Sabotage at Willow Woods Read online

  With those words I closed my hand around the flash drive we’d pulled from Carrie’s sound system the night before and then dropped it onto the classroom floor with a loud clatter. “Oh no! I’m sorry—could you get that for me, Ms. Meyerhoff?”

  I really just wanted to see if the teacher had any reaction to the flash drive—a momentary panic, a quick paling of the skin. But Ms. Meyerhoff just knelt down and grabbed it, then handed it to me. “Okay?”

  I nodded sheepishly. “Okay.” I was getting the sense this whole visit had been a dead end. I had wasted a perfectly nice teacher’s time. And worse, I was no closer to finding out who was sabotaging Carrie’s campaign.

  “Thank you for taking the time to speak to me, Ms. Meyerhoff,” I said, shoving the drive in my pocket and heading for the door. I was in such a hurry to get out of there that I nearly collided with a tall, skinny boy walking in. Barney!

  “Hey there!” he said, his face lighting up when he looked down and recognized me. “Katrina, right? Hold on, I just need to stick our club dues in Ms. Meyerhoff’s desk, and then we can talk.”

  I turned around and waited while Barney greeted the teacher—he seemed surprised to find her still there—and handed over an envelope filled with bills. Ms. Meyerhoff shot me another curious glance, one eyebrow raised. No doubt she was confused about how I knew Barney. Barney turned to me, his face wide open and smiling. “Anyway, let’s get down to business,” he said jokingly. “Like, are you going to join the Green Club or what? We could really use you.”

  I hesitated. “I—well, I’ve definitely been thinking about it!”

  Barney nodded. “Good to hear! Come with me; we can chat about it some more.”

  I glanced back at Ms. Meyerhoff briefly and nodded my good-bye; she was still regarding me with some suspicion, and I figured it was just as well to have an excuse to get out of there quickly. Barney touched my shoulder and led me out of the classroom into the empty hallway, lined with lockers. There was an echo in the hallway, which made it seem even more deserted.

  “What’s holding you back?” he asked. “Are there any questions I can answer? Because I really can’t see any downside to your joining the Green Club.”

  I couldn’t help smiling. Whatever the Green Club was up to, there was no denying that Barney was sort of charming—in an unguarded, eager-to-please way. “You know what?” I said when I felt we were too far from Ms. Meyerhoff’s door to overhear. “You’ve convinced me. I’m in. Do you know where I could find Eloise Stromberg? Ms. Meyerhoff said I should talk to her about getting involved.”

  Barney’s eyes widened in pleasure and surprise—like even though this was exactly what he wanted, he couldn’t believe it was really happening. “Do I?! Katrina, I can take you to her right now. Let’s get this party started!”

  I blushed for him a little then. So Barney was also a little too enthusiastic. But I still couldn’t help liking him. Not in a romantic way—I already had a boyfriend, of course—but like a sweet little brother. I wanted to buy Barney a puppy and let him show me all his favorite eco-friendly toys. I followed cheerfully as Barney thundered down the hall, leading the way toward the BHS gymnasium.

  Right before we got to the gym, Barney took a sharp left and led me up a set of stairs. At the top of the stairs was a heavy metal doorway that he pulled open, revealing a big, dark room. He stepped inside, and I followed. There was just enough light for me to make out Barney holding his finger to his lips in the universal sign for Shhh!

  I looked around and realized we were standing at the back of the audience for a small black-box theater. Most of the lights were off, save a bright spotlight that shone on the girl who stood center stage. She had long, curly dark hair and huge brown eyes, and she was wearing long, feathery earrings and a twisted-folded kind of top that I knew Bess would know the proper name for. She looked exotic and cool. Even though I didn’t go to this high school, I felt a little intimidated at the sight of her.

  It took me a minute to realize she was in the middle of reciting a poem.

  “And then there was only empty earth!”

  Her voice thundered through the small space, fueled by anger. It burned from her big, dark eyes, and suddenly she seemed a little scary—like a mother bear whose cub is being threatened.

  “Because we has torn all the trees away!

