I freaked and pulled Trevor behind a statue of Teddy Roosevelt. “It’s a trap,” I said, squeezing Trevor’s gloved hand. “I’ll show up and the police will be waiting with handcuffs!”
Students stared at Creepy Man as he walked creepily toward the front doors, glancing around as he left. He was looking for us.
“He’s taking the evidence with him, and that evidence is worth two hundred dollars,” I whispered to Trevor.
“Yeah, the evidence,” he said. “Against you!”
“Me? Your fingerprints were all over it. That guy saw you, too.”
“He only saw me running. He could have been after you. You were mad he ran out of candy, so you sprayed his house until he heard you making noise, then you dropped your candy and tennis racket when the lights came on,” Trevor said, like he was Sherlock Holmes solving the Case of the Missing Tennis Racket.
“You’re going to pin this on me? I can’t believe you!”
“Don’t worry, I don’t think you’ll go to jail over this, babe. You’ll just get a major spanking by that crazy butler.”
I had gotten in enough trouble for things I had done; I didn’t want to be punished for things I hadn’t done.
Trevor started walking to class.
I caught up to him. “I’ll drag you down so bad if anything happens!”
“Who will they believe, freak—an honors student who is a star soccer player or a two-bit gothic chick with one friend, who spends more time in the principal’s office than in class?”
“You owe me a tennis racket!” I shouted helplessly as Trevor sauntered off.
I admit it, Trevor had avenged himself for the Naked Woods Night. Because of him I’d lost my dad’s fancy-schmancy racket. And more importantly, he’d made me the enemy in the eyes of the only people in town who might understand me and be my friends. They were my freedom from Dullsville and my connection to humanity, but now because of Trevor, the Mansion would be harder to get into than when it was boarded up.
9
Living Hell
“You what?” my father yelled during dinner after I told him I lost his racket.
“Well, it’s not exactly lost. I just don’t have it.”
“Then get it back if you know where it is.”
“That would be impossible right now.”
“But I have a game tomorrow!”
“I know, Dad, but you have other rackets.” I tried to deflate the power of that one particular racket. Big mistake!
“Others? It’s that easy for you? Just go buy another Prince Precision OS racket?”
“I didn’t mean that—”
“It’s bad enough you deface property at school!”
“I’m sorry, but—”
“Sorry’s not good enough this time. Sorry’s not going to win me my game tomorrow. My racket is. I can’t believe I let you take it out of here in the first place!”
“But, Dad, I’m sure you made mistakes when you were a hippie teenager!”
“And I paid for them! Like you’re going to pay for my racket.”
My bank account had about five dollars in it, the remains of my Sweet Sixteenth birthday money. And I still owed Premiere Video twenty-five dollars in late fees. I quickly did the math in my head. Dad was going to have to keep my allowance until I was thirty.
Then he said the three words that reverberated in my head and made me go dizzy with fury. As he said them I thought I was going to explode into a million unhappy pieces.
“Get a job!” he proclaimed. “It’s about time, too. Maybe that’ll teach you some responsibility!”
“Can’t you just spank me? Or ground me? Or not speak to me for years like parents do on those talk shows? Please, Dad!”
“It’s final! End of story! I’ll help you find a job if you can’t on your own. But you’ll have to do the work yourself.”
I ran to my room, wailing like baby Nerd Boy, screaming at the top of my lungs, “You people just don’t understand the pressure of being a teenager in my generation!”
As I cried on my bed, I fantasized about sneaking into the Mansion like I did with Jack Patterson when I was twelve and retrieving the racket.
But I also knew I was a little bigger in the hips now and that the window we’d used had been replaced. I’m sure the new owners also had a security system and, in any case, where would I look for the racket with so many rooms and closets? And while I was searching frantically, I was sure to be caught by Creepy Man wielding a gun or some medieval torture device. A part-time job was a less menacing scenario, but not by much.
At this point I really wished I were a vampire—I’d never heard of Dracula’s having a job.
Connections. They’d be wonderful if my dad knew Steven Spielberg or the Queen of England, but Janice Armstrong of Armstrong Travel just doesn’t cut it for me.
Far worse than having to show up there after school three days a week, answering phones in a perky voice, photocopying tickets with that hideous blinding flash in my eyes, and talking to yuppies going to Europe for the fourth time was the totally conservative dress code.
“I’m sorry, but you won’t be able to wear those…” Janice began, staring at my shoes. “What do you kids call them?”
“Combat boots.”
“We aren’t the army. And it’s okay to wear lipstick, but it should be red.”
“Red?”
“But you can pick any shade.”
Very generous, Janice! “How about pink?”
“Pink would be great. And you’ll need to wear skirts. But not too short.”
“Red skirts?” I asked.
“No, they don’t have to be red. They can be green or blue.”
“I can pick any shade?” If she was going to make me feel like an idiot, I was going to act like one.
“Certainly. And hose—”
“Not black?”
“Not ripped.”
“And the nail polish,” she began, staring at my fingertips.
“Not black, but any shade of red. Or pink would be great,” I recited.
“Very good,” she said with a big smile. “You’re fitting in already!”
