Dead Is Just a Rumor Read Online
Dead Is Just A Rumor
Marlene Perez
Table of Contents
Title Page
Table of Contents
...
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Affiliate 2
CHAPTER THREE
Affiliate FOUR
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER Six
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
Chapter TEN
Affiliate Xi
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER 13
Chapter FOURTEEN
Chapter FIFTEEN
CHAPTER 16
Chapter SEVENTEEN
Chapter EIGHTEEN
Affiliate Nineteen
CHAPTER TWENTY
Affiliate TWENTY-ONE
Chapter Xx-TWO
Acknowledgments
How well do you know the DEAD IS serial?
GRAPHIA
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Boston New York 2010
Copyright © 2010 by Marlene Perez
All rights reserved. Published in the United States past Graphia, an imprint
of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. For information about
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Graphia and the Graphia logo are registered trademarks of
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
world wide web.hmhbooks.com
The text of this book is set in Adobe Jenson.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Perez, Marlene.
Dead is just a rumor/Marlene Perez.
p. cm.
Summary: Psychic teen Daisy Giordano has her hands full trying to
detect out who is behind the blackmail letters being sent to paranormal residents
of Nightshade, while too worrying nearly her werewolf boyfriend going abroad to
college and the perchance lethal cooking lessons she is taking with a sinister chef.
[1. Supernatural—Fiction. two. Psychic ability—Fiction. three. Werewolves—Fiction.
4. Sisters—Fiction. 5. High schools—Fiction. 6. Schools—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.P4258Ddj 2010
[Fic]—dc22 2009050010
ISBN 978-0-547-34592-5 (pbk. original: alk. paper)
Printed in the United States of America
DOM 10 ix 8 7 6 v 4 3 2 1
4500241884
To Michael, for all the moral (and tech) support
CHAPTER ONE
"I heard a rumor about yous," Penny Edwards said to me. The gym was crowded and noisy, so I had to motion closer to hear what she had to say. The girls' volleyball team was practicing at ane cease and Samantha was at the other end, barking orders like a gorgeous blond drill sergeant. I couldn't hear Samantha from where I stood, only whatever she said sent her minions scurrying.
I smothered a sigh. Penny had never been one of my favorite people, but I thought she'd inverse over the final few months. Plain, I was wrong.
"What rumor?" I said, not actually wanting to hear the reply.
"That yous and Ryan are shoo-ins for rex and queen of the Midnight Ball." She smiled at me and I defenseless a glimpse of the kinder, gentler Penny.
"I hope non," I said. "Samantha's been working really hard on the ball. I hope she and Sean win." Samantha Devereaux was my best friend, who for a time had been my worst enemy—or at to the lowest degree a thorn in my side—and was back to being my all-time friend once again.
We'd been through a lot during our junior year at Nightshade High, but I was expecting smooth sailing for our senior year. Or equally smooth every bit it could be, because that we lived in a town that was a little different, to say the least.
"Samantha's definitely a contender," Penny said. "Especially since everyone who is a resident of Nightshade gets to vote."
"Well, please tell everyone I don't desire some other crown." Last twelvemonth, I'd been crowned homecoming queen in a baroque turn of events. I didn't want to sound ungrateful, only that was enough celebrity for me. Samantha thrived in the spotlight. I did not. At present that she and I were finally friends again, I wasn't going to let some tinsel crown come up between us.
Penny gave me a half moving ridge and headed to the locker room. I watched her get.
"Daisy, look out!" Samantha warned me as a giant orangish jack-o'-lantern rolled down the alley. I put out a hand and concentrated. It rolled to a end in the nick of time and narrowly missed squashing me flat.
You had to stay on your toes when you lived in Nightshade, and having psychic powers helped. I looked around the gym to see if anyone had noticed my public psychic slip, but everyone's attention was on the volleyball game going on at the other terminate.
"Halloween is over a month away, you lot know," I said, gesturing toward the bright ornamentation.
Samantha peered at me from backside a huge box of orange and black streamers, paper-thin black cats, and ghosts. "It's not just any Halloween," she replied. "Information technology's Nightshade's two hundredth anniversary celebration. I'm i of the chairs."