  And the earth bled, and the birds all fell from the sky

  For we had taken all their safe places to perch.”

  Her voice softened then—sadness crept in.

  “And the people realized what a grave mistake they’d made. Thank you.”

  Scattered applause came from the audience. I looked down and realized that about ten or fifteen kids were seated there, spread among the hundred or so seats. They were a varied assortment of high school types: a couple of goth kids; one short boy with dreadlocks and a vintage Tribe Called Quest T-shirt; a girl with huge, dark-framed glasses and a cute skirt printed with baby deer—definitely a cheerleader. That final one made me do a double take: a cheerleader at a poetry slam?

  Barney cleared his throat as the applause died down, and I felt a little trepidation as he waved to get Eloise’s attention. “What’s up, Barney?” she demanded, in a not entirely friendly tone. We stepped closer, and she looked me over as I came into the light. She pushed her mouth to the side, thoughtful, as Barney led me up onstage.

  “I think I have a new recruit!” If Barney noticed Eloise’s lack of enthusiasm, he showed no evidence of it. His face was pink and happy, and he gestured to me with the excitement of a spokesmodel on a game show as the host announces, “A BRAND-NEW CAR!!”

  Eloise’s eyes flipped from Barney’s face to mine, her unimpressed expression unchanged. “Yeah?” she asked.

  I nodded then; I was feeling the need to pull myself together and stand up to this girl. “That’s right,” I said. “I wondered if I could talk to you about the Green Club? Ms. Meyerhoff said you’re in charge.”

  Eloise’s lip curled. “Talk about what?” she asked. “Either you’re green or you’re not. If you’re not, you have no business being in our club.” She paused, giving me a challenging look. “So are you?”

  I stared at her. “I—what?”

  “Are you green?” she asked, her eyes bugging in annoyance. I had the sense that I was only going to get one chance to answer this question correctly. Why am I so intimidated?

  “Y-yes,” I said. “I am. I’m green.”

  Eloise still looked dubious. I was still dressed in my preppy garb, and she took in my braided headband, my stripy boatneck shirt, my ancient khaki skirt, and my loafers. “Prove it,” she said simply, a sardonic grin forming on her face. Then she turned back to the microphone. “Hey, everyone,” she said, “we have a new presenter here at our weekly Green Poetry Slam. Her name is—”

  She paused and looked at me expectantly. “N—Katrina,” I blurted. Man, this girl had rattled me!

  “Katrina,” Eloise said with a smile, as though the name itself proved something she’d suspected about me. “She really, really cares about the environment, and she wants to share her feelings with us today. Take it away, Katrina.”

  And with that, she handed me the microphone and pushed me into the spotlight.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  On the Spot

  NIGHTMARE. NIGHTMARE. THAT WORD ECHOED in my head on a loop as I squinted into the spotlight, unable to even make out how many people were watching me. Had there been ten people in the audience? Or twenty?

  I have a confession to make. I’m a very literal person. I appreciate poetry, but I don’t “get” it. I’m really good at dusting for fingerprints, pretending to be someone else, asking pointed questions, and escaping various dangerous situations using unexpected household items.

  I am awful at public speaking.

  Now I took a deep breath. Just fake your way through it, Nance, George’s voice suddenly sounded inside my brain. It was advice she’d given me anytime I’d had to make a speech in scho
ol, or do a presentation, or defend my paper in history class. You’re so good at pretending to be other people when you snoop. So just pretend to be a person who’d be really good at this. It’s simple.

  “NIGHTMARE!!” I suddenly shouted into the mic, using a deep, guttural voice I never would have recognized as my own.

  “Oil spilling!

  Wildlife dying!

  Chemicals in our water!

  Global warming!

  Football players trampling over a murdered land!

  When will it end, when will it end?!”

  Figuring that was enough, and that I’d proven myself, I held the microphone out and then dropped it to the stage with a huge thump. A few claps slowly emerged from the audience, as if they weren’t totally sure how to respond. After a moment, I heard someone chuckling.

  Eloise.

