The Many Mysteries of the Finkel Family

by Sarah Kapit

  Do what?

  Lara frowned. There was something going on here. Maybe Caroline refused to talk to her sister about it—for some completely nonsensical reason—but Lara would figure it out herself.

  Suddenly, the warning bell shrieked. Lara covered her ears with her hands. By the time the awful noise stopped, Caroline and the boy were gone.

  She wanted to know more. But try as she might, she could not think of any practical way to spy on her sister during class.

  Lara sighed and scurried back to the seventh-grade hallway. At least she’d learned one thing: Caroline and her new friend were doing something very odd. Something that involved fake blood.

  She scribbled in her notebook:

  PROBLEM: C. is up to something with a v. suspicious boy. He likes fake blood (seriously eww).

  It appeared as though FIASCCO’s work was far from complete.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:

  THE DISTRACTION

  Caroline found it pretty much impossible to concentrate on anything during her first few classes of the day. Even getting to second-period language arts proved to be a difficult task. After numerous wrong turns, Caroline just barely slipped into the classroom on time. Actually paying attention in class was not going to happen. The whole time, she felt squiggly spirals of paint swirling around in her mind—yellows and oranges, mostly, with a few streaks of red. Bloodred, of course.

  Finally, the moment arrived. Experimental Art class with Micah—and Marissa.

  Micah was already waiting for her at their usual table. He winked at her and Caroline gulped in about a gallon of air.

  Logically, Caroline knew that their plan was still top secret. Even so, she felt certain that anyone who happened to look could see “PLANNING TO DO A VERY BAD THING” painted across her forehead. In fancy red script.

  Marissa was sitting on the far side of the room, surrounded by a group of admirers as she lined up her colored pens.

  “We have to wait for the right moment,” Micah told Caroline in a whisper. “Not right away.”

  Caroline nodded. It made sense. At the same time, she couldn’t help but hope that the right moment—whatever that was—wouldn’t arrive today. Or any other day, for that matter.

  Soon enough, Caroline was sculpting away at her giraffe. At least, she attempted to sculpt. She nearly cut the poor thing’s left ear off before giving up.

  “Are you ready?” Micah asked her. He didn’t even pretend to work on the charcoal drawing in front of him.

  Caroline didn’t want to say yes. But she didn’t want to say no, either. Instead she gave her friend a small, tight smile and hoped that would be enough.

  Sometimes, not talking with mouth-words had its perks.

  “Cool,” he said. “I’ll be the one doing the . . . you know. You can be the distraction. When I say it’s time, you’ll start the distraction. I’ll take care of everything else.”

  Caroline stared into the nostrils of her clay giraffe and wished fervently for a fire drill.

  They’d talked about all of this before, of course. Caroline had even come up with a plan for how to cause a distraction. Except with the big moment looming ahead, she could not remember any of it.

  She had to tell Micah that she just wasn’t ready. Yet when she glanced over at him and saw the beginnings of a bursting grin . . . well, she didn’t want to be the one to talk the smile off his face.

  How hard could it be to make a distraction, really? She could make something up when the time came.

  “It’s time,” Micah whispered at last.

  Caroline tore her eyes away from the giraffe, which had started to take on a rather sad expression. Before she could think too much about it, she marched to the other end of the room where slabs of clay were kept. Closer to Marissa.

  Even though she didn’t need more clay, Caroline cut herself a nice big piece of it. The feeling of the cool, wet clay in her hands soothed her.

  Okay. Now she needed to distract.

  Instead of returning to her own workstation, Caroline wandered over to Marissa’s table. She managed to get close enough to see Marissa’s drawing. It was a rather nice drawing, full of brightly colored flowers. Whatever else one might say about Marissa (and Caroline had plenty of not-nice things to say), she was not without artistic skill.

  “Hello? Are you lost?”

  Caroline snapped to attention.

  Without her tablet, she could only shake her head.

