Minerva Clark Gets a Clue (13 page)

Tiffani trotted along beside her, trying to keep up. “You know, I really thought you were way cooler than this,” she said.

Jordan opened her mouth, then abruptly closed it when she saw me standing there. “Minerva. What's up?” She was not glad to see me.

“Hey,” I said. As usual, I didn't know how to begin. I shoved my hands in my pockets. “I heard about the
Hightower. That's really sucky. Are they really going to take it away from you?”

“Who told
you
?” said Tiffani. She said it like I was just some stupid little kid who didn't have the right to know anything.

“My friend Julia's older sister is on the court,” I said.

“It looks like it,” Jordan said. “They're still deciding.” She pulled her brows together, then looked off across the street at the fountain, a collection of big concrete blocks with waterfalls gushing over each block. She had tears in her eyes but a hard look to her mouth, as if she was determined not to cry. I remembered the weeks during
The Sound of Music
when she'd brought me a PayDay every day. For some reason, that got me more than anything else, that she always took time to stop and get us candy bars.

“Jordan,” I said, putting my hand on her arm. “What is going
on
? I mean, I mean … you heard about Dwight, right?” It was one of those times when you launch into a sentence and it's like going down a too-big hill on your skateboard; you push off and realize you don't want to be going down this big hill at all, so you hop off before you pick up too much speed. If for some weird reason Jordan didn't know her friend was dead already, I did
not
want to be the one to tell her.

“I heard about it,” she said softly, dabbing at the tears
that threatened to spill onto her cheeks with one knuckle. Then she released a huge, tired sigh.

“It was on the front page of the paper,” said Tiffani. “And they caught the guy anyway.”

“But he was your friend,” I pressed, ignoring Tiffani. I was not going to say that no, they didn't have the guy, that it was
impossible
for Clyde Bishop with his useless, shriveled-up right arm to have murdered Dwight. “Don't you think it's bizarre that first you were arrested by mistake and the very next day a friend of yours was murdered? A false arrest and then a murder? Have you ever known anyone who's been murdered?”

“He wasn't a friend,” said Jordan. The tears tipped out of her eyes and flowed down her face, smudging her black mascara. “He was just someone I knew.”

“Still, Jordan. He was murdered.”

“I know, I know, I know!” She started crying harder. I could tell she was telling the truth. She reached up to wipe her eyes, realized she still had the lavender dress in the plastic cleaners bag slung over her forearm, tried to shift it to the other arm, but dropped it. She stooped to pick it up, then hung her head and sobbed. A guy walking by in a suit and—what do you call those hats Jewish men wear? a yarmulke—called over, “Is everything all right over there?”

“We're fine!” yelled Tiffani.

The man waved and walked on.

“I just don't know why everyone's
on
me!” sobbed Jordan.

“No one's on you,” I said.

Tiffani snorted. “Oh gosh, Minerva. First there's a mistaken arrest, then Doug from the bookstore is murdered, then Jordan is told she might not get the High-tower, then her psycho seventh-grade cousin turns into a junior stalker.”

I stared so hard at Tiffani I thought my eyes would pop out of my head from the strain. “What are you
talking
about?”

“What are you doing here, Minerva?” asked Tiffani. She bent down to collect Jordan's dress and help her to her feet.

“His name's Dwight, not Doug,” said Jordan.

I thought,
Okay, okay, forget Dwight for a minute
(as if). I needed to remember why I was here: to tell Jordan my suspicions about Toc, who had it in for her. I didn't have concrete proof yet that he'd given the police her name, but I was sure enough to warn her to be careful.
That's
why I was here!

So I started in. I told Jordan I thought it was unfair that someone got away with giving her name to the cops, not just unfair, but weird, really. I mean, why
her
name? If someone wanted to avoid getting arrested, why didn't
they just give some random name? Why Jordan Parrish? It wasn't like Sarah Jones or Jennifer Smith, which sound fake, but also probably belong to dozens of real girls.

