Minerva Clark Gets a Clue Read Online Free Page B

trouble with the police, but Quills would kill me for leaving Tilt without telling anyone.
    â€œShe’s not my friend, she’s my cousin,” I said.
    â€œDo you have someone you can call?” the policewoman asked again.
    This was a good question. I dug in my backpack for my Emergencies Only cell phone. I wanted one with red flames on the faceplate, but because it was for
emergencies only
, it was plain silver and serious. It was prepaid, with only a certain number of minutes on it. I couldn’t call my dad, since he was out of town on business, like always. I couldn’t call my mom, because she was divorced from my dad and living in Santa Fe, where she taught yoga.
    I tried to call my oldest older brother, Mark Clark. I always call him by both names. When I was a baby I liked how they rhymed and it stuck. Plus, even though he’s only twenty-four, he’s really dadlike. More dadlike than my dad, actually.
    The call went to voice mail. I started to get nervous. What was the point of having an Emergencies Only cell phone if in an emergency no one was around to answer it? What would they do to me if I couldn’t find someone to pick me up? Would I have to go to jail, too?
    Crap.
    My only choice was to try flaky Morgan, my youngest older brother. I caught him between classes. He’s a philosophy major at college and can’t decide whether he wants to be a lawyer, like our dad, or a spoken word poet, whatever that was. At the moment, he was a junk food vegetarian, living on mostly Doritos, Mountain Dew, garden burgers, and the occasional banana, which is the junk food of the fruit kingdom.
    â€œI need you to come get me,” I squeaked into the phone. I tried to explain what had happened, that Jordan had been pulled over for rolling through a stop sign and having a smashed taillight, and now she was sitting in the back of the patrol car, waiting to be taken I didn’t know where, jail or somewhere.
    â€œThey arrested her for running a stop sign?” asked Morgan. “I don’t think that’s legal.”
    â€œIt was the stupid taillight. Or something. I don’t know! I just know that someone needs to come get me! Quills is going to be so mad I left the arcade. I’m so busted!” I felt a twirl of fear in my stomach.
    â€œThey’re arresting you, too? I know
that’s
not legal.”
    â€œNo! Not me! Jordan. They even put her in handcuffs.”
    â€œMin, tell me you’re not making this up. Remember the Law of Karma.” Morgan was also a Buddhist. Ithought you had to be old to be a Buddhist, but apparently you can be a twenty-year-old college student, too. The Law of Karma, as explained to me by Morgan last year when I’d lied about eating the last piece of his birthday cake, was basically this: Every bad thing you do will one day come back and bite you in the butt; to avoid being bitten in the butt, don’t do bad things.
    I started to blubber for the second time that day. Morgan said, Okay, okay, he’d come get me. I told him to hang on one second, then called out the window to the police officer, who was leaning against the side of the car, examining her French braid for split ends. I guess I wasn’t considered a desperate criminal in need of watching.
    She asked me if Morgan would also drive the red Jetta home, or somewhere, since Jordan was our cousin. I didn’t say anything, but handed the phone to the policewoman. While she and Morgan talked I reached inside my hoodie pocket to pet Jupiter. His fur was so soft.
    Suddenly, from inside the car, a cell phone rang. It was
loud
. For a minute I thought it was my cell phone, but the French braid cop was still talking on it. I looked at the carpet hump between the seats and saw it was Jordan’s phone.
    Without thinking I answered it, just to keep it from ringing or something.
    I put the phone to my ear, but before I could even say “Hey,” the voice on the other end