  “Sorry? I don’t think I understood you. You might want to try actually talking.”

  “That’s not very nice!” another girl scolded. “She can’t help it that she’s . . . you know.”

  Caroline clenched her teeth. She did not know exactly what her supposed defender meant to call her, but she knew she didn’t like it. “You know” indeed!

  Face-to-face with Marissa’s awfulness once more, Caroline didn’t feel at all bad about what she and Micah had planned. Well, not too bad, at least.

  Still clutching her slab of clay, Caroline moved closer to Marissa. She didn’t have a destination, she didn’t have a plan. She just knew that she wanted to wipe that annoying smirk off Marissa’s face.

  Caroline tripped. The clay flew away from her hands and headed straight toward Marissa.

  The other girls shrieked. Caroline covered her ears at the sound. She really, really hadn’t meant for this to happen.

  And yet it had been the perfect distraction.

  Marissa had managed to dodge out of the way before being hit with a clay projectile. The girl next to her—the one who had tried to defend Caroline—was not so fortunate. Wet clay now clung to the front of her frilly white shirt. She gave Caroline a glare so vicious that Caroline would have gladly turned to clay herself.

  Without her tablet, Caroline couldn’t really say sorry. She hoped that this girl would know that she really did feel sorry.

  Chaos descended on the art room as Ms. Williamson rushed forward to offer the girl several trees’ worth of paper towels.

  “It’s no use! I can’t walk around in this shirt for the rest of the day.” She stared at Caroline. “Why’d she spill this all over me anyway? She’s not even supposed to be here.”

  Caroline felt her skin prickle. It was, of course, true that she wasn’t supposed to be around the table. She certainly did not want to be there. But it sounded to her like this girl was saying something else.

  She’s not even supposed to be here. Here, as in the table? Or here, as in Pinecone Arts Academy? Caroline tapped her hands against the edge of her shirt.

  “Now,” Ms. Williamson said in a voice Caroline recognized as strained. “It was just an accident. I’m sure Caroline is very sorry. Aren’t you?”

  Cheeks blushing furiously, Caroline nodded. In the periphery of her vision, she could see a familiar shape messing around with pens. So Micah had been able to take advantage of the distraction.

  Having at least attempted an apology, Caroline raced back to the relative safety of her own table. Her giraffe’s sad face greeted her. A few minutes later, Micah slid into the seat next to hers.

  “Good job with the distraction,” he said.

  Caroline did not feel like she had done a good job at anything.

  She made a half-hearted attempt to add more definition to her giraffe’s spots and tried very hard not to look at Marissa’s table. After just a few strokes of her carver, yet another scream came from the other side of the room.

  “Goodness,” Ms. Williamson said as she hurried over to Marissa’s table. “Is there a problem? Again?”

  Maybe Caroline was just imagining it, but she thought their teacher sounded more tired than usual.

  “Yes, there is a problem!” Marissa said. Caroline winced at the volume.

  Marissa held up her drawing. Even from the other side of the room, Caroline could make out the
red splotches mixed in among the intricately drawn flowers. Caroline flapped her hands.

  She deserves it, Caroline reminded herself. Besides, it was just fake blood—even if it looked awfully real.

  Next to her, Micah stood completely still. But Caroline could make out the beginnings of a smile tugging at his lips.

  “Good job, Finkel,” he whispered to her. “We did it!”

  Caroline did her best to smile back, but succeeded only in a twisted grimace.

  The color her brain painted was a dark, dreary gray.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN:

  THE INTERROGATION

  For the next several class periods, Caroline tiptoed through Pinecone Arts Academy filled with the certain dread that she was about to be caught. Every time she entered a new classroom, her heart pounded. She was positive that Principal Jenkins was going to walk in at any moment to drag her into the office. Caroline could practically see the frown on the principal’s face as she delivered a lecture about how very disappointed she was. “After all this trouble we’ve gone to to accommodate you,” Principal Jenkins said in her mind. “You’ve done something terrible to one of your normal classmates. I’m sorry, Caroline Finkel, but we’re going to have to ask you to leave this school.”

