Touch Me Not

by Julie Kistler

  She whirled around. But there was no one behind her, at least no one she could see. Frowning, she peered into the shadowed, snow-covered shrubs near the entrance to the school. There were enough dark spaces and black holes back there for a whole fleet of muggers to hide if they’d wanted to. But nothing moved, no one stirred. She waited for several long moments, until her feet were too frozen to stand still any longer.

  “Whoever you are, go away!” she shouted. But her words blew away in a blast of winter wind.

  Giving herself a quick pep talk, she moved on. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that there were eyes directed at her back. Friendly or unfriendly? She had no idea. Either way, it was a creepy feeling.

  She lived about six blocks from the school, and she practically flew all the way, refusing to slow down for patches of ice or hard-packed snow. Every funny noise, every shadowy tree branch, made her heart beat a little faster. It was unlike her to be so paranoid, but maybe she’d been reading a few too many newspapers about the crime rates in West Riverside.

  She had never been so happy to see the lighted entry way to 104 Beech Street. Home. With another quick glance around, she fitted her key into the front door and jumped inside. Safe behind the glass door, she scanned the street for the person she simply knew was out there.

  No one. Whoever it was, he wasn’t drawing any attention to himself.

  But she couldn’t stop the anxious feeling that kept nagging at her. She sped up the stairs, more than ready to barricade herself in her apartment. As she reached the third floor, she frowned. How long had the overhead light in her end of the hallway been burned out? She could still see, however, and she wedged the door to the stairs open to light her way.

  But when she edged down the hall, she stopped dead in her tracks.

  Light spilled through the crack around her door. And the door stood open about half an inch.

  Someone was in there.

  With all of her alarms blaring in her brain, she about-faced and went to Mrs. Mooshman’s door, instead. “It’s Gilly,” she whispered through the door, positioning herself right in front of the peephole to give Mrs. M a good look. “Mrs. Mooshman, I think there’s someone in my apartment.”

  The chain detached and the door flew open. “I’m ready!” proclaimed her neighbor, brandishing her NOD Squad flashlight like a club. She was wearing a housecoat and rollers, instead of her official Neighborhood Observers and Defenders green jogging suit, but she was still pretty scary.

  “Maybe we should call the police,” Gilly tried.

  “We did okay by ourselves last night, didn’t we? Even with that imbecile Mr. Zamechnik gumming up the works.” Mrs. Mooshman loped over to Gilly’s door. “The light is on and the door is open!” she said in a stage whisper. “Doesn’t look good!”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Okay, you ease the door open, and I’ll run in and apprehend the pervert,” the older woman ordered. She assumed a fighting position and a fierce grimace.

  Well, she might not be able to hurt anybody, but with that face and the rollers, she could sure put the fear of God into them.

  Gilly creaked the door open another inch or two. Carefully edging herself into the doorway, she squinted into the apartment. Everything looked normal, everything except…the teenage boy squatting on the floor of the living room, so intent on the paintbrush in his hand he hadn’t heard any of the commotion in the hallway.

  “Tony,” Gilly said, sagging with relief. She waved her mutant ninja neighbor away. “It’s okay. It’s just my student, the one who’s painting my wall.”

  Mrs. Mooshman didn’t wait for an invitation. She swept past Gilly, waving her flashlight like a baton, and advanced on Tony, whose jaw dropped when he saw the older woman’s getup. “You should be ashamed, young man, almost giving a nice girl like Gilly a heart attack. We could’ve brained you by mistake before we knew it was you, because our plan of attack was all ready, wasn’t it, Gilly? I’ll tell you, Mr. Smarty Pants, we were ready to let a little blood, and that blood would’ve been yours!”

  “I—I’m sorry,” he stuttered. “I was only trying to finish. I guess I got kinda caught up in what I was doing.”

  “Tony, you can’t just come over any time you like,” Gilly said with considerable heat. “You have to ask first, you know.”

  “Sorry.” He let his paintbrush drop, fixing her with woeful puppy-dog eyes. “I’m so close to being done, though. I didn’t hurt anything, Ms. Q. I figured you’d be home and you’d let me in. But you weren’t here. So I just kinda came in and went ahead. I didn’t think it was a big deal.”

