Tagged Read Online Free Page A

time.
    â€œDefinitely,” I assured her. I was talking to her on my cell phone while I searched the Internet for “gorilla graffiti,” in the upstairs office. My parents wouldn’t let me have a computer in my room. They said anything I needed to search for could be done in public, which was just their way of saying that they didn’t want me looking at naked people online.
    I wanted to read through the Tennessee newspaper article again. I felt like I was missing something. Lan moved off the topic of Trent and on to Mr. Gildea’s class.
    â€œNo one else assigned a paper on the first day back,” she complained. “What am I supposed to write?”
    â€œIt sounds fairly easy, Lan. Just do a Web search. You can write three hundred words about art in ten minutes.”
    â€œNo, you can write three hundred words in ten minutes. It’ll take me hours.”
    Mom called me downstairs for dinner and I told Lan I had to go.
    â€œBy the way, did you hear about Tiffany’s party?” she asked before I could hang up.
    â€œShe’s always having a party.” Every time her parents took a weekend “holiday,” Tiffany threw some kind of wild celebration for half the school.
    â€œThis is different. It’s her birthday party, and apparently she’s going all out. As in, bigger than homecoming and prom put together.”
    â€œWell, I’m sure it will be lovely. Gotta go.”
    I had never been invited to one of Tiffany’s parties, and I didn’t think she was going to start putting me on the guest list now. I guessed it would be nice to see what all the fuss was about, but at the same time, I knew I’d feel completely out of place with Tiffany’s crowd.
    My parents were already sitting at the dining-room table when I walked in.
    â€œHow’s Lan?” Mom asked as she scooped steaming vegetables onto her plate.
    I took my seat and dug into a bowl of pasta salad. “Good. She’s freaking out about a history paper we have due tomorrow.”
    â€œA paper on the first day back? Good,” Dad said. He approved of hard work, strict teachers and rigid rules. Dinner, for example, was nonnegotiable in our house. We ate dinner together six days a week, with only Friday as an exception. My parents kept strange hours and dinner was the one time we were all together.
    Sometimes Dad was called out in the middle of the night, and Mom worked at Cleary Confections, the local bakery, and usually got up around four in the morning, which I considered inhumane. Mom was in charge of cakes. Birthday, wedding, graduation—she made them all, from plain yellow with chocolate frosting to a six-tiered red velvet monstrosity decorated to look like a volcano. She said baking was her “creative outlet,” and she loved it. She came home smellinglike buttercream icing and devising new ways to shape gum paste into flowers.
    â€œI heard you had an exciting morning at school,” Mom commented. I wasn’t sure if she was talking to Dad or to me.
    â€œYou mean the graffiti? It wasn’t that big a deal.”
    Dad looked at me. “Not a big deal? Do you have any idea how much money it’s going to cost to sandblast that stuff off the wall?” He shook his head. “No one respects public property anymore.”
    â€œIt was on the news at lunchtime,” Mom said. “It’s certainly interesting. Not your typical graffiti. It seemed more, I don’t know, professional?” She looked at Dad like he might be able to supply the appropriate word.
    â€œWell, it just might be,” he admitted. He told us that Trent’s alibi was a good one, that he was out of state visiting his grandmother that day. He got home around eleven, a fact established by a gas receipt, and went to bed at midnight, which was confirmed by his parents.
    â€œAnd we think the vandalism occurred around 1:00 a.m.,” Dad said. “He could’ve