Jake Brown is your average, above-average kid. He generally has his mind on the usual things that male high
school seniors think about: girls, avoiding Spanish class, girls,
pizza, surfing, girls, and of course, girls. None of that changes when
he and his best friend, Dean, go surfing and find a body with a hole in
its head floating beyond the waves.
Shortly after “the big
discovery,” Sydney, a cross country running teammate of Jake’s, asks him
to go to Morp—“Prom” spelled backwards—a Sadie Hawkins-style dance
where the girls ask out the boys. As if life isn’t exciting enough
trying to solve a murder, it looks like Jake is about to have
his fondest wish granted—a real, live girlfriend. Despite Sydney’s
obvious attraction to him, it takes a little work to convince Jake the
attraction is real. Luckily, Sydney is very convincing.
In the beginning, Jake and Dean try keeping Lily and Sydney out of harm’s way, but high
school girls are pros at teasing out even the most well-kept secrets.
Eventually, the foursome becomes entangled in clues—and preoccupied with
making sure dire threats from their prime suspect don’t pan out!
Death at Carp High has as many peaks and troughs as a winter swell at Rincon, and it’s all Jake and Dean can do to avoid wiping out.
EXCERPT
I’m pretty sure
Sandra DeFargo wasn’t wearing any under- wear in homeroom, this morning,” I
repeated to Dean. Dean was my best friend.
“How could you
tell, Jake?” he asked.
“When I turned
around to look at the clock, I noticed she was sitting with her legs slightly
apart. She was wearing pantyhose but nothing else.”
“Do girls even wear
pantyhose and panties at the same time? Aren’t the panties already built in to
the pantyhose? They are called ‘panty’ hose, after all.”
“Good point. The
real question is, however, why was she wearing pantyhose to begin with?”
“Nobody wears
pantyhose to school.”
“I know. So why was she?”
“For that matter, why was she
wearing a dress?”
“Hardly any girls wear dresses.”
“Maybe it has to do with
some sort of medical condition.”
“Like varicose veins.”
“Do kids our age even
get varicose veins? I thought only old people got
that.”
“It could be an
anomaly,” I said.
“Or cancer.”
“What? Why would having cancer necessitate
having to wear pantyhose?”
“Maybe it’s some sort of skin cancer. Maybe her legs would look really bad
without something to cover them up.”
“So why wouldn’t she just wear pants?” I
wondered out loud.
“Exactly. Ninety percent of the girls at school wear pants.Only the real
slutty girls wear dresses.”
“Short dresses.”
“Sans underwear.”
“Maybe Sandra
decided to go slutty, all of sudden.”
“Pantyhose, though, definitely detract
from the slutty look.”
“And besides, she’s way too straight to be a slut.”
“Which means, you might just have imagined the whole thing.”
“So you’re
saying it was just wishful thinking on my part?” I asked.
“That I
imagined the whole thing?”
“I’m just saying that maybe some part of your
subconscious mind saw what it
wanted to see,” Dean said.
“It’s possible. Still...it still doesn’t answer why
she was wearing pantyhose to begin
with.”
“No it doesn’t. And it also doesn’t answer a more fundamental question.”
“Which is?” I asked.
“Why was she sitting with her legs apart?”
“Hmm? ”
“Exactly. Why weren’t her legs crossed?”
“Or pressed together?”
“We’ve already
ruled out the whole ‘slut’ angle, right?”
“Right. Sandra
DeFargo is not a slut. Too smart, too straight. Too Christian.”
“On the other hand,
you know what they say about those Catholic girls.”
“Except we’re not
going to a Catholic high school.”
“Which doesn’t mean
she couldn’t still be a repressed Catholic, acting out against her priest and
parents.”
“You make a good
point. Just because she ‘appears’ to be straight, doesn’t mean she actually is.
For all we know, she’s having wild sex with different guys every night.”
“Don’t you think we
would have heard about it if that were true, though?”
“Probably. But it’s
not like we’re part of that crowd.”
“The crowd that has wild sex every night?”
“Yes. That crowd.”
“You think this was a one-time deal or you think she’s, uh...turned over a
new leaf, decided to spice up her life a little bit?” Dean asked.
“You’re suggesting
the pantyhose could actually be an attempt to change things up and get laid?” I
said.
“Hooking up and
getting laid is always a good thing,” Dean reminded me.
“Definitely. Though
if she thinks wearing pantyhose is what it’ll take...”
“Dude, it doesn’t
take much for a girl to get laid at our school.”
“I wish I could say the same
for the guys.”
“I know what you mean.”
“At least you have a girlfriend,” I
said.
“Yeah, but we’re
not doing it,” Dean said, holding out his hands disappointedly.
“And why exactly is
that again?”
“The biggest reason is that she’s ‘not ready,’” he said.
“And the
lesser reason?”
“It’s against my religion.”
“Oh that’s right...you’re Mormon,”
I said, pretending I hadn’t remembered.
“Hard to forget something like that.”
“I can imagine it would be,” I said.
Unless you knew Dean like I did, you never would have known that he went
to church at least once a week and planned on going on a two-year mission
abroad after his first year of college.
“So you’ve finally
decided not to have sex before you’re married?” I asked.
“Well...not
completely. If the right girl threw herself at me...I might just give in to the
temptation.”
“And Lily isn’t
‘temptation’ enough?” I queried.
“She’s definitely temptation...”
“But she
isn’t enough temptation?” I pressed.
“Well...given the right circumstances...”
“Like both of you
inebriated at a party? Which incidentally is also taboo in the Mormon religion.
Drinking alcohol, right? Which, of course, you have freely sampled more than
once.”
“I have, haven’t
I,” Dean admitted nodding his head.
“So what’s one more
sin in the book? You just have to say a few extra Hail Marys, right?”
“We don’t say Hail
Marys, dude. Catholics say Hail Marys.”
Jeremy Gold is seventeen years
old…in his mind. He lives in Carpinteria, California, a small beachside
town, ten miles south of its more celebrated sister, Santa Barbara. He
loves hiking, mountain bike riding, and of course, writing. Death at Carp High is the first in the six-part Jake Brown mystery series.
Jeremy
and his wife, Calla, have been married since 1979. Any resemblance
between their 21-year-old son, Dan, and Jake Brown
is purely…understandable.
