Secrets 01 Secrets in the Attic Read Online Free PDF Page A

followed her statements with a laugh.
The first black-and-blue mark I saw on Karen was on her upper left arm. It looked like the imprint of a thick thumb, as if she had been grabbed and held until the capillaries broke and there was trauma. I knew all about that medical stuff because of my mother being a nurse. Karen covered it with her longsleeved shirt, but she kept the shirt unbuttoned, and when she was curling like a caterpillar in the back of the bus, the shirt slipped off her shoulder and fell down enough on her arm for me to see it.
"What's this?" I asked, pointing at her blackand- blue mark.
She turned, realized what had happened, and quickly pulled her shirt back, up, and over her shoulder.
"Nothing. I bumped into something while I was sleepwalking last night," she said. "And lucky, too, because if I hadn't, I might have fallen down the stairs."
"You never told me you sleepwalk," I said, smirking.
"Didn't I? I must be forcing myself to ignore it," she said, but she didn't sound truthful at all.
By now, if we cast a lie at each other, it flew for a second and then fell like a bird with heart failure. She glanced back at me, her eyes flickering and her expression pleading with me not to ask anything else. I folded my hands on my books and stared ahead.
At the time, I didn't have enough of a diabolical mind. I thought it was possible she had been in some altercation with one of the other girls and I just hadn't heard about it yet. When we arrived at school, I listened to see if anyone was talking about a fight between Karen and someone, maybe in the girls' bathroom, but no one was. Of course, I became even more curious.
On the way home that day, I nodded at her arm and asked, "That still hurt?"
"Never did. It looks worse than it really is," she told me, and again turned away to signal that this was not a topic for discussion.
And so I put it back into my log of things I would rather forget. I didn't think of it again until I saw her walking alone one early evening soon after and realized she was crying. I had come into the village on my bike to get myself a chocolate marshmallow ice cream cone at George's Ice Cream Parlor. It was a reward I was giving myself for finishing all my homework early, including reading all four assigned chapters of Huckleberry Finn and answering the study guide questions. Lately, I had become a very good student, and my father took another look at me and decided I would be as much college material as Jesse was, after all. It came under the heading "Some Take Longer to Grow Up."
"Finally," he said, "you have your priorities straight. There is hope for you yet, Zipporah."
I didn't say anything. In my mind, it didn't require a thank you. I never thought there wasn't hope for me, and I doubted my father ever thought that, either, even though I was never on the honor roll. I never failed anything. True, I swam in the pool of the average or just above, but there was nothing about me that would bring my parents any shame. The worst crime I had committed to date was talking too much in class and serving two days' detention.
I saw Karen walking toward the east side of town, her head down, her right hand periodically moving across her cheeks to flick off tears like a human windshield wiper. I decided to forgo my ice cream reward and pedal on after her. George's was dangerously near closing anyway, since it was the offseason, and by this time in the evening, most people had retreated to their homes and wrapped themselves in the glow of their television sets. The streets were deserted, and the periods between some automobile traffic and none were longer and longer. I didn't want to scare her, so I called out while I was still a little behind her. She walked on as if she hadn't heard me. I drew closer and called out louder.
She stopped but didn't turn. I saw her shoulders rise as if she were anticipating a blow or a shout or simply wanted to hide inside herself more. It put some hesitation in my excited