The Wish (Nightmare Hall) (6 page)

It was wonderful to hear her joking.

She did fall silent when she learned that Gabe was leaving the hospital the following day, on crutches. “I’ll miss him,” she said after a minute. “He’s been keeping me company. But there’s no reason for him to stay here. And,” she added in a more cheerful tone, “he said he’d come see me a lot.”

“Well, good,” Jenny said, “because I’m going to have to cut back on my visiting time. I hate to, but I’m getting so far behind in my work, Jules. I’ll still come, but—”

“No problem,” Julie said hastily. “You were practically becoming a live-in resident here. Anyway, I can’t have company during Mystery Theater, too distracting.” She laughed.

But Alex thought the laugh sounded hollow. Maybe it was because of the bandages.

“So, you won’t mind if I go to the game Saturday?” Jenny asked her sister.

“No, of course not. Don’t be silly. I want you to go. At least there’ll be one Pierce twin cheering for the team. Gabe won’t be playing, but I know he’ll be there. I’ll tell him to look for you, Jenny. And Bennett might be playing.”

“No way,” Marty corrected. “He was on crutches again yesterday.”

“Oh. Well, maybe next week. Anyway, you all have to cheer twice as loud to make up for me not being there, okay?”

Alex hated to leave. She had a feeling Julie felt much worse about being left in the hospital—especially now that Gabe was discharged—than she was letting on.

I would, too, if I were in her place, she thought, and gave Julie an extra hug before they all left the room and headed for Vinnie’s.

Vinnie’s was crowded. The lightning hadn’t scared anyone away. Maybe because they’ve all heard that lightning never strikes in the same place twice, Alex thought as they entered.

Kyle, Kiki, and Bennett were already seated. Much too close to The Wizard to suit Alex. They were right around the corner from it. She couldn’t see those creepy blue eyes on her while she ate, but she could feel them. She said nothing to anyone about her feelings. They all already knew, thanks to Jenny, that Alex needed a nightlight to sleep. Admitting that a stupid plaster statue made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end would convince them she should still be in a playpen. Or have her head examined.

Kyle seemed restless. “I don’t know why we always come here,” he complained. “The pizza isn’t all that great, and it’s so noisy I can’t hear myself think. Why can’t we go someplace quiet, for once?”

Alex glanced over at him. What was it that Kyle had on his mind, that he needed peace and quiet to think about? Was he remembering that he’d accidentally locked her in the booth last night? Maybe he was wondering if anything had happened because of his carelessness? Worried that Beth had found out and he was about to be fired?

“Oh, Kyle,” Kiki said coyly, “are you worried about the game Saturday? I heard State doesn’t have such a great team this year.”

Marty laughed. “Kiki, Kyle and I probably won’t even get in the game. Why would he be worried about it?”

Bennett said nothing. Alex felt sorry for him. It must be hard, when he wanted to play so bad, to already know that he had no chance at all.

Bennett said then, “We’ll all be there, whether we’re playing or not. It’s still our team.”

Marty and Kyle nodded solemn agreement.

When their food came, Alex noted with amusement that Kiki ate more pizza than anyone else at the table. No diet yet, apparently.

So she was surprised to notice, as they prepared to leave, that Kiki’s belt was loose.

“Kiki,” she pointed out quietly, “I think your belt’s broken.”

Kiki looked down. “No, it’s not.”

“But…”

Kiki fumbled with the buckle, adjusted the belt, and slipped into her red ski jacket. “I played four games of soccer this week, Alex. I’ve probably lost a few pounds, after all that racing around out on the field. It’s great exercise.”

Before they left, Marty insisted on seeking his fortune at the booth.

Alex tried to talk him out of it. “When you put a quarter in, The Wizard’s eyes light up,” she argued. “I hate that! It’s so creepy!” They were standing directly in front of the booth, and everything Alex had thought earlier about the figure being harmlessly ugly had disappeared from her mind, now that she was facing him. He really was creepy. “Anyway, it’s such a waste of money, Marty. Let’s just go.”

“C’mon—maybe this old codger can tell me how I’m going to fare with my soc speech. I wish I could get out of giving it. I’d rather do anything! Besides, what else can I buy for a quarter these days?”

He dropped the coin in the slot. When he picked up the small white card, he laughed. Holding it out to Alex, he said, “I guess you were right. Waste of money. I think this one was meant for Kyle.”

