Free Welcome to Fred (The Fred Books) by Brad Whittington

looked at it in confusion; he grabbed my hand and shook it. “Congratulations. You’re grounded for two weeks.”
    “What?” My arm jiggled up and down.
    Dad dropped my hand and began cleaning up his tools. “Excellent because you told the truth. Your story matched with the story Marcus told us. He even told us where the woman lived. Your mother called from the pay phone at the theater to say that she saw you running home and that there was indeed a cardboard box behind the auto shop around the corner, but nobody was there.”
    “But, but . . .” A thought hit me. What if Pauline had been there, with the butcher knife, when Mom had come looking for me. That was a sobering thought indeed. But I returned to the immediate problem at hand. “But, if I told the truth, and I was doing a good deed, why am I grounded?”
    Dad closed the toolbox and smiled. “Oh, that’s easy. For lying.” He winked at me and walked back upstairs to the study.
    I had a lot of time on my hands the next two weeks. No trips to the courtyard, no trips to the library, no banging on nails with M. I got a lot of reading done. I also found an old book called Oscar on Promotion. It was five-by-eight inches and two inches thick. I spent an afternoon in the basement gluing the pages together. Then I spent another afternoon cutting out a hollow spot in the middle, just big enough to accommodate a squirt gun. Hey, a boy who’s grounded has to do something!
    I began reading the newspaper out of boredom. In the middle of the second week I almost choked on my milk and cookies over the Local section.
Middletown, OH—A local man was hospitalized and an unidentified indigent woman is dead after an attempted mugging went wrong last night. Victor Albert Davidson, 47, of 3944 Hazelnut Drive, was treated at Mercy Hospital for bruises and lacerations and released.

Officers responded to calls of a disturbance downtown near the Jesus Lighthouse Mission and heard gunshots as they neared the scene. They arrived to find Davidson unconscious on the sidewalk and the woman dead of gunshot wounds, a knife clutched in her hand.

Davidson is a pastor at the mission. According to police, he closed at midnight and was accosted by a gang of three men who demanded money. When he told them he had no money, they knocked him to the ground and began kicking him. He cried for help before he lost consciousness.

The incident report indicates that the unidentified woman sustained two gunshot wounds to the chest. The knife showed traces of blood, and a trail of blood led to the curb and apparently the getaway car of the assailants. Local hospitals were alerted to watch for emergency room reports of knife wounds.
    Davidson was not available for comment, his wife telling reporters that he would be staying home with her and their son for a few weeks. The mission will reopen by May.
    “The police are looking for help in identifying the woman. She is described as 5’4” , 95 lbs., green eyes, brown hair, with a large birthmark on the left side of her face.

    I realized I wasn’t breathing, so I took a deep breath. It looked like Pauline had found Vic right here in town. I would put a year’s allowance on the son having the quaint name of Enoch, son of Cain.
    But I didn’t understand the police report. I expected a report on the death of Vic, from knife wounds, and the abduction of Enoch. Instead, I found a story of Pauline saving the life of the man who beat her into two miscarriages and stole her child. It made no sense. If ever there was a miscarriage of justice, this seemed a sure thing to win the Oscar! I cut the story from the paper and put it in the Oscar. The book, I mean.

    At the end of the second week I gained my freedom and showed the clipping to M in the refuge of the attic alcove.
    “That’s it, man.” He punched the newsprint with a blunt finger. “That’s it.”
    “That’s what?” It was a news story; that much was clear. But I didn’t think that was what M