Entry 15

Everything is much better now than it was when I wrote my last entry.  I ended up in the hospital, but was well enough to go back to school after 2 weeks.  I got pretty mad at Digby, though.  It turned out that he lied to me and was working for the Millers (Marina's family) the whole time.  They were paying him $100,000 for finding Marina and he never told me about it.  He was going to share the money with Henry and I, but I was so angry that I told him to keep it.  Zillah and Ezekiel both got put in federal prison, so we won't have to deal with them again.  I also seem to have a new celebrity status at school, and people, including Sloane, are treating me a little better than they used to.
I found out that Digby lied to me about something else.  He doesn't even go to our school and he had me fooled the entire time.  He just told me that he skips most of the time and he actually went to one of my classes with me one time.  Apparently he lives in Texas with his dad and is a crazy genius.  He is homeschooled, but has already finished all of this and next year's material.  He gives a lecture at the Edgar Allan Poe Appreciation Society's annual conference in Baltimore. I guess I really didn't know anything about Digby after all.  He used the money for good things, too.  He bought me a new laptop because mine got destroyed, paid off his mom's mortgage, and paid the limo bill from prom night. I found out that he was going to leave town soon to go talk to Ezekiel about his sister.  In a panic, I went to the bus station in hopes that he would still be there, and he was.  We talked for a little while, and then he gave me access to a house that my dad bought in the Upper West side- "just in case my dad ever messes with my mom while he's gone".  Awesome, right?  He gets on the bus and is about to leave and then he gets off and kisses me! Then, he gets back on the bus, it pulls away, and he's gone.

Entry 14

The dance got pretty boring pretty fast, and Digby got a message from one of his "men"- he hires people to follow people like Ezekiel around, which is pretty creepy- so we decided to leave.  We had to sneak out one of the windows of the school to get out of there.  We took the limo down to the J's, where Ezekiel has been spotted.  We found out that Ezekiel sells drugs and that he was going to escape down to Mexico, even though Zillah and the others were going to Canada.  We got back in the limo and went to a sketchy motel where Ezekiel was apparently staying.  We got Sloane to distract Ezekiel while we went up to his room where we thought Marina was.  She was there, wearing only a bikini and a blue wig.  We tried to convince her to leave and come back home, but she refused to come with us.  I guess Ezekiel was the "rich guy" that Ursula told us about.  Digby started searching the room and found a bunch of Mexican pesos, loads of guns, and explosives.  There were also some empty wrappers that had previously held explosives, which means that there are a lot of unwrapped explosives somewhere.  Ezekiel started coming back, so we had to jump out of the window into the dumpster below.  Henry took Sloane and Bill home in the limo because they were all not in the right state of mind, which left Felix, Digby, and I alone.  Digby had stolen some keys from Ezekiel's bag without us noticing and they belonged to his storage unit.  We walked down there and unlocked it.  Inside, we found an ambulance- the same ambulance that had been stolen from the Children's Hospital.  We couldn't get inside, so we lifted Felix through an open window.  We were about to leave when Ezekiel and Schell appeared with guns.  They took our phones and then locked us in the trunk of their car.  We drove back to the mansion right across from my house and we were thrown into the basement.  Ezekiel had made a bomb with the explosives we had found missing and was going to blow up the entire mansion.  We found the meth lab in the basement that had been making the whole neighborhood smell like chemicals.  My mother and her new boyfriend were also sleeping in the basement, although I have no idea how they got there.  Zillah came downstairs and that's when Digby decided to share his knowledge.  Apparently, Zillah is Bananaman, and Ezekiel had been stealing her drugs and selling them in schools. The cops had found out and that was why Zillah was fleeing to Canada. We turned the lights out in the basement and then Zillah went back upstairs.  Digby and I crawled up the vent that the meth fumes had been escaping out of.  We turned in the wrong direction and ended up back in the house in a room with all of the little girls.  They told us that Zillah watches over them while their parents are traveling. They showed us how to get back down to the basement to save my mom.  We got my mom and her boyfriend out, but Digby and I went back into the house to figure out what was going on.  Digby told Zillah all about how Ezekiel had been stealing money and was planning to drive down to Mexico in his ambulance full of stolen money.  Ezekiel ended up tied up in the house that was going to blow up while we all ran out.  Ezekiel begged us to untie him and offered Digby information about what happened to his sister.  Before he can say much, we untied him and started running out of the house.  We weren't far from it when the house exploded and I blacked out.  When I woke up, the mansion was on fire and the paramedics were there.  They were lifting Ezekiel onto a stretcher, but it was actually Floyd and Schell dressed as paramedics who were putting Ezekiel into the stolen ambulance. Digby and I tried to tell people, but everyone ignored us.  Then, Felix jumped out of the ambulance and attacked Floyd.  But Schell pushed past him and started driving away until Henry appeared in the limo and crashed into the ambulance.  That's all I remember before the pain became too much and I passed out.

