True Blue Read Online Free

that’s been cast for them. Snakes, too. Ask her. She can explain it better than I can. She also believes there’s something magical about camp, that ten days at camp can make everything right with every kid.”
    “It didn’t work that way with Stephanie, did it?” Detective Bowen asked.
    After a moment, I answered. “No.”
    “As a matter of fact, the longer camp went on, the worse Stephanie seemed to get, isn’t that right?”
    “Casey tried so hard!” I suddenly felt like crying—my face hurt from the effort to hold it back.
    “Someone as dedicated as Casey would keep trying,” Detective Bowen said. “She’d go the extra mile and beyond.”
    “Casey White is an extraordinary girl,” Mom interjected. “Disciplined. Dedicated. Honorable. And a joy to be around. Did you know she’s been accepted to join a field study this December on Lord Howe Island off the coast of Australia? Her family’s not rich. She has to cover her travel expenses. She could have found a higher-paying job for the summer—really, any business in town would have loved to hire her. But she had already committed to Ten Willows. ‘I’ll just get a job after school,’ she told me. That girl is not afraid of hard work!”
    I wanted Mom to shut up. I’d heard that Industrious-Casey speech way too often.
    Detective Bowen poured some more milk into her coffee mug and took a long time to stir it.
    “Is there anything else?” I finally asked.
    Detective Bowen looked at me and smiled a little. She could tell she’d gotten to me.
    “Did Casey ever lose her temper with Stephanie?”
    “Casey has never lost her temper,” Mom said. “Not once.”
    “Jessica?” Detective Bowen prompted. “We’ve already talked to the girls from your cabin.”
    “Then why are you asking me?”
    “Detective, if you already have the information, why do you need to hear it again from Jess?” my father asked. “All this has been hard on her, too.”
    “I’m just trying to get a complete picture of what happened.”
    “I don’t have to answer your questions if I’m not under arrest,” I said. “And not even then. I remember that from law class in grade eleven.”
    “I thought you wanted to help your friend.”
    “How can this be helping? You’re looking for negative things! Everybody gets mad at kids. Kids make you mad. That’s what they do. Not all kids and not all the time, but they make you mad!”
    I got up from the table and fiddled with the orange juice container on the counter, just to get away from her.
    “Let’s leave that topic, then,” the detective said. “A t-shirt of Stephanie’s was found in Casey’s duffel bag. Any idea how it got there?”
    I was facing the counter, not the table. I felt myself stiffen up. I poured the juice into a glass.
    “How would I know that?” I asked.
    “It was a t-shirt that everyone assumed she was wearing when she disappeared. It had Tinker Bell on the front of it. Do you remember it?”
    I took a swallow of orange juice and turned back to face the table.
    “A lot of girls wore Tinker Bell shirts this summer.”
    “Her mother said it was her favorite. It wasn’t among her belongings and she wasn’t wearing it when her body was found. But it turned up in Casey’s bag. With bloodstains on it. Both Stephanie’s and Casey’s blood.”
    “Kids get injured at camp,” I said. “Scraped knees when they fall, scratched cheeks from flapping branches on trail hikes. Casey and I carried little first aid kits on our belts.”
    “So you know nothing about Stephanie’s t-shirt? Because Casey said you must have put it in her bag, that you were doing the cabin cleanup while she was out with the search party. So I’m asking you. Did you put it in her duffle bag?”
    “Of course she didn’t,” Mom said. “Why would she put a child’s t-shirt into her friend’s bag? Why would she do that?”
    “Maybe it was an accident.” Detective Bowen’s voice was calm in contrast to the shrillness of