Minerva Clark Gives Up the Ghost Read Online Free Page B

said.
    â€œI thought we were chillaxing here,” said Kevin. More eyebrow waggling. He patted the place on my bed where I had just been sitting. Kevin had very dark eyebrows compared with his hair. He said it was because his family was Black Irish. I don’t know what that is. Note to self: Google “Black Irish.”
    Pat pat pat. “Come here, babe.”
    â€œSomeone burned down his family’s grocery store,” I said.
    Kevin sighed. I could tell he realized there was going to be no rolling around on my bed today. “They say arson is the toughest crime to solve. I saw a show on it on the Discovery Channel.”
    â€œTougher than murder?” I asked. I had already solved a murder.
    â€œThe evidence is usually destroyed by the fire. What started the fire gets burned up in it. Wicked sketchy, huh?” he said.
    â€œYou mean—”
    â€œLet’s say you use a rag drenched in gasoline to start a fire. What’s the first thing that gets burned to a crisp? The rag. So the cops come in, have a look around, can’t find any physical evidence, and close the case. Now come back over here.”
    â€œI don’t think you’re supposed to be up here,” I said. “My brother might come after you with his dojo.”
    Kevin laughed. “Isn’t there where you go to take karate lessons?”
    I didn’t know. Mojo? Hojo? I thought a dojo was one of those weapons boys always think are so cool.
    From downstairs I could hear voices and cupboard doors slamming.
    â€œUh-oh. The groceries.”
    I dashed out of my room, tore to the end of hallway, hopped onto the fireman’s pole, and slid down into the kitchen. Luckily I’d put lotion on my legs that morning. The fireman’s pole was here when we moved in—don’t ask me why the family who lived in this house before us thought they needed one. The advantage of the fireman’s pole was that you dropped into the kitchen like a ninja. I hardly ever used it, but once in a while it was one hundred percent handy.
    I expected to see Mrs. Dagnitz putting away the groceries with her back mad-mom straight and her mouth a thin-lipped line of pure rage, but instead, there was Weird Rolando, my mom’s new husband, folding theplastic grocery bag and tucking it into the recycling bin. He wore his brown-and-gray hair in a braid. My mother is married to a man whose hair is longer than mine. That should be against the law.
    â€œSorry about the groceries,” I said to his back. “I told Mrs. Dag … I told my mom I’d put them away, then I sort of spaced it.”
    â€œIt happens,” said Weird Rolando. He turned around and flashed me a smile. It was real, not one of those fake ones where the mouth does all the work. I would never tell my brothers this, but I don’t mind Weird Rolando. He is the sort of person to take home a lost dog and then make up flyers saying he’d found it. Once upon a time, not long after my mom and dad separated, Rolando was my mother’s yoga teacher. My mother lost weight, got very good at standing on her head, then announced she was moving to Santa Fe, and away she went. “It’s not a big deal,” he said.
    â€œIt is a big deal when I specifically asked you to put them away not ten minutes ago,” said Mrs. Dagnitz, hurrying into the kitchen from the dining room, flinging open the refrigerator, and grabbing the same spinach Rolando had put away seven seconds earlier.
    â€œSorry,” I said. “I did put the fish away. Isn’t that the important one?” I didn’t think it would help to make up some excuse. Mrs. Dagnitz had that deep wrinkle between her eyebrows. I remembered how it was with that wrinkle—once it showed up, there was nothing youcould do about it. Like with the stomach flu, you just had to wait until it went away.
    â€œClearly you haven’t heard about what’s going on with spinach,” she