From the Desk of Zoe Washington(53)

“You did a good job with your investigating,” Dad said, his voice now turning serious. “But that doesn’t excuse your lying and going to Harvard without permission. That was really dangerous.”

“So I’m still grounded?”

“Yes,” Mom said.

I nodded, not even a little bit upset. How could I care about being grounded after finding out that Marcus’s alibi was true? And he might get out of prison?

I stood up, and by the time I took a couple steps to Mom, my eyes were watering for real. “Thank you,” I told her. Then I took one more step closer and tightly wrapped my arms around her middle.

Mom didn’t say anything, but squeezed me back and swayed with me for a couple seconds. Her hug felt so familiar and comforting. I’d missed this. I’d missed her so much. I cried into her blouse.

When we separated, Mom wiped the tears from both my eyes and hers. “If you want to talk some more about Marcus,” she said, “you can let me know. I understand that he’s part of your life now.”

“Really?” I asked. I couldn’t believe my luck.

“Really.”

“My turn,” Grandma said, and she pulled me into a hug.

“I didn’t mean what I said,” I told her. “I don’t hate you. You know that, right?”

“Of course I know that, baby girl,” Grandma said. “You were angry. Don’t worry about it. I’m still proud of you,” she whispered into my ear.

I grinned, feeling proud of me, too.

That night, I couldn’t help it. I wrote an actual letter to Marcus on my stationery. I didn’t know when I’d get to mail it, but I hoped it would be soon.

From the Desk of Zoe Washington

September 8

Dear Marcus,

You won’t believe this. I found Susan Thomas! I’ve been calling her Professor Thomas because she teaches at Harvard. What’s even better is that she remembers you from the afternoon of the crime. Dad’s lawyer friends are going to reach out to the Innocence Project, to see if they will help. I’m really excited and hope this means you’ll get out of prison.

No matter what happens, I want you to know that I’m really glad I’m getting to know you.

Love,

Zoe

PS Send another song for my playlist, okay?





Chapter Thirty-Five


On Saturday, I went to the kitchen to get breakfast and was surprised to see a few of my baking supplies set up on the island. An apron was folded neatly beside them, next to my Ruby Willow cookbook. Dad sat on one stool with a steaming mug of coffee in front of him as he flipped through an article on his tablet. Mom sat next to him with a cup of tea and a magazine. They both looked up when I walked in. I was suddenly worried that they’d decided to totally remove all of my baking supplies from the house as part of my grounding. I glanced at my yellow mixer, wondering if I should lunge for it before it was too late.

“Good morning,” both my parents said at the same time. Neither of them sounded angry, but that didn’t mean they weren’t.

“What’s all this?” I asked, pointing to all my baking stuff.

“We want to bake something,” Mom said. “As a family.”

“But I thought you said I couldn’t bake while I’m grounded.”

“We’re going to make this one exception. And today you get two sous-chefs,” Mom said. “Pick a recipe in here, and Dad will run to the store if we’re missing anything. Then we’ll start after you eat breakfast.”

Smiling, I grabbed the cookbook and started skimming through it, but then I realized that what I really wanted to bake wasn’t within its pages.

I got a small notepad and pen from our junk drawer. I wrote down the ingredients we needed and handed it to Dad.

“Froot Loops?” he asked, his bushy eyebrows furrowing.

I smiled. “Yup.”

“Okay,” he said, sounding skeptical. “I’ll be right back.”

While he was gone, I ate a bowl of oatmeal with sliced bananas. “You know, I made this playlist with songs Marcus sent me in his letters,” I told Mom. “Plus some others by the same artists. I called it my ‘Little Tomato’ playlist.”

“That’s sweet,” she said. “Can I hear it?”

I grabbed my phone and hooked it up to the speakers, and Jill Scott’s “Golden” came on.

Mom immediately started singing along—sounding even better than when she sang to herself in front of the bathroom mirror.

We danced around the kitchen and sang along with the songs on the playlist while we waited for Dad to come back from the store. By the time he walked into the kitchen with a grocery bag, we were belting along to Boyz II Men and Mariah Carey’s “One Sweet Day,” and he looked at us like we were the silliest people in the world.

I lowered the music and grabbed the cereal box from the grocery bag. The first thing I did was pour some of the cereal into a bowl with milk to soak.

“I came up with a cupcake recipe,” I explained.

“With cereal?” Mom asked.

“Yes. Wait until you try them.”

When the cereal milk was ready, we got to work making the cupcakes. Mom and Dad helped with each of the steps—creaming the butter and sugar together, adding the flour and cereal milk and other ingredients. When the batter was done, I separated it into three bowls and we added the red, blue, and green food coloring. I used an ice cream scoop to drop small amounts of each color batter into each cupcake tin, and then we used toothpicks to swirl the batter around a little.