Channel 12 news crew was there!
And from the graffiti on the wall, I knew the Tagger had already been to
shredderman.com.
CHAPTER 11
Mistaken Identity
A giant purple dumb-baby was sprayed on the back wall of the library. But it didn’t just say “Du-uh!” in the talkie bubble. It said, “I’m Shredderman! Du-uh!”
Kids were swarming all around, talking a hundred miles an hour. A lady with a Channel 12 microphone was spinning in circles trying to get interviews with third graders. “What do you think of all of this?” she asked a blond boy with bowl-cut hair.
The boy pulled a dumb-baby face right at the camera and said, “Du-uh!”
The Channel 12 lady rolled
her
eyes, thenwaved her cameraman over to another little kid and tried again. “What do you think of this, uh,
Shredderman?
she asked her.
“Shredderman?” the girl asked back. “Oh, Shredderman’s
cool!
”
“Yeah! Totally cool!” another girl said.
The Channel 12 lady shook her head and sighed, then stuck her microphone in someone else’s face.
I wanted to run up to the Channel 12 lady and say, “Wait! Shredderman didn’t do the graffiti! The Tagger did!” But I couldn’t. I couldn’t say anything that would give me away.
The teachers were having some sort of powwow off to the side, and Dr. Voss was talking to a policeman. To Sergeant Klubb!
I moved closer. I tried to act invisible. Actually, I’m good at being invisible. At least that’s what it feels like a lot. Like when we’re picking teams. Or when people are talking about sleepovers. Ormeeting at the park. Or going to the movies
People don’t seem to notice that I’m standing right there.
So I got real close to Dr. Voss and Sarge. And I was listening away when a hand clamped down on my shoulder. “Nolan!”
I jumped like a kangaroo. And when I landed, there was my dad, smiling down at me.
“I’m sorry, Nolan. Didn’t mean to startle you!”
My heart was pounding at least 165 beats a minute. My eyelids were cranked back probably 190 degrees. My whole body went from 98.6 Fahrenheit to subzero Celsius like
that.
Dad leaned down and whispered, “Take a deep breath, son. Take a deeeeeep breath.”
I tried, but it’s hard when your heart’s racing and the rest of you is petrified.
He laughed. “You must’ve been concentrating on something pretty hard. Honestly, I wasn’t trying to startle you…!”
Finally I blinked and said, “I… I… Uh, hi, Dad.”
“Surprised to see me at school?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, I got a call about the graffiti.” He put his arm around my shoulders and moved us toward Sarge and Dr. Voss, looking at the graffiti the whole time. “Shredderman, huh?” He took a small spiral notebook from his coat pocket. “And all this time we’ve been calling him the Tagger.”
“But he’s not!” I cried. “I mean…”
He wasn’t listening to me, anyway. He was shaking hands with Sergeant Klubb, saying, “Hey, Billy. Long time no see.”
Sergeant Klubb snorted. “This punk’s keeping us busy, huh?”
Dr. Voss looked mad. She had her arms crossed, and her lips were pulled tight. “And I suppose now you’re going to accuse my
son
of doing this?”
“Look, Mrs. Voss—” Sarge said.
“
Doctor
Voss to you, Sergeant.”
Sarge took a deep breath. “Ma’am, we never accused your son or the other boys we questioned of anything—we were simply looking for information.”
“But the implication was clear!”
Sarge turned to my dad. “Tell her, Steven. Tell her about the tip.”
Dad nodded and tried not to look at me. “It’s true, Dr. Voss. An anonymous tip was left on my machine at the
Gazette.
”
She huffed and said, “It was probably left by this… this
Shredderman.
He seems to think he can do whatever he wants, just like all delinquents.”
Shredderman? A
delinquent?.
How could they even
think
that? Shredderman fought for truth and justice! Shredderman was a
good
guy! Anyone who’d been to the site knew
Judith Reeves-Stevens, Garfield Reeves-Stevens