Out of the Ashes by Valerie Sherrard Page A

Greg’s pocket it was the last thing on my mind.
    A few different theories presented themselves to me, and I suddenly realized that this was exactly what the whole town did. They got an idea and ran with it and expanded it until it grew into an actual story. In my case, though, I was just trying to figure things out, not spread random gossip under the pretence of it being based on fact.
    Well, there were a few possibilities all right, and only one of them could be true. I studied the whole thingfrom different slants, until my head started to hurt from the effort.
    The most likely theory, of course, seemed to be that Greg was the Little River fire starter. Why else would the mate to the mitten I’d found near last night’s fire be in his pocket?
    He’d already admitted that he was off work early, and that gave him plenty of time to set the fire and still be home at the usual time. The more I thought about it, the more positive I was that I’d solved the crime.
    The question was, what was I going to do about it? I knew I should go to the police, but something held me back. Maybe it was the way I’d treated Greg at times, or it might have been the fact that I felt sorry for him because his mother was dead. In any case, I decided to wait for just a little while before doing anything.
    I figured that if Greg was indeed the one setting the fires, the chance that he’d strike again in the next week or two was low. After all, there had been none at all for months. Maybe this one would even be the last.
    Then I got to wondering what made a person do something like that. I guess it would be easy enough to understand how a kid in Greg’s position might flip out and do weird things after his mom had died in a fire.
    A really chilling thought occurred to me then. What if he had set the fire that had killed his mother? As impossible as it seemed, I had to face the fact that a few days earlierI’d have laughed at the idea that anyone as mild mannered as Greg Taylor might be involved in the local fires.
    Even if I was wrong about Greg, at least one thing was pretty clear. One of the Taylors was the culprit. The mitten I’d seen couldn’t belong to anyone else, since it was handmade in that unusual pattern.
    As much as the evidence pointed to Greg, I didn’t rule out his father completely. He could have been wearing his son’s coat the night before, but there was no way for me to find that out.
    Or was there?
    It suddenly hit me that I was in an ideal position to find out things that no one else could, partly because of the evidence I had, but mostly because if I was careful I could do it without arousing suspicion.
    If the police started nosing around asking questions, Greg and his dad would certainly clam up. But if I started hanging out with Greg, it would be normal for me to stop by his place now and then. That would give me opportunities to look for clues and ask innocent sounding questions.
    It was at that moment that I decided for sure I was going to keep what I knew to myself. Once I had more proof I would go to the police.
    I might as well admit that the thought of being a hero of sorts had its appeal. I’d go from being just another student at the school to being someone everyonetalked to and wanted to be around. I’d never had that kind of popularity before. I thought I could stand it.
    Of course, there was a downside to the whole thing, and that was how I’d keep working on getting Nick to ask me out if I was spending time with Greg. It would certainly complicate things, but there had to be a way to convince Nick that Greg and I were just friends. And as Greg himself had pointed out, it might even pique Nick’s interest.
    I started planning my next move.
    It was pretty exciting, but I also knew it might be dangerous. I thought I should have some kind of insurance in case I ever found myself in a tight spot. That was when I decided to start writing all this down.
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