I Hid My Perfect Score novel · Chapter 13 of 32

Chapter 13: Christmas at the Station

I didn't answer the email in the parking lot.

I answered it the next morning.

Yes, I wrote. I'll talk to you.

Weston called on a video link three days later.

I took it in the captain's office, because it was the only room with a door that locked.

The woman on the screen had reading glasses on a chain and a printout of the essay in front of her.

"Ms. Carmody. Thank you."

"Okay."

"I'll read you lines from this essay. Tell me if each one is accurate."

"Okay."

She read the line about the trophy on the shared windowsill.

"No," I said. "My mother took the trophy from my room. I never saw it again."

She read the line about the bathroom.

"No. My sister locked herself in. My mother sat outside the door."

She read the one about the witch.

"Partly. I was the witch. My sister picked the parts."

She looked up over her glasses.

"Do you have anything you'd like to add? About your sister's character?"

I thought about four hundred thousand views.

"No," I said. "You asked what happened. That's what happened."

"Do you want her punished, Ms. Carmody?"

"I want it to say what happened," I said. "The rest is your job."

When I came out, the captain was in the hall with his mug, and he nodded once.

December in Fairbanks was four hours of daylight, all of it pink.

The crew put up Christmas without asking the captain.

Dodie cut a spruce from behind the lot and dragged it up the stairs by herself.

It was crooked and too tall.

"It has character," she said.

"It has a lean," Emory said.

"So do you."

Secret Santa names came out of the captain's helmet.

Somebody hung stockings from the ladder hooks on the bay wall, one for every person on the roster.

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