Obviously, it was someone who knew her, someone who knew she'd gotten the Hightower Scholarship and knew she'd lose it when it came out that she'd been hauled down to the police station. I didn't know if this was true at all, but it sounded good. It sounded
serious
, and what I really wanted was for her to take this seriously and to watch her back. “Someone has it in for you,” I said.

“Someone else has been watching too much TV,” said Tiffani, laughing and rearranging her bracelets. Jordan laughed, too, but it was just something to do. She wasn't amused at all.

“And I started thinking about it, and I think you should watch out for Toc,” I said. “You know my brother's friend Toc?”

“And he's going to do what to her?” asked Tiffani.

This was a good question. I felt the sun beating down on the top of my head. Did I really think Toc was going to murder Jordan? If he had murdered Dwight, surely he was capable of murdering my cousin, too.

“I just think that if Toc did something creepy and against the law like stealing your identity, that he might do other stuff. I asked him where he was on Valentine's
Day”—this was a pure lie, but I could see that Jordan had calmed down and was starting to look around a little; she was losing interest. “That was the day the person who got arrested gave the cops your name, remember? I asked Toc where he was, and he got this really weird look on his face. I could tell he'd been up to something.”

Jordan sighed. She took her hair out of its messy bun and stuck it back up again. She was all done crying, and suddenly she was mad. It was like accidentally stepping on the tines of a rake hidden in long grass—
blam
, right between the eyes.

“You know, Minerva, Tiffani's right. I don't know what little girl Nancy Drew bull you think you're pulling here, but you don't know anything, okay? And I don't need you snooping around in my life. I'm fine with the way things have turned out. Just do me a favor and stay out of it.

“And for your information, Toc was with
me
on Valentine's Day, so he couldn't have been the one to mess up my life. Got it? In fact, if you want to get technical, I'm the one totally responsible for all the crap that's come raining down on my head. It's my own fault! Got it?” Her face had gone from white to red. She pushed past me and rushed away, the plastic bag holding her fancy dress flapping against her legs.

Tiffani started after her, then on second thought
stopped and put her hand on my shoulder. “Don't feel bad, Min. She's just really upset.”

I turned to watch as Tiffani ran and caught up with her friend. I didn't know what to think, except that now I'd have to find my own way home. I'd somehow counted on Jordan being so grateful that she'd offer me a ride.

WHEN I GOT HOME QUILLS WAS
standing in the middle of the kitchen pulling on the ends of his crayon-yellow blond hair and having a full-on hissy fit.
Quills
. The cool brother. What was Quills doing home? Wasn't he supposed to be at work? Uh-oh. Mark Clark was leaning against the counter with his arms folded across his business-casual polo shirt (even though it was Sunday, Mark Clark always dressed in business casual) telling him to relax.

I came in the back door. I could have snuck past the kitchen and fled upstairs, but I knew Mark Clark and Quills were arguing about me and where the hell I was, and I would be in even more trouble if I ran and hid in my room, so I walked right into the kitchen.

“Where were you!” yelled Quills. “What's up with you? Where's your head at, little girl! First you just take off from Tilt. Now you just leave the house!” He was bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet like a madman. There was spit in the corner of his mouth.

“I told Mark Clark,” I said. “He was playing EQ.” That was code for, I could have told him I was going to set my hair on fire and jump off a bridge, and he would have said, “Have a good time.”

“You said you were going to meet Reggie,” said Mark Clark. “And that was”—he turned his wrist over and looked at his watch—“three hours ago.”

“This is seriously uncool of you,” said Quills. “Seriously uncool.”

“I thought you were at work,” I said.

“I got off early,” he yelled. “And it's a good thing, too, since no one else seems to be minding the fort!”

Minding the fort? What fort? Was this more of Quills being ironic?

I stood there.

They stood there.

What was hanging in the air, of course, was that they shouldn't have to be dealing with me, that this was parent business.

“Where were you, anyway?” said Mark Clark.

“It's just going to make you madder,” I said.

