She Said/She Saw

Norah Mcclintock

Description

Tegan was in the backseat when her two best friends were gunned down in front of her. Was it an argument over drugs? An ongoing feud? Or something more random? Tegan says she didn't see who did it. Or know why. Nobody will believe her. Not the police; not her friends; not the families of the victims; and not even Kelly, her own sister. Is she afraid that the killer will come back? Or does she know more than she is saying?


Shunned at school and feeling alone, Tegan must sort through her memories and try to decide what is real and what is imagined. And in the end she must decide whether she has the strength to stand up and do the right thing.

Sujets

• Univers ado
• Suspense
• Suspense
• Detective Stories
• Young Adult Fiction
• Mysteries
• Suspenso

Informations

• Publié par: Orca Book Publishers
• Date de parution: 01 avril 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781459800328
• Langue: English

Extrait

she said/ she saw
Norah McClintock
ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS
Text copyright 2011 Norah McClintock
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
McClintock, Norah She said/she saw [electronic resource] / Norah McClintock.
Electronic monograph in PDF format. Issued also in print format. ISBN 978-1-55469-336-8
I. Title. PS8575.C62S54 2011A JC813 .54 C2010-908040-8
First published in the United States, 2011 Library of Congress Control Number : 2010942099
Summary : When Tegan witnesses the murder of two friends, she must struggle with people thinking she knows more than she is saying.

