Rivals by David Wellington Read Free Book Online Page A

kept your names out of it. But that’s just
delaying the inevitable. Sooner or later—probably in the next
twenty-four hours—someone is going to come forward and say they recognize
the clothes you’re wearing in that shot. Or maybe somebody else saw you two
last night jumping around like monkeys. I won’t be able to stop them all.
And then the world is going to want to talk to you, all at once. You’ll have
no privacy after that. The media will hound you constantly. And that’s just
the start of it.”
    “I don’t
suppose the FBI runs a Secret Identity program,” Maggie tried.
    “No, we do
not. We do, on the other hand, enforce the law. The owner of that
junkyard—or that chimney—may press charges and then I’ll have to
arrest you. I don’t want that. I think there are other things we can do with
you two.”
    “What, like
dissect us in a lab somewhere?” Maggie asked.
    “Margaret
Reynolds Gill!” Grandma said. “You will not take that tone in the presence of
company.”
    Company , Maggie thought. Yesterday at the
hospital you told him to get out. Now he’s your best friend . As usual Grandma’s behavior made no sense to her.
    Weathers
finished his breakfast and left. Grandma wrote Brent a note so he could get
into school late and then sent him off. Before Maggie could go, however, she
had one more thing to say.
    “You made a
mess of things, young lady, and there’s consequences for that. When you get
home from school today your hi-fi will be gone from your room.”
    “My… hi-fi?”
Maggie asked. “What’s a hi-fi?”
    “That overly
loud music system you were listening to yesterday! I don’t know where you hide
the record player,” she said, and Maggie’s eyes went wide—apparently
Grandma had never heard of iTunes, “but I’ll find it and confiscate that, too.
No music as long as you continue to act like this!”
    “Don’t you
dare,” Maggie said. The music was the one thing that could calm her down.
Without it she thought she would go crazy. “And what are you going to do to
punish Brent?”
    “Nothing. I
know that last night’s rumpus was your idea,” she said to Maggie. “You leave
your brother alone. It may be too late to save you, but he’s a good boy and I
won’t have him corrupted.”
    “That’s not
fair!” Maggie whined. “Always when Dad punished us he punished us both
equally. He made sure we both knew what we did wrong.”
    “I am not your
father,” Grandma said.
    Which was just
painfully obvious. Maggie grabbed her backpack and stormed out of the house,
not even waiting to get her note. If the vice principal at the school gave her
trouble about coming in tardy, she would—well—there were lots of
things she could do.

Chapter 12.
     
    For Brent that
first day back at school was… interesting. It became clear very early in the
day that everyone had seen the paper—and that they knew exactly who was
shown in that photo. His teachers all made a point of acting like nothing had
happened. In English class Miss Holman didn’t even look up when he slipped in
and took his seat. For every class after that it was much the same. The
teachers barely acknowledged his existence. When he held up his hand they called
on somebody else. When class ended, they bent quickly over their desks and
made a show of working on papers. The teachers knew something had changed but
they didn’t want to acknowledge it.
    The students,
however, reacted differently.
    In every
class—in every hallway—in the lunchroom—he was the center of
attention. At lunch he got his macaroni and cheese and his chocolate milk like
everyone else and went to sit down. Normally, because your popularity was
determined by who you sat with and what table you had, it was next to
impossible to find a good seat. That day when Brent looked around for a place
to sit, an entire table opened up. It wasn’t that kids got up to make room for
him. Everyone just seemed to slide down a space or two and suddenly