Meg Cabot - Ninth Key

Not very likely. Even Tad didn't try that one on the cops who showed up along with the fire department, and demanded an explanation as to why he was hanging around the house in a swim-suit on a schoolday. I guess he didn't want to get his uncle in trouble since it would look bad for his dad, and all. He started lying like crazy about how he had a cold, and the doctor had recommended he try to clear his sinuses by sitting for long bouts in his hot tub (good one: I was definitely going to have remember it for future reference - Andy was talking about building a hot tub onto our deck out back).

Tad's father, God bless him, denied both our stories completely, insisting he'd been in his room waiting for his lunch to be delivered when one of the servants had informed him that his office was in flames. No one had said anything about Tad having stayed home with a cold, or a girl waiting for an interview with him.

Fortunately, however, he also claimed that while waiting for his lunch to be delivered, he'd been taking a nap in his coffin.

That's right: his coffin .

This caused a number of raised eyebrows, and eventually, it was decided that Mr. Beaumont ought to be admitted to the local hospital's psychiatric floor for a few days' observation. This, as you might understand, necessarily cut off any conversation Tad and I might have had at the time, and while he went off with EMS and his father, I was unceremoniously led to a squad car and, eventually, when the cops remembered me, driven home.

Where, instead of being welcomed into the bosom of my family, I received the bawling out of a lifetime.

I'm not even kidding. Andy was enraged. He said I should have gone straight home, changed clothes, and gone straight back to school. I had no business accepting rides from anyone, particularly wealthy businessmen I hardly knew.

Furthermore, I had skipped school, and no matter how many times I pointed out that a) I'd actually been kicked out of school, and b) I'd been doing an assignment for school (at least according to the story I told him), I had, essentially, betrayed everyone's trust. I was grounded for one week.

I tell you, it was almost enough to make me consider telling the truth.

Almost. But not quite.

I was getting ready to slink upstairs to my room - in order to "think about what I'd done" - when Dopey strolled in and casually announced that, by the way, on top of all my other sins, I had also punched him very hard in the stomach that morning for no apparent reason.

This, of course, was an outright lie, and I was quick to remind him of this: I had been provoked, unnecessarily so. But Andy, who does not condone violence for any reason, promptly grounded me for another week. Since he also grounded Dopey for whatever it was he had said that had led to my punching him, I didn't mind too much, but still, it seemed a bit extreme. So extreme, in fact, that after Andy had left the room, I sort of had to sit down, exhausted in the wake of his rage, which I had never before seen unleashed - well, not in my direction, anyway.

"You really," my mother said, taking a seat opposite me, and looking a bit worriedly down at the slipcover on which I was slumped, "should have let us know where you were. Poor Father Dominic was frightened out of his mind for you."

"Sorry," I said woefully, fingering the remnants of my skirt. "I'll remember next time."

"Still," my mother said. "Officer Green told us that you were very helpful during the fire. So I guess …"

I looked at her. "You guess what?"

"Well," my mother said. "Andy doesn't want me to tell you now, but …"

She actually got up - my mother, who had once interviewed Yasir Arafat - and slunk out of the room, ostensibly to check whether or not Andy was within earshot.

I rolled my eyes. Love. It could make a pretty big sap out of you.

As I rolled my eyes, I noticed that my mother, who always gets a lot of nervous energy in a crisis, had spent the time that I'd been missing hanging up more pictures in the living room. There were some new ones, ones I hadn't seen before. I got up to inspect them more closely.

There was one of her and my dad on their wedding day. They were coming down the steps of the courthouse where they'd been married, and their friends were throwing rice at them. They looked impossibly young and happy. I was surprised to see a picture of my mom and dad right alongside the pictures of my mom's wedding to Andy.

But then I noticed that beside the photo of my mom and dad was a picture from what had to have been Andy's wedding to his first wife. This was more of a studio portrait than a candid shot. Andy was standing, looking stiff and a little embarrassed, next to a very skinny, hippyish-looking girl with long, straight hair.

"Of course she does," a voice at my shoulder said.

"Jeez, Dad," I hissed, whirling around. "When are you going to stop doing that?"

"You are in a heap of trouble, young lady," my father said. He looked sore. Well, as sore as a guy in jogging pants could look. "Just what were you thinking?"

I whispered, "I was thinking of making it safe for people to protest the corporate destruction of northern California's natural resources without having to worry about being sealed up in an oil drum and buried ten feet under."

"Don't get smart with me, Susannah. You know what I'm talking about. You could have been killed."

"You sound like him ." I rolled my eyes toward Andy's picture.

"He did the right thing, grounding you," my father said, severely. "He's trying to teach you a lesson. You behaved in a thoughtless and reckless manner. And you shouldn't have hit that kid of his."

"Dopey? Are you joking ?"

But I could tell he was serious. I could also tell that this was one argument I wasn't going to win.

So instead, I looked at the picture of Andy and his first wife, and said, sullenly, "You could have told me about her, you know. It would have made my life a whole lot simpler."

"I didn't know, either," my dad said, with a shrug. "Not until I saw your mom hang up the photo this afternoon."

"What do you mean, you didn't know?" I glared at him. "What was with all the cryptic warnings, then?"

"Well, I knew Beaumont wasn't the Red you were looking for. I told you that."

"Oh, big help," I said.

"Look." My dad seemed annoyed. "I'm not all-knowing. Just dead."

I heard my mother's footsteps on the wood floor. "Mom's coming," I said. "Scat."

And Dad, for once, did as I asked, so that when my mother returned to the living room, I was standing in front of the wall of photos, looking very demure - well, for a girl who'd practically been burned alive, anyway.

"Listen," my mother whispered.

I looked away from the picture. My mother was holding an envelope. It was a bright pink envelope, covered with little hand-drawn hearts and rainbows. The kind of hearts and rainbows Gina always put on her letters to me from back home.

"Andy wanted me to wait to tell you about this," my mom said in a low voice, "until after your grounding was up. But I can't. I want you to know I've spoken with Gina's mom, and she's agreed to let us fly Gina out here for a visit during her school's Spring Break next month - "

My mother broke off as I flung both my arms around her neck.

"Thank you!" I cried.

"Oh, honey," my mom said, hugging me - although a little tentatively, I noticed, since I still smelled like a fish. "You're welcome. I know how much you miss her. And I know how tough it's been on you, adjusting to a whole new high school, and a whole new set of friends - and to having stepbrothers. We're so proud of how well you're doing." She pulled away from me. I could tell she'd wanted to go on hugging me, but I was just too gross even for my own mother. "Well, up until now, anyway."