Help Wanted (2 page)

To Robin's utter dismay, a young man leaned out the window and gave her an easy grin, crossing his tanned arms and sweeping her casually with a pair of startling green eyes.

“You—you—” Robin stared down at her clothes, at the huge globs of mud splattered there. “Look what you've done to my sweater!”

“You
do
go to Lewis High, right?” His voice sounded amused, and as his eyes raked her again from head to foot, Robin felt herself blush furiously. “Fourth period English. You sit in the third row. Right beside that airhead who thinks everything's funny.”

This time the blush turned from fury to indignation.

“Her name is Faye, and she happens to be the smartest girl in the whole senior class.”

“Next to you, you mean,” he corrected with a chuckle. “Come on, get in.”

Robin drew herself up stiffly. “No, thank you.”

“You're gonna be late.”

“So?”

He watched her a moment, his grin widening slowly.

“Suit yourself,” he said, and as he roared off again, Robin just managed to avoid being drenched a second time. She was so angry she hardly noticed when the bushes rattled beside her and Faye's head thrust out beneath the dead leaves.

“Robin!” she shrieked. “Do you realize what you've
done!
”

“Yes. Turned down a ride with a total jerk.”

“
Parker Swanson!
That was Parker
Swanson!
In his expensive
car!
”

“Faye”—Robin gave her a withering look—“the guy called you an airhead.”

“So it means he noticed me!” Faye wriggled out onto the sidewalk and stood up, brushing herself off excitedly. “He knows who I am! He knows who
you
are! I don't believe this—we could have ridden to school with
Parker Swanson!
Everyone would have been so jealous. He might even have asked me out—before Vicki! I could have touched him!”

“Don't be ridiculous. Come on, I can feel more and more points slipping away on that math test—”

“Well, it's your fault!” Faye still looked slightly stunned. “It's your fault if I don't get asked out before Vicki does, and it's your fault if I flunk that stupid test 'Cause I'm late! You should have thought about that, Robin! There are other feelings to consider here besides yours, you know.”

Robin sighed, giving Faye a shove toward the shrubbery once more. “Trust me. You're better off without this guy. And what about poor Zak, the love of your life?”

“Just because I'm going with Zak doesn't mean I'm dead,” Faye grumbled, but she squeezed back through the fence and pulled Robin in after her. “And by the way, when you tell the girls about this, they're gonna think you made the whole thing up.”

“I wasn't planning on telling them.”

“Of course we have to tell them! Are you kidding?” Faye shot her an incredulous look as Robin grabbed her arm and gave her a push.

“Faye, come on—if we're late now, it's
your
fault!”

The girls began to run, dodging trees and low-hanging limbs and drifts of dead, soggy leaves. Mist hung in the air like a thin, pale curtain, distorting objects that lay beyond, indistinct, shapeless things crouching in damp shadows. As Robin stumbled over a fallen branch and dropped her books, Faye went on ahead, laughing back at Robin's clumsiness.

“Maybe Parker Swanson was right about you after all,” Robin called after her friend.

“What's that?” Faye retorted, still not bothering to stop.

Robin gritted her teeth and pulled one of her notebooks from the mud. She reached for her pen and saw that it was lying in a deep, smudged footprint half filled with water.

Maybe someone else has been using our shortcut
.

The thought made Robin uneasy, and she glanced quickly over her shoulder, half expecting someone to jump out at her from the fog.

“I said,” Faye's voice called back, startling her, “how was Parker Swanson right about me after all?”

Robin shrugged and wiped her pen off on one leg of her jeans. “About you being an airhead who thinks everything's—”

And then she stopped, her eyes widening, one hand frozen only inches above the ground.

For an endless moment she stared down at her fingertips, and then, slowly, she raised her hand toward her face and gazed at the thick streaks of red running down her fingers and along her open palm.

“Faye!” she cried.

“What is it?” Faye's voice sounded impatient and very faraway.

“Come here!”

Robin's gaze dropped once more to the ground. She saw the wide rut worn through the leaves—as though something heavy had been dragged there—and the dark red swashes, thick and jellylike swirled in the mud …

And as she reached out, trembling, to brush some leaves away, she saw the splintered twigs and bits of broken pinecones, all tangled together with clumps of dark hair.

F
or one long horrified moment Robin couldn't do anything but stare. She didn't even realize Faye had come up behind her until she heard the other girl's squeal at her back.

Faye gasped. “What
is
that?”

“I … I don't know …” Robin looked up at her friend in dismay. “I slipped and dropped my books and …”

“Is that
blood?
”

“It looks like—”

“And
hair?
”

“Well … I …”

“Cover it up before I get sick!”

Hastily Robin brushed the leaves back in place, nearly falling again as she tried to scramble up.

Faye grabbed her arm to steady her. “Are you okay?”

“Are you?” Robin's eyes were still riveted on that flattened trail in the leaves. It led off for several yards, then angled off through a dense grove of pines, disappearing beneath shadows and fog. “What are we going to do?” she murmured.

“Do?” Faye stared at her blankly. “What do you mean?”

“I mean—do we tell the Swansons about this?”

“About what? Trespassing?”

“Or do we go to the police?” Robin rushed on. “Should one of us stay here while the other gets help?”

“Why?” Faye's look turned slightly incredulous. “What are you talking about?”

Robin gazed at her friend a moment, then frowned. “Faye, am I missing something here? Or did you just see what I saw?”

“Some marks on the ground.” Faye jabbed a finger downward. “Some hair—”

“Faye—” Robin began, but the other girl cut her off.

“Robin, what's the matter with you? Do you think the Swansons even care if some poor animal gets killed on their property? Skaggs probably shoots anything on four legs and eats it for breakfast.”