"I know. I was just telling Penny how hard you've been working." Samantha volunteered for practically every committee the high school had. Now that it was finally our senior year, she didn't seem to be slowing downwards at all.
"Gotta become!" I said, as I remembered the other thing Sam liked to do, which was rope me into volunteering for whatever pet projection she was involved in. I'd wait for Ryan somewhere far, far abroad from my volunteering-happy friend.
"Don't you dare take a pace out that door, Giordano!" she said, but half teasing.
I repressed a sigh. Sam was unstoppable. Besides, I had to acknowledge, I had fun when I was around her. At to the lowest degree, about of the fourth dimension.
"I accept plans for those psychic powers of yours," she continued. "How else are we going to hang these decorations on the ceiling?"
"Okay, if you lot promise non to try to squash me with a squash again."
"Who'due south trying to murder you this time?" Ryan said. He put his arm effectually me and gave me a how-do-you-do kiss. My boyfriend was the all-time matter about senior twelvemonth, although I had to push away the thought of what would happen to the states once nosotros graduated. I'd worry near that when the time came.
"Hullo, Ryan," Sam said. "Where's Sean? He promised me he'd assist." Sean was Samantha'southward young man and Ryan's best friend.
"He's still in the locker room," Ryan replied. "Simply he mentioned you guys might need another hand."
Samantha's momentary irritation at her boyfriend disappeared. "Can y'all haul these outside?"
Ryan took the box from Samantha. "Where exercise you want these?"
"I rented a truck," she replied. "Information technology's in the first stall in the parking lot." The kickoff stall in the parking lot was Principal Amador'due south, but if anyone could get away with commandeering his spot, it would be Samantha.
Sean walked upward, carrying a green gym handbag under his arm.
"What took yous and so long?" Samantha said.
"Sorry, babe," he replied. "I got caught up talking to Wolfgang."
She made a face. "What were you doing talking to him?"
"He'southward helping Omnibus with the stats," Sean said. "I tin't ignore him."
"Why not?" she replied. "After what he did this summer, he deserves to be ignored."
Wolfgang Paxton was a freshman who had been giving some of the football players a little something extra in their Wheaties, and the summertime had ended with half the football team becoming werewolves. The ones who weren't already, I hateful. Fortunately, the side effects of Wolfgang's "hairballs" turned out to be temporary.
"Don't worry," Sean said, soothing her. "He's calm
ed down since the summer."
Samantha held out her hand. "Keys, delight. I need to take this stuff to the Wilders."
Sean opened his bag and dug through the contents. He didn't notice when a heavily embossed envelope roughshod out and landed on the polished flooring.
I stooped down and picked it upward. I wasn't trying to be nosy, but the blood-carmine wax seal aroused my curiosity. It looked like a fancy invitation, with creamy white stationery that was silky to the impact.
I handed information technology to Sean. "That's not mine," he said. He shoved the envelope into a pocket, and then peered into the bag. "I must have grabbed the incorrect bag." He hurried off to the locker room.
He returned a few minutes later, carrying an almost identical gym bag. "I grabbed Wolfie'due south by mistake."
Sam checked her watch. "C'mon," she said. "We're late."
Ryan and I only stood there until Samantha barked out, "Are you coming?"
"Coming where?" I said.
"The Wilder mansion," she replied. "I'yard storing stuff there until we tin can clean up the haunted business firm."
"What haunted house?"
"That old deserted mansion upward by the Wilders—Merriweather House. It'south going to exist the centerpiece of the boondocks celebration. We're having the Midnight Ball at that place. It's supposed to be haunted."
"It sounds ... monumental," I said aloud, just I was thinking that it sounded like a monumental amount of difficult piece of work. Anybody in town knew the dance would exist the culmination of the anniversary events, only I had just assumed it would be held at the Wilder estate, which was the biggest, fanciest place in boondocks.
After loading the truck, Ryan and I got in his machine and followed Samantha and Sean to the Wilder estate.
"How's your dad?" Ryan asked.
