CHAPTER TEN

I left the party early and went home. My parents met me at the door as if they’d been standing there all night.

Right away, I knew things were about to go from bad to worse. I’d never seen my dad so angry.

“Kaito!” he said. “Sit down.”

I took a seat in the kitchen and pulled the bandana off my head. “I know what you’re thinking,” I began, “but you don’t know the whole story—”

“We know you lied, you falsely accused a teacher, you doctored photographs,” Dad said.

Mom jumped in. “You got suspended. Suspended! And then you went to that party without even telling us about it.”

“Do you have any idea how humiliating it was when your principal called to talk with us?” my father said. “Having to admit to a school official that we had no idea what was going on with our own son?”

Wow. They didn’t even want to hear my side of the story. They were too busy tag teaming me to care.

“. . . your permanent record!” Mom was saying. “Every college you apply to will find out about this.”

“And your name is in the local news,” Dad said. “This is part of your digital footprint now. And do you realize we could be sued by your teacher for defamation of character?”

Sued? For telling the truth? I didn’t think so. But what did I know? I was just the person who took the photos. Clearly the adults had all the answers here.

Dad doesn’t yell much, but when he gets going, look out. By the time he ran out of steam, my mom was crying, and I had pretty much stopped listening.

They grounded me, of course, “until further notice.” Mom promised a long list of chores for me to do during my suspension, and Dad told me I was lucky he didn’t take away my camera. I started to argue that point. (The camera is mine. I paid for it with my own money.) But I realized I’d better not push it.

I had to say something, though. “You forgot to go over the part where you don’t need to hear my version of all this because obviously I can’t be trusted,” I said. “And the part where you’re sure the principal got everything right because school officials never screw over students. Or make mistakes.”

I let that sink in for a minute, then stomped to my room. I was finished letting everyone else tell me their version of what I’d done. It was time to take back control of the story.