Secrets in the Attic (Secrets 1)

"I wasn't planning on all this happening, Zipporah. I was still trying to have a normal teenage girl's life in this town. You knew that. You knew that was why we were coming up with a solution."

I nodded. "He wants to talk about you, about it all. He said he was going to call me."

"I bet he will."

"What should I say if he does? He wants to see me." "Of course, he does. You'll meet him. I'll tell you exactly how to act and what to do."

"I don't want to meet him."

"Why not? Is there someone better-looking at school?"

"No, that's not it. I'm sure he just wants to talk about you, but it will make me uncomfortable, and I'm liable to slip and say something."

"You won't. You'll get him to change the subject, believe me. Don't underestimate yourself. He won't just want to see you to talk about me. He mentioned you enough when we were together."

"He did?"

"Yes, Zipporah. You can be so thick

sometimes. With a little work, you're going to look pretty damn sexy, sexy enough for Dana Martin, believe me."

"But I'm not sure . . ."

"We need these experiences, Zipporah." We again? I thought.

She had a very strange smile on her face.

"Speaking of experiences, guess what I discovered today," she said.

"What?"

She reached down under the sofa and came up with a black-and-white notepad.

"Your brother's diary or journal, whatever boys call it. Diary's too feminine-sounding to them, I suppose."

"What? Where did you find that?"

"In his room."

"You went into my brother's room?"

"What's the big deal? It's just another room, and I got bored. I didn't expect to find it. He had it hidden under a box full of stamp albums. I started to look at the stamps and moved the box, and voila!"

She held out the notebook.

"I don't want to read it. It's his personal thing. You shouldn't have read it."

"It's not a classified government document, Zipporah. It's just your brother's journal. There's all sorts of good stuff in it. He's kept it for some time. It goes back to when he had his first sexual experience. Of course, it was with himself." She laughed.

"Stop it!" I screamed, and pulled the notebook out of her hands.

She looked at me askance and then smiled. "You're embarrassed. I can see we have a lot to do, a lot to catch up on, before you meet Dana Martin."

"I'm not meeting him," I said.

"Why not?"

"We can't keep you secret much longer. My mother almost discovered you yesterday when she smelled the pizza and wondered why I had made it for myself, and then she found you had opened the new box of graham crackers. I had to lie about that, think of something quickly. She knew I didn't like them and wouldn't have eaten them. I told you to be more careful. I told you."