“If you were out doing drugs or getting into some kind of trouble that's just going to come back and bite all of us in the butt, you'd better tell us now,” said Quills. He tugged at the hair behind his ear so hard I thought he was going to pull it out of his head.

For a second I thought about saying, “Darn, caught me!” but this clearly wasn't the time to break out the attitude.

“I went to meet Jordan. That's why I wanted her phone number yesterday, remember?”

“Jordan our cousin?” Quills asked, as if he'd never heard of such a thing.

“No, Michael Jordan,” I said. I couldn't help it.

“You're in enough trouble as it is, dude. I'd watch the back talk,” said Mark Clark.

Dude
? Mark Clark was calling me
dude
. Maybe I was just on the verge of hysteria, but I started to smile. I stared down at the linoleum so he wouldn't see it.

Then Mark Clark clicked into lecture mode. I got a long speech about how even though I was in seventh grade and felt all grown up, I wasn't all grown up and I couldn't just come and go as I pleased. But the worst thing I did was lie about where I was going, because if I started lying, then they'd never believe me again, and it was important that we trusted each other.

I kept staring down at the floor. There was something
mashed into the linoleum that could have been either a piece of mushroom that fell off a pizza or a really icky bug. I tuned in to Mark Clark now and then to see if he'd gotten to my punishment yet. Finally, he said the worst words you can say in our house: dish duty.

My head snapped up. “Dish duty? But why?”

“I just told you why. Weren't you listening?”

“Yes,” I said.
No
.

“You are lucky it's only for a week,” said Quills. He stomped out of the room, then marched right back in. “Oh, wait! All this rage has made me really thirsty!” He got out a glass, filled it halfway up with water, drank half, then tossed the rest in the sink. “Minerva, dishes,” he said, then stalked out for good.

I would rather be grounded to my room for a month than do dish duty, which my brothers knew. Even though we had this huge house, I
lived
in my room. I loved my room, with its ferret posters and white shutters and high four-poster bed. I didn't have a TV in my room, but I had my computer. Make me stay in my room for a week! See what I cared!

But dish duty was the pits. Dish duty meant cleaning up after three evil boys. And on the weeks I was punished with dish duty, they were extra evil. Mark Clark would make complicated dinners that used every pot and pan we owned. Morgan, who snacked on Cap'n
Crunch and usually rinsed out a single bowl and spoon and put it on the windowsill for the next time, would get a fresh bowl out of the cupboard every single time. Quills—who'd had more dish duty growing up than either of the other brothers—was the worst. When Humongous Bag of Cashews practiced and someone went out for the usual Carl's Jr. run, Quills would make them all eat off plates. He'd even dump each individual bag of french fries onto a plate.

There were dirty dishes from the time I got up until the time I went to bed. It was the same as being grounded, only with lemon-fresh Joy. I hated my brothers. Why couldn't I just have a normal mom who yelled a couple of mean things, then cried because she worried she was wrecking my self-esteem?

I ignored Quills's dirty water glass
and
the cookie sheet from yesterday's nachos, still propped against the side of the sink, and stomped upstairs myself.

Ferretluver:
So after I got SLAMMED with dish duty for telling the bros I was with YOU, Mark C. said you called?

Borntobebored:
Wahn-wah. Sor-ry.

Ferretluver:
What about the blues festival?

BorntobeBored:
Haven't left yet. Hey! Ya got to check out MontgomeryHighChat.com.

Ferretluver:
I went to find Jordan to tell her that I think my bro's creepazoid friend Toc was probably the one who stole her identity, but she just ripped into me. I think she and Toc are an item. Or were an item.

Borntobebored:
Maybe it wasn't Toc. Maybe it was whoever posted this flame. Unless it was you who posted it! :\

Ferretluver:
ME?? Why would I post it?

Borntobebored:
Cuz yer cous was being a biatch! And you just trying to help her find out who's messin wit her.

Ferretluver:
I don't even know what site yer talking about. I'll have to check it out. Anyway, we gotta work on our Boston Tea Party report.