Rock Harbor Search and Rescue by Colleen Coble, Robin Caroll Read Free Book Online

crazy story.
    Rachel kept walking, her blond hair swaying as she moved.
    “Hey, Rachel.” Emily raised her voice and grabbed Rachel’s shoulder. “I want to talk to you.”
    Spinning, Rachel jerked free of Emily’s hand. “Don’t touch me.”
    Emily put her free hand on her hip. “I want to know why you’re spreading lies about me.”
    Rachel raised one eyebrow. “I’m not.”
    “Yes, you are. You told Sheriff Kaleva that you heard me say I planned to steal Mrs. Dancer’s necklace, and that’s an out-and-out lie. You know it is.”
    People stopped moving in the hall. They hung together in groups, watching. Staring. Good. Maybe they’d all find out the truth.
    Rachel shrugged. “I heard you tell Olivia you were making a copy of Mrs. Dancer’s necklace so you could take hers and make a lot of money.”
    Emily shook her head. “I never said that. Why are you lying?”
    Rachel’s face reddened. “I’m not making it up. You told Olivia that in the girls’ bathroom several weeks ago. I heard you. So did Gretchen.” Rachel crossed her arms over her chest.
    “I never said I planned to steal the necklace.” Emily gripped her notebook tighter against her chest with her left hand and balled her right into a fist at her side. “I said—”
    “You’re just like the woman we read about. But worse. You didn’t steal for a good reason. You stole because you’re greedy.”
    Emily took a step forward. “I did not. You take that back.”
    Rachel pointed her finger at Emily. “You’re a thief , Emily O’Reilly. A criminal. Just like your mother.”
    The English teacher stepped into the hall and glared at Emily and Rachel. “Girls, move along.”
    “ She stopped me, Mrs. Lempinen.”
    “Doesn’t matter.” Her frown settled on all the kids lingering in the hall. “All of you, move on.”
    Emily marched off to class amid the sly glances and whispers with a lump in her throat. There had to be a way to make Rachel tell the truth.
    Olivia came alongside Emily. “Don’t let her get to you.”
    “I wish I knew what I’d done to make her hate me so much.” She followed Olivia into the hall and toward their lockers. “Enough that she’d lie to the sheriff about me. Did you hear what she said?” She pulled a package of dental floss from her locker and shoved it into her pocket.
    Emily and Rachel had been friends, kind of, in elementary school, then all of a sudden, like a switch flipped when they’d entered seventh grade, Rachel had gone out of her way to be mean toward Emily.
    “She’s just being mean because she’s jealous of you.” Olivia opened her locker, two down from Emily’s.
    “Jealous? Of me? How do you figure?” Emily shook her head as she loaded her backpack with the books and folders she’d need for her homework. Olivia must have lost her mind.
    “Because Rachel can’t stand for anybody to get more attention than her. You always make better grades than her, and you were selected to be on the History Smackdown team and she wasn’t.”
    “Like Rachel cares about an academic challenge team? She’s already president of our class and head cheerleader of the junior varsity squad.”
    Olivia slammed her locker shut. “Emily, have you forgotten who the corporate sponsor for the Smackdown is?”
    Oh yeah. Rock Harbor Fishing Resort, owned by Mr. Zinn. Rachel’s dad.
    Grabbing Emily’s backpack and slinging it over her other shoulder, Olivia closed Emily’s locker. “You can bet her dad probably wasn’t too happy that his darling daughter didn’t make the team for the one event his company sponsored.”
    Emily pressed her lips together. She didn’t want to feel sorry for Rachel. Not after the snotty way she’d acted in English class and the way she seemed determined to get her in trouble with the sheriff. But with what Olivia said . . .
    “Hey, did you tell your parents that we’d be late coming home from school today?” Olivia asked. “If we hurry, we can make it to the