by Meg Cabot
"What," Dr. Alistair asked, as he steered Shane back around toward me, "is the meaning of all this caterwauling?"
Before I could say a word, Shane lifted his head and, staring up at Dr. Alistair with a face that was perfectly devoid of tears—but upon which there was an unmistakable bruise growing under one eye—said, "A boy hit me and my counselor didn't do anything, Dr. Alistair." He added, with a hiccupy sob, "If my dad finds out about this, he's going to be plenty mad, boy."
Dr. Alistair glared at me from behind the lenses of his glasses. "Is this true, young lady?" he demanded. He only called me young lady, I'm sure, because he couldn't remember my name.
"Only partially," I said. "I mean, another boy did hit him, but only after—"
Before I could finish my explanation, however, Dr. Alistair was taking charge of the situation.
"You," he said to Dave, who'd been standing close by, watching the proceedings with open-mouthed wonder. "Take this boy here to the nurse to have his eye looked at."
Dave sprang to attention. "Yes, sir," he said and, throwing me an apologetic look, he put a hand on Shane's shoulder and began steering him toward the infirmary. "Come on, big guy," he said.
Shane, sniffling, went with him … after pausing to throw me a triumphant look.
"You," Dr. Alistair said, jabbing his index finger at me. "You and I are going to meet in my office to discuss this matter."
My ears, I could tell, were redder than ever. "Yes, sir," I murmured. It was only then that I noticed that there among the onlookers stood Karen Sue Hanky, her mouth forming a little V of delight. How I longed to ram my fist, as Lionel had his, into her rat face.
"But not," Dr. Alistair continued, pausing to look down at his watch, "until one o'clock. I have a seminar until then."
And without another word, he turned around and headed back into the dining hall.
My shoulders slumped. One o'clock? Well, that was it. I was fired for sure.
Because of course there was no way I was making my meeting with Dr. Alistair. Not when I had an appointment at the same time to check out the situation with Keely Herzberg. I mean, my job was important, I guess. But not as important as a little girl who may or may not have been stolen from her custodial parent.
Remember what I was saying about how complicated my life had gotten lately? Yeah. That about summed it up.
"I told you," Karen Sue said as soon as Dr. Alistair was out of earshot, "that violence is never the answer."
I glanced at her sourly. "Hey, Karen Sue," I said.
She looked at me warily. "What?"
I made a gesture with my finger that caused her to gasp and go stalking off.
I noticed that a lot of the other counselors who were still standing there seemed to find it quite amusing, however.
C H A P T E R
10
He was late.
I stood on the side of the road, trying not to notice the sweat that was prickling the back of my neck. Not just the back of my neck, either. There was a pool of it between my boobs. I'm serious.
And I wasn't too comfortable in my jeans, either.
But what choice did I have? I'd learned the hard way never to ride a motorcycle in shorts. The scar was gone, but not the memory of the way the skin of my calf, sizzling against the exhaust pipe, had smelled.
Still, it had to be a hundred degrees on that long, narrow road. There were plenty of trees, of course, to offer shade. Hell, Camp Wawasee was nothing but trees, except where it was lake.
But if I stood in the trees, Rob might not see me when he came roaring up, and he might whiz right on past, and precious moments might be lost. . . .
Not that it mattered. I was going to be fired anyway, on account of missing my one o'clock meeting with Dr. Alistair. I was willing to bet that by the time I got back, all my stuff would be packed up and waiting for me by the front gates. Kerplunk, she sunk, like junk, cha, cha, cha.
Sweat was beginning to drip from the crown of my head, beneath my hair and into my eyes, when I finally heard the far off sound of a motorcycle engine. Rob isn't the type to let a muffler go, so his Indian didn't have one of those annoyingly loud engines you can hear from miles away. I simply became aware of a sound other than the shrill whine of the cicadas that were in the tall grass along the side of the road, and then I saw him, clipping along at no mean pace.