Entry 13

A lot has happened in the last few days, so I'm going to divide this part into several sections.
We had our school dance, which Felix rented a limo for, and we picked up a lot more people than we originally planned to. It was supposed to be just Felix and me, but we actually picked up Felix, me, Henry, Sloane, Digby, and Bill.  When we went to Digby's house, I discovered something new about him.  I had never known much about his personal life, but i guess this explains it.  Digby's house is being foreclosed.  He lives out of the garage of his house, and his mom doesn't even know he lives there.  She doesn't seem to be mentally stable; apparently she sort of lost it after Digby's sister was kidnapped.  He doesn't have food or a bathroom in his garage, which explains why he never has money and is always asking me for food.  I feel like a terrible person now that I know that Digby has been going through this and I never knew about it.

Entry 12

We have a few more ideas on where Marina might have gone.  We think that she used Sloane's personal driver to take her places.  Sloane is this very stuck-up, rude, and rich girl in our grade.  She's dating Henry, but she is very snobby towards everyone.  Digby and I got into Sloane's limo and told her driver to take us around to the places that Marina went before she disappeared.  He said that she mostly went to a really bad neighborhood called the J's.
Zillah also came to visit my mom while we were out.  She told us that they were moving out to Canada soon, so I guess we aren't going to have to deal with those creepy people for much longer.
I'm also getting a little concerned about Digby.  He had an anxiety attack today while we were running during gym.  I had to sit on his chest to get him to calm back down.  I've always known that he had to take lots of medicines, but I never knew why.  He's supposed to be on pills to control his anxiety attacks, too, but he doesn't take them. I'm just hoping that he's okay and that nothing's too seriously wrong with his health.

Entry 11

Today, we continued investigating the Marina case.  Digby, Henry, and I visited Marina's house pretending to work for the school newspaper.  Her house was a huge mansion in a nice neighborhood.  She lived with her stepmother and half-sister there.  Her stepmother was pretty unhelpful, but her half sister, Ursula, gave us a ton of information.  Both her and Digby seem to think that Marina ran away instead of being kidnapped.  Digby found out that she had filled a prescription for eight months and birth control and had taken it with her wherever she went.  Ursula told us that Marina was treated as if she was invisible around the house.  She also said that Marina started dating a rich guy before she disappeared. He got her involved with drugs and she stole money from Ursula.  He also bought Marina a new phone, but Ursula gave us Marina's old phone.  We still want to figure out where Marina went, but we now think that this case wasn't a kidnapping.

Entry 10

Somehow I got trapped into going to the dance with Felix.  Felix as in the tiny twelve-year old who is in our grade.  Digby told him that I would say yes in return for him buying drugs from Floyd.  So now, because Digby is such an idiot, I am trapped into having a twelve-year old for a date.  He approached me by my locker on Thursday- in front of half the school- and had some ridiculous speech prepared.  I was forced to say yes because of the promise that Digby had made to Felix.  Now I'm going to be the laughingstock of the school at this stupid dance.

Entry 9

I met a couple of girls today in the bathroom, so I'm hoping that I might have actually made a couple of female friends here.  Their names are Bill (short for Isabel) and Darla, and they seem pretty cool, except that Bill has a giant crush on Digby.  I was just leaving the bathroom when Digby dragged me into the men's restroom.  He wanted to show me a drawing on the wall of the Bananaman symbol.  Underneath it, it had some code written that looked like it had been changed frequently.  Digby figured out that the code was for the different rooms in the school that were listed in the Student Handbook that I had in my backpack.  We met after school in a classroom where we could see into the one where the drug deal was supposed to happen.  Digby got this kid named Felix to go in and buy drugs from whoever was selling them.  Felix is a twelve-year old kid in our grade that had skipped several grades.  We found out that the guy selling drugs at our school is our janitor, Floyd.  According to Digby, he is also the guy that we saw setting the Dumpster on fire with Ezekiel.  It's becoming quite clear to me that there is some really weird (and illegal) stuff going on in River Heights.

Entry 8

Digby, Henry, and I went to a football game last night.  There's a drug dealer at all the games and Digby wanted to get information from her, so he convinced us to go with him.  We had to actually buy drugs from her to get any information, which was pretty scary.  We showed her the label that we found in the dumpster and she told us that it belonged to a drug dealer named Bananaman.  Apparently, he's a big drug dealer who makes and sells drugs out of River Heights.  Every Thursday night, a ton of drugs leave River Heights and go all over the East Coast and no one notices or knows who it is.  She said that recently, his drugs have been appearing more locally than they had in the past.  I don't really know what any of this means, but I'm just hoping it doesn't land me in lots of trouble, because I need a clean record to get into Princeton.

Entry 5

I was googling Digby recently because I wanted to see if there was anything interesting online, and I found something unexpected.  It does explain why he is so interested in the Marina case, though.  Apparently, eight years ago, his little sister disappeared from their house. Most accusations went towards the family, and it tore them apart apart.  The didn't know if they could trust each other anymore.  The police never found her, and the case fell through and was dropped. Now I just feel really bad for Digby and feel mean for ignoring him like I have been.