  She stepped back up onstage and held out her hand. “Wow,” she said, shaking her head. “Okay, to be honest, Katrina, I was just messing with you. You didn’t really have to do that.” She grinned. “But you sure are committed! Come with, me, kid, we can go to my locker to get some more information.”

  I nodded and picked up the microphone, setting it back on its stand. “Um, thanks.”

  I was getting a weird vibe from Eloise. In general, I hate it when people claim to “just be messing” with someone they just met. If you’re trying to test or throw off a total stranger, maybe you have something to hide. But at least she was cooperating now. Barney gave me a big high five as we left the theater and followed Eloise down a maze of hallways to her locker. “That was awesome, Katrina!”

  I could feel myself blushing. “Thanks.”

  “How come I’ve never seen you before?” Eloise asked me as we walked down the hall.

  “Oh, I just transferred here,” I said as casually as I could. “My dad works for a big bank. We move around a lot,” I added.

  Eloise stopped and looked at me. “Really? Where did you transfer from?”

  “Cleveland,” I replied easily. Every made-up character I play in the course of my detective work hails from Cleveland. It makes things easier.

  Eloise nodded, seeming satisfied. She finally paused in front of a top locker, long ago painted blue but now showing patches of red and pink, too—previous paint jobs—and spun the dials. Two bumper stickers were stuck to the locker: RESPECT THE EARTH and GO VEGAN!

  “Are you vegan?” I asked, more to keep the conversation going than anything else.

  Eloise nodded, pulling open her locker and revealing an unholy mess of crumpled papers, textbooks, notebooks, and folders. I couldn’t judge, because I wasn’t particularly organized either. But it was clear that Eloise wasn’t going to find what she was looking for anytime soon.

  “Lifelong,” she said, shoving a couple of books aside and frowning. “It just doesn’t feel natural to me to eat animal products. I mean, what other animal drinks another animal’s milk past the age of weaning? It’s kind of gross when you think about it, right?”

  It did seem kind of weird, when she put it that way. “Yeah, kind of.”

  Eloise refocused her attention on her locker, and I watched carefully, looking at each paper and book, everything she had posted on the inside locker door. A photo of her with a smiling blond girl, a picture of Ryan Gosling with a lipstick kiss—nothing unusual there.

  “I’ve been thinking of going vegan, but it’s hard when my parents aren’t,” I said, hoping to keep her talking. “Maybe you could give me some pointers?”

  “Ooh, that’s great,” Barney said from behind me. I turned and saw his now-familiar enthusiastic smile. “Going vegan is a major commitment to the environmental cause!”

  Eloise nodded, still fishing in her locker. “The important thing is making sure you still get all the nutrients you need, like protein and iron. You end up eating a lot of beans and nuts. You might need to figure out how to cook, a little. But it’s totally doable.”

  Suddenly her digging shifted a few books back, and a sheaf of papers toppled down from the top and onto the floor. Eloise shoved the books back in and scrambled to grab the papers, but I got to them first.

  I turned them over and had to work hard to suppress my gasp. Boylestown Teachers Association! Eloise had at least twenty pieces of stationery in her locker! Had she stolen them? And more importantly, did that mean she could have written the note to Carrie?

  Eloise grabbed the papers back. “I’ve got so much stuff in here, honestly, I don’t know where half of it came from. But I found the literature I wanted to give you.”

  She shoved a stapled packet of photocopied sheets into my hands. So you want to go green! read the top sheet. Here’s what you should know.

  “Thanks,” I said, scanning the first few paragraphs. “This looks really helpful.”

  Suddenly a sharp, tinny beep sounded from inside my backpack. My phone! Eloise looked at me appraisingly as I dropped my backpack onto the floor and dug it out.

  “You know, we’re not supposed to have our phones on inside the school,” she said, pointing to a poster across the hallway: TURN IT OFF! it insisted, with a photo of a huge cell phone that had to be about twenty years old. “But clearly you’re a rebel, Katrina.” She smiled. “I like that.”

  I didn’t have much time to process Eloise’s words, though, because as soon as I pulled out my phone, I saw a text from George: CRISIS!!! COME TO CARRIE’S HQ PRONTO.