I didn't have to—we were the only two people on the road for miles, Lake Wawasee being about as isolated, I was becoming convinced, as Ice Station Zebra—but I put my arm out, to make sure he saw me. I mean, he could have thought I was a mirage or something. It was one of those kind of blazingly hot sunny days when you looked down a long straight road and saw pools of water across it, even though, when you finally got to the pool, it had evaporated as if it had never been there … because, of course, it hadn't been. It had just been one of those optical illusions they talk about, you know, in human bio.
Rob came cruising up to me and then put out a booted foot to balance himself when he came to a stop. He looked, as always, impressively large, like a lumberjack or something, only more stylishly dressed.
And when he took off his helmet and squinted at me in the sunlight with those eyes—so pale blue, they were practically the same color gray as his bike's exhaust—and I drank in his sexily messed-up hair and his darkly tanned forearms, all I could think was that, bad as it had been, that whole thing with the lightning and Colonel Jenkins and all, it had actually been worth it, because it had brought me the hottest Hottie of them all, Rob.
Well, sort of, anyway.
"Hey, sailor," I said. "Give a girl a ride?"
Rob just gave me his trademark don't-mess-with-me frown, then popped open the box on the back of his bike where he keeps the spare helmet.
"Get on," was all he said, as he held the helmet out to me.
Like I needed an invitation. I snatched up the helmet, jammed it into place (trying not to think about my sweaty hair), then wrapped my arms around his waist and said, "Put the pedal to the metal, dude."
He gave me one last, half-disgusted, half-amused look, then put his own helmet back on.
And we were off.
Hey, it wasn't a big, wet one or anything, but "Get on" isn't bad. I mean, Rob may not be completely in love with me yet or anything, but he'd shown up, right? That had to count for something. I mean, I'd called him that morning, and said I needed him to drive for four hours, cross-country, to pick me up. And he'd shown up. He'd have had to find someone to cover for him at work, and explain to his uncle why he couldn't be there. He'd have had to buy gas, both for the trip to Chicago and then back again. He'd be spending a total of ten hours or so on the road. Tomorrow, he'd probably be exhausted.
But he'd shown up.
And I didn't think he was doing it because it was such a worthy cause, either. I mean, it was, and all, but he wasn't doing it for Keely.
At least … God, I hope not.
By two-thirty, we were cruising along Lake Shore Drive. The city looked bright and clean, the windows of the skyscrapers sparkling in the sunlight. The beaches were crowded. The songs playing from the car radios of the traffic we passed made it seem like we were a couple in a music video, or on a TV commercial or something. For Levi's, maybe. I mean, here we were, two total Hotties—well, okay, one total Hottie. I'm probably only Do-able—tooling around on the back of a completely cherried-out Indian on a sunny summer day. How much cooler could you get?
I guess if we'd noticed from the beginning we were being followed, that might have been cooler. But we didn't.
I didn't because I was busy experiencing one of those epiphanies they always talk about in English class.
Only my epiphany, instead of being some kind of spiritual enlightenment or whatever, was just this gush of total happiness because I had my arms around this totally buff guy I'd had a crush on since what seemed like forever, and he smelled really good, like Coast deodorant soap and whatever laundry detergent his mother uses on his T-shirts,
and he had to think that I was at least somewhat cute, or he wouldn't have come all that way to pick me up. I was thinking, if only this was how I could spend the rest of my life: riding around the country on the back of Rob's bike, listening to music out of other people's car radios, and maybe stopping every once in a while for some nachos or whatever.
I don't know what was occupying Rob's thoughts so much that he didn't see the white van on our tail. Maybe he was having an epiphany of his own. Hey, it could happen.
But anyway, what happened was, eventually we had to pull off Lake Shore Drive in order to get where Keely was, and little by little, the traffic thinned out, and we still didn't notice the van purring along behind us. I don't know for sure, of course, because we weren't paying attention, but I like to think it stayed at least a couple car lengths away. Otherwise, well, there's no other explanation for it. We're just idiots. Or at least I am.
Anyway, finally we pulled onto this tree-lined street that was one hundred percent residential. I knew exactly which one Keely was in, of course, but I made Rob park about three houses away, just to be on the safe side. I mean, that much I knew. That much I was paying attention to.