  “You didn’t think at all. And how exactly did you get in?” she asked, not terribly sure she wanted to know.

  “The fire escape. You really ought to get that window fixed, Ms. Q,” he said helpfully, “because the latch is broken and anybody could come right in.”

  “Anybody did.”

  “But I’m like family, Ms. Q. Aren’t I?”

  She gave him a dirty look. “Kind of.” It was the Benedict Academy motto—We’re more than just a school. We’re family. But that was hardly relevant at this moment. “Tony, even if you were my real live blood-is-thicker-than-water brother, I’d still be furious.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “You’d better get your brushes and paints cleaned up and get out of here. I haven’t decided what I’m going to do with you yet, but for tonight, you’re going home immediately. Your mother is probably frantic. I’d better give her a call.”

  “She ain’t home,” he said sulkily. “She got a night job.”

  “So who stays with you?”

  “Nobody.” The sulk intensified. “I’m thirteen, man. I don’t need no baby-sitter.”

  “Yeah, okay, big boy. Well, you’re in trouble, anyway. And I’ll talk to your mom first thing tomorrow.” Gilly turned to her neighbor. “Mr. Zamechnik still has a car, right? Maybe he could drive Tony home.”

  “Hah! The imbecile’s blind as a bat,” Mrs. Mooshman retorted. “I should better accompany them to make sure they get there in one piece.” And she trotted off on her mission—supposedly to round up Mr. Zamechnik and his car, but really to launch round 159 in her ongoing battle of words with her favorite sparring partner.

  “Tony, I appreciate the beautiful job you’re doing on the mural, but that doesn’t excuse breaking into my apartment,” Gilly said severely, prodding him into cleaning up his supplies. “I’ll still pay you—you did the work, so you get paid—but what you did tonight wasn’t good. Not good at all.”

  Still, after she’d gotten him settled in Mr. Zamechnik’s car and had retreated back to the safety of her own place, Gilly paced the living room, thanking her lucky stars it had only been Tony.

  She frowned, pushing aside her curtain far enough to stare out into the night. Up above her on the bluff she could almost make out the high spires of Blackthorn Manor, rising like a castle in the night

  She rubbed her arms. Nothing had happened. Nothing at all. So why couldn’t she shake this feeling that something was very wrong out there in the world?

  And whatever it was, it had her name written all over it.

  Chapter Five

  Things seemed a lot brighter with the start of a new day. Gilly was back to singing about sunshine and blue skies as she took off for school. She had almost convinced herself that last night’s fears were the result of an overactive imagination when she turned the corner from Beech onto Marlowe, and that tingly creepy sensation started all over again.

  “Probably Marlowe Street’s equivalent of Mrs. Mooshman has her eyes peeled for good gossip,” Gilly told herself sternly, casting an uneasy glance around the street. “Or maybe some member of the NOD Squad’s keeping watch.”

  But it didn’t feel like that, and she didn’t see any senior citizens peeking out from behind their curtains. No, it felt like she was being spied on. And she didn’t like it one bit.

  At least she recognized plenty of people on the street this morning—Benedict A
cademy students, a friend from one of the neighborhood committees she was on and a cop on the beat. In that environment it was hard to feel nervous about a pair of unknown watching eyes.

  But she did.

  This was so unlike her. Everyone knew she was take-charge, never-say-die Gillian Quinn. Afraid of a shadow man? Hah!

  So why was the hair on the back of her neck standing up? And why did this brilliant winter morning seem chilly and dismal all of a sudden?

  With a shiver she ran up the stairs into the academy, determined to put this silliness behind her and get on with her day. She had five classes and two committee meetings, plus that darned press release she still hadn’t gotten around to, not to mention a field trip to the art museum later that evening. Oh, and she had to call Tony’s mother about last night. She didn’t have time for groundless fears.

  “Excuse me, Miss Quinn, but could I speak to you a moment, please?” Lena Winslow, the Latin teacher, was wearing one of her perennial pained expressions. There were permanent wrinkles etched in the poor woman’s forehead from so much worry. “I’m in charge of Career Day, but of course you know that.”

