Chain Letter Read online

“One thing did come to me. Maybe we weren’t alone that night. It would explain a lot, someone watching us, I mean.”

  “No car drove by, I’m sure of that. But it’s as reasonable an idea as any we kicked around yesterday.”

  “Brenda and I both gave Fran the third degree. I don’t think there’s much chance she talked.” Tony nodded quickly, like he hadn’t put much credence in the possibility. Alison continued, “What did you guys come up with? I would be very interested to know.”

  Tony shrugged. “The obvious, mostly. Except for Neil. He had two interesting theories. He thinks the Caretaker might be someone in the group, and that he or she is serious with their threats to harm us.”

  Alison thought of Joan but decided it would be a mistake to mention her name at this point. She didn’t know how involved Tony was with her. Many times Joan had hinted that they were lovers—perish the thought. Tony seemed too discriminating to become that involved with someone whose only redeeming quality was that she did not carry a gun. Still, Tony was a guy, and Joan was so obviously available . . .

  “What was Neil’s other theory?”

  “It’s . . . hard to explain.” He cleared his throat. “Hey, have you eaten?”

  She shook her head. This was it! He was going to ask her out. He was going to fall in love with her.

  “Would you like to go have a greasy hamburger at the mall?”

  “No.” What? She had meant to say yes! Of all the moronic times for the connection between her brain and her mouth to fizzle. “What I mean is,” she stammered, “I’m on a diet.”

  He looked her over. “Are greasy french fries on your diet?”

  “Oh, yes!”

  He took her by the arm. “You’re an unusual young lady, Alison.”

  Chapter Five

  It’s been seven days,” Kipp said with satisfaction, “and lightning hasn’t struck yet. I tell you, the Caretaker was bluffing.”

  Four of them, Tony, Neil, Brenda and Kipp, were hanging out in the school parking lot next to Kipp’s car. The early summer was showing no sign of an early departure. Heat radiated off the asphalt in rippling waves. A film of sweat had Tony’s shirt glued to his chest and he was having a hard time imagining that in less than fifteen minutes he would have to start working out on the track.

  The week-old event to which Kipp was referring was the appearance of the second command in the Times. It had employed initials rather than a name but otherwise it had been like the first, brief and to the point.

  K.C. Flunk Next Calculus Exam

  Kipp had gone right ahead and gotten an A on the test.

  “No time limit was put on when you would be hurt,” Neil said, brushing brown hairs off his shoulders. The diabetes or the stress or simply bad genes had him shedding like crazy. Tony was worried about him. Neil had been out of school all last week and he’d dropped five pounds from his already famished frame. He’d had the flu, he said, and was having trouble sleeping.

  Kipp laughed. “It was a joke. Isn’t that obvious?”

  “I hope all this blows over before the play opens,” Brenda said. “Neil, I saw you at our rehearsal this morning. What did you think?”

  Neil beamed. “I thought you were wonderful. I left laughing.”

  Brenda fairly lit up. “Thank you. How sweet.”

  “I really like Alison as Alice,” Kipp had to go and say. “That girl’s got talent. You can see it just in the way she walks across the stage.” He patted Brenda on the back. “I think you’re great, too.”

  Brenda’s lightbulb dimmed. “But not as great as Alison.”

  “Now I didn’t say that.”

  “She has better lines than me! She’s the star! What am I supposed to do? It isn’t my fault that fat phony teacher thought I didn’t look the part.”

  “Please,” Kipp said, “let’s not start this again. You’re a fine actress. Alison is a fine actress. You’re both fine actresses. In fact, you are probably the finer actress.”

  “You mean my style is not dramatic enough. That’s what you mean, I know.”

  Kipp groaned, wiping the sweat from his forehead. “Look, let’s fight about it on the way home. I’m tired of standing in this oven.”

  Brenda folded her arms across her chest. “I’m not going home with you. Who said I was?”

  “I give you a ride home every day. I assumed . . . ”

  “Well, you assumed wrong, porpoise nose!” Brenda whirled and stalked away.

