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she had taken a bath in glitter glue.
    â€œSchool project?” I asked. “On a Friday night?”
    â€œYup,” said Ashley Flynn. “We have to depict a historical event we’ve learned about this semester in an inventive way. It’s due on Monday. We decided to combine it with a sleepover.”
    â€œAnd this event is . . . ?” I wondered as I looked at globs of glue on the mural paper.
    â€œThe Battle of Gettysburg, duh,” Allie huffed.
    â€œWow! Combining war and glitter glue is definitely an original concept,” I noted.
    â€œHey, Sam, how’s that Cougar Curse going?” Ashley Diaz chimed in.
    â€œOh, I don’t believe in the curse,” I answered. “But what’s really exciting is that I’m investigating the story for the school paper. I’m going to interview police involved, get information from the first people to arrive at the scene, and talk to students at Cherry Valley and West Hills—”
    â€œUm, Sam,” Allie interrupted. “ My friends. Your room.”
    Allie pointed her finger toward my room as if she were ordering me to leave her presence. While I walked away, I could hear Allie and the Ashleys burst into a fit of giggles. Sometimes Allie could be kind of cool, but most of the time, she’s, well . . . a big sister. Ugh!
    I kicked off my sneakers and turned on my computer. Some people might get distracted and waste their time poking around on Buddybook or making a wish list on their favoriteshopping site. I was focused on the investigation. I checked my e-mail and saw that Officer Mendez had replied.
    Dear Miss Martone,
    I received your e-mail request. I’d be happy to talk to you and Mr. Lawrence about the case. We can arrange a meeting at the precinct one afternoon next week. Let me know what day and time work best for you. We will need to keep the meeting under thirty minutes, so please prepare your questions in advance.
    Looking forward to meeting you.
    Sincerely,
    Officer Jeanine Mendez
    Perfect! I was tempted to write back right away and suggest the best day and time to meet, but I knew that wouldn’t be fair to Michael. Now I had a dilemma. Should I put my eagerness on the backburner and wait to call Michael tomorrow, or should I keep things moving forwardand call him on a Friday night, after another heartbreaking Cougar loss? If Allie hadn’t been so rude, I would have asked for her advice, but from the sound of the shrieks coming from the kitchen, I knew I was on my own. I had so much nervous energy, I decided to channel it into making a pros vs. cons chart.
 
PROS
CONS
CALL NOW
• keep the investigation moving forward
• Michael might not be in the mood to talk after the football game
 
• channel my nervous energy
• Officer Mendez probably isn’t going to read her e-mail on a Friday night anyway
 
• get to talk to Michael Lawrence
• Michael might not be home and I might have to talk to one of his brothers
CALL TOMORROW
• give Michael time to sleep on the loss
• I WON’T BE ABLE TO SLEEP!!!!
 
• have time to work on my e-mail reply to Officer Mendez
 
    I sat on my bed, staring at the chart, still unable to make a decision. And then I did something that I wasn’t sure was the best useof my reporter skills, but that had been itching my brain for the past few days. I typed “Danny Stratham” and “West Hills” into a search engine. I looked at my computer screen for what seemed like an eternity, but was probably no more than fifteen seconds, and then I hit the return key.
    There weren’t a lot of entries, only ten, in fact. None of them referred to suspensions or a criminal record, dog-kicking or tattoos. Eight were about West Hills football games and his role as a star receiver. One was about a volunteer park cleanup that he’d helped to organize. The last showed a picture of him and the West