The Secrets of Tree Taylor by Dandi Daley Mackall Read Free Book Online Page A

shivering. “Sorry, Mrs. Cozad. We’re closing.”
    “You can’t close! They got fifteen minutes of swimming left.” She glanced at her watch. “And I’ve got to be somewheres.”
    “We’re closing,” D.J. repeated.
    “It’s not raining!” she snapped.
    D.J. didn’t lose his cool. “Threat of lightning.”
    “
I
didn’t see any lightning.”
    “That’s why we have trained lifeguards,” D.J. said evenly.
    “Shoot. I’ll be back in ten minutes. You can keep them out of the pool if it makes you feel any better.”
    D.J. lowered his voice. “Take your kids home, Connie.”
    The Cozad boys sprang to life. Their little bony faces broke into grins, showing yellow teeth. The oldest boy ran barefoot to the truck and hopped in back. The others followed.
    Mrs. Cozad glared at D.J. Her eyes had tiny red lines in them. Without a word, she wheeled around and stomped back to the truck, slamming the door after her. When she floored the gas, her boys had to grab the sides of the truck to keep from falling out.

10
Deep
    D.J. grabbed his clipboard and keys. “Flee the scene, cats. Later.”
    I nodded. “See ya!” I called after Sarah.
    “Not if I see you first!” she called back.
    D.J. offered me a lift, but I had my bike.
    Pedaling just fast enough to keep moving, I gazed up at the sky. Through the clouds, I could make out both Dippers and the North Star.
    I took the side streets with the most hills. I never minded hills. I tried to keep the vision of the starry sky in my head. But the second I looked away, my mind filled with images of Mr. Kinney lying in a pool of blood shaped like Texas. True, I hadn’t seen him wounded and bloody. But I’d imagined him that way so often during the day that the pictures felt real.
    Then my brain shifted to Mrs. Kinney, clutching the rifle like it was hers.
    I turned onto Prairie Street. I needed to bike past Mrs. Gurley’s house, where the scent of her lilacs floated over the wholeblock like a lavender fog. I tried to let the stars and lilacs kidnap my mind so I wouldn’t think about the Kinneys anymore.
    But they were the ones I was going to have to write about. Stars and lilacs wouldn’t get me a spot on the
Blue and Gold
staff. True, most of the articles in the
Blue and Gold
covered boring school news. But every kid from seventh grade to senior, plus their parents, read that paper. And when Jack was in junior high, he said the
Blue and Gold
broke a big story about the civics teacher getting himself fired “on moral grounds.”
    If I wanted to be the one to break this story, I needed to get on it. By now, Randy Ridings would be out doing his own investigation.
    I felt pretty sure Dad wouldn’t tell Randy squat, though. So I might still have an advantage.
    When I turned onto our street, I could see Dad’s car in our carport. The old station wagon, which Eileen and I had dubbed Buddy, was showing its age in scratches and dents. I wheeled my bike in front of Buddy and saw that Dad had left his window open. Again. He was always doing things like that. We got at least three calls a week from some patient telling us Doc had left his hat after a house call. Eileen said our dad was the original absent-minded professor.
    I rolled up the window and reached for Dad’s hat, a tan fedora. Then I changed my mind and left it there. At least when Dad started looking for it, I’d know where to find it.
    “I’m home!” I hollered to an empty living room.
    “Hang up your wet suit!” Mom shouted from the bathroom. The bathroom door was closed, and wisps of smoke seeped from under the door.
    I had never seen a cigarette in my mother’s possession—not in her lips, mouth, or fingers. Not even in her purse. But a couple of years earlier, I realized that unless our bathroom was occasionally on fire, my mother smoked now and again. We never mentioned it, even though she knew that I knew, and I knew that she knew that I knew.
    I didn’t think Mom and Dad talked about the cigarettes,