Part 10 (1/2)
”We don't want somebody like this in Pine Crest,” Debbie said. ”Cindy, why don't you tell your father about it? Maybe he could perform an exorcism or something.”
”I can't do that,” Cindy said. ”He'd want to know how I knew, and I'd have to confess that I had my fortune told. My dad would be so furious, he'd disown me. A minister's daughter doesn't go to a fortune-teller.”
”What about sending him an anonymous note?” Jennifer suggested. ”We could give him the address and time of Sarah's next reading, and he could walk in on her and discover for himself what she's doing.”
”That won't work,” Kyra said. ”She's quitting the business.” The minute the words were out, she longed to s.n.a.t.c.h them back. She was not supposed to know that Sarah was telling fortunes.
To her great relief, her slip went unnoticed.
”Why?” Leanne asked her. ”It seemed to be going great guns.”
”I'm not sure why. I think ...” Kyra groped for an answer. ”I think Eric fired her.”
”He fired her!” Jennifer exclaimed. ”I thought he was going out with her! Danny and I saw the two of them at the movies, and he had his arm around her and everything.”
”He took her out once, just to keep her happy,” Kyra said. ”As cla.s.s president he kind of felt he owed her something because he thought she was earning all this money for the cla.s.s.” Kyra was in too deep, and she knew it, but there was no turning back, so she mentally crossed herself and plunged ahead with the story. ”Then he found out she was actually pocketing it herself. I mean, every penny they brought in, she was sticking in her purse! When Eric discovered that, he totally blew her off. He told her he didn't want anything more to do with her.”
”That's just as well,” Misty said. ”We wouldn't want any of our parents going over there. If we exposed the fortune-telling racket, our names would come out. And so would all the things she said about us in her readings. We wouldn't want that. I mean, some of that stuff was very personal.”
”She said stuff about our families too,” another girl said nervously. ”She told me something about my brother, the one who's away at college, that n.o.body knows-absolutely n.o.body-and my parents would be sure to think that I was the one who told her. There would go my driving privileges for the rest of my life!”
”So it's up to us to get rid of her ourselves,” Debbie said. ”Maybe if we put a little pressure on her, she and her mother will get on their broomsticks and go back where they came from. What would you say to that, Kyra?”
”I can't think of anything that would make me happier,” Kyra said. She smiled at her beautiful new friends, wis.h.i.+ng she knew them well enough to hug them.
On Wednesday morning, when Sarah Zoltanne went to her locker at the end of third period to get her gym clothes, she found a sheet of paper stuck in the crack under the door. When she pulled it out and unfolded it, she found that it was a hand-drawn sketch of a gallows.
CHAPTER.
TWELVE.
SARAH WAITED UNTIL AFTER dinner to tell them about it, in order to spare Rosemary, who set great store by a pleasant dinner hour. It was as if it had been so long since she had had a man to please that she took what Sarah considered an inappropriate amount of delight in doing everything up perfectly, including a cloth and linen napkins and candles on the table.
Sarah thought this obsession might also have something to do with the fact that her mother had to be bored out of her mind with nothing to do all day but look at the walls. In the beginning, the move and unpacking, the painting of the rooms and arrangement of furniture, had kept her occupied. Now, however, these initial challenges were over. Her busy career and a.s.sortment of cultural interests lay behind her, along with all the friends she had left back in Ventura, and she had little to do all day except cook and count the hours until Ted and Sarah got home.
Even the ”romantic” evenings appeared deadly to Sarah, as Ted seemed perfectly content to spend the after-dinner hours reading, grading student papers, or watching football on television.
So because of its importance to her mother, Sarah had honored the sanct.i.ty of the dinner hour. Now, however, as Ted settled himself on the sofa and reached for the TV section of the paper, she said, ”Before you flick on the b.o.o.b tube, Ted, I have something to show you.”
She handed him the sketch of the gallows.
”What's this?” Ted asked, glancing at it without much interest.
”What does it look like to you?”
”A gallows.”
”That's what it looks like to me too,” Sarah said. ”Do you know where I found it? Stuck in the crack of my locker.”
”Who put it there?” Rosemary asked, coming to stand where she could look over Ted's shoulder.
”Who do you think?”
”You're getting into a very annoying habit of answering a question with a question, Sarah,” Ted said. ”If you know who put it there, say so. If you don't, say you don't. Which is it?”
”I don't know for a fact,” Sarah admitted, ”but I think it's ninety-nine to one that it's a message from your darling daughter that she and her mother wish Rosemary and I were dead.”
”What a terrible thing to say!” her mother exclaimed.
”I'm saying it because it's true.”
”Kyra is not that kind of person,” Ted said, struggling to control his anger. ”Admittedly she is having some problems adjusting to my relations.h.i.+p with Rosemary, but you at least should understand that. You've made it very clear that you would like to see our relations.h.i.+p fail so that you and your mother can regress to the interdependent life the two of you led before I came on the scene. And Kyra is worried about her own mother's feelings, which is admirable, under the circ.u.mstances, since Sheila appears to be hurting. But Kyra would never send anybody a mean-spirited cartoon.”
”You have no idea what Kyra would do,” Sarah said.
”I know my daughter,” Ted said tersely. ”Kyra's not the type to play practical jokes on people.”
”You consider this a joke?”
”Of course it's a joke,” Ted said. ”High-school kids are always playing pranks on each other. You're far too thin-skinned, Sarah. There are plenty of interpretations you could have put on this, and you picked the worst possible one.”
”What other interpretations could there be?” Sarah demanded.
”Hang loose?” her mother suggested.
”What?”
”A play on words. Hang loose. Be cool. That kind of thing. Or-I know!” She laughed, and Sarah could have sworn there was a note of relief in the laughter. Her mother had been more worried than she had let on. ”The subject you chose for your history-cla.s.s paper was the Salem witch-hunt. You told us yourself that you and Charlie Gorman pounced on that subject and that Charlie stripped the library of reference books. This drawing is a not very subtle message from some very irritated cla.s.smate who also wanted the chance to write a paper on that subject.”
”T-That's ridiculous,” Sarah sputtered.
”Actually it wasn't a very nice thing for Charlie to do,” Rosemary continued. ”To take out all those books so that other students wouldn't have an opportunity to use them.”
” *All those books' means three,” Sarah said. ”The high-school library in this d.i.n.ky little town is the pits.”
”That's why it's important to get materials read and returned as quickly as possible,” Ted said. ”The librarian told me there was a tremendous demand for those books from students who wanted to write on the subject the teacher highlighted.”
”It wasn't highlighted,” Sarah said.
”Don't talk back to me,” Ted said. ”How are you coming with the research? Are you finished with the books yet?”
”This sketch is not by somebody who's mad about the history a.s.signment!” Sarah exclaimed, furious at herself for having allowed the subject to be redirected. ”The person who drew this sketch was not being cute! This person is vicious!”