Ouch! I guess I hurt more than his hand.
"I see you made it home safely," I continued, pursuing him. "Matt took great care of me. He's a perfect gentleman!"
But then I realized everything. I had taken away Trevor's pride, his girlfriends, and now had forced his best friend to betray him and side with the enemy. I felt sorry for him...almost.
Trevor paused, staring down at me like he was going to explode. But I was distracted by a strange figure talking to the secretary in the principal's office. It was Creepy Man! Standing pale in the bright fluorescent light, his long gray overcoat shrouding his skinny body. And hanging from his pale, bony hand was my dad's tennis racket.
I pulled a fuming Trevor to the wall, where we could safely overhear the conversation. "What are you doing?" Trevor asked, trying to wriggle away.
"Shhh! That's the butler from the Mansion!" I whispered, pointing.
"So what?"
"He's looking for us!"
"How can he be looking for us? It was dark, stupid!"
"That guy saw us! He probably found the spray cans on the lawn and whatever stuff you sprayed on the wall as proof! And he has my dad's tennis racket!"
"Damn, freak, if you hadn't hit me none of this would have happened."
"If you hadn't been born, none of this would have happened, you creep. Shhh, already!"
"Sir, you can leave the racket with us and we can make an announcement," I heard Mrs. Gerber reply. "What did you say the girl was wearing?"
"A tennis outfit, miss."
"For Halloween?" She laughed and reached for the racket.
But Creepy Man drew back. "I'd prefer to keep it in my possession for now. If you find the owner, she knows where she can claim it. Good day," he said and bowed to a charmed Mrs. Gerber.
I freaked and pulled Trevor behind a statue of Teddy Roosevelt. "It's a trap," I said, squeezing Trevor's gloved hand. "I'll show up and the police will be waiting with handcuffs!"
Students stared at Creepy Man as he walked creepily toward the front doors, glancing around as he left. He was looking for us. "He's taking the evidence with him, and that evidence is worth two hundred dollars," I whispered to Trevor.
"Yeah, the evidence," he said. "Against you!"
"Me? Your fingerprints were all over it. That guy saw you, too."
"He only saw me running. He could have been after you. You were mad he ran out of candy, so you sprayed his house until he heard you making noise, then you dropped your candy and tennis racket when the lights came on," Trevor said, like he was Sherlock Holmes solving the Case of the Missing Tennis Racket.
"You're going to pin this on me? I can't believe you!"
"Don't worry, I don't think you'll go to jail over this, babe. You'll just get a major spanking by that crazy butler."
I had gotten in enough trouble for things I had done; I didn't want to be punished for things I hadn't done.
Trevor started walking to class.
I caught up to him. "I'll drag you down so bad if anything happens!"
"Who will they believe, freak--an honors student who is a star soccer player or a two-bit gothic chick with one friend, who spends more time in the principal's office than in class?"
"You owe me a tennis racket!" I shouted helplessly as Trevor sauntered off.
I admit it, Trevor had avenged himself for the Naked Woods Night. Because of him I'd lost my dad's fancy-schmancy racket. And more importantly, he'd made me the enemy in the eyes of the only people in town who might understand me and be my friends. They were my freedom from Dullsville and my connection to humanity, but now because of Trevor, the Mansion would be harder to get into than when it was boarded up.
Chapter 9 Living Hell
"You what?" my father yelled during dinner after I told him I lost his racket.
"Well, it's not exactly lost. I just don't have it."
"Then get it back if you know where it is."
"That would be impossible right now."
"But I have a game tomorrow!"
"I know, Dad, but you have other rackets." I tried to deflate the power of that one particular racket. Big mistake!
"Others? It's that easy for you? just go buy another Prince Precision OS racket?"
"I didn't mean that--"
"It's bad enough you deface property at school!"
"I'm sorry, but--"
"Sorry's not good enough this time. Sorry's not going to win me my game tomorrow. My racket is. I can't believe I let you take it out of here in the first place!" "But, Dad, I'm sure you made mistakes when you were a hippie teenager!"
"And I paid for them! Like you're going to pay for my racket."
My bank account had about five dollars in it, the remains of my Sweet Sixteenth birthday money. And I still owed Premiere Video twenty-five dollars in late fees. I quickly did the math in my head. Dad was going to have to keep my allowance until I was thirty.
Then he said the three words that reverberated in my head and made me go dizzy with fury. As he said them I thought I was going to explode into a million unhappy pieces.
"Get a job!" he proclaimed. "It's about time, too. Maybe that'll teach you some responsibility!"
"Can't you just spank me? Or ground me? Or not speak to me for years like parents do on those talk shows? Please, Dad!"
"It's final! End of story! I'll help you find a job if you can't on your own. But you'll have to do the work yourself."
I ran to my room, wailing like baby Nerd Boy, screaming at the top of my lungs, "You people just don't understand the pressure of being a teenager in my generation!"
As I cried on my bed, I fantasized about sneaking into the Mansion like I did with Jack Patterson when I was twelve and retrieving the racket.
But I also knew I was a little bigger in the hips now and that the window we'd used had been replaced. I'm sure the new owners also had a security system and, in any case, where would I look for the racket with so many rooms and closets? And while I was searching frantically, I was sure to be caught by Creepy Man wielding a gun or some medieval torture device. A part-time job was a less menacing scenario, but not by much. At this point I really wished I were a vampire--I'd never heard of Dracula's having a job.
Connections. They'd be wonderful if my dad knew Steven Spielberg or the Queen of England, but Janice Armstrong of Armstrong Travel just doesn't cut it for me.
Far worse than having to show up there after school three days a week, answering phones in a perky voice, photocopying tickets with that hideous blinding flash in my eyes, and talking to yuppies going to Europe for the fourth time was the totally conservative dress code.