunn.

“That sounds like heaven,” Zoey said wistfully.

“I was thinking—we should do a joint Etsy store, with you designing the outfits and me designing the accessories.” Allie said. “What do you think? We could call it ‘Fashion from A to Z' or something.”

“I love it!” Zoey exclaimed. “Seriously, we should do that. After the
Très Chic
feature comes out.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Allie declared.

They took a stroll around the store, talking about ideas for projects and pointing out fabrics they loved. Zoey felt pretty comfortable and finally worked up the courage to ask Allie the big question.

“Hey, Allie, I was wondering,” started Zoey. “Have you ever had people post really mean stuff on your blog? Like, horrible stuff?”

Allie took a deep breath before speaking. “Yeah, unfortunately,” she said. “It was last year. And they also posted on my social networks.”

“What did you do?” Zoey asked.

“Well, it wasn't easy, but eventually I told my parents about it,” she replied. “You should too.”

Zoey nodded. “I just told my dad. But it helps to know it happened to you too, and you're still blogging.”

Allie gave Zoey a hug. “It'll all work out. Hang in there.”

Before Zoey knew it, her dad was walking down the aisle with Allie's mom, and the parents were telling the girls it was time to go home.

“See you in
Très Chic
!” she called to Allie as they waved good-bye in the parking lot.

“Did you have fun?” her dad asked as they started home.

“Definitely! Did you know I could go to college to study fashion design?” Zoey asked. “How cool would that be?”

“If you are still passionate about sewing and design when you're ready for college, then it would be very cool,” Mr. Webber said. “Let's see how you feel closer to the time.”

Zoey couldn't imagine wanting to do anything else. But then again, last night she was ready to give up blogging because of what was happening on Sew Zoey.

“You said you had an idea about what to do about my blog. . . . What is it?” she asked.

“Leave it to me, honey. I'll let you know when I sort it out.”

Zoey wanted to know more, but just then her
phone buzzed with a text. It was Kate.

Are you home yet?
Kate texted.

I'll be back in 10,
Zoey thumbed back.

Come over RIGHT AWAY! Your supersleuth friends have discovered a CLUE!
read Kate's message.

“Dad, is it okay if I go over to Kate's when we get home?” she asked.

“Sure,” her father said. “I have to do some grocery shopping if you kids want to eat next week.”

OK, C U soon,
Zoey wrote back to Kate.

When they pulled into the driveway, she hesitated before getting out of the car.

“Dad, thanks for not freaking out.”

Her father pulled her over for a hug.

“Who says I'm not freaking out?” he said. “Dads tend to do that when people are being mean to their kids.” He smiled. “I'm just trying not to show it and focusing on getting to the bottom of this.”

“Well, thanks for that,” Zoey said, getting out of the car.

It only took a minute to walk down the street to the Mackey house. Kate answered the door, practically buzzing with excitement.

“Come on upstairs!” she said. “Libby and Priti are here—and we've made a breakthrough in the Case of the Cruel Comments!”

Kate bounded up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Zoey followed her, racing to keep up, wondering what her friends had discovered.

Libby and Priti were lounging on Kate's bed, looking at her laptop, but Priti jumped up and gave Zoey a huge hug as soon as she walked into the room.

“Guess what we figured out!” she accidentally shouted into Zoey's ear.

“Um . . . I don't know,” Zoey said, rubbing her ear. “If my ears still work after that, maybe you can tell me?”

“Oh, sorry,” Priti said. “I guess I got a little carried away. It's nice to have something
good
happen for once.”

“Yeah, it's pretty exciting,” Libby said. “We've discovered a clue about who's writing the mean stuff on your blog.”

Zoey hopped onto the bed next to Libby.

“Okay. So . . . what is it?”

“Well, whoever is writing these comments knows you,” Kate said. “In fact, we're pretty sure they go to Mapleton Prep. Or at least one of them does.”

Zoey's stomach turned over. She wasn't sure if knowing that made her feel better or worse.

“How do you know?” she asked.

Kate pulled the laptop closer to herself.

“Promise you won't get mad . . . ,” she said.

“I promise,” Zoey said.

“Well, I took screenshots of some of the nasty comments before you deleted them, because I was thinking of telling Mom about them. I know I said I wouldn't say anything, but I was really worried. And I wanted to save the evidence.”

She looked at Zoey, checking to see if she was mad, but when Zoey didn't seem angry, she continued. “When we went back and read through the blog posts they were commenting on, one of them said something that the person could only have known if they'd actually seen you that day.”

Kate scrolled through Zoey's blog posts till she got to the one about Twin Day.

“See—you talk about our outfits for Twin Day
in this post, and you mention Priti's outfit is red, but you never say the color of your dress,” she said.

“But Sherlock Priti and Libby Watson here, using our astounding powers of deduction, realized one of the comments mentioned that your outfit was
purple
!” Priti said with no small amount of triumph.