Josie Griffin Is Not a Vampire (8 page)

My mouth fell open then spread into a huge smile. “Duuuuuude,” I whispered. “I know! Weird, right?”

“So weird,” she whispered. “And you want to know what’s weirder?”

“What?”

She stepped closer to me. “Her name is actually Maron.”

I guffawed, loud and stupid. “Shut up.”

“For reals. I’ve been calling her Sharon Osbourne in my head for a week now.”

“That’s awesome,” I said, then I stuck out my hand. “I’m Josie.”

“Kayla,” she said. “But I think I’m going to skip shaking your toilet brush hand.”

I laughed and wiped my hand on the back of my
cutoffs. “Good idea. Have you done this before?” I asked, studying my brush.

“I’m a toilet virgin,” she declared.

“Me, too!” I lifted my brush like a soldier. “Let’s do this thing.” I used the bristly end to push open a stall door. The hinge squeaked and I cringed, expecting Armageddon of the Butt. When I stepped inside, I was surprised. “It’s not so bad,” I told Kayla as I squeezed Mr. Clean into the bowl. Just to be spiteful, I gave it an extra squirt. “Guess girls aren’t such slobs, but if we were working at a guys’ shelter…”

“Hey!” Maron Osbourne shouted from the hall. Kayla and I both popped out of the stalls and saw her glaring at us from the doorway again only this time she had a girl who looked about twelve with her. “Stop your gabbing and get back to work!” she yelled. “What do you think this is, Dunkin’ Donuts?”

So help me Lord, I couldn’t stop myself. “I’ll take two glazed and a coffee,” I said.

Kayla ducked her head but I could hear her muffled snorts beside me.

Maron crossed her arms over her ample chest. I swore her dyed hair was going to burst into flames as she glared at me with those witchy eyes. “Kayla,” she barked, and Kayla jumped. “Come with me. I have a job for you and Sadie.”

Kayla handed me her toilet brush along with a look of pity then she scurried across the floor. The other girl, Sadie, clung to Kayla’s arm like a frightened toddler, but
who could blame her with Maron-Sharon running the show. “And you,” Mrs. Osbourne said to me, “can finish cleaning the bathrooms on your own.”

After they were gone, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and took a picture of myself with two toilet brushes. At least that would be good for a laugh on my blog.

When my first three-hour shift was over (and all the toilet bowls sparkled) I looked for Maron Osbourne to sign my official community-service time sheet. I found her at the receptionist desk, under the
HELPING AMERICAN GIRLS
sign, reading the
National Enquirer
.

“My aunt JoJo loves that magazine,” I told her as I slid my time sheet across the desk. Of course, JoJo and I read the
Enquirer
to laugh ourselves silly, but I got the feeling Maron might have read it for real by the way she narrowed her eyes at me.

“They break a lot of stories no one else has the guts to report,” she told me.

“I want to be an investigative reporter,” I said, leaning on the desk.

She raised one eyebrow.

“Really. I’m trying to get into University of Chicago to study journalism.”

The other eyebrow went up and Maron leaned forward to stare at me. “I think Ms. Babineaux sent me the wrong kind of girl.”

I stood up straight. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means, I don’t need your attitude here, missy.”

I stepped back. “What attitude?”

“That one,” she said.

“I don’t have an attitude,” I assured her. “I just want to finish my community service before the school year starts, then I can get on with my life. So if you’ll just sign my time sheet…”

Maron picked up a pen but she didn’t sign. “Listen, I don’t need some rich, entitled spoiled brat to come in here and get nibby.”

“Jeez,” I whined, kind of hurt by her baseless accusations. “I’m not spoiled. My parents are teachers. I made a mistake once. Now I’m paying for it.”

She pointed the pen at me. “You come in here, do your work, and leave. Got it? You’re not here to make friends with these girls. You’re not here to save them. Keep your nose out of everybody’s business, or I’ll make sure Ms. Babineaux reassigns you. And let me tell you, picking up trash on the side of the road with a bunch of sex offenders won’t be a cake walk like scrubbing toilets.”

“God,” I said. “Fine.”

I could see a little smirk on Maron’s maroon lips as she scrawled her name across my time sheet. I grabbed it from her and headed for the lounge where my bag was in a locker by a bank of beat-up old computers.

