Free Truth by Tanya Kyi Page B

in the way.
    Last summer Ross picked a fight at a bush party with somebody’s cousin visiting from the Okanagan. When the guy had been harassed enough, he swung hard, sending Ross’s head whipping back. Ross recovered and lunged at him. Suddenly the Okanagan guy was off balance, wheeling towards the fire. Somebody pulled him out of the flames and someone else drove him to the hospital after. I heard that his parents called the cops, and they interviewedRoss, but nothing happened. That’s Ross — he gets away with everything.
    The afternoon after the fire incident, a bunch of us were hanging out at Georgia’s, too sluggish to want to do anything. Jerome was there (we’d just started seeing each other then), and Nate and Ross. Georgia gave Ross a wet tea bag and told him to put it on his eye, black and swollen from the fight. Ross took a black scarf off the back of Georgia’s bedroom door and tied it around his head to hold the tea bag. When Georgia’s mom came home from her golf game, rather than take the scarf off and reveal his black eye, Ross spent the rest of the afternoon talking like a pirate, answering all questions with “Aye, matey.” He called Jerome his parrot. So despite the poor guy from the Okanagan, who we heard had third-degree burns on his leg, it was, as always, really hard not to forgive Ross.
    That’s what churns through my head as I sit at the table after Officer Wells has been shown out the door. My dad sits down across from me.
    â€œSo?” he asks.
    It’s hard for me to lie to my dad. He raises his bushy eyebrows and looks at me like I know he must look at the patients at his doctor’s office — with some wise-seeming mixture of sympathy and authority.
    â€œSome old guy got really beat up tonight. I didn’t know him and I didn’t see who beat him up. Georgia and I heard about it and we left.”
    â€œTed Granville runs the credit union,” he tells me, proving that he was listening to the whole conversation.
    â€œWeird,” I say. “I don’t know what he was doing at the party.”
    My dad nods slowly. “Stay home tomorrow. I don’t want you running around town,” he says. “And get some sleep.”
    Like I can sleep.

Chapter Two
    Ted Granville died. When I get to school on Monday morning, the first group of kids I see is talking about the murder. And the second group. And the third. By the time I reach my locker, I’ve heard: (a) everyone at the party was on acid, freaked out, and killed Ted Granville; (b) Ted Granville came over with a gun to break up the party, and three guys beat him up in self-defense; and (c) TedGranville went crazy, leapt off the second- floor balcony and broke his neck on the pavement of the driveway. As far as I can remember, Ian’s house doesn’t even have a balcony.
    My only reliable source is Georgia, whose mom knows Mrs. Granville. She’s been at the Granvilles’ house all weekend, helping look after the two little kids.
    â€œWhat have you heard?” Georgia asks as soon as she sees me.
    â€œI’ve heard a zillion rumors already,” I tell her, “but no one seems to know what really happened.”
    As usual, Georgia looks like a movie star who got trapped in high school by mistake. Red hair perfectly in place, pierced belly button peeking out over low-cut jeans, and just a faint red rim around her eyes. She’s obviously been crying, but when I cry my face looks like it’s been run over by a tractor. Life is totally unfair.
    She sniffs delicately. “My mom says he died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. Massive head injuries.”
    â€œDid you see the blood on the floor?”
    She nods, making a face. “I can still picture it if I close my eyes.”
    â€œWhat was he doing at the party?”
    â€œMom said he was a family friend. Ian’s parents had asked him to keep an eye on the