Entry 7

My neighbors in the mansion are really starting to creep me out. We found out that the one who seems to be the leader of the boys is named Ezekiel, but there is a really tall lady named Zillah who seems to run the whole place.  Tonight, Digby and Henry just appeared in my room, which is becoming a normal thing now, and told me to watch out my window with them.  We saw Ezekiel and another dude out by the Dumpster behind my house.  They threw a bunch of stuff into the Dumpster and set the whole thing on fire.  We all ran down with a fire extinguisher when they left and found a label with a picture of a banana wearing an Afro, sparkly gloves, and an eye patch that was riding a skateboard.  It seemed kind of familiar, but we couldn't place it.  Obviously, something really strange is going on in that mansion that we can't figure out.

Entry 6

I don't know why I ever agreed to do anything with Digby.  Somehow, I was convinced into breaking into Schell's office at night with him and Henry.  He brought some snow-spray and then made ME cover the security camera with it.  He already knew the code for the alarm from the last time we had gone, so he was able to turn off the alarm once it went off.  We found the password for what we think was the encrypted files that Digby stole the last time we were here.  And then we heard the sound of a shotgun.  Schell was standing in the doorway with a gun and he recognized us.  Henry threw something at him, and Shcell stepped out of the room, but locked us in before calling someone.  We all hid in the ceiling, but Schell figured out where we were and then knocked us down.  Digby jumped on Schell and all I remember after that was being nicked by the shotgun.  I woke up in the hospital and there were some cops there.  They told us that they were also working on the Marina case and agreed to clear our records if we gave them the information we had on the case.  Schell wasn't pressing charges since he also had illegal things going on in his office, so we should be fine, but that was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life.

Entry 4

I think that this Digby kid is insane. His main suspect for the Marina case is this guy named Schell, who's a gynecologist- and it just so happens to be my mother's gynecologist.  Today, he told me to meet him at Schell's office, so we went in.  He told the receptionist that we wanted to know about contraceptives and possibly start me on birth control (so embarrassing).  We got a fifteen- minute appointment with Schell and then Digby caused got his friend to cause a commotion so that we could get information.  He got the code to disengage the security alarm and stole some encrypted files off of his computer.  We also discovered a camera in the room that was recording patients without their permission (CREEPY).  And now Digby wants to go back there to get more information even though Schell already knows that we are causing problems.  This kid is CRAZY!

Entry 3

I have no idea what I just got myself into.  I went to a diner after I got in a fight with my mom, and Digby was there.  He had some police reports from a case about Marina Miller, a girl who disappeared from her house four weeks ago.  Apparently, he is investigating it and he has suspects and he told me all about it.  Also at the diner were a group of five boy who were all different ages, but they didn't look related and were all wearing plaid.  Digby told me that they lived in the creepy mansion across from my house.  I always see little girls wearing prairie dresses in there cleaning and the mansion always smells like chemicals.  Digby says that the little girls aren't always the same ones, either; apparently they cycle through.  Basically, it's a pretty weird place.  Anyway, the boys were about to leave without paying, so Digby stuck a mop through the door handles so they couldn't leave and they got pretty mad.  Then, Digby's friend, Henry, came out of the back.  He works at the diner, and he was one of the most good-looking guys I'd ever seen.  Henry already knew about the case that Digby was investigating, and somehow I got dragged into solving it with Digby without ever actually agreeing to help.

Entry 2

I talked to Digby again today.  I was forced to attend a meeting at school for kids who got caught skipping school on the same day that I did. It kind of reminded me of therapy, because we all sat in a circle while we are lectured by the truancy officer, some mean guy named Musgrave.  The school guidance counselor, who I'm choosing to call "Please-Call-Me-Steve" handed out cookies to us.  Lucky for me, Digby also attended the meeting.  He came late and then acted like we were best friends.  He seemed to already know Musgrave and was doing everything he could to get on his nerves.  We talked a little more and he offered to get me out of my morning classes this semester.  After some hesitation, I agreed, and now Digby and I have to do an independent project together on why skipping class is bad.  Musgrave and  Please-Call-Me-Steve are supposed to grade it at the end of the semester, but we get to go work on it instead of going to our first two classes.  Digby has already figured out a lot about me just by looking at me, so I'm convinced that the guy is some sort of weird genius.

Entry 1

My mom and I recently moved to River Heights, New York.  It's been pretty boring here so far, but I haven't been able to make any friends.  Today though, something really weird happened.  This guy came to the door at my house while I was skipping school and wouldn't stop ringing our broken doorbell for 5 minutes straight.  I finally opened the door for him and it was this teenage guy around my age who kind of looked like a Jehovah's witness, with  the way he was wearing a suit and carrying a balck book.  He somehow figured out that I was home alone (without coming in) and  that my dad didn't live with us.  He told me that his name was Digby and that he had seen me taking pictures of myself every morning (super creepy).  He wanted me to send him the pictures for some unknown reason to see something that might have been going on in the background.  Obviously, I slammed the door in his face and left, but it was still a pretty weird experience.