Marked by Norah McClintock Page B

had ever seen it. I couldn’t tell whether he believed me or not. Finally he said, “You want to help this person, is that it, Colin?”
    I nodded.
    â€œI have an idea,” I said. “But I don’t know if it’s any good.”
    He didn’t interrupt me while I explained. When I had finished, he said, “I think it’s worth a try.”
    I was so nervous that I thought I was going to throw up. I was sure the cops wouldn’t believe me. I think it helped that Dave Marsh was there with me. The cops listened carefully to what I said.
    Finally they said, “what about the girl? Do you think she will go along with it?”
    That was the biggest problem. I didn’t know what Alyssa would do.
    â€œShe’s just trying to help her brother,” I said.
    I didn’t find out what happened until after it was over. The way I heard it later, one night Alyssa put a neon pink code on the utility control box to tell the thieves which street to go to next. Right after that, she did what she always did—she called the graffiti hotline. The next morning, that box was the first stop on my work sheet. I cleaned the marks off.
    The night after that, Alyssa made neon orange markings on a utility pole to tell the thieves which house to go to.
    But when the thieves turned up, they got a big surprise.
    The police were waiting for them. They arrested them.
    They arrested Ray too. Alyssa had been right about that. It was no coincidence that her markings were always first on my work order. Ray was in on it.
    They also arrested Alyssa.
    It made the news:
Police crack car-theft and burglary ring.
All of the news stories said that the police had been tipped off by a youth who was employed for the summer cleaning up graffiti. One newspaper quoted one of the arresting officers as saying that the ring wouldn’t have been broken “if it wasn’t for the sharp-eyed young man who figured out what was going on.”
    â€œYou did a good thing,” my mom told me. We were on the way to the police station together. The police wanted to ask me a few more questions.
    Alyssa was there too. She was leaving as I was going in. She looked at me, but she didn’t say anything.
    I saw her again when I came out of the police station. She was standing on the other side of the street.
    â€œI’ll meet you at home,” I said to my mom. I crossed the street.
    â€œI was really mad at you when the cops showed up at my house, Colin,” Alyssa said.“I thought you ratted me out. Then the cops told me that they knew why I had done it. They said someone told them all about my brother. That was you, wasn’t it?”
    I nodded.
    â€œThey said if I helped them catch the guys, they would see what they could do to help me and my brother. After they arrested the thieves, they came and arrested me. They put handcuffs on me, Colin. And they made me walk past the thieves so that they could see that I’d been arrested too.”
    â€œWere you scared?” I said.
    â€œWhat do you think? But the cops kept their promise. My brother has been transferred to a minimum-security prison. It’s a farm. They finally listened to him. They also talked to the guy he was arrested with. They offered to make him a deal if he told the truth about my brother. I think he’s going to get out soon.”
    â€œYou did the right thing,” I said. It felt good to see her happy for a change.
    â€œ
You
did the right thing,” she said.
    Before I told the police about Alyssa, Dave Marsh had told them that I wanted them to promise that she would be protected. The cops agreed. They said that they would make sure it didn’t look like she tipped them off because, well, she hadn’t. I was glad she had decided to cooperate with them.
    â€œSo it all worked out,” I said.
    She hesitated.
    â€œAt first, I thought you were part of it,” she said. “You know, because you were always