Orca Book Publishers is dedicated to preserving the environment and has printed this book on paper certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.
Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.
Cover design by Teresa Bubela Typesetting by Nadja Penaluna Cover photo by Getty Images ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS PO B OX 5626, Stn. B PO B OX 468 Victoria, BC Canada Custer, WA USA V8R 6S4 98240-0468
www.orcabook.com Printed and bound in Canada.
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Contents
ONE Kelly
TWO Kelly
THREE Tegan
FOUR Kelly
FIVE Kelly
SIX Tegan
SEVEN Kelly
EIGHT Tegan
NINE Kelly
TEN Tegan
ELEVEN Kelly
TWELVE Tegan
THIRTEEN Kelly
FOURTEEN Tegan
FIFTEEN Kelly
SIXTEEN Tegan
SEVENTEEN Kelly
EIGHTEEN Tegan
NINETEEN Kelly
TWENTY Tegan
TWENTY-ONE Kelly
TWENTY-TWO Tegan
TWENTY-THREE Kelly
TWENTY-FOUR Tegan
TWENTY-FIVE Kelly
ONE Kelly
Two things I know:
One, everybody has a story to tell, and everybody tells their story in a different way. Me, I m cinematic. I see life-my life, everyone s life-like a movie or a TV drama, or, sometimes, a comedy. My sister Tegan, on the other hand, sees her life like one of those big, fat, old-fashioned novels with herself as the tragic (or triumphant) heroine at the center of it all.
Two, nobody sees the whole story. Nobody can. There are always things in other people s heads that you can t know, not for sure, not even when other people tell you what they re thinking, because, let s face it, not everyone tells the truth. Sure, you can guess and maybe even get pretty close to the truth sometimes. But just as often, even more often, you re wrong. And I can guarantee you that almost all of the time there are pieces missing-the things that people are thinking to themselves that they would never say out loud, the things people don t even want to admit to themselves.
So, if you want to get the whole story (or as close to the whole story as is possible) about my sister Tegan- Did she see or didn t she? -you need to pull the pieces together and then take a good hard look at them and decide for yourself what s true and what isn t. That s what I had to do.
Here are the pieces.
TWO Kelly
INT.-KELLY S BEDROOM-DAY
KELLY TYRELL [that s me], 17, paces in a tight circle on the throw rug in her cluttered bedroom. The walls of the room are plastered with movie posters. The shelves are stuffed with videocassettes, dvds and books, most of them about movies and writing screenplays. She is talking into a cell phone.
KELLY
What am I-my sister s keeper?
She turns to the camera as she listens to whatever the person on the other end is saying.
KELLY (CONT D)
(to the camera)
Jeez, am I ever getting tired of the same questions over and over.
(into the phone)
I already told you-I don t know. I wasn t there. (pause) Right. Fine. Great talking to you too.
She snaps the phone shut.
KELLY (CONT D)
(muttering)
Asshole.
She flings the cell phone onto the double bed that dominates the room and faces the camera again.
KELLY (CONT D)
(to the camera)
What s wrong with people? Why do they think I m supposed to know every detail of my sister s life just because we re practically twins.
(making air quotes)
What does that even mean? You can t be practically twins any more than you can be almost unique. Twinning is absolute, not relative. Well, you know what I mean. You either are a twin or you re not. Tegan and I are not twins. We were born in the same year, which, if you ask me, was bad planning on someone s part-Mom, are you listening? But we weren t born on the same day. We don t have that special bond that twins are supposed to have. We don t spend all of our time together. We don t have a special twin language. Most of the time, we don t even talk to each other. I m not being bitchy or self-serving when I say that that s mostly Tegan s fault. She s the problem in our so-called relationship. She s always pulling the big-sister routine on me, like a ten-month lead makes her smarter or wiser or better than me. That s bull. I was potty-trained before her, for God s sake. Okay, so she gets better grades than me, most of the time without even trying.
She picks up a brush and starts to brush her hair in front of the mirror on her dresser.
KELLY (CONT D)
She s prettier than me too. She looks a lot like Mom, whereas I take after our dad, who was one of those super-nice guys that everyone liked, especially the ladies, even though he was kind of plain and vertically challenged, not to mention follically challenged. But so what?
She glowers at the mirror and throws down the brush.
KELLY (CONT D)
Tegan hangs out with a different crowd too, mostly kids a year ahead of us in school, and mostly, if you ask me, because she d rather die than find herself in the same social circle as me. That s fine with me. Do you think I want to be around my snobby, bitchy big sister every hour of every day? It s bad enough being in so many of the same classes with her. Do you think I care if she wants to act all I m-way-cooler- than-you and get off hanging out with guys like Clark Carson and Thomas Skelton, guys with too much money and even more attitude? Well, I don t. Besides, I have my own thing going. I swim. I m good at it too. I have a wall of medals to prove it. I d rather be in the pool where it s all real, where you make it based on what you can do, not on who your parents are and whether you can score booze and weed for your parties while your parents are out of town for the weekend.
A VOICE
(in the distance, muffled by the door)
Kel-ly! Time to set the table!
KELLY opens the door and sticks her head out.
KELLY
(shouting)
It s Tegan s turn!
THE VOICE
She isn t feeling well, so I told her she could lie down and we d call her when supper was ready.
KELLY
(rolling her eyes and muttering to herself )
Of course.
She looks at the camera again.
KELLY (CONT D)
For those of you who don t know my sister, congratulations are in order. But since you re going to meet her, there s something you should know. She s a drama queen, a real diva-type personality. You know, one of those the-earth-revolves-around-me types. Everything that happens to her is therefore, by definition, phenomenally important. History in the making, right up there with presidential assassinations, superstar overdoses or the latest on the Obama kids. She records it all in her All About Me file on her computer, a running documentary on her oh-so-fascinating life that she inputs every night, and sometimes more often, depending on what earthshattering event she happens to be at the center of.
I used to ask her, Why do you bother?
DISSOLVE TO FLASHBACK: INT.-TEGAN S BEDROOM-NIGHT
TEGAN TYRELL, 17, is sitting at her desk, typing on her computer. One end of the room is filled with shelves that are stuffed with books. Instead of posters, there are framed reproductions of classic paintings on her wall. KELLY is in the open doorway, watching her sister.
KELLY
Who do you think is going to read all that crap?
TEGAN
(without looking up)
Samuel Pepys, Ana s Nin
KELLY
They re dead.
TEGAN
Susannah Moodie, Catherine Parr Traill.
KELLY
Also dead.
TEGAN
They re all regular people who kept diaries that are still being read decades, even centuries, later.
KELLY
Oh, so now you re a regular person?
TEGAN
People will be interested. Just you wait and see.
CUT BACK TO: INT.-KELLY S BEDROOM-DAY
A VOICE
Kelly! Everything s ready! Come on!
KELLY sighs as she steps out of her room. She looks into the camera as it precedes her down the stairs.
KELLY
I hate to admit it-you have no idea how much I hate it-but Tegan turned out to be right. For a while, there were people who would have loved to get their hands on that diary of hers-if they knew it existed. A lot of people who wanted to know the whole story, who wanted the answer to the million-dollar question: Did she see or didn t she?
THREE Tegan
Just back from the police station. I still can t believe it. I can t believe any of it. And the cops-they give me the creeps.
This is what happened.
I need to get everything clear in my mind, Tegan, Detective Zorbas said. He s an old man, in his mid-forties, stocky, with a good-sized paunch on him that makes you think it must be true what they say about cops. They really must have a special weakness for donuts. I d like you to tell me one more time what you saw.
One more time. One more time. It was always one more time. What was wrong with him? Why didn t he listen the first time?
I already told you everything I know. If Kelly had been there, she would have given me that disapproving look of hers and accused me of using that tone of voice, the one she says makes her