CHAPTER 25

WHEN CEE INVITED ME OVER Saturday to discuss my investigation into who’d complained about the Red Club, I didn’t expect it to be so organized. Though I should have. I mean, it was Cee.

“Since when do you have a whiteboard? And why?” I asked as she placed a marker into my hand.

“It helps me to work out business problems when I write them up on the board. Or even pro-and-con lists. New ideas. I use it all the time. It was a great investment.”

“Let me guess. You bought it at a garage sale.”

“Five bucks!” She beamed. “From a retired teacher.”

Cee wanted me to write all the suspects up on the board so we could gather evidence, but the truth was, I hadn’t had time to think about too much. I’d spent all night writing my article and all morning filling my mom in on every detail like she’d asked. Then she’d gone into her own office to do “research.” She allowed me to go to Cee’s house while they went to Danny’s soccer game. And now I was promptly put on the spot.

“C’mon, Ms. Investigative Reporter, let’s do this.” Cee nudged me forward.

I uncapped the marker and took a deep breath. “Well, we have the obvious.” I wrote Brody Scruggs on the board.

Cee nodded. “Brody hates us, that’s for sure.”

“And I may or may not have tripped him after a Red Club meeting when he bullied Julia,” I admitted.

Cee smirked. “But I can’t picture him booking time with Principal Pickford to complain about the Red Club. He wouldn’t be able to put forth a coherent argument.”

True. But his mother could. “Mrs. Scruggs complained about the dress code at the school committee meeting. She went on and on, blaming girls in leggings for Brody’s bad grades.”

Cee groaned in frustration. “Totally the type of mom who would go to the administration to get a girls’ club shut down. Especially one that her precious baby doesn’t like.” She rubbed her chin for a moment, staring at the board. “Okay, who’s next?”

I thought for a moment. “Julia’s mom.”

“You still think she could have done it?” Cee asked. “She wasn’t at the school committee meeting.”

“But she could have complained to Pickford privately. Julia told me that her mom didn’t approve of the Red Club.”

Cee’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll never understand people who want to make rules for all children rather than their own kid. If she didn’t want Julia to go to meetings, fine. But would she really try to make it so that all girls couldn’t go?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know.” The Alperts were new in town. I’d never even met Julia’s mom, so I had no idea what kind of person she was.

“Put her on the list,” Cee said.

I did, the marker squeaking as I wrote. “I wish there was a way to find out more about her, to get a sense of her.”

Cee tapped a pink painted fingernail on her chin. “We could do some light Facebook stalking.”

I did a double take. Cee was old enough for an account, but no one in our grade had one. It was more for grown-ups. “You have a Facebook account?”

Cee shrugged. “It’s how I get notifications from my local Future Business Leaders of America chapter.”

But of course.

“My stuff is charging downstairs,” she said. “Can I log in on your laptop?”

“Sure.” I walked over to her glass-top desk and opened the computer I’d brought. My most recent document—the article I’d been working on—was up on the screen. I opened a browser window for Facebook.

Cee dragged over a second chair she had in the corner and pushed me over a bit to share the space. She logged in quickly and her feed loaded. As expected, it was all business and self-motivation pages.

“Let’s see if Mrs. Alpert has an account.”

I wouldn’t even have known where to start looking, but Cee immediately clicked to a Hawking Middle School group and opened up the list of its members.

“Ah. Susie Alpert. Here she is.” Cee pointed at a small square photo next to the name. The woman looked just like Julia, only older and with a mom haircut.

Cee clicked to Mrs. Alpert’s page and we looked around, but there wasn’t much to see.

“Why is it mostly blank?” I asked.

“She’s using her privacy settings.” Cee sighed. “Good for her, but bad for us stalkers.”

Cee shut down the browser, and my article filled the screen. She leaned forward in her chair. “What’s this?”

“Oh, that’s…” What I worked on all last night, staying up way later than usual, pouring my heart and soul into. “Just an article.”

“For the paper? I thought Pickford wasn’t having meetings right now and you guys were on hold.”

“We are,” I said, “and even if we weren’t, he definitely wouldn’t publish this. But I felt like I had to write it anyway, to get it all off my chest and onto paper. Or… laptop. I thought maybe I could publish it myself on a blog, but I don’t have a blog and I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

“Can I read it?”

“Sure.” I moved aside to give her the full view of the screen.

She read slowly and quietly, chewing on her thumbnail the whole time. Now and then I noticed her giving a slight nod. When she was done, she pushed the laptop away and gazed up at me.

“Wh-what did you think?” I asked, suddenly nervous.

“I think that’s the best piece you’ve ever written. And I think that we’re setting up that blog, right now.”

My heart sped up. “You’ll help me?”

She poked a finger at the screen. “Everyone in school needs to read this. If I have to share the blog post with every girl, boy, and teacher myself, I’ll do it.”

I threw my arms around her neck. “Thank you, you Internet wonder!”

“And while I create the account, choose a template, and design a header, you work on the investigation.”

“Okay.” I nodded, even though I only understood a little bit of what she’d said.

Cee started clicking away at the keys on my laptop, and I leaned back in the chair and tried to refocus on the investigation. I wrote a few more names on the board, including my mother’s, but then I stopped. Mom thought the Red Club was inappropriate. She didn’t like that I was a part of it. But we’d shared a lot over the last day. We’d gotten so much closer. I wasn’t sure about a lot of things, but I was sure about this one.

I crossed her name off the list.

My mom wasn’t the secret complainer. I was sure of that now. But that didn’t help me figure out who was.