Mix Tapes and Stolen Tests

On Tuesday September 8th, Mix Tapes and Stolen Tests was released. I Tweeted about it and Facebook saw a lot of the cover. For those of you who bought a copy, I thank you.
For those of you on the fence, here is a sample of Chapter 1. This is the start of the book and the mystery that will happen later.
Here's the link for Mix Tapes and Stolen Tests on Amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/Mix-Tapes-Stolen-Tests-Lair-ebook/dp/B0139SUN1K/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1442276435&sr=1-1&keywords=mix+tapes+and+stolen+tests


Here is Chapter 1

“Stupid pizza. How can a pizza slice be so totally glued to a television screen?” Elaine chipped part of her green-polished nail on globs of gray mushroom mixed with dried sauce on the glass of the television screen. Bits of brown pizza crust blended with yellow cheese stuck to a corner. Grease left an octopus-shaped stain in the center.

Her gray tights had rips at the knees from all the times she had to crawl to wipe a spill. The pink tee shirt she bought at Mandees just for the party had a drink stain that ran down her back like a skunk stripe. It smelled too. 

She turned from the television to the cream colored couch that had a red punch stain the size of a manhole cover. Tissues that Kim needed when she found out that Pete didn’t like her anymore were stuck between cushions. Chip crumbs at the end had to be Joey’s fault because he had spent the entire party there with food. 

Oh crap. 

Carl fell on the coffee table. He left a scratch all along the top.

The party was her friend Kelly’s idea. She said this would be the party to make 1986. They needed an empty house for a few hours and Elaine’s parents said they would be out with the Waltzers until after midnight. Things were perfect until they came home at ten o’clock and scared everyone away. Of course, Kelly couldn’t be found.

Elaine’s father stood at the door with his arms crossed. “I walked through something sticky at the door.” He took off his black loafer and picked at the sole. “I think it’s gum.” The man weighed a hundred-and-fifty or so pounds and stood the same height as Elaine, but he worked as a loader at the docks in Elizabeth. He had a squealy-scratchy voice like bad car brakes when he yelled. “What the hell kind of person leaves gum on the floor of a house?”

“Yeah. Who were these people?” her mother whined from the dining room.

Elaine figured the gum had to be from Tracy. She snapped that gum all party long. 

Empty cups lined the windowsill. That could’ve been from the group of J.V. defense players huddled together. Vinyl Beatles albums leaned against the wall because Vinny liked old music and didn’t put things back. People danced in the center of the rug and created a worn pattern that resembled a bull’s-eye. 

Cigarettes in plastic cups were on the dining room table. The punch bowl smelled like body odor. Tony got hit in the nose during the football game earlier in the day and apparently blew blood snot in the corner of the dining room. 

Elaine cleaned all of it. She turned on the back door overhead lights and brought a collection of plastic garbage bags to the outside pails behind the garage. The garbage pail was full of thrown-out tissues and towels that the garbage men wouldn’t take unless things were bagged. She reached in when something gooey stuck to her hand and under her fingernails. 

“God. What is that? Gross. Grody.” She looked for something to wipe her hand on when she saw a light on in her room. She hadn’t been in her room since Kelly and her planned out the night. How could she forget to turn off the light? She ran in the house and went up the stairs. 

What if someone didn’t leave. How could she sneak someone out of the house now? What stupid skank went in her room? 

“There’s still more to clean,” her father yelled as she ran past him in the house.  

No one should have gone upstairs. She went in her room and threw open the door. Curtains that she kept tied off at the sides were pulled close even though they didn’t meet. The top edge of a Duran Duran poster lined up even with a poster of a giant sunflower. Her trophies for best attendance in grade school were on the shelf. Books were by the vanity.  Music cassettes looked untouched. Bed covers were balled up, but she might have done that herself. Elaine dropped onto the bed and sighed. 

No one hid in the room. Her heart bounced around her chest, but she could breathe again.

The pillow molded around her head. It smelled like Brute cologne. The boys that just got out of Phys-Ed always reeked of that stuff. 

She sat up. Her pillow shouldn’t smell like a boy. No boy had ever been in her room. How did her pillow smell like a boy? She had seen Kelly go upstairs for supplies. “Kelly wouldn’t do anything on my bed,” Elaine rocked as she wrapped her arms around herself. “Maybe she brought someone to talk. Yeah. Maybe they wanted to make-out, but she changed her mind. She wouldn’t use my room for anything. I know Kelly. Who would she want to make out with? She’s not dating anyone.”

A black backpack with green striping leaned against her vanity. “What is that?” She didn’t remember Kelly with a backpack and she didn’t own one.

Who else had been in the room? 

There was only one way to find out who this belonged to. She pulled the zipper to reveal green attendance sheets and lists of teachers inside. Stapled and crumpled schedules with scribbled numbers in black marker made no sense. She spread manila files on her floor.  

White-Geography

White-US

White-China

White-Britain

Elaine opened the White-Geography file and saw a copy of a test with questions about state capitols, oceans, and The Mississippi River, but no answers.

“I took this a week ago in Mrs. White’s class.”  She scanned the next test and recognized some of the words. “White. Geography. This is Mrs. White’s backpack? She wasn’t at the party. How did her stuff get here?”

“There’s still a mess,” her father yelled. 

She shut off the light and went back downstairs. 

Her parents pointed her to the sloppy kitchen. A crowd of cheerleaders and Varsity players settled in there during the party. Denise, the cheerleader, sat on a counter with her legs wrapped around a boy that she made out with. Mike opened and slammed cabinet doors and complained about a lack of good snacks.

None of them had backpacks. 

“I found vodka,” her mother announced, with a deep growl in her voice. 

Elaine remembered that Roger had bottles in a paper bag.

“I found another bottle under the kitchen table and a wine cooler bottle in the sink.” Her mother’s voice got deeper and more gravelly with each new discovery. “Is this pudding stuck to frying pans? Who would fry pudding? Who used our pots and pans?” She scratched the pan with her nail. 

Elaine couldn’t think of an answer.