Secrets in the Attic (Secrets 1)

dressed quickly, putting on a pair of old jeans and a

short-sleeved blouse. Before I went downstairs, I

looked up at the attic. I half expected she would be

peering out.

I started toward it, thinking I would just open

the door and tell her quickly not to worry, but the

moment my foot touched the first step, it creaked so

loudly I was sure I had alerted my mother below. I

froze, listened, then turned quickly and hurried down

the stairs, thinking there was no sense in taking any

risk when I would be free to move about in a short

while.

"I'm glad you wanted to stay home today," my

mother told me when we both sat at the table. "I was

worried about not having time to spend with you after

all this. It's good for you to catch your breath before

going back into the fish bowl. That's what it's going to

feel like for a while. Once your classmates realize you

don't know all that much more about it than they do,

they'll stop talking to you about it. The one thing you

don't want to do, however, is be so closed-mouth and secretive that they think you do know more. Un

derstand?"

"Yes."

"Daddy told me the questions you were asked

and how you answered them. Was there anything else,

something you didn't tell them that might shed some

light on all this?"

How ironic, I thought. My mother, who was a

nurse and not a police detective, got right to the heart

of it. How would I squirm out of it without telling a