  “I love you, too!” Kipp called. He shook his head. “I sort of hope the Caretaker is for real. Maybe he could scare her out of a few personality quirks.” He climbed in his car, fastening his seat belt.

  “Can I have a ride?” Neil asked. He usually walked home. His leg must be bothering him.

  “Just don’t ask me to comment on your talents,” Kipp said, starting the car. Neil got in the front seat.

  Tony leaned on the open window. “I notice you’re buckled up. Since when did that start? Last week, maybe?”

  Kipp was not amused. “I’ve always worn a seat belt.” He put the car in reverse. “Have fun killing yourself in practice.”

  “Thanks,” Tony muttered, not sure if he was being insulted. The car heaved back and charged forward, jumping the first speed bump, heading toward the steep exit at the rear of campus.

  “Take care!” Neil called out his window.

  Tony was crossing the parking lot, aiming for the boys’ locker room, when Joan popped out of the metal shop, striding toward him. Joan was the only girl in the school taking metal shop. She was fond of making heavy brass necklaces and stainless steel arm bands. Wearing an assortment of the metal armor, tight red shorts and a loose purple blouse, she looked ready for fun and games. Tony was not happy to see her.

  His lunch last week with Alison had been great. She’d been so interesting to talk with. He had been surprised. He had gone out with a number of girls and had always viewed them as people—not necessarily an inferior class, you understand—who were there to have fun with. The thing was, they always treated him as a celebrity. Joan, for all her bizarre quirks, was not an exception. Indeed, more than any girl he’d known, she saw him as some kind of sex god; that was beginning to annoy him.

  On the drive to the mall, Alison had seemed to fit the standard mode. She told him how she had seen every touchdown he had ever thrown, how he would undoubtedly be drafted by the NFL in his freshman year in college and how Steven Spielberg would probably be looking to use his face in a movie sometime soon. Then she must have sensed his lack of interest for she settled down and started to talk like a real person who had not been preprogrammed by MTV and People magazine. She was so funny! Every bit as witty as Kipp and a hell of a lot better looking. They had talked about everything except football and the Caretaker, and after taking her back to school, he had found himself replaying in his head over and over again their time together. He’d read the literature—he had the classical symptoms of infatuation.

  He hadn’t spoken to Alison since. Neil might get upset. Joan might kill him.

  “Tony!” Joan said, kissing him on the lips before he could defend himself. “Have you been avoiding me?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Liar.” She poked him in the gut. “Tell me why and tell me straight.”

  “I’m in love with Kipp.”

  “So you’re gay?” She asked slyly, leaning close. “Can you prove that you’re not? Say, in about two hours? My parents . . . ”

  Lightning hasn’t struck yet.

  Something large and loud crashed.

  The explosion came from the direction of the steep exit his friends had just used.

  Tony forgot about Joan. He was running the sprint of his life. No tumbleweeds obstructed his path. The sun was out and he knew where he was going. No sharp edge of the road tried to catch him looking. Still, he was on that road again, feeling the same time-warping panic.

  At the crest of the hill that fell beneath his feet at a forty-five degree angle, he gr
ound to a halt. The car had plowed into the fifteen-foot brick wall that theoretically shielded a neighboring residential area from the noisy antics of the student body. The front end was an accordion, and cracked bricks littered the ruined roof. The windshield was gone. Tony covered the rest of the way at a slow walk, afraid of what he would find.

  Neil was picking glass out of his hair. Kipp was changing the station on the silent radio. “Do you want a ride home, too?” he asked casually.

  Tony discovered he had been holding his breath and released the stagnant air. No, this was not that night. This was only a warning. “What happened?” he asked.

  “My brakes took a holiday on the hill,” Kipp said, demonstrating the mechanical failure by pushing the unresisting brake pedal to the floor.

  “Coincidence?”

  “I don’t think so,” Neil said, putting his hand to a bloody spot on his forehead.

  “Are you OK?” Tony asked.

  Neil nodded. “Just banged my head. I should have had my seat belt on. I’ll be all right.”

