Being Dead by Vivian Vande Velde Read Free Book Online

volume of the music. Oh-so-lightly I added, "And where did you get it?"
    To answer the first part, Mom stepped closer to show me. To the second part, she answered, "I found it on my dresser. Did you put it there?"
    On her dresser?
    Did I put it on her dresser?
    "It" was a student ID card for one Isobel Gehris of the State University of New York at Fredonia, whose birthday was early enough in the year that she was legally allowed to buy alcohol.
    "I..." I shook my head.
    Mom shrugged. "Danny must have found it," she said, "in the back of his closet or under the grate of the cold-air return." She pondered it a bit more. "One of the students who lived here must have lost it." She caught herself, for that wouldn't make sense. Fredonia is one hour farther away than Buffalo—quite a daily commute. Still trying to make sense of it, she speculated, "Or someone from Fredonia was visiting one of the kids here." She kept on looking at the card, trying to figure it out.
    Don't be helpful,
I wanted to beg her.
Don't call Fredonia to try to track this girl down to return it.
    "Oh, well," Mom said.
    If I was lucky, she would forget to ask Danny.
    At least she hadn't found it in my jeans pocket, which was the last place I had put it, because Isobel Gehris looks very much like I do when I wear the right makeup and if I part my hair in the middle.
    Behind me the closet door rattled.
    But only once.
    "Whoa," Michelle said. "Spooks."
    A spook, indeed, who tore through my clothes and put what she found on Mom's dresser.
    There was a knock at the room's door, and all three of us jumped. But it was only Dad. He didn't seem surprised to find Mom there, and he didn't seem to notice the ID card in her hand. "Brenda," he said to me.
    He'd found the dent where Leah-Ann had kicked the car, I could tell, and he thought that I had done it.
    "Michelle," he said, "my wife and I need to talk to Brenda."
    Michelle, who could smell trouble as surely as she could smell dead raccoons, got out of there fast.
    Dad reached over and turned off the CD player. He said, "Brenda—"
    "I know you're going to find this hard to believe," I interrupted. I found it hard to believe, and didn't know how to start.
    "What?" Mom prompted.
    Dad said, "The people at the shop say the Honda has been in an accident."
    Oh, great,
I thought.
It wasn't even him that noticed.
    Mom was looking from Dad to me. "What kind of accident?"
    How could I ever get them to believe it was a ghost-kicking-the-fender accident?
    Slowly, Dad said, "They had the car up on the lift ... And they showed me underneath..."
    Underneath?
    Dad took a breath and started over again. "They say it looks like something was run over..."
    Mom echoed, "'Something'? Like a bottle?" She had her concentrating expression on. "Or..."
    "Bigger," Dad said. "They had someone from the collision department look at it. He's seen a lot of accidents, and he said right away that something big was hit. Then he found a piece of plastic caught around the shaft, like one of those tassel streamers kids sometimes have on their bicycle handlebars."
    I could hardly breathe. "Not a bicycle," I said. All I had hit had been the curb on the edge of the pavement.
    "There was some blood," Dad finished. "They think someone might have gotten hurt."
    I shook my head. "I didn't..." I couldn't get my voice to work. "I didn't run over anyone on a bicycle," I protested. I
hadn't.
I knew that.
    "Where did you go Friday night?" Dad asked.
    "To Traci's," I said.
    "Directly to Traci's?" he asked. "And did you stay there the whole evening?"
    I hadn't had an accident with the car. I
knew
I hadn't.
    "We went to pick up Jennie," I admitted—which I wasn't supposed to have done. They had only given me permission to go to Traci's. "And Tina," I grudgingly added. Tina lived way over in Amherst. I wasn't even supposed to be driving after dark, but they had said I could go say good-bye to Traci, four streets over, if I drove carefully. I always drive carefully.
    "Did