Part 6 (1/2)
”You're making that up,” Debbie said belligerently. ”You don't see anything.”
The crazy thing was, though, that suddenly Sarah did see something. She saw a man and a girl entwined in each other's arms. And she saw where they were. For a moment the shadows lifted and there was a very clear image of the girl, who did look a little like Debbie, and the man, who was turned away from her, so that Sarah could not get a good view of him, standing in a building that appeared to be a bus terminal. Both were wearing backpacks, and next to them stood two suitcases.
”I see your sister with a man named Buzz Tyson,” Sarah said. ”They're kissing, and I think they're at a bus station.”
”What a witch you are!” Debbie exploded. She leaped to her feet, deliberately kicked over her chair, and stalked out of the room in a fury.
CHAPTER.
EIGHT.
”RUMOR HAS IT THAT Madam Zoltanne's powers extend beyond Halloween,” Charlie commented as Sarah scrambled into his station wagon on Monday morning. He was wearing a worn plaid jacket with patches at the elbows.
”How did you hear that?” Sarah asked in astonishment. She had not seen Charlie since Friday, as his mother had driven the paper route on the weekend.
”Word gets around,” Charlie said as they drove south on Windsor. ”I stopped by the Burger Barn on Sat.u.r.day, and Danny Adams was there spouting his mouth off at the next table. He was telling his friends how his girlfriend wasn't with him because-in capital letters-SHE'S A VEGETARIAN. Wouldn't darken the door of a place that cooks dead animals. And then he jumped from there to how he and Jennifer got their fortunes told and how Jennifer got all uptight about the stuff you knew about her that you had no way of knowing. What's the deal? Have you opened your own business?”
”Well, sort of,” Sarah said. ”It's just for kicks. It was Eric's idea.”
”It would be,” Charlie said with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm.
”What's that supposed to mean?”
”Eric pulls stunts like that. He does it to spite his father, the head of the prestigious law firm of Garrote, Vulture, and Chapstick.”
”They can't be called that!” Sarah exclaimed incredulously.
”I'm kidding,” Charlie said. ”Haven't you figured out by this time that I do a lot of that? Fat people have to, it's part of our image. The law firm is Garrett, Venture, and Chapman. Eric's been primed to step into it since he was in preschool. Why else would he run for every school office there is? It's tough to get into an Ivy League college if you're a graduate of Pine Crest High. You've got to stand out from the herd.”
”That doesn't explain why he'd come up with an offbeat money-making scheme.”
”That's the other side of him.” Charlie slowed the car so that she could toss a paper onto a lawn. ”You must have done a great job with your mumbo jumbo. Danny sounded pretty shook up.”
”Almost everything I told Danny was what Jennifer leaked to me,” Sarah said. ”She probably doesn't realize how much she told me.”
”Who else did you read for?” Charlie asked her.
”Debbie Rice,” Sarah said, sending the paper sailing directly into a picket fence. ”I'm sorry. That was a bad throw. Shall we stop so that I can go get it?”
”There's no time, they'll just have to live with it,” Charlie said. And then, with more concern, ”You did a reading for Debbie?”
”Yes,” Sarah said. ”She came in with a chip on her shoulder, and when she left, she called me a witch.”
”Why would she say that?”
”Well, I was dressed like one, for one thing.”
”You weren't dressed like a witch at the carnival.”
”This was a different costume,” Sarah told him. ”Actually, though, I don't think it was the costume she was referring to. She meant it as an insult. I told her something she didn't want to hear.”
Charlie slowed, and she pitched another paper. This throw was an improvement over the last one; the paper landed on the lawn.
”You could be causing some problems for yourself,” Charlie said.
”How so?”
”Pine Crest is a conservative town.”
”So Ted's told us,” Sarah said. ”It seems to me it's a hypocritical sort of conservatism.”
”You got that right. Take that sweet bunch of cheerleaders, for instance, with the minister's daughter at their head. They're all of them in the church youth group and sing in the choir, and b.u.t.ter wouldn't melt in their mouths when they're around adults. But do you know where they hold their innocent little soft-drink-and-cookie get-togethers? At the party spot up on the hill where the football guys throw keggers after the games. From what I hear, a lot of stuff goes on up there that you'd think the school would catch on to. But Mr. Prue's a real expert at looking the other way.”
”I hadn't heard about those, but I do know that Ted is paying rent on an apartment he doesn't stay in just to keep up appearances,” Sarah said. ”I can't believe his friends and neighbors are that gullible. Everybody must know he's actually living at our house.”
”They may not want to know that.”
”What do you mean?”
”If they knew it, they'd have to do something about it,” Charlie said. ”For one thing, Mr. Thompson would lose his job. n.o.body wants that. What they want is for him to repent and go back to his wife, which he usually does after a month or so. You're right when you say it's a hypocritical sort of conservatism. But it's in keeping with the standards of the town.” He changed the subject abruptly. ”You missed that last house.”
”Are we going back for it?”
”Of course we're going back for it. Hanging a paper on the fence is one thing, missing a house is another.”
”I wouldn't have missed it if we hadn't been talking so much,” Sarah said irritably. ”I don't see anything so terrible about telling a few fortunes. People know when they come that it's just entertainment.”
”All I said was be careful,” Charlie said. ”You could be headed for trouble, especially if you tell fortunes wearing a witch costume. This town isn't just conservative, it's downright dangerous.”
”I happen to think you're being paranoid.”
”I've got reason to think I'm not, but okay, I'll keep my mouth shut.”
They completed the route with little further conversation, and Charlie dropped her off at her house. As she got out of the car, Sarah was tempted to apologize for snapping at him-after all, he did seem to be sincerely concerned about her-but decided to let it go. It was bad enough to have Ted ordering her around without having Charlie start in on it too.
When she entered the kitchen, she found Rosemary and Ted seated at the kitchen table drinking coffee and working on a package of Sara Lee breakfast rolls.
”So, how's the papergirl?” Ted asked her in a friendly manner.
”Fine,” Sarah said coolly, and then, addressing herself to her mother, ”How's the arm this morning?”
”Much less painful,” Rosemary told her. ”I have an appointment to go to the doctor this afternoon to get the dressing changed.”