We stood in front of the place where Keely was staying. It was just a house. A city house, so it was kind of narrow. On one side of it ran a skinny alley. The other side was attached to the house next door. Keely's house hadn't been painted as recently as the one next to it. What paint was left on it was kind of peeling off in a sad way. I would call the neighborhood sketchy, at best. The small yards had an untended look to them. Grass grows fast in a humid climate like the one in northern Illinois, and needs constant attention. No one on this street seemed to care, particularly, how high their grass grew, or what kind of garbage lay in their yards for that grass to swallow.
Maybe that was the purpose of the high grass. To hide the garbage.
Rob, standing next to me as I gazed up at the house, said, "Nice-looking crack den."
I winced. "It's not that bad," I said.
"Yeah, it is," he said.
"Well." I squared my shoulders. I wasn't sweaty anymore, after having so much wind blown on me, but I soon would be, if I stood on that hot sidewalk much longer. "Here goes nothing."
I opened the gate in the low chain-link fence that surrounded the house, and strode up the cement steps to the front door. I didn't realize Rob had followed me until I'd reached out to ring the bell.
"So what exactly," he said, as we listened to the hollow ringing deep inside the house, "is the plan here?"
I said, "There's no plan."
"Great." Rob's expression didn't change. "My favorite kind."
"Who is it?" demanded a woman's voice from behind the closed door. She didn't sound very happy about having been disturbed.
"Hello, ma'am?" I called. "Hi, my name is Ginger Silverman, and this is my friend, Nate. We're seniors at Chicago Central High School, and we're doing a research project on parental attitudes toward children's television programming. We were wondering if we could ask you a few questions about the kinds of television programs your children like to watch. It will only take a minute, and will be of invaluable help to us."
Rob looked at me like I was insane. "Ginger Silverman?"
I shrugged. "I like that name."
He shook his head. "Nate?"
"I like that name, too."
Inside the house, locks were being undone. When the door was thrown back, I saw, through the screen door, a tall, skinny woman in cutoffs and a halter top. You could tell she'd once taken care to color her hair, but that that had sort of fallen by the wayside. Now the ends of her hair were blonde, but the two inches of it at the top were dark brown. On her forehead, not quite hidden by her two-tone hair, was a dark, crescent-moon-shaped scab, about an inch and a half long. Out of one corner of her mouth, which was as flat and skinny as the rest of her, dangled a cigarette.
She looked at Rob and me as if we had dropped down from another planet and asked her to join the Galaxian Federation, or something.
"What?" she said.
I repeated my spiel about Chicago Central High School—who even knew if there was such a place?—and our thesis on children's television programming. As I spoke, a small child appeared from the shadows behind Mrs. Herzberg—if, indeed, this was Mrs. Herzberg, though I suspected it was—and, wrapping her arms around the woman's leg, blinked up at us with big brown eyes.
I recognized her instantly. Keely Herzberg.
"Mommy," Keely said curiously, "who are they?"
"Just some kids," Mrs. Herzberg said. She took her cigarette out of her mouth and I noticed that her fingernails were very bleedy-looking. "Look," she said to us. "We aren't interested. Okay?"
She was starting to close the door when I added, "There's a ten-dollar remuneration to all participants. . . ."
The door instantly froze. Then it swung open again.
"Ten bucks?" Mrs. Herzberg said. Her tired eyes, under that crescent-shaped scab, looked suddenly brighter.
"Uh-huh," I said. "In cash. Just for answering a few questions."
Mrs. Herzberg shrugged her skinny shoulders, and then, exhaling a plume of blue smoke at us through the screen door, she went, "Shoot."
"Okay," I said eagerly. "Um, what's your daughter's—this is your daughter, isn't it?"
The woman nodded without looking down. "Yeah."
"Okay. What is your daughter's favorite television show?"
"Sesame Street," said Mrs. Herzberg, while her daughter said, "Rugrats," at the same time.
"No, Mommy," Keely said, nagging on her mother's shorts. "Rugrats."
"Sesame Street," Mrs. Herzberg said. "My daughter is only allowed to watch public television."
Keely shrieked, "Rugrats!"