Alex looked down at the card he handed her and read, SILENCE IS GOLDEN. She groaned. “Another old bromide. I swear, my grandmother wrote every single one of these. And you’re right. Kyle was the one who wanted peace and quiet. I hate to say I told you so, but you have it coming, so…I told you so!”

On their way out of the restaurant, Marty tossed the little white card in the trash.

C
ATH DEVON CALLED ALEX
the following morning. “I wanted you to know why I didn’t show up,” she said anxiously. “I got a call telling me I didn’t need to come to the station, that you wanted to work a double shift. I thought that was kind of weird, but the guy who called seemed so…definite.”

“Who called you?” a half-asleep Alex asked.

“Well, the guy said he was Kyle. It didn’t really sound like him, but I’ve never talked to Kyle on the telephone before, so I don’t know.”

Alex struggled to clear her mind of the last remnants of sleep. Someone had called Cath and told her not to show up? Why would someone do that?

“Anyway,” Cath said, “I’m really sorry. I know I’m late sometimes, but I’d never just not show up, Alex.”

“I know that, Cath. And it’s okay. Not your fault. But…if it wasn’t Kyle, do you…do you have any idea who it was that called? I mean, did the voice sound like anyone you knew?”

“I’ve thought about that ever since Beth told me the call wasn’t for real, that it was probably a prank. And no, I didn’t recognize the voice, Alex. I’m sorry. I think now whoever was calling was deliberately trying to disguise his voice. With a tissue or something, like in the movies.”

When Alex didn’t say anything, Cath added, “Beth said you’re quitting. It’s not because of me, is it?”

“No, Cath, of course not.” Alex couldn’t bring herself to tell Cath about what had happened out on the deck. But she did ask, “Cath, has the wind off the observation deck ever bothered you at all?”

“The wind? Uh-uh.”

Darn.

“Beth probably told you we keep the doors open a lot because the booth gets so stuffy. But I don’t remember the wind ever getting nasty, Alex. Is that what happened?”

Beth hadn’t told her. Well, good. If Beth hadn’t, Alex certainly wasn’t going to. “I’m not sure
what
happened, Cath. Anyway, I’m fine now.”

“Alex, I really am sorry.”

“It’s okay, Cath. Thanks.”

When Alex had hung up, she sat down on her bed and thought about that observation deck outside the booth.

The radio station wasn’t the only thing on the eighteenth floor. There were other offices up there. And that deck went all the way around the building. The offices flanking the radio station must have been empty when she was being torn from the booth and bounced around the deck. Or someone in one of those offices would have heard her scream.

She had screamed, hadn’t she? She couldn’t remember. Maybe not. Maybe all anyone would have heard was that eerily whistling wind.

Shoving all thoughts of her terror from her mind, Alex got dressed and went to class.

That Saturday provided perfect weather for the football game: brisk, but not really cold, sunny with a clear, blue sky, and only the faintest of breezes.

The stadium was nearly full when Alex, Jenny, and Kiki arrived. Jenny had surprised Alex by putting on makeup, something she’d never done before, and curling her hair before leaving their room. Alex had to admit the effect was stunning. The hair that had always hung, straight, around her shoulders, was now a thick froth of curls that Jenny seemed to take delight in swinging and shaking, the way a woman with a new diamond ring waves her hand about frequently. In place of her customary jeans and sweatshirt, Jenny had dressed in a pair of Julie’s black leather pants and a thick peach-colored sweater.

“I’m just trying to cheer myself up,” Jenny said when she saw Alex’s mouth hanging open in shock. “Wearing Jules’s clothes makes me feel closer to her. And besides, she won’t mind if I wear them.”

Because Alex knew that was true, she said only, “You look really pretty.”

Jenny flushed with pleasure. And fastened a pair of Julie’s black onyx earrings in her earlobes.

They sat four rows up in the bleachers, directly behind the team bench, at Jenny’s insistence. “I want the guys to know we’re here, whether they get to play or not.”

Alex couldn’t argue with that.

She wasn’t that wild about the game itself. Too violent. She liked tennis and swimming and basketball, but football broke too many bones. What she did like about football was the atmosphere. Sitting in the stands, even when it was very, very cold and maybe even snowing, friends all around her, all of them there to cheer on their team. Drinking hot chocolate or cider, munching on hot dogs and chips, screaming at the top of her lungs, those were the things that brought her to the stadium. And if she held her breath during a particularly rough play, hoping like mad that no one would break an arm or a leg, she kept that fear to herself.