I muttered to myself about what a bee-yatch Maron was because I thought I was alone until I walked past one of the faded couches and saw Kayla laying down
reading a battered copy of
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
.

“Hey,” I said. “That’s one of my favorite books.”

She slammed the book closed and sat up. “Are you joking?”

“No, why would that be a joke?” I asked her.

She bit the side of her lip and shrugged. “Guess it wouldn’t. It’s just that, most people make fun of me for reading.”

“Most people are idiots,” I said.

Kayla smiled. “For a rich entitled brat, you sure are good at scrubbing toilets.”

“Are you making fun of me now?” I asked, hand on my hip.

She laughed. “What’d you do to set Ozzy’s wife off like that? She ripped you a new one.”

“I know, right?” I said, rolling my eyes. “She must have it in for me.”

“Watch out or she’ll send you a box of poo,” Kayla said, and we both snickered then looked over our shoulders to make sure Maron wasn’t behind us with a set of brass knuckles.

“You’re not an actual HAG, are you?” Kayla asked.

“A hag?” I asked. “I’d hope not!”

She pointed to the sign on the wall. “Didn’t you notice? Helping. American. Girls.”

I swallowed a giggle. “Oh my god. It is HAG.”

“That’s what the girls who live here call ourselves,” she explained.

“Nice,” I said. “Can I be an honorary HAG? I am court ordered to be here. Community service for the screwup.”

“Well,” Kayla said, considering. “I’d have to teach you the secret handshake and…”

We were interrupted by Maron who bustled into the lounge carrying an overstuffed backpack dripping clothes and shoes from its exploding sides. “Hey you!” she yelled, pointing straight at me. “Your shift is over.”

“Sorry,” I said stepping away from Kayla who quickly ducked down on the couch and stuck her face into her book. “I was just…”

“You were just leaving,” Maron told me, and I agreed. She pushed through the back door and I caught a glimpse of her opening the Dumpster before the door slammed closed.

“That was Rhonda’s stuff,” Kayla said quietly. “Maron made me and Sadie get it all together.”

“Who’s Rhonda?” I asked.

“Another HAG,” Kayla said. Worry crossed her brow. “She’s the second girl to disappear since I’ve been here.”

I shrugged. “It
is
a place for runaways, isn’t it?”

Kayla scowled at me. “Yeah, but Rhonda was just getting herself together. She signed up for GED classes and got a part-time job at 7-Eleven then things started to get weird with her.” She looked around nervously.

“You guys were good friends?” I asked.

She nodded. “It doesn’t make any sense. Why would she leave without her stuff?”

“I don’t know, maybe she just…” I trailed off because I had no explanation.

Kayla looked up sharply. “She was scared.”

“Of what?” I asked.

Kayla drew in a breath as if she was going to explain something but then she thought better of it. She shook her head and looked away.

“I’m sorry your friend took off,” I said. “Look, um…” I dug around in my bag for a pen and paper and scribbled my cell number. “I could lend you
Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters
, if you want.” I handed her the paper. “It’s a good read and…”

A loud pounding shook the back door. “Open the door!” Maron yelled. “I got locked out.”

Kayla and I looked at each other and cracked up. “Should I leave her out there?” Kayla asked. “Let the lunatics take over the asylum?”

“She’d just come in through the front,” I said.

“I’m not sure she’s that smart,” Kayla said. “But I probably shouldn’t wait to find out, which means you should get out of here.” She smiled down at the contact info I gave her and placed it carefully between two pages of her book. “Thanks for this.”

“Sure thing,” I called as I ran for the front entrance. “See you next week!”

w
hen I stepped into the late afternoon humidity, I hesitated before heading to my car. Something didn’t add up here. Kayla was right. It would be strange for one of the girls to take off and leave her stuff. And even stranger that Maron wouldn’t keep shoes and clothes in case another runaway showed up without any luggage. Plus the whole thing seemed to freak Kayla out and that bothered me. These girls might be runaways, but that didn’t mean their lives were disposable. I probably should have left right then, but I had that feeling like someone was being wronged and I didn’t want to walk away from injustice. So against my better judgment, I slipped around to the back of HAG to see exactly what Maron had thrown away.