  Kipp and Neil carefully extricated themselves from the front seat and sat on the curb. Tony could see others approaching in the distance—Joan included—and wanted to make a quick inspection before he had an audience. Crouching to the ground, wary of the glass shards, he scooted under the back wheels. The front tires were totaled but he would be able to see if the rear brakes had been tampered with. At first he was confused—relieved, in a sense—to see that the screws that bled the brakes had not been loosened. Then he noticed the dark red fluid smeared over the lines themselves. A closer inspection revealed that they had been minutely punctured. The saboteur had been clever. Had the screws simply been loosened, the fluid would have run out the first time Kipp had pumped his brakes and he would have become suspicious. As it was, with the tiny diameter of the holes, he had had to hit the brakes four or five times—about the same number of speed bumps between where Kipp always parked and the hill—before losing them altogether.

  “Were they fixed?” Kipp called.

  “Yeah.” Tony pulled himself back into daylight. From the expression on his face, Kipp could have just finished tea with his mother. Neil, on the other hand, looked like he was about to be sick. “The lines were punctured—a nail, maybe even a pin. Didn’t you notice them slipping?”

  “Nope. My favorite song was on the radio.”

  “For heaven’s sake,” Tony said, “you both could have been killed. And look at the mess your car is in.”

  “I can see,” Kipp replied calmly. “But neither of us was killed, and I have insurance. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not taking this lightly. I have another calculus exam tomorrow, and I think I’ll flunk it.” He stood, brushed off his pants. “Now if you will excuse me, I have to go to the bathroom. Hitting walls at forty miles an hour always does that to me.”

  Tony watched him leave with a mixture of admiration and exasperation. He helped Neil to his feet. Neil’s head had stopped bleeding but he must have banged his leg. His limp was much worse. “You should just rest here,” Tony said. “Somebody has probably called the paramedics.”

  Neil shook his head, his arms trembling. “I hate doctors, I don’t want to see them. I only want to get to a bathroom.”

  “Neil . . . ”

  “Tony, please?” he pleaded, adding quietly, “I think I peed in my pants.”

  Tony tore off his shirt and wrapped it around his friend’s waist. “I’ll help you, don’t worry. I have extra sweats in my locker that are too small. You’ll be OK.”

  “Thank you,” Neil whispered, his eyes moist.

  They huddled across the street. An ambulance could be heard wailing in the distance. Half the track team was pouring down from the stadium and Joan was leading a contingent of teachers and students out of the parking lot. “You both got off lucky,” Tony said. “Your face could have gone through the windshield. Kipp could have cracked his skull on the steering wheel. It’s a good thing he started wearing his seat belt.”

  Neil nodded weakly. “It’s a good thing Brenda refused to get in the car.”

  At the foot of the hill, they stopped and stared at each other.

  Chapter Six

  Brenda handed Alison the early edition of the Times the following Monday morning and sat down without comment beside her in the fifth row of the theater. Alison opened to the classified section and searched for a minute before finding the ad.

  B.P. Tell Mr. H. Worst Director World Front Everyone

  “You cannot tell Mr. Hoglan that,” Alison said, not really surprised. This was only number three, but in a queer sort of way, she was already getting used to the Caretaker’s messages. “It would hurt his feelings.”

  “I’m not worried about his feelings. I’m worried about getting kicked off the play.”

  “But you hate playing Essie.”

  “How can you say that? Or are you just so anxious to run the whole thing?”

  “Right. I’d look real cute on stage answering my own questions.” Alison was getting a mite sick of Brenda’s jealousy. “So, are you going to do it?”

  “Do I have a choice? I don’t want a brick wall to fall on me.” Brenda glanced at the door, their sleepyhead cast stumbling in followed by their bright-eyed teacher. She added, “I just hope the jerk gives me half an excuse to chew him out.”