“Thanks, I guess,” I said as I got up to leave. I checked my watch. The interview had taken fifteen minutes, but it felt like an hour. This job was going to be complete torture.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, at four o’clock then, Raven. Any questions?”
“Do I get paid for the interview?”
“You’re father said you were bright, but he didn’t mention your wonderful sense of humor. We’ll get along great. Who knows, you may want to be a travel agent when you get older.”
Mrs. Peevish, my infamous kindergarten teacher, would have been proud.
“I already know what I want to be,” I replied. I wanted to say a vampire, just for old time’s sake. But I knew she wouldn’t get it.
“What do you want to be?”
“A professional tennis player. They get free rackets!”
My mother bought me some horrible brightly colored Corporate Cathy gear so I could fit neatly into the package of Dullsville’s business world. I pulled them out of the shopping bags and freaked when I saw the price tags.
“Yikes! These outfits cost more than the tennis racket. Just keep them and we’ll be even.”
“That’s not the point!”
“This doesn’t make sense.”
I reluctantly modeled a white blouse and blue knee-length skirt. My mother looked at me like I was the daughter she always wanted.
“Don’t you remember wearing halter tops, braids, and bell-bottoms?” I asked. “What I wear isn’t that much different for my generation.”
“I’m not that little girl anymore, Raven. And besides, I never wore lipstick. I went au naturel.”
“Ugh,” I said, and rolled my eyes.
“Being a teenager is hard, I know. But you’ll eventually find out who you really are.”
“I know who I am! And working at a travel agency and wea
ring a white blouse and hose isn’t going to make me find the ‘inner me.’”
“Oh, sweetie.” She tried to hug me. “When you’re a teenager, you think that no one understands you and the whole world is against you.”
“No, it’s just this town that’s against me. I’d go crazy, Mom, if I thought the whole world was against me!”
She hugged me hard and this time I let her. “I love you, Raven,” she said, like only a smooshy mom can. “You’re beautiful in black, but you’re smashing in red!”
“Quit it, Mom, you’re wrinkling my new blouse.”
“I thought you’d never say that!” she said and squeezed me even tighter.
The part-time after-school gig had to go. How could I get the scoop on the Mansion family if I was going to be at work all afternoon? I had to drag all those dry-clean only clothes with me to school and keep them neatly in my locker until school was over. My new afternoon punishment tore me up inside.
“Why doesn’t that guy go to school?” I asked Becky as I was getting dressed.
“Maybe he isn’t registered yet.”
“If I didn’t have this stupid job, we could go investigate right now. Ugh!”
I was envious of Becky because she got to go home to the land of cable TV and microwave popcorn, while I went from a school desk to a reception desk.
After parting ways with Becky, I snuck into the restroom and wiped off my black lipstick with a wet paper towel and replaced it with some ultra-flashy shade of red. I truly looked like a ghost with my pale complexion. I reluctantly put on my bright red rayon-and-cotton blends. “I’ll miss you, but we’ll be back together in a few hours,” I said to my black dress and combat boots, placing them in my backpack.
I gave myself a once over—this was one time I really thought being a vampire would come in handy. Maybe I’d look in the mirror and see nothing. Instead I saw a miserable girl standing awkwardly in her red rayon outfit.
I slithered out of the restroom looking right and left like I was crossing the street and made my escape safely out the front door. Or so I thought.
Trevor was standing on the front steps.
I freaked when I saw him but tried to ignore his presence and move on. I wanted to run, but I wasn’t used to skinny heels.
“Hey, Halloween’s over!” he shouted, following me. “Where’s your tennis skirt? Going to some costume party as Suzie Secretary?”
I continued to ignore him, but he grabbed my arm.
I couldn’t let him know that I was working, or where I was working, and, most of all, that I was working because I had to pay my father back for the tennis racket Trevor had made me lose. It would have brought him too much joy.
He looked me over, that same look he had given me when he first saw me in my tennis outfit. This time I was his corporate dream girl.
“So, where are you going?”
“None of your business!”
“Really? I didn’t think we kept secrets from each other.”
“Get lost already.”
“I’ll just walk with you then.”
I stopped. “You will not walk with me! You will not go anywhere with me! You will leave me alone! For good. Forever!”
“You don’t seem your usual loving self,” he said, laughing. “Having a bad hair day? You should be used to that by now.”
“Trevor, it’s over. Your games and mine! You don’t have to harass me anymore. We’re even. We’re even for all of eternity. Okay? So just get out of my face!”
He ran after me when I stormed off.
“Are we breaking up? I didn’t know we were going together, baby. Please don’t leave me,” he begged, jokingly.
I walked quickly past the school fence and scurried down the sidewalk. I had five minutes to get to Armstrong Travel.
“I can’t live without you!” he said sarcastically, catching up. “Are you mad because I never gave you black roses? I’ll make it up to you. I’ll get you new clothes—from the graveyard.” He howled with laughter. “Just don’t leave me, babe!”
“Cut it out!” I was fuming. He probably had two hundred dollars in his back pocket and I’d have to work for eons in a place I hated because of his stupid antics.
“Just tell me where you’re going!”
“Trevor, quit it! Get out of here! I’ll get a restraining order if I have to!”