Milo Keith, Ian Banion, and Jessica Vogt, some other Nightingale Hall residents, were sitting right behind her. Milo was quiet, but he had a wicked sense of humor. Alex sat in front of him in English class, and occasionally laughed aloud at some of the remarks he made about their teacher, Professor Landis.

“I heard Bennett Stark might play today,” he said now.

“No way,” Ian replied. “I’d heard he might be playing, too, but I saw him before the game and he said he wasn’t ready yet. Seemed okay about it, though.”

Gabe, of course, wasn’t playing, either. But he was sitting on the bench with the team, his crutches propped up beside him.

At halftime, Alex was about to join the long line at the restroom when a voice over the loudspeaker announced, “Telephone for Alexandria Edgar. Telephone for Alexandria Edgar.”

Her first thought was
Julie
. Something’s happened to Julie. She’s worse…

She would have run to the nearest phone, but running was impossible in the throng making its way up the stadium steps. She pushed, crying out, “Excuse me, excuse me,” but couldn’t make herself heard over the noisy crowd. Finally, by leaving the steps and climbing over empty seats, she made her way to the upper deck of the stadium. That, too, was crowded, and no one seemed to know where the nearest phone was located.

Alex pushed and shoved her way through the long lines gathered at the refreshment stands, unable to get close enough to any vendor to ask for directions to a phone. Her name being repeated over the loudspeaker was maddening.

“I know, I know,” she muttered, “I hear you…I’m trying, I’m trying!”

Finally, a uniformed security guard pointed in response to her question, and she raced around a corner and grabbed the receiver off a black wall phone hidden in an alcove.

“This is Alex Edgar,” she cried into the mouthpiece. “I have a phone call?”

A woman’s voice said, “Right. Hold on.”

Expecting momentarily to hear Julie’s voice, Alex’s jaw dropped when instead, a deep, unfamiliar voice said in a dull monotone, without so much as a hello, “Hear me well, Alexandria. Are you listening?”

Stupified, Alex stared at the stone wall in front of her. “What?”

“Hear me well. Take me seriously, Alexandria, or you will regret it.”

No one called her Alexandria. No one. “Who is this?”

“Do not dispute the wisdom of the ages. Skepticism is dangerous. Heed me well.”

There was a click, and the dial tone sounded in Alex’s ear.

Slowly, Alex replaced the receiver. Weird. Who…?

She turned away from the phone and walked back around the corner. The crowd had thinned. She could hear the last faint notes of the band’s halftime show fading away. The game would be resuming. Time to get back to her seat. Time to watch the rest of the game…

If she could put the bizarre phone call out of her mind.

Alex moved slowly, thoughtfully, lost in a fog of confusion. She hadn’t recognized the voice. But it could have been disguised. Hadn’t it sounded a little like the voice at the radio station, the voice that had requested
Who’s Sorry Now
for Julie? She couldn’t be sure. She’d been so surprised to hear a voice that wasn’t Julie’s that she hadn’t been paying enough attention to what the voice did sound like. She had focused only on the words.

Who was it that she wasn’t taking seriously?

Alex had a terrible time concentrating on the game. She kept hearing the deep, flat voice ordering her to “hear me well.”

Where had it come from?

Salem won the game, but Marty and Kyle were given no playing time. They warmed the bench throughout the game.

Alex knew Marty would be disappointed. But he seemed to be taking it well when they met outside the stadium after the game.

“I hate not being in on a win,” Bennett said crankily. “I could have played…”

“Stark,” Marty said amiably, “do you have any idea how weird that looks, a guy on crutches complaining because he didn’t get to play?”

“I meant, if it hadn’t been for my knees, I could have played,” Bennett said sullenly. “Maybe next week…” his voice was wistful.

“Sure. Now, can we just go eat? Sitting on the bench for a couple of hours sure works up an appetite.”

No one noticed that Alex was preoccupied. She walked along with the others as they left the stadium for the parking lot, but her mind was elsewhere. Should she tell them about the phone call? Yeah…no…maybe…

What brought Alex back to reality was the surprising but indisputable fact that Jenny was flirting with Bennett.