The Many Mysteries of the Finkel Family, Sarah Kapit [epub read online books TXT] 📗

or other with fake blood, even if Caroline wouldn’t admit to anything. Lara immediately disliked him.

Hands shaking, Caroline pulled out her tablet and started to type. “Yes,” she said.

“I am glad to see you make friends,” Principal Jenkins said. “Although I wonder if perhaps he is not the best choice.”

Caroline’s fingers flew across the screen. “He is a very good friend to me.”

“Okay. However, I do have . . . questions. I’m sure you know what happened at lunch today.”

Lara scrunched her face into a frown. School gossip rarely reached her, let alone sixth-grade gossip. But even she had heard about some unusual events. Something involving a screaming girl and a lunch box and a dead rat that was neither dead nor a rat. It all sounded rather bizarre.

Of course, it was ridiculous that such a thing could be at all connected to Caroline. And yet Lara could not help but recall the Mystery of the Red Paint.

At first, Caroline didn’t respond to the principal. But Lara could practically feel her muscles tense up. Maybe it was sisterly psychic powers. Maybe it was just that she knew Caroline so well. Whatever the cause, she just knew that her sister was heading toward a very bad place.

Lara should do something. Protect Caroline now, get answers from her later.

“I don’t think my sister had anything to do with that dead rat. Or whatever it was. You don’t know her like I do,” Lara insisted.

Unless I don’t know her as well as I thought, a voice in Lara’s head whispered.

Principal Jenkins looked at her with pursed lips. “I’m not accusing Caroline of anything. I’m sure she didn’t have anything to do with the incident. I’ve been talking to her art teacher, though. And I was wondering if perhaps any of Caroline’s new friends might have been involved.”

Obviously she meant Micah. Lara tapped her fingers against her leg and thought about it. She didn’t know very much about this Micah character. But just last week, he’d been running around with fake blood. Perhaps he really was just the sort of little jerk who would go around putting fake rats into people’s lunch bags.

Caroline typed at top speed. “You have no proof that Micah did anything,” she said. As soon as she was finished, she started glaring at the stapler on Principal Jenkins’s desk. It was a very impressive glare.

Principal Jenkins gave a not-really smile. “I don’t claim to know what happened. But your art teacher did mention her suspicions about your friend. She said that just last week, there was an incident. She thought Micah might be involved.”

Lara could feel Caroline shake next to her, just like when they were little and used to huddle together during a particularly scary rainstorm.

“Can’t you see you’re upsetting my sister?” Lara asked.

“I apologize,” Principal Jenkins said in a not-sorry voice. “But I do have to know these things.”

“Micah didn’t put the rat in Marissa’s lunch box,” Caroline said finally.

As always, her British computer voice gave nothing away. But Lara couldn’t help but wonder. Caroline had been awfully careful with her words. Too careful.

Principal Jenkins looked most unhappy—a fact that pleased Lara more than it ought to. “Well. If you say so . . .” she said.

“I do.”

Time to put an end to this interrogation session. If anyone was going to interrogate Caroline on this subject, it would be Lara.

She stood up and placed her hands on her hips. “My sister doesn’t know anything. Can we go now? Our cousin is waiting for us.”

Principal Jenkins sighed, but at last she nodded. “Well. Please do let me know if there’s something else you’d like to share with me,” she told Caroline.

“Sure,” Caroline said. Lara almost snorted.

Lara’s head spun in a thousand different directions as she escorted Caroline out of the office. Something about the whole thing just seemed, well, suspicious. Georgia Ketteridge would say that it reeked like bad ham on Christmas. Lara had no personal experience with bad ham, or Christmas, but she imagined that such a thing really would reek.

She replayed Caroline’s words in her head. Micah didn’t put the rat in Marissa’s lunch box.

All at once, Lara remembered something. Last night, she’d wanted to play with Kugel. But she couldn’t find any of his mouse toys anywhere. Now, that was hardly unusual. Kugel was notoriously good at losing toys. Ima always threatened to stop buying them for him, but he got away with such irresponsibility on account of being so cute. And also a cat.

Then, of course, there had been Caroline’s paint-stained hands. Her very obviously red hands.

Maybe it meant nothing. Yet when she considered the fact that some sixth-grade girl found a not-dead not-rat in her lunch . . . maybe it did mean something.

Lara gulped. Caroline had said Micah hadn’t put the supposed rat in the lunch box. Perhaps he hadn’t.

Perhaps Caroline was the one who committed the crime.

*   *   *

It was the first night of Rosh Hashanah, so Lara probably should have gone to services at synagogue. Should have—but she didn’t. Given her current mood (very bad), she’d asked Ima if she could stay home. Ima must have been in no mood for an argument, so she agreed. Caroline, too, stayed home. That gave Lara plenty of time to observe her sister and to stew.

The idea that Caroline would place a fake dead animal in someone’s lunch was completely ridiculous. Caroline! And yet the more she thought about it, the more sense it made.

She had to know for sure. Could she somehow weasel a confession out of her sister?

Lara considered taking the direct approach. She could just ask, “Caroline, did you paint one of Kugel’s toys to look like a dead rat and then put it in a girl’s lunch box? And also, why?”

But as much as Lara liked the idea of a direct approach, she suspected that it might not work. Whenever Georgia Ketteridge wanted to question an unsuspecting witness, she was sneaky about it. Subtle. Lara would have to be too.

She certainly couldn’t count on Caroline to tell her the truth