Deadly Little Secret Read Online Free PDF

the length of the door in permanent black marker.
    The sign was up there for two full hours before Mr. Snell, the school principal, ordered a janitor to come and cover it up with a few strokes of red paint.
    “Remember last year,” Kimmie says, applying a fresh coat of my peach-colored lip gloss, “when Polly Piranha got vandalized?”
    Since our English teacher is out sick today, Kimmie, Wes, and I have the rare treat of an extra free block. And so we’re sitting in the courtyard behind the school— basically a glorified asphalt driveway with a bunch of picnic tables set up—pretending to do our homework.
    I laugh, still able to picture it—the giant wooden cutout of a piranha, our school mascot, with boobs spray-painted right over her fins. Poor Polly had apparently sat in the same spot by the football field for more than thirty years, and this was the first time she’d sported hooters.
    “Yeah,” I say, “but in that case Snell had her taken down within minutes.”
    “A damned shame.” Wes shakes his head. “Those were some nice hooters.”
    “The only ones you’ll ever see up close,” Kimmie says.
    “Um, excuse me, but haven’t you ever heard of Playboy ?” he asks.
    “Haven’t you ever heard of hard-up boy?”
    “I wonder how the truth even leaked out about Ben,” I say, cutting through their banter.
    “Are you kidding?” Wes squawks. “This is a small town, with even smaller minds. A guy can’t even scratch the wrong way without people suspecting he’s got a killer case of the crabs.”
    “Something you want to tell us about?” Kimmie asks.
    Wes gives her the middle-finger nose scratch.
    “Well, if this town is so small,” I ask, “how come nobody told me Matt was dating Rena Maruso?”
    “What?” Kimmie’s jaw drops.
    “Apparently true. I talked to him earlier.”
    “Not true,” Kimmie protests. “Rena’s in my Spanish class. The girl tells me everything.”
    “Maybe she only tells you some things,” Wes says.
    “Or maybe Matt’s trying to make you jealous,” Kimmie says. “It’s the oldest trick in the book.”
    “Well, whatever,” I say, eager to get back to business. “I’ve been asking people about him.”
    “Matt?” Kimmie perks up.
    “No, Ben.”
    “Okay, so, no offense,” she says, “but does this fascination with Ben have anything to do with you deciding to give up your senior-citizen way of life?”
    “Senior citizen?”
    “Yeah, you know, safe, habitual, carefully planned, doesn’t like surprises, likes to be in before dark—”
    “You have to admit, you are a bit of an old lady,” Wes adds.
    “Of course, we love that about you,” Kimmie insists.
    “Right,” Wes says. “I mean, who doesn’t love their grandma? And it could explain your sudden fixation with Danger Boy.”
    “Hold up,” Kimmie says. “If Ben were a real danger boy, who really killed his girlfriend, do you honestly think they’d allow him back in school?”
    “You don’t think he did it?” I ask.
    “What I think is that you’re starting to sound just a tad bit obsessed.”
    “Well, it’s a little hard not to be. I mean, Ben’s name is everywhere—in practically every conversation.”
    “In practically every girl’s worst nightmare,” Wes says, creepifying his voice by making it superdeep. He uses a pencil as a makeshift knife to jab at the air.
    “Well, dangerous or not,” Kimmie says, popping a fireball candy into her mouth, “the boy is hot—for an alleged killer, that is.”
    “Why is it that all the good ones have to be killers?” Wes lets out an exaggerated sigh.
    “You’re such a spaz,” I say, throwing a corn chip at his head. It sticks in his mousse-laden hair, but he picks it out and eats it anyway.
    “So, what did you find out about him, Nancy Drew?” Kimmie asks me.
    “Nothing reliable.” I shrug. “The stories are getting more ridiculous by the minute.”
    Wes nods. “Last I heard, the boy chopped up his entire family and ate them for