  But as the hours ticked by and no one showed up to take her away, she slowly began to relax. Maybe she’d gotten away with it.

  The thought did not fill Caroline with joy, and anxious lime-green dots continued to dance through her brain.

  Dad picked them up on time once school came to an end, much to Caroline’s relief. But even after such a terrible day, Caroline noticed something odd about Lara. Something that didn’t seem quite right.

  “How was your day?” Lara asked, with more intensity than seemed warranted.

  Caroline pressed a button on her speech app and closed her eyes. “Fine.”

  “Oh?” Lara asked.

  Sighing, Caroline pressed the same button again. “Fine.”

  Surely Lara would get the message that Caroline was not in a talking mood. Unfortunately for Caroline, her sister did not care.

  “I’m just asking because today seems like a rather interesting day. Some might say it’s a bloody interesting day.”

  Bloody? Surely Lara couldn’t be implying anything. After all, how could she possibly know what had happened? True, Marissa had been complaining about the injustice of it all day. But Caroline was pretty sure her sister didn’t know Marissa. She felt even surer that her sister did not care about Marissa’s art.

  So why was she throwing around that word?

  Maybe Lara was just trying to talk like a British person, Caroline reasoned. She knew that British people said “bloody” when they wanted to sound particularly cool. Back when Caroline changed to a new computer voice, she’d learned all about British-isms. True, Lara hadn’t ever spoken in British-isms before, but maybe she was starting some kind of new experiment? After all, Georgia Ketteridge had a British mom.

  Caroline would just have to ignore her sister. She swiped away from her speech app and tapped her fingers against the tablet cover. That should tell Lara how very much she did not want to talk right now.

  Lara, however, kept at it. “It was a bloody interesting day,” she repeated. “Don’t you just love the word bloody? Bloody bloody bloody.”

  The skin on Caroline’s neck prickled. Something was off about the whole thing. Lara was fond of many words, but bloody generally was not among them. It probably had something to do with her general squeamishness.

  She had to play it cool. Caroline opened her speech app once more. “Stop saying ‘bloody.’ You know I’m the British one in the family,” she typed. Her computer voice sounded especially clipped and British-y, much to Caroline’s satisfaction.

  A sly smile crept onto Lara’s face. “That you are,” she said. “Speaking of which. I bet you’re making all kinds of friends at school, aren’t you?”

  Caroline frowned. She did not see any discernible connection between her alleged Britishness and her school friends. Probably because there wasn’t any. Lara was up to something.

  “I have friends,” Caroline said. She saw no need to elaborate on the subject any further.

  “Mmm-hmm. You looked awfully—I mean. I know you’re friends with a boy in your grade.”

  Staring at the interface of the tablet, Caroline dearly wished that the software program could somehow make up words for her. Too bad she’d just have to rely on her own intuition.

  “Go away, Lara,” she typed.

  A dark eyebrow jerked upward. “My goodness! Someone seems to be in a bad mood today. I wonder why?”

  Somehow, Caroline felt as though anything she might say would just incriminate her further. Which was ridiculous, of course, since Lara wasn’t really a detective. And she hadn’t really committed a crime. Technically, she hadn’t even replaced Marissa’s pens—that was all Micah.

  You were an accomplice, though, her brain helpfully informed her. Caroline knew all about accomplices from the Georgia books.

  Enough was enough. Caroline gritted her teeth. With a pointed glare at her sister, she shoved the tablet back into her backpack. Even Lara ought to understand that this conversation was now 100 percent over.

  CHAPTER TWENTY:

  IN WHICH MAJOR EVIDENCE IS LOCATED

  LOCATION: Home, 6:30 p.m.

  EVENT: After highly suspicious activities with an unknown (read: shady) figure this morning, C. is moping around the house. She won’t talk to me.