Mrs. Herzberg looked down at her daughter and said, "If you don't quit it, I'm sending you out back to play."
Keely's lower lip was trembling. "But you know I like Rugrats best, Mommy."
"Sweetheart," Mrs. Herzberg said. "Mommy is trying to answer these people's questions. Please do not interrupt."
"Um," I said. "Maybe we should move on. Do you and your husband discuss with one another the kinds of television shows your daughter is allowed to watch?"
"No," Mrs. Herzberg said shortly. "And I don't let her watch junk, like that Rugrats."
"But, Mommy," Keely said, her eyes filled with tears, "I love them."
"That's it," Mrs. Herzberg said. She pointed with her cigarette toward the back of the house. "Outside. Now."
"But, Mommy—"
"No," Mrs. Herzberg said. "That's it. I told you once. Now go outside and play, and let Mommy talk to these people."
Keely, letting out a hiccuppy little sob, disappeared. I heard a screen door slam somewhere in the house.
"Go on," Mrs. Herzberg said to me. Then her eyebrows knit. "Shouldn't you be writing my answers down?"
I reached up to smack myself on the forehead. "The clipboard!" I said to Rob. "I forgot the clipboard!"
"Well," Rob says. "Then I guess that's the end of that. Sorry to trouble you, ma'am—"
"No," I said, grabbing him by the arm and steering him closer to the screen door. "That's okay. It's in the car. I'll just go get it. You keep asking questions while I go and get the clipboard."
Rob's pale blue eyes, as he looked down at me, definitely had ice chips in them, but what was I supposed to do? I went, "Ask her about the kind of programming she likes, Nate. And don't forget the ten bucks," and then I bounded down the steps, through the overgrown yard, out the gate …
And then, when I was sure Rob had Mrs. Herzberg distracted, I darted down the alley alongside her house, until I came to a high wooden fence that separated her backyard from the street.
It only took me a minute to climb up onto a Dumpster that was sitting there, and then look over that fence into the backyard.
Keely was there. She was sitting in one of those green plastic turtles people fill with sand. In her hand was a very dirty, very nak
ed Barbie doll. She was singing softly to it.
Perfect, I thought. If Rob could just keep Mrs. Herzberg busy for a few minutes …
I clambered over the fence, then dropped over the other side into Keely's yard. Somehow, in spite of my gymnast-like grace and James Bondian stealthiness, Keely heard me, and squinted at me through the strong sunlight.
"Hey," I said as I ambled over to her sandbox. "What's up?"
Keely stared at me with those enormous brown eyes. "You aren't supposed to be back here," she informed me gravely.
"Yeah," I said, sitting down on the edge of the sandbox beside her. I'd have sat in the grass, but like in the front yard, it was long and straggly-looking, and after my recent tick experience, I wasn't too anxious to encounter any more bloodsucking parasites.
"I know I'm not supposed to be back here," I said to Keely. "But I wanted to ask you a couple of questions. Is that okay?"
Keely shrugged and looked down at her doll. "I guess," she said.
I looked down at the doll, too. "What happened to Barbie's clothes?"
"She lost them," Keely said.
"Whoa," I said. "Too bad. Think your mom will buy her some more?"
Keely shrugged again, and began dipping Barbie's head into the sandbox, stirring the sand like it was cake batter, and Barbie was a mixer. The sand in the sandbox didn't smell too fresh, if you know what I mean. I had a feeling some of the neighborhood cats had been there a few times.
"What about your dad?" I asked her. "Could your dad buy you some more Barbie clothes?"
Keely said, lifting Barbie from the sand and then smoothing her hair back, "My daddy's in heaven."
Well. That settled that, didn't it?
"Who told you that your daddy is in heaven, Keely?" I asked her.
Keely shrugged, her gaze riveted to the plastic doll in her hands. "My mommy," she said. Then she added, "I have a new daddy now." She wrenched her gaze from the Barbie and looked up at me, her dark eyes huge. "But I don't like him as much as my old daddy."
My mouth had gone dry … as dry as the sand beneath our feet. Somehow I managed to croak, "Really? Why not?"