  “Of course.” Miss Winslow was always in charge of Career Day.

  “Mrs. Dayton, the assistant principal, suggested that you might be able to deliver Lucas Blackthorn, the photographer, for one of my panels.” Her usual frown twisted into a sort of hopeful grimace. “Should I pencil him in?”

  “I think I remember mentioning Career Day, and he said he would think about it.” She’d definitely asked him to fund a scholarship, and if she could use his name on flyers. Had she worked Career Day in there, too? “I don’t remember for sure, though. Why don’t I check with him and get back to you?”

  “Excellent,” Miss Winslow breathed. “I need the final approval by the end of next week. So don’t delay—get that okay today.”

  The Latin teacher looked positively merry as she wandered back to her classroom. Gilly mentally added one more item to her list of things that had to be done today.

  Luckily the kids in her first class were doing very well with Twelfth Night, so she could leave them reading act 3 at the end of the period and dash back to her office cubicle. She hastily put in a call to Tony’s mother, who wasn’t home. Next on the list—Luke.

  The phone was answered on the first ring. “Yes?” Aunt Abby whispered.

  “Still keeping the noise down, hmm?”

  “Hello, Gillian.” Before Gilly had even had a chance to ask, her aunt said, “No, you may not speak to Lucas. He’s resting.”

  “I won’t disturb him, I promise. It’ll be a very quick phone call.”

  “No.” And the phone clicked in Gilly’s ear.

  She just sat there, staring at the receiver. Her aunt had hung up on her! What in the world—

  The bell rang for second period, so she had no opportunity to dwell on this uncharacteristic rude behavior. Instead, she started the fourth graders’ decoupage Valentine’s Day projects, thinking about Aunt Abby while she brought out the glue pots and the construction paper.

  She found herself so distracted that she finally asked the teacher’s aide from the room next door to come over and supervise just this once so she could sneak back and try the phone again..

  Again the phone only rang once before Aunt Abigail answered. “Now don’t hang up,” Gilly said hurriedly, “until you give me an explanation. I can’t believe you of all people would hang up without saying goodbye. It’s positively medieval!”

  “They didn’t have phones in medieval times,” Abby said crisply. “As a teacher, you should know that.”

  “Why are you angry with me? I didn’t do anything.” At least, not as far as she knew. “What is this all about?”

  Her aunt didn’t answer directly. “Stop harassing Luke,” she hissed as if that said it all.

  “Harassing?” Gilly was stung. “A person pays a visit out of concern and friendship, and this is construed as harassment?”

  “If you had your way,” her aunt said angrily, “Lucas would be gallivanting around like a schoolboy. I would think after your misbehavior Wednesday night and the state he was in afterward, you would give up and let the poor boy rest in peace.”

  Wednesday? But that was the night of the city-council meeting, after which she’d stopped by and…kissed him. Her cheeks flamed with heat. “He told you about that? It was an accident.” She muttered, “I can’t believe he told you.”

  “You’ve hurt him badly, Gillian, and I will not allow you to hurt him again. He’s just not strong enough for your kind of roughhousing. Now leave him alone!” And Aunt Abigail cut the connection again.

  So much for family ties.

  Gilly felt as if Aunt Abby had slapped her in the face. “But I didn’t do anything wrong,” she protested. The only one listening was that stupid newspaper photo of Luke tacked to her cubicle wall.

  Feeling quite mistreated and misunderstood, Gilly backtracked to the art class in time to help the students finish their Valentine’s boxes, and then slid into automatic pilot to cover a section of Canterbury Tales with her sixth graders. After that, it was eighth-grade drama, with students who were bouncing off the walls, and finally, finally, she had her lunch break.

  Calming herself, she tried Tony’s mother again and had a nice chat about what a good boy he was and how hard Mrs. Fielder was trying to keep tabs on him. Then she drafted the long-awaited press release and asked the school secretary to type it up and send it out. Normally she wouldn’t have dumped that on someone else, but she just didn’t have time.