  QUESTION FOR FURTHER INVESTIGATION: Why do people change?

  Lara rubbed her eyes and stared at her math homework. She’d been working on problem number seven for forever—well, at least for ten minutes—and wasn’t any closer to a solution. Her brain kept wandering toward other problems. More interesting and more troublesome problems.

  Well, her study skills tutor always said that it was okay to take breaks when she had trouble concentrating. Lara shoved the math problem away and flipped open her detective notebook. The most recent entry—about Caroline and the highly suspicious boy—stared back at her.

  The evidence was, admittedly, rather lacking. But that was no reason why she couldn’t speculate about what her sister was up to.

  She started to write.

  WHAT WERE CAROLINE AND HER FRIEND DOING?—THEORIES

  Early Halloween costume planning—possible but kind of boring

  Training as a paramedic—no, they’re not old enough

  Faking somebody’s murder—I don’t know why they would do that, but it’s definitely the most interesting option

  Lara tried to invent a scenario in which her sister would be involved in faking a murder. But even she could not imagine such a thing. Caroline was the sort of person who always put away her socks in the right drawer. It was rather difficult to imagine her staging a bloody crime. So far, the Case of the Fake Blood was a total dead end.

  Clenching her jaw, Lara flipped through the notebook some more. Caroline’s odd behavior wasn’t the only mystery she had to solve.

  She started a new page.

  QUESTION: Why did Noah take the bus going in the wrong direction last week?

  Lara started to write out a list of possible explanations, but none of them were at all satisfying. She was pretty sure that Noah had not, in fact, started taking trapeze lessons to pursue his secret dream of joining the circus. Still . . . Noah had not yet arrived home, she noted. Was he at the mystery location again?

  At the moment, Benny was doing homework in the den. Or, more likely, playing video games while not doing his homework. Regardless, Benny and Noah’s room was currently unoccupied. And that meant Lara could do some real investigation on the matter of Noah and his secret life.

  After double-checking to make sure that Benny was in fact in the den, Lara made her way to her brothe
rs’ room.

  She wrinkled her nose upon entering. The room stank of dirty socks. Normally Dad and Ima bugged all of them to clean up dirty clothes, but she supposed they’d had other things on their minds as of late.

  She hesitated a bit before examining Noah’s desk. It was one thing to spy on Caroline, but Noah was the oldest. There was probably some kind of unwritten rule against going through his stuff.

  No matter, Lara decided. He was hiding something and she needed to know exactly what it was.

  The first few shelves of Noah’s desk were full of boring-ness: calculus homework and registration papers for the football team. And that car manual again—very strange.

  Lara frowned. Why would Noah have this?

  She opened a drawer. At the very top, she found a glossy brochure with “VOCATIONAL SCHOOL: AUTOMOTIVE MECHANICS” printed in big black letters across the top.

  Well. This was most interesting. Noah was supposed to be going to the University of Washington next year. Ima bugged him approximately five times a week about how he needed to get his application in soon.

  And Noah always found an excuse to avoid doing it, Lara realized. The last time it happened he had practically snapped at Ima.

  She rummaged through his desk for more evidence. Sure enough, she found a purple University of Washington brochure—at the very bottom of Noah’s drawer. As if it had been buried.

  If Lara was correct—and she felt quite confident that she was—then her perfect brother had a very big secret. If Ima and Dad knew that he was thinking about not going to college because he wanted to be a car mechanic . . . well, Lara could just hear the commotion that would ensue. In all likelihood, Ima would use some colorful Hebrew vocabulary. The kind of words the Finkel children weren’t supposed to repeat.

  Loud footsteps interrupted Lara’s thoughts. Heart pounding, she spun around. She relaxed when she saw it was only Benny. Him she could handle—even if he was scowling at her rather fiercely.

  “Hey! What are you doing in my room?” Benny demanded.