"He's ... okay," I said.
"That bad, huh?" Another thing I loved near Ryan. He could tell what I really wanted to say, without me having to say it.
"He's getting better, but he's still..."
"Afar?" Ryan guessed.
I nodded. "He says he doesn't want to talk well-nigh it." My dad had been through a traumatic experience. Almost of Nightshade had thought he'd run off with another woman, but the truth was he'd been abducted and held convict by the Scourge, an anti-paranormal grouping. Mom had rescued Dad from their clutches, only not until he had been gone for six long years.
Dad hadn't left the house much at all since his return. Mom had made a few tentative noises about him going back to educational activity, merely he hadn't even called his old department at the university. He even talked nearly writing a volume, simply I hadn't seen any evidence that he was really working on information technology.
The Wilder mansion was one of the oldest places in Nightshade. Nosotros pulled upward the long driveway and parked. In that location was a eatery on the holding, but it just took upwardly a minuscule part of the main house.
Samantha rang the doorbell, and it was the elegant Mrs. Wilder herself, the elderly matriarch of the shifter association and the owner of the manor, who answered the door. She pointedly looked at her sentinel and said, "Nosotros start serving dinner in ane 60 minutes."
"We'll be finished by so," Samantha promised.
"Excellent," Mrs. Wilder replied. "Bianca will bear witness you the way."
Bianca materialized from the shadows. Bianca worked at Wilder'southward Restaurant, only her duties didn't finish there. Bianca was a shape-shifter, likewise. She took the form of a sweetness-looking black kitten, but looks could be deceiving.
Instead of the severely chic dresses I was accustomed to seeing her in, she was dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt. She still managed to look gorgeous. A familiar-looking envelope with a red seal was shoved into the back pocket of her jeans. Interesting.
"Hi, Bianca," I said.
"Daisy," she said. "Did you lot get your letter of the alphabet already?"
"Letter of the alphabet?" I said, confused. My mind flashed to the heavy envelope Sean had dropped before.
"Y'all haven't received information technology yet? Oh, forget I said anything."
When I frowned, she added, "Don't fret. Information technology's non anything bad. I merely don't desire to spoil the surprise."
"If you say and then," I replied. I'd had enough surprises to last a lifetime.
She smiled. "I do."
Bianca handed Samantha a central. "Mrs. Wilder has instructed me to requite you the central to the room y'all'll be using to shop the decorations. This way, delight."
Bianca's midnight-black pilus was in a ponytail and it swayed back and forth hypnotically as she led the states to a part of the mansion I'd never been to.
We went through rooms fifty-fifty more luxurious than the converted restaurant and ballroom. Sean couldn't keep his astonishment in check and let out a depression whistle.
"These are the estate's guest rooms," Bianca said. "Information technology'due south documented that a famous buccaneer once stayed in i of the bedrooms."
We finally reached stairs much less opulent than the ones near the front entrance. The surroundings grew shabby.
"This part of the house is rarely used," Bianca explained. The wallpaper was faded and torn in places, and I detected the distinct olfactory property of grit and mold, combined with a less familiar smell.
We reached our destination and Bianca motioned for u.s. to enter. Nosotros stepped into an enormous room. A row of long narrow windows flanked ane wall. At the opposite cease, at that place was a jumble of tables and chairs, and a couple of large trunks. There was even a framed oil painting propped against a dressmaker's dummy. I couldn't decide what to look at next.
I set down the box I'd been carrying. "This is amazing!"
"Well, I'll leave you lot to it," Bianca said. "Daisy, I'll see you later on."
Later Bianca left, Samantha said to Sean, "Be an affections and go the folding table first."
"What are you going to do with the folding tabular array?" I asked, after Ryan and Sean left.
"We don't have nearly enough decorations," she replied. "Fifty-fifty with the stuff I've managed to borrow. So, we're going to make more," she said.
"Who is we?" I said suspiciously.
"Relax, Daisy," she said. "I've already asked the cheerleading team to aid."
"Corking," I said.
"I have bigger plans for you lot," she said. "I thought you lot could whip up something for the volunteers to snack on."