“Animal?” This time it was Robin's turn to look surprised. “You think this was an … animal?”

“Well, what did
you
think it was?”

Faye held her friend's eyes for a long moment, then began slowly shaking her head.

“Oh, Robin … come on, now …”

“But—that blood—and—and—the hair—”

“Let's not stop to think about the details of the struggle, okay?” Faye made a face. “Survival of the fittest, Robin, remember? I bet it was a raccoon and some dogs. Raccoons are always coming around raiding our garbage cans, and Dad won't let us near them. He says they're really mean fighters.”

Robin was still staring at the indentation in the leaves. Faye grabbed her sleeve and shook it.

“Come on—I'd like to at least
try
to pass that math test this morning, okay? Please?”

Robin gave a vague nod and followed as her friend hurried away. Faye was right, of course, she argued with herself—those smears of blood and that hair had only been the remains of some unfortunate animal. What had she been thinking of, anyway?

But that path through the leaves … it was so wide … so mashed down … that dead animal would had to have been awfully big
.…

With a sheer act of will Robin forced the suspicions from her mind and ran to catch up with Faye. By the time they reached school, they'd already missed homeroom, so after a quick stop at the office, the girls dashed into math class, receiving a warning glare from Mrs. Grouse as they collected their tests. Breathing a sigh of relief, Robin slipped into her desk and caught a wink from the long-haired boy slouched next to her.

“You lead a charmed life, Bailey,” Walt murmured under his breath.

Robin smiled and lowered her head, trying to concentrate on her test paper. No one ever called Theodore Waltermize by his real name. Tall and soft-spoken, Walt was an enigma Robin hadn't been able to figure out even though he'd transferred to Lewis High at the start of the school year. He wasn't handsome in that breathtaking way Parker Swanson was, yet there was something equally intriguing about him—his sandy hair, for one thing, hanging thick and wavy past his shoulders; his customary outfit of threadbare jeans and faded workshirt; the steady calm of his brown eyes; and his square stubborn jaw. She knew a lot of girls were attracted to him, because he was a main topic of fantasizing at lunch and sleepovers and in the girls' locker room—and yet she never saw Walt with a date or even hanging out much with the other guys. A lot of her friends thought he was a brain, and therefore unapproachable, and some suspected he was really a narc because his uncle used to work on the local police force, but Robin thought that maybe he was just shy. Now, as she risked a glance in Walt's direction, she saw that he was still watching her, and she dropped her eyes back to her paper.

Time passed too quickly. Before she'd quite managed to finish the math test, Robin heard the bell ring, and she hastily scribbled a guess to the last problem. The room had already emptied by the time she handed in her paper. She went out glumly and found Faye waiting for her in the hall.

“So what'd you think?” Faye ran one hand back through her bleached hair and tossed her head, model-style. “Did you know anything?”

“Foreign language.” Robin sighed. “Come on. I've got to stop at my locker.”

“Me, too. We should have just taken our time this morning. Saved Mrs. Grouse the trouble of flunking us.”

Faye's locker was right beneath Robin's at the very end of the hall. While Faye knelt on the floor and began pulling out an impossible stash of books and papers, Robin wandered across the corridor, to the gigantic bulletin board on the wall. There was likely to be
anything
posted here—as Robin's eyes traveled slowly across the hodgepodge of clutter, she saw personal messages, cartoons, and drawings; official announcements from the teachers and the principal; poems and quotes for the day; schedules of club meetings and sports events; newspaper and magazine clippings; even telephone numbers. A girl had lost her purse in the cafeteria. Someone was offering baby-sitting services; another needed tutoring in biology. Someone else had found an earring and hung it on a push pin. There were a bunch of faded photographs from the last class picnic—one of Vicki in her too-tight sweatshirt—another of Faye eating a hotdog—Walt alone, leaning against a tree—plus one of herself smiling that she had no idea who had taken.

And then she saw the ad.

It had been ripped from the morning paper and was practically buried beneath the photographs, yet the bold black print seemed to speak just to her:

 

HELP WANTED

GET RICH QUICK

DETAIL-ORIENTED STUDENT FOR CATALOGING
PERSONAL LIBRARY

NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY

555-4357

Robin's heart leapt, yet she forced herself to go back and read the ad through one more time. Detail work and books—two things she loved! An absolute dream job, it sounded like—
so of course someone's probably snatched it up by now—just my luck
.… Still, it couldn't hurt to call and find out. She pulled the paper off the bulletin board and stuck it in her pocket just as Faye came up juggling an armload of notebooks.

“Have you seen Vicki?” Faye frowned. “Is she sick or something?”

Robin stopped and thought a minute. “She's always sick when there's a math test. You know that.”

“Well, she'd better show up sometime today,” Faye grumbled. “She was supposed to bring back that bracelet I loaned her. The little thief.”

“Why is she a thief if you loaned it to her?”

“Because she'll keep conveniently leaving it at home until I forget about it.”

“Then don't forget about it.”

“Well, I have so much on my mind!” Faye complained. “I can't remember
everything
that's important!”

“How about which class you have this hour,” Robin deadpanned. “Social studies? Gym? Just blink once for yes, twice for no.”

She opened her mouth to say more, but Faye grabbed her arm and hustled her off to class.

Robin could hardly wait for three-fifteen. Faye had been quick to spread the word about their morning encounter with Parker Swanson, and all day long Robin had had to endure glances of half envy, half disbelief from her female classmates. She supposed she should have been flattered by all the curious attention, but today it only irritated her, and when Parker made a point of waving at her in English class, she slid down in her seat, all too conscious of every girl in the room staring.