  My heart started pounding. What now?

  “Ah, gotta go,” I said, hastily shoving the phone back into my backpack and hoisting the whole thing over my shoulder. “That’s my dad. He’s waiting in the car outside.”

  Barney nodded happily, but Eloise looked down her nose at me and said, “You should really take the bus, you know. Environmentalism 101.”

  “I know,” I said, pasting on an apologetic smile. “Still training the parents, you know how it is. See you guys at the next meeting?”

  Eloise started to speak, but Barney cut her off. “Yeah! Give me your number and I’ll text you the day and time.”

  Eloise raised her eyebrows, but I didn’t have time to wonder about her reaction. I quickly gave my digits as Barney typed them into his phone. Then I apologized again and said a quick good-bye. “I’ll text you!” Barney called after me, but I was already halfway to the door.

  It took a while to get to Carrie’s campaign headquarters in downtown Boylestown. I’d gotten completely turned around in the school and forgotten where I’d parked, then had to struggle to find parking in the busy downtown district. It was at least half an hour between the time I got George’s text and the time I ran, panting furiously, through the front door of Carrie’s headquarters.

  When I walked in, Carrie was sobbing hysterically, sitting at a long table along the side of the room and surrounded by George, Bess, and Julia, all of whom seemed to be trying to calm her down.

  “What happened?” I asked, leaning against a folding chair as I tried to catch my breath.

  Julia glanced up at me coolly and then reached for a box I hadn’t noticed on the other side of the table. “Well, we received a disturbing package,” she said.

  The box was about a foot square, covered in stamps and labels, totally unassuming. Carefully angling it away from Carrie, Julia cracked the top of the box open. When I saw what was inside, my stomach roiled and I had to look away. A cold vise of disgust clutched at my heart. Who would send something so upsetting?

  The box contained a dead squirrel. Its eyes were already clouded over, and it had dark, nearly black blood still congealed around its mouth, which was open to reveal jutting, sharp, yellowed teeth.

  “There was a note, too,” Julia said softly, opening up a folded piece of paper she’d placed on the table. The note was still stained with blood. I peered closer to read it.

  This is just the beginning if you don’t end your campaign and stop the sports center!

  CHAPTER SIX

  Evil Is Winning

  AFTER THE REVULSION PASSED, THE f
irst thought I had was Maybe I should do some forensic testing on the squirrel. I had a crude forensic testing kit at home. Maybe if I could figure out a cause of death, I could . . .

  My second thought was, But: gross. I didn’t need to be messing with mysteriously deceased wildlife. The squirrel could have rabies, or worse. Besides . . .

  “Have you guys called anybody about this?” I asked, gesturing to the now-closed box.

  Julia nodded. “The police are on their way.”

  “Oh, great.” If the Boylestown PD was anything like the River Heights PD, that didn’t necessarily mean they’d solve the case. But at least some more official channels could deal with the squirrel.

  Carrie sat up then and let out another wail. “It’s too much.” She sobbed. “This is not what I signed on for by running for office! I just wanted to make a positive change in our town.”

  “You will, Carrie,” George said, rubbing her cousin’s shoulder encouragingly. “If you can just stay strong and make it through this rough patch, you know the voters will see who you really are. And once they see that, there’s no way they could not elect you!”

  Julia moved closer, patting Carrie’s arm. “She’s right, Carrie. Come on—you’re the best man, or woman, for the job. You know that. Block all this out—that’s the only thing that matters.”

  Carrie took a deep, shuddering breath and shook her head. “It’s not the only thing that matters. Keeping my sanity matters too! I just wasn’t prepared for any of this.”

  Bess cleared her throat. “Carrie,” she said softly, “if you suspend your campaign, the bad guy wins, and your sports complex will never happen. Is that what you want?”

  Carrie looked away. She didn’t say anything, but she let out a little whimper.

  I took a seat in the folding chair I’d been leaning on. “Carrie, have you heard of any environmental concerns about building the sports complex?”