"How many volunteers?"
"Only a few," she said airily. "I asked Mrs. Wilder if we could use the kitchen here, simply she said her new chef is temperamental."
"I can make some simple stuff," I said.
I had thought I was getting off hands, simply my muscles were aching by the time we'd hauled all the supplies to the room. One-half of the stuff would have to exist moved again when we set up the haunted house.
Subsequently we were finished, Ryan took me abode, even though Sean lived next door.
"Desire to come in?" I was sweaty and tired, but he'd been busy with football game exercise the concluding few days and I hadn't seen much of him.
"Nah, I'd better non," he said. He shifted in his seat uncomfortably.
I knew what he was thinking. Despite my best efforts, he and my dad hadn't really clicked.
"Let's get out tomorrow night," I said. "It'south Fri."
He gave me a hug. "That sounds bully, but I know you want to spend time with your dad."
"I want to spend time with yous, also. How about Slim's?"
Slim's Diner was where I worked part-time, only business there had slowed down. Lately I'd only been working the occasional Saturday. It worried me. I didn't know what I'd exercise if Slim'due south went out of business. Nightshade wouldn't be Nightshade without the diner.
"Side Effects May Vary is playing at the Black Opal," Ryan said. "Merely maybe we can hit Slim'due south after the show."
The front end porch light went on, which was my signal to kiss Ryan skillful dark.
When I went inside, my dad was waiting for me. "Where have you lot been?" he demanded. His hands were shaking.
"Helping Samantha," I said. "Are you okay?"
"Then why did Ryan bring you home?" That's what his agitation was all nigh.
I drew in my breath. "Ryan was helping, likewise. And he brought me dwelling because he'due south my boyfriend and he wants to be with me," I said. "You like Ryan, remember?" Dad ha
d never seemed to accept a problem with Ryan back when nosotros were little kids who played in the sandbox together, but it was a different story now.
Information technology was hard for me to remember how happy I had been when Mom brought Dad home. Even though I was mad at him, at least it wasn't a doppelganger I was fighting with, which had happened when someone had created doppelgangers of Nightshade residents and tried to laissez passer them off as the real people. This was my real dad and we were having our first real fight.
I stomped up the stairs—ignoring his "Daisy, come back hither!"—and made a beeline for my room, but Poppy waylaid me exterior the door.
"What was that all well-nigh?" Poppy asked.
"Dad again," I admitted. "I don't know what his problem is with Ryan."
"Information technology's not Ryan," she said. "Information technology's you."
"Huh?" I said. I had no clue what Poppy was talking about.
"Recollect almost information technology," she said. "You're the baby, and when Dad disappeared, you lot were twelve."
"I'thousand following you so far," I said.
"Well, when he came back, he probably still had that image of you lot in his heed. But you're not twelve anymore. And Ryan just reminds him of that."
"What tin can I practice to brand information technology easier?" I asked.
"Only requite him time," she said. "He needs to become used to the idea that yous're not his fiddling girl anymore."
"Makes sense," I said. "How'd you lot go so wise?"
"Psychology 101," she replied. "I beloved college!"
My 2 older sisters, Poppy and Rose, both attended UC Nightshade. Poppy had merely started her freshman year and Rose was a sophomore.
I retreated to my room, less aroused at my dad, but even so non in the mood to deal with him. I knew he'd been through a lot, but so had the rest of the family unit. My mom virtually of all. And for everyone'south sake I needed to effort to exist more patient with my father.
With that in my mind, I went to observe him in the kitchen. "Something smells skillful," I said.
Dad held up a spoonful of marinara sauce. "Want a taste?"
"Sure," I said. Dad was a great cook, possibly even improve than I was.
It was succulent. "Dad, you're the all-time cook."
Rose came into the kitchen, carrying a pile of postal service. She handed me an envelope. "This is for you."
She was still wearing her lab coat. She had a part-fourth dimension job at a lab on campus. This fourth dimension, it wasn't working for a mad scientist. She'd worked for her idol Dr. Franken, but that had concluded badly when nosotros discovered the professor was in league with the Scourge.
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