I found the big green Dumpster by the back door and just as I was about to lift the lid, I heard the door open. Quickly I slid between the Dumpster and a brick
wall because if Maron caught me snooping she’d have me spearing trash on the side of the road in a nano-second. Note to self: never hide behind a Dumpster on a sweltering August day again. Three words: stink, stank, stunk!

However, crouching back there gave me a perfect view of who was walking out of HAG—none other than Atonia Babineaux, my social worker, which seemed kind of odd. She had her phone pressed to her ear. “I’ll be there in five minutes,” she said as she walked by. She hung up and practically skipped across the pavement. Her skin was rosy, her hair was soft and silky, and she looked vibrant. A far cry from the withered old woman I met in her office the other day. Either she really hated her social work job or the lighting in her building was truly evil. As she passed the Dumpster, I heard a cell phone ring. I expected to hear her pick up, but instead, she stopped and turned around and I panicked. Was it mine? I squished my bag against my body to muffle the noise, because it would be mighty hard to explain to my social worker what the heck I was doing behind a Dumpster. Then I realized it wasn’t my ringtone. It didn’t seem to be hers either because she walked toward the Dumpster with a quizzical look on her face. I pushed myself farther against the wall but luckily, instead of coming around to the side, where she could have seen me, Ms. Babineaux stepped in front. I heard squeaking metal as she lifted the lid and the ringing got louder. Obviously it was coming from inside the trash bin. Who
would throw away a perfectly good cell phone? Ms. Babineaux must have been wondering the same thing because she stood there, muttering, “What the…?” until the ringing stopped and the phone beeped twice as if it had gotten a voice message. The Dumpster rattled as the lid crashed down.

Ms. Babineaux huffed, then stomped off, growling, “I don’t have time for this.” I stayed hidden until I heard a car door slam and an engine start. I peered out and saw her pull away in a gray Prius. I slid out from behind the Dumpster, my heart still revving like the Indy pace car. I could almost feel the bacteria from my gross hiding place crawling over my skin and entering every bodily orifice. Would Graham Goren hide behind a Dumpster for a story? Probably. Even if he ended up with hanta-virus and Ebola and stank like fourteen-day-old cabbage and sweaty jockey shorts. I heard the phone ring again. I was about to lift the lid to find it when Maron’s loud barking voice came through the back door.

“Fine! Fine!” she shouted. “I’ll take care of it.”

I made a mad dash out of there.

As I was running back to Gladys, I realized why Tarren said it wasn’t fair that she lived down here while Helios lived on the posh north side. I could tell that the hood used to be a nice place, like a hundred years ago, because the houses were huge and the yards were bigger. But between the abandoned buildings, weed-choked lots, and the run-down Victorians, there wasn’t
much else to see. Least of all people. You’d think the whole place had been deserted. I slowed down and caught my breath.

When I rounded the corner toward my car I saw a group of guys my age hanging out in front of a fried chicken joint. They looked harmless enough, jacking around with one another, but still, there should be a law against males between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five hanging out in groups of more than three. Put a bunch of girls together and we’ll combine our brainpower to make us smarter (and meaner, as I found out first hand). But if you put a group of guys together, they drain each other’s brain capacity straight into their pants and start thinking with their wieners, especially if a girl in shorts walked by. I considered crossing the street, but Gladys was only half a block past these jokers, so I’d have to cross the street, walk down half a block, and cross back, which would be weird. I decided to duck my head and plow past them quickly. Plus I could see some people hanging out on a front porch down the street. Surely these guys wouldn’t act too stupid.

Or not.

“Hey, baby,” one of them said as soon as I got near them.

I kept walking, head down, car keys ready in my pocket.

“I said, hey, baby.” A tall, lanky guy blocked my path. I could see his red boxers hanging out of his low-riding jean shorts and he had his Colts hat on cockeyed
so only one lazy brown eye with a silver hoop above the brow was visible.

“Excuse me,” I said firmly then I tried to step around, but he sidestepped and stayed in front of me as if he were guarding me on a basketball court. “I never seen you around here.” The other guys snorted like the pigs that they were. “You live nearby? Maybe we could hang out.”

“No, thanks,” I said and stepped the other way, but he was quick and got in front of me before I could pass him. I stopped and put my hands on my hips. Most idiots back down the minute you confront them so I said, “I’m trying to get by.”