Ninth Key by Meg Cabot Read Free Book Online

“Honey, I thought I heard you say, um. Well. I thought I heard you talking to…Did you say the word
dad
?”
    I chewed. I was totally used to this kind of thing. “I said bad. The milk in the fridge. I think it’s gone bad.”
    My mother looked immensely relieved. The thing is, she’s caught me talking to Dad more times than I can count. She probably thinks I’m a mental case. Back in New York she used to send me to her therapist, who told her I wasn’t a mental case, just a teenager. Boy, did I pull one over on old Doc Mendelsohn, let me tell you.
    But I had to feel sorry for my mom, in a way. I mean, she’s a nice lady and doesn’t deserve to have a mediator for a daughter. I know I’ve always been a bit of a disappointment to her. When I turned fourteen, she got me my own phone line, thinking so many boys would be calling me, her friends would never be able to get through. You can imagine how disappointed she was when nobody except my best friend, Gina, ever called me on my private line, and then it was usually only to tell me about the dates
she’d
been on. The boys in my old neighborhood were never much interested in asking
me
out.
    “Well,” my mom said, brightly. “If the milk’s bad, I guess you have no choice but to try one of Andy’s quesadillas.”
    “Great,” I groaned. “Mom, you do understand that around here, it’s swimsuit season all year round? We can’t just pig out in the winter like we used to back home.”
    My mom sighed sort of sadly. “Do you really hate it here that much, honey?”
    I looked at her like she was the crazy one, for a change. “What do you mean? What makes you think I hate it here?”
    “You. You just referred to Brooklyn as ‘back home.’”
    “Well,” I said, embarrassed. “That doesn’t mean I hate it here. It just isn’t home yet.”
    “What do you need to make it feel that way?” My mom pushed some of my hair from my eyes. “What can I do to make this feel like home to you?”
    “God, Mom,” I said, ducking out from beneath her fingers. “Nothing, okay? I’ll get used to it. Just give me a chance.”
    My mom wasn’t buying it, though. “You miss Gina, don’t you? You haven’t made any really close friends here, I’ve noticed. Not like Gina. Would you like it if she came for a visit?”
    I couldn’t imagine Gina, with her leather pants, pierced tongue, and extension braids, in Carmel, California, where wearing khakis and a sweater set is practically enforced by law.
    I said, “I guess that would be nice.”
    It didn’t seem very likely, though. Gina’s parents don’t have very much money, so it wasn’t as if they could just send her off to California like it was nothing. I would have liked to see Gina taking on Kelly Prescott, though. Hair extensions, I was quite certain, were going to fly.
    Later, after dinner, kickboxing, and homework, a quesadilla congealing in my stomach, I decided, despite my dad’s warning, to try to tackle the Red problem one last time before bed. I had gotten Tad Beaumont’s home phone number — which was unlisted, of course — in the most devious way possible: from Kelly Prescott’s cell phone, which I had borrowed during our student council meeting on the pretense of calling for an update on the repairs of Father Serra’s statue. Kelly’s cell phone, I’d noticed at the time, had an address book function, and I’d snagged Tad’s phone number from it before handing it back to her.
    Hey, it’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it.
    I had forgotten to take into account, of course, the fact that Tad, and not his father, might be the one to pick up the phone. Which he did after the second ring.
    “Hello?” he said.
    I recognized his voice instantly. It was the same soft voice that had stroked my cheek at the pool party.
    Okay, I’ll admit it. I panicked. I did what any red-blooded American girl would do under similar circumstances.
    I hung up.
    Of course, I didn’t realize he had caller ID. So