  As she worked, Luke and Aunt Abby stayed in the back of her mind. Had Luke really told her aunt about the kiss? As if it were some sort of juvenile stunt she’d pulled to irritate him?

  The longer she thought about it, the madder she got. At Aunt Abby, sure, but also at infuriating, touch-me-not Luke. She couldn’t recall ever being this angry at him. Certainly, he annoyed her sometimes, but she always forgave him, feeling that their friendship was worth a little inconvenience. But not this time. She was in no mood to forgive him for telling her aunt about that poor innocent kiss.

  So she waited until just after one, when she felt sure Aunt Abigail would be out doing her shopping and unable to play phone-interference games. And then she called him again, punching in the numbers with as much force as she could get into one finger.

  It rang twice. A good sign.

  “Hello?”

  “Uncle Fitz,” she said with relief. “I’m so glad I got you. Can I please talk to Luke?”

  “No, I’m sorry, Gilly.” His voice was like ice. “After the last time you saw him, he has been most unwell. Your aunt and I have decided it is not in his best interests to be under your influence right now.”

  “Under my influence?” Had everyone at Blackthorn Manor lost their minds? “I’m hardly going to influence him with one simple phone call! Come on, Uncle Fitz, put him on the phone.”

  Uncle Fitz remained implacable. “No. When you talk to him, you convince him to undertake dangerous activities.”

  “What are you talking about? Dangerous activities?” she repeated. “Let’s see…I asked him to have dinner with me. I asked him to contribute money to the Benedict Academy. Oh, and I guess I also asked him to speak at Career Day and maybe come to the Snow Ball. Gee whiz, that’s a real dangerous lineup, isn’t it?”

  There was silence on the other end of the phone.

  So she tried a different tack. “Fizzy, this is Gilly you’re talking to. You and I both know that Luke is a very strong and capable person. It won’t hurt him in the least to come to the St. Benny’s career fair. And he already agreed to help with the anti-casino campaign and a scholarship fund. He can’t back out now.”

  She wished she could remember her conversation with Luke a bit better, but then she’d accidentally kissed him, and then she’d held off two knife-toting muggers with a trash-can lid and been saved by a phantom in a dark alley, so she felt she could be forgiven for forgetting a few d
etails. That had been a rough night.

  “Gillian,” her uncle said softly, “you must understand that your problems at the Benedict Academy are not as important right now as Luke’s getting a chance to recuperate.”

  Not as important? Not as important? St. Benny’s was in danger of being leveled by bulldozers at any moment, and its problems weren’t as important as Luke’s taking a nap?

  She could’ve spit.

  “Look, I don’t know why you guys are so sure talking to me is such a perilous activity,” she returned. hotly. “But you’re all wet, okay? I’m the best thing that could happen to him, because I represent the real world, instead of Blackthorn Manor, the fairy castle. Tell Luke I will talk to him. Soon.”

  And this time she hung up.

  Steaming, she resolved that Luke was not getting off the hook that easily, no. matter how mean her aunt and uncle got. She needed Luke, damn it. He had the money, the clout and the hero status that could really make a difference. Forget what he wanted. She needed him, and she would make him an integral part of her mission to save St. Benny’s.

  “He’s the only one who can help,” she declared, throwing a pencil at his smug face. “And he’s going to help, whether he likes it or not.”

  “KIDS, STAY TOGETHER, please,” Gilly commanded. Normally she would’ve loved chaperoning the honors arts students when they visited the museum, especially since both Tony and another child had pictures in the student art fair. Goodness knew, she should’ve been able to handle a mere ten kids by herself.

  But today was just one of those days.

  “Susie, stay with the group, please!” she called as the pretty little brunette wandered away to look at some Egyptian antiquities. “Come on back. We’re going the other way to find the gallery with Tony and Amanda’s pictures.”

  Reluctantly Susie hopped back into formation, and their ragtag group forged on.

  If the kids had been a little younger, Gilly could’ve tied them together and carried the reins herself. Too bad that choice was no longer available. “Kendall, Caleb—back with the group, please.”