Free Stealing Popular by Trudi Trueit Page A

here.”
    â€œGood luck today.”
    â€œThanks.” I ran my hand over my mom’s omamori . I’d tied the little bag to the outside zipper of my sketchbook. “I’ll need plenty of it to beat Dijon.”
    â€œAll you can do is your best. And you’ve done that. Your design is terrific.”
    â€œThanks.” I looked through the windshield at the rising sun playing hide-and-seek between the fir trees. “I wish that was enough.”
    â€œSometimes we have to accept that things are out of our hands.”
    â€œAren’t things only out of your hands if you put them down? Or never pick them up?”
    He chuckled. “Good point, Coco Simone.”
    We both knew he used my middle name so he could say her name out loud. I didn’t mind. I liked hearing it too.
    â€œSay, I was thinking this Sunday we might go house hunting.”
    I bounced in my seat. “You mean . . .?”
    â€œIt looks like we’ll be staying for a while.”
    Yes! I could finally have a bedroom, one that I could paint any way I wanted. Most landlords (including the military) don’t let you paint an apartment any color that isn’t beige or beige related. But if we got our own place, I could paint angels or fairies or animals or anything on my walls. My walls. This was the best news ever!
    My dad was sniffing the air. “Do you smell something funky?” He wrinkled his nose. “Did you bring home your gym clothes to wash?”
    â€œGotta fly, Dad.” I yanked on the door handle. “Must be time for a new freshener in here. See ya.” I leaped from the car with my sketchbook under my arm. Ripping open the back door, I grabbed my backpack off the backseat.
    â€œBye, Coco. Let me know how it—”
    I’m sure he said “goes,” but I didn’t stick around long enough to find out.
    Whew! That was close! If my dad only knew what was in my backpack. . . .
    Miss Grace, our head janitor, was coming out of the building as I was going in. I held the door open forher so she could roll out her big garbage can on three wheels. “Thank you, Coco. Make it a great day.”
    â€œThat’s the idea,” I said.
    13-22-44.
    13-22-44.
    The magic numbers to open Dijon’s door.
    I kept repeating it as I sprinted through the empty hallways of Big Mess. I didn’t dare bring Fawn’s locker card with me to school, where it could be seen by a Somebody. Until a few days ago I had completely forgotten about it. The red card had been in my backpack pocket since that first day of school when Fawn had dropped it on her way out of the gym. All this time it had been there, patiently waiting for me to find it again. I suppose I should have thrown it away, but it would have been wrong to let such valuable, top-secret information go to waste, right?
    My mission was simple: Get Fawn’s locker back from Dijon. Fawn deserved to have her assigned locker back. Besides, three people in one locker was one person too many. Between Fawn’s flute, Liezel’s music, my art sketchbook, our coats, backpacks, notebooks, books, and lunches, you had to throw your whole bodyagainst the door to get the dumb thing to latch.
    I headed to B wing to make a quick stop at my locker so I could drop off my coat and get my leadership notebook. Rounding the final corner, a humming noise made me pull up short. It sounded like a girl. . . .
    Was that singing?
    I knew it wasn’t Miss Grace. I had already passed her going the opposite way. So who could it be at—I glanced at my watch—6:18 a.m.?
    Hugging the wall, I peered around the corner.
    Our locker was open. Liezel was in the middle of the hallway, playing air guitar to a song on her iPod. Two earbud wires swung in time to her strumming. She wasn’t singing loudly, but her voice was on key, light, and angelic.
    The only time you don’t fight is when you sleep.
    The only time I