One of Us is Lying(10)

“And then he drank it?”

“Yeah,” I say, but Bronwyn corrects me.

“No,” she says. “Not right away. He talked for a while. Remember?” She turns to Nate. “He asked you if you put the cell phones in our backpacks. The ones that got us in trouble with Mr. Avery.”

“The cell phones. Right.” Officer Budapest scratches something down in his notebook. He doesn’t say it like a question, but Bronwyn explains anyway.

“Somebody played a prank on us,” she says. “It’s why we were in detention. Mr. Avery found phones in our backpacks that didn’t belong to us.” She turns to Principal Gupta with an injured expression. “It really wasn’t fair. I’ve been meaning to ask, is that something that goes on your permanent record?”

Nate rolls his eyes. “It wasn’t me. Someone stuck a phone in my backpack too.”

Principal Gupta furrows her brow. “This is the first I’m hearing about this.”

I shrug when she meets my eyes. Those phones were the last thing on my mind these past few days.

Officer Budapest doesn’t look surprised. “Mr. Avery mentioned that when I met with him earlier. He said none of the kids ever claimed the phones, so he thought it must’ve been a prank after all.” He slides his pen between his index and middle finger and taps it rhythmically against the table. “Is that the sort of joke Simon might have played on you all?”

“I don’t see why,” Addy says. “There was a phone in his backpack too. Besides, I barely knew him.”

“You were on junior prom court with him,” Bronwyn points out. Addy blinks, like she’s only just remembering that’s true.

“Any of you kids ever have trouble with Simon?” Officer Budapest asks. “I’ve heard about the app he made—About That, right?” He’s looking at me, so I nod. “You guys ever been on it?”

Everyone shakes their head except Nate. “Lots of times,” he says.

“What for?” Officer Budapest asks.

Nate smirks. “Stupid shit—” he starts, but Principal Gupta cuts him off.

“Language, Mr. Macauley.”

“Stupid stuff,” Nate amends. “Hooking up, mostly.”

“Did that bother you? Being gossiped about?”

“Not really.” He looks like he means it. I guess being on a gossip app isn’t a big deal compared to getting arrested. If that’s true. Simon never posted it, so nobody seems to know exactly what Nate’s deal is.

Kinda pathetic, how Simon was our most trusted news source.

Officer Budapest looks at the rest of us. “But not you three?” We all shake our heads again. “Did you ever worry about ending up on Simon’s app? Feel like you had something hanging over your heads, or anything like that?”

“Not me,” I say, but my voice isn’t as confident as I would have liked. I glance away from Officer Budapest and catch Addy and Bronwyn looking like polar opposites: Addy’s gone pale as a ghost, and Bronwyn’s flushed brick red. Nate watches them for a few seconds, tilts his chair back, and looks at Officer Budapest.

“Everybody’s got secrets,” he says. “Right?”

My workout routine goes long that night, but my dad makes everyone wait till I’m done so we can eat dinner together. My brother, Lucas, clutches his stomach and staggers to the table with a long-suffering look when we finally sit down at seven.

The topic of conversation’s the same as it’s been all week: Simon. “You had to figure the police’d get involved at some point,” Pop says, spooning a small mountain of mashed potatoes onto his plate. “Something’s not right about how that boy died.” He snorts. “Peanut oil in the water system, maybe? Lawyers are gonna have a field day with that.”

“Were his eyes bugging out of his head like this?” asks Lucas, making a face. He’s twelve, and Simon’s death is nothing but video-game gore to him.

My grandmother reaches over and swats Lucas on the back of his hand. Nonny’s barely five feet tall with a head full of tight white curls, but she means business. “Hush your mouth unless you can speak of that poor young man with respect.”

Nonny’s lived with us since we moved here from Mississippi five years ago. It surprised me then that she came along; our grandfather had been dead for years, but she had plenty of friends and clubs that kept her busy. Now that we’ve lived here for a while, I get it. Our basic colonial costs three times what our house in Mississippi did, and there’s no way we could afford it without Nonny’s money. But you can play baseball year-round in Bayview, and it’s got one of the best high school programs in the country. At some point, Pop expects I’ll make this gigantic mortgage and the job he hates worthwhile.

I might. After my fastball improved by five miles an hour over the summer, I ended up fourth on ESPN’s predictions for the June MLB draft next year. I’m getting scouted by a lot of colleges too, and wouldn’t mind heading there first. But baseball’s not the same as football or basketball. If a guy can head for the minors right out of high school, he usually does.

Pop points at me with his knife. “You got a showcase game Saturday. Don’t forget.”

As if I could. The schedule’s posted around the whole house.