  With the opening night of You Can’t Take It with You rapidly approaching, Mr. Hoglan wanted them to run through all of act one today, finishing the other two acts Tuesday and Wednesday morning. Everyone seemed comfortable with their lines. Unfortunately, Fran had yet to return the props—God knew what she was doing with them. So far, Fran had been able to stall Mr. Hall. She didn’t want to repaint Teddy until she was sure the Caretaker was through enjoying the goat. Kipp thought she should go ahead with the job, collect the money, get another command to restyle it as a pig, receive another request to fix it, and keep collecting the money. Fran did not think that was funny.

  Alice did not appear on stage until approximately ten minutes into the play so Alison sat in the seats not far from Mr. Hoglan and waited to see if Brenda had the guts to carry through. Since there were few nondrama students present, she briefly wondered how the Caretaker would know if Brenda had committed the foul deed or not. Then she had the disturbing idea that the Caretaker must be present. She scrutinized the six people unconnected with the play who were watching the rehearsal—three girls, three guys—and didn’t recognize a single one. They must be either freshmen or sophomores, aspiring actors, too young, so it would seem, to be behind such a complex scheme. Then she realized that if Brenda did tell Mr. Hoglan off, the whole school would know about it by break, and the rest of the city by lunch. One way or another, if he or she had listening ears, the Caretaker would know what had gone down.

  One thing you had to give Brenda, she didn’t hesitate. She had hardly appeared on stage when she began to do Essie’s idiotic stretching exercises in an unusually obscene manner—spread-eagled and the like. Mr. Hoglan called for a halt.

  “Brenda,” he said kindly, waddling his way to the front, tugging thoughtfully at his gray beard, not knowing he was about to have his professional qualifications severely questioned. “This is not an audition for Hair. Why are you being so . . . suggestive?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Brenda said.

  Mr. Hoglan did not like to argue. “Could you please perform Essie’s limbering exercises as you have done for the last three weeks?” He turned back toward his spot in the last row. Brenda stopped him with a word.

  “No.”

  Mr. Hoglan paused. “What did you say?”

  “I’ll do them the way I feel is best. You’re the one who’s always telling us to be natural on stage. Well, that’s exactly what I’m doing, letting it all hang out. Although I don’t know why I listen to you at all. To tell you the truth, I think you’re the worst director in the entire world.”

  Fine, Alison thought, she had got the line out. Now if she could tact
fully withdraw, Mr. Hoglan might let it pass.

  But either Brenda thought the Caretaker would want more blood or else she really was speaking her mind; and when Brenda started on the latter, a brick wall couldn’t have shut her up. Alison began to squirm in her seat.

  “Brenda,” Mr. Hoglan said, startled, “that’s very unkind of you. I think you should apologize.”

  “This is a free country. I can speak my mind. You have your tastes and I have mine. And our tastes are far, far apart. Of course, I’m not a perfect Essie. I was never meant to play such a dumb cluck. But you said I didn’t ‘have the right look for Alice.’ What’s that supposed to mean? Alice is pretty. I’m pretty. So why did you pick Alison over me? I’ll tell you why. Because you’re a talentless, pompous, burned out—”

  “Enough!” Mr. Hoglan said sharply, his red cheeks puffing up like a beaver’s. Alison felt terrible for him. “Since that is how you feel, young lady, your part will go to someone more appreciative. Please excuse yourself from the room.”

  Brenda swallowed painfully, lowering her head, realizing she had let herself get carried away. But as she trudged down the stage steps, passing the instructor, she did not stop to apologize. She walked straight for the door. Alison flew after her, catching her in the hallway. Tears were forming at the corners of Brenda’s eyes but she would not let herself cry.

  “Are you OK?” Alison asked.

  “I’ll live.” Then she stopped and gave a lopsided smile. “How was I?”

  Alison put an arm around her shoulder. “It was a great performance. I’m sure the Caretaker would be proud.”

  · · ·

  Tony asked Alison on a formal date the day after Brenda’s parents grounded their daughter for two weeks for shooting her mouth off. The proposal happened under fairly trite circumstances. They were passing in the hallway and she just happened to drop all her books. He stopped to help, and when she was all in one piece and through thanking him, he asked if she was busy Friday night. She did it again. She said “yes” when she meant “no.” But he got the picture.