“Do you have a date?” He wasn’t going to give up.
“Go away!”
“You’re meeting someone?”
“Buzz off!”
“Do you have an interview? An interview…with the vampire?”
“Get out of my face!”
“Are you going to…work?”
I stopped. “No! Are you totally crazy? That’s so lame!”
“You are! You’ve got a job!” He danced around. “I’m so proud of you, my little gothic baby has found herself a job!”
I was fuming inside.
“Trying to better your life? Or are you paying Daddy back for that fancy little tennis racket?”
I was ready to hit him and this time send his head flying off into the distance instead of a can of spray paint.
Just then Matt pulled up. “Trevor, dude. You said you’d be on the steps. I don’t have time to drive all over town trying to find you. We have to go.”
“Good, your baby-sitter found you,” I said.
“I’d offer you a ride to work, but we have places to be,” Trevor teased.
As the Camaro whizzed off I looked at my watch. Great! My first day of work and I was late.
10
Working Ghoul
Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower, and a Hawaiian sunset loomed behind the reception desk at Armstrong Travel, a constant reminder that there was life outside Dullsville, and that excitement was very far away.
The only thing exciting about working at Armstrong’s was the gossip. Under normal circumstances, I found the scandals of the town quite boring—the mayor seen cavorting with a Vegas showgirl, a local TV reporter from WGYS faking an alien abduction story, a Brownie leader embezzling earnings from the cookie bake-off.
But now life was different—there have been Mansion family sightings!
Ruby, the perky partner, filled me in on all the latest. She’s like a walking National Enquirer.
“It’s still a mystery what the husband does”—referring to the Mansion family—“but he’s obviously wealthy. The butler does the grocery shopping at Wexley’s on Saturday at exactly eight o’clock P.M. and picks up the dry cleaning on Tuesdays—all dark suits and cloaks. The wife is a tall pale woman in her mid-forties with long dark hair and she always wears dark sunglasses.”
“It’s like they’re vampires,” Ruby concluded, not knowing about my fascination. “They’ve only been seen at night; they look so ghoulish, dark, and brooding, like they’re straight out of a B-movie horror flick. And no visitors have been inside that house. Not one. Do you think they’re hiding something?”
I was hanging on Ruby’s every word.
“They’ve lived there for over a month,” she continued, “and haven’t painted the place, or even cut the grass! They’ve probably even added creaky doors!”
Janice laughed out loud and ignored her ringing phone. “Marcy Jacobs was saying the same thing,” Janice added. “Can you imagine? Not mowing your lawn or planting flowers. Don’t they wonder what the neighbors think?”
“Maybe they don’t care what the neighbors think. Maybe they like it that way,” I interjected.
They both looked at me in horror.
“But get this,” Ruby said. “I heard that the wife was at Georgio’s Italian Bistro and ordered Henry’s special antipasto…without garlic! That’s what Natalie Mitchell says her son said.”
So? I thought. I like a full moon. Does that make me a werewolf? Big deal. And who can trust Trevor and his family? The buzzing of the front door brought the gossip session to a complete halt. And the new customer made us all buzz.
It was Creepy Man!
“I have to finish something in the back!” I whispered to Ruby, whose eyes were riveted to the bony man.
I scurried as fast as I could, not looking back until I was safely standing behind the Xerox machine. Yet I yearned to run to good ol’ Creepy, squeeze his fragile body and tell him I was sorry for the Trevor Halloween paint job. I wanted to listen to all he had to say about the world as he knew it, his adventures and travels. But I couldn’t, so I cowered behind the copy machine and copied my hand.
“I’d like two tickets to Bucharest,” I heard him say, taking a seat at Ruby’s desk.
I craned my neck to see him.
“Bucharest?” Ruby asked.
“Yes, Bucharest, Romania.”
“And when would you be going?”
“I’m not going, madam. The tickets are for Mr. and Mrs. Sterling. They would like to depart on November first, for three months.”
Ruby fiddled with her computer. “Two seats…in economy?”
“No, first-class please. Just as long as the flight attendants serve them some bloody wine, the Sterlings are always happy!” he said in his thick accent, laughing.
Ruby laughed back awkwardly, and I chuckled inside.
She went over the itinerary and handed him a copy.
“It’s like giving blood, the cost of tickets these days!” Creepy Man laughed, signing.
This was getting good!
Ruby swiped his credit card. “And you’re not going, sir?” she asked, as he signed his name, trying to pull more info out of him. Way to go, Rubes!
“No, the boy and I will stay behind.”
Boy? Was he referring to Gothic Guy? Or did the Sterlings have a child I could baby-sit? I could play hide-and-seek with him in the Mansion.
“The Sterlings have a boy?” Ruby asked.
“He doesn’t get out much. Stays in his room listening to loud music. That’s what they do at seventeen.”
Seventeen? Did I hear him right? Seventeen? He was talking about Gothic Guy. But why wasn’t he in school?
“He’s always had a tutor. Or as you say in this country, he’s been home-schooled,” Creepy Man answered, as if he had read my mind. Or he should have said, Mansion-schooled! No one was home-schooled in Dullsville.
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