Don't Tell Anyone by Peg Kehret Page A

drivers who kill someone, accidentally or not, and then leave the scene.
    No scholarship meant no college, just as no car meant no job. She would end up like the rest of her family—doing time behind bars or cleaning toilets in a motel.
    It wouldn’t do the dead woman any good to have Lacey turn herself in now. All that would happen if she confessed was that two lives would be ruined because of the accident instead of one—the dead woman’s and her own.
    Lacey stuffed the newspaper into the trash container outside the school and started for her first class.

    Mommacat stayed in the drainpipe with her kittens. Megan finally grew tired of waiting for her and went home. She found Kylie sitting morosely on the front steps.
    â€œDinkle’s gone,” Kylie said, her eyes brimming with tears. “A man came and got him.”
    â€œWho?” Megan said.
    â€œMr. Leefton. His mother got killed in that accident you saw.”
    â€œWhen did he come?”
    â€œA little while ago,” Kylie said. “He talked to Mom on the phone before he came. He was out of town yesterday and didn’t find out what had happened until ten o’clock. He thought that was too late to call us, and he was too upset last night, anyway.”
    Megan was glad that there was a reason why the police had been unable to reach the family sooner. It meant that Megan had not witnessed a murder; the crash really had been an accident. Somehow the note in her pocket didn’t seem quite as threatening if the collision was accidental.
    â€œWas Dinkle glad to see him?” Megan asked.
    Kylie wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her sweatshirt. “Dinkle went nuts! He yipped and jumped and ran around in circles.”
    â€œGood,” Megan said.
    â€œMr. Leefton wasn’t happy, though,” Kylie said. “He cried. But then he kneeled down and hugged Dinkle, and then he blew his nose and was okay.”
    Megan felt sorry for Mr. Leefton; it would be awful to have your mother die.
    â€œDinkle kept licking Mr. Leefton’s hand,” Kylie said.
    Megan was glad Mr. Leefton and Dinkle were together. They probably needed each other right now. She wished she had been home when Mr. Leefton came. “Did Mom tell him how I chased Dinkle and caught him?” she asked.
    â€œYes. And I told him how I walked Dinkle and cleaned up after him. I was going to sing my walk-the-dog song for him, but Mom told me to hush.”
    â€œI can’t imagine why.”
    â€œHe tried to give me twenty dollars for taking care of Dinkle, half for you and half for me, but Mom wouldn’t let me take it.”
    â€œThat’s okay,” Megan said. “I wouldn’t want to take a reward for helping Dinkle.”
    â€œI would,” Kylie said. She started to cry again. “I wanted to keep Dinkle.”
    â€œHe wasn’t ours.”
    â€œI wanted to keep him anyway. I already had a song made up for when I play ball with him.” She began to sing, “Throw, throw, throw the ball—”
    Megan interrupted. “One of the cats I feed had kittens today,” she said. “I’m going to ask Mom if I can keep one of them.”
    Kylie brightened. “Can I keep one, too? If we had two kittens, they could play together and not be lonesome when we’re at school. Being lonesome isn’t any fun.”
    The wistful tone of Kylie’s voice told Megan that her sister was not referring only to the kittens.
    â€œYou can ask Mom,” Megan said.
    â€œIf I get a kitten,” Kylie said, “I’m going to name it Dinkle.”
    Megan went inside to get a snack. The morning paper was still on the kitchen counter. Megan glanced at it as she reached for a banana.
    She paused and looked more closely. It was a different section of the paper than the one she had read that morning. The article was about high school seniors and their plans for next year.
    But it wasn’t the article that