Free Gone with the Wool by Betty Hechtman

wrong,” I said. “I wasn’t implying that you weren’t telling me the truth. I just wondered if you might have seen something or someone.”
    Chloe chewed on the inside of her mouth. “Okay, maybe I did watch the whole thing from a distance for a while. I was supposed to be in there, playing a tree with the rest of the princesses.”
    I saw Dane do a double take. The idea of his sister doing something as hokey as playing a tree surprised him.
    Chloe flopped in a chair and put her feet up on the coffee table, and I could see Dane wasn’t happy with it. Since he’d brought her up, he felt responsible for any lapse in her manners. I thought she just liked to bug him, like kids do to their parents.
    â€œI was thinking of going to the service anyway,” Chloe said. “I was going to tell that Rosalie woman she had no rightto throw me out. The rule is that as long as you have a sponsor you can be a princess.” She wore a defiant expression. “But I changed my mind. I just watched until the princesses took their seats. I could see the empty one that was supposed to be mine through the open door in the front.” Chloe’s face brightened, and she sat forward. “No more fussing from that old queen. Now that she’s out of the way, I’m back in the game.” She pulled a tiara out of her bag and put it on her head. “I bought my own. No butterflies on it, but it will do the trick until I get back my real one.”
    She adjusted her feet, giving her brother a look that said she knew that what she was doing bugged him. “I should have figured that all those other goody-goody types couldn’t wait to tell the cops about the argument I had with that woman.”
    â€œSo then you’re sure that you didn’t stab her?” I said.
    Chloe let out a snorty kind of laugh. “Of course not. Why would I do that?”
    When I heard Dane let out his breath in relief, I realized he hadn’t asked her if she’d done it. I think he was afraid of the answer. Dane stepped in. “Chloe, I told you if you insisted on going through with the princess nonsense, there was going to be trouble. If you wanted to do it, you should have changed your appearance.”
    â€œI did,” Chloe said with a smile, jutting her shoulder out so we could see her monarch tattoo.
    Dane shook his head in frustration. “This is serious. Do you understand that at any moment the cops can come in here and arrest you? There is nothing I can do to help you. I’ve been ordered to stay away from the case.”
    â€œMaybe I should head for Brazil,” she said. Dane’s eyes flared with anger, and she quickly added that she was just joking. “You said Casey is kind of a detective. She’ll figureout a way to get me off the hook. Won’t you?” She looked at me, and I nodded and said I’d do my best. “Well, there you go,” she said, as if my saying it was a done deal.
    â€œYou really shouldn’t try to get back in the Princess Court,” Dane said.
    She stood up and put her hand on her hip and looked down at her brother. “No way. I’m in it to the end.” She didn’t wait to see his reaction and left the room.
    Dane sat shaking his head for a few moments. “She doesn’t get it. It’s like she’s poking the town in the eye with her attitude and those clothes.” He put his head in his hands. “Where did I go wrong?”
    I knew he’d done the best he could and imagined how tough it must have been on both of them when he’d had to deal with all her girl stuff. I knew from both of them that he’d done embarrassing things for her. Having an alcoholic mother and an absent father can’t have been easy.
    I was going to try to say something reassuring, but Dane’s composure changed suddenly. He sat upright and seemed to notice for the first time that we were sitting next to each