Read Online Fatality by Caroline B. Cooney - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Caroline B. Cooney
Tags: Suspense
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first.
Rose had broken the rule with her best friend.
Ming stalked away.
Alone at last, Rose walked out of the high school. Far across the student parking lot, she saw Chrissie Klein waving and starting to run toward her. If the police had talked to Alan, they had talked to Chrissie. Rose fled, running all the way to the intersection where the transport van waited.
CHAPTER SEVEN
S EVEN PEOPLE WERE being rehabilitated along with Rose: two teenage boys and five men, all of whom claimed to have drinking problems, now solved.
Everybody assumed that Rose also had a drinking problem.
The only thing Rose had ever drunk to excess was iced tea, when she was about eight, and she and Chrissie decided to see how much they could drink before they popped. She could remember (thankfully, long before her diary days, so there was no record) being unable to hop up and down, her legs were so tightly crossed, while Chrissie panted, “My bladder’s bigger than your bladder.”
“I won’t drink again,” said the men in childlike voices, as they were given big shiny orange traffic vests. Each vest was padded like a flotation device, as if they might be diving for trash underwater. The heavy-duty gloves were so large that Rose’s hands fit into the palm part. Each of them was given a long wooden stick like a broom handle, but with a nail tip, to spear disgusting stuff.
“I’ve quit drinking,” said each man, aghast that he was to be placed on a roadside in public, as if he had done something wrong. Everybody but Rose had a baseball-style cap to yank down over his forehead and hide his face. Everybody told Rose to keep her back to traffic, instead of facing it, or else somebody might recognize her.
“Don’t you have to be facing the traffic in order to jump out of the way?” asked Rose.
“You’re not gonna be in the road,” said the supervisor. “You’re gonna keep the traffic barrier between you and the cars. Don’t step over it. There’s no garbage worth dying for.”
In the van, the men embarked on long, sad stories of alcohol hazes and how they had put the past forever behind them. Rose, who could not put the past behind her, envied them. She clung to her roll of plastic bags and ties.
“Forget the cigarette butts and the really little stuff,” said the supervisor. “You’re after bottles, cans, plastic bags, Styrofoam, broken suitcases, whatever.”
Each person was dropped off half a mile apart on the northbound side of Interstate 395. The van would circle, making sure nobody was dropping from heat exhaustion, or running out of drinking water, or trying to leave town.
She did not make eye contact with the teenage boys. What if she liked one of them? What could be worse than finding your first boyfriend at the side of the road during trash detail? Sharing a romantic moment of Styrofoam-stabbing?
But one of them nudged her. “Wanna wear my cap?” He was disfigured by acne and crooked teeth, but his smile was kind. He said softly, “Mostly the cars is going by so fast they don’t see you at all. Nobody’s gonna know you. But under the cap you can sort of hide out. You could stick your hair under this.”
Rose’s blond hair was shoulder length. It was thin and she rarely wore it in a ponytail because she looked bald. Rose needed all the hair she could get and liked it right up next to her face. He was offering her an old minor league baseball cap, black with a red machine-embroidered logo and a misshapen bill from going through the wash.
“Thank you,” she said. She tucked her hair inside and jammed the bill down on her forehead. The van pulled into the wide right-hand breakdown lane. Rose got out and stepped over the thigh-high metal guardrail and onto the grass, and the van drove away.
A wide, low hill had been sliced through the middle by the Interstate, two lanes in each direction lying in a shady valley between two long, grassy slopes. The north-and southbound lanes were divided by a football
Rose had broken the rule with her best friend.
Ming stalked away.
Alone at last, Rose walked out of the high school. Far across the student parking lot, she saw Chrissie Klein waving and starting to run toward her. If the police had talked to Alan, they had talked to Chrissie. Rose fled, running all the way to the intersection where the transport van waited.
CHAPTER SEVEN
S EVEN PEOPLE WERE being rehabilitated along with Rose: two teenage boys and five men, all of whom claimed to have drinking problems, now solved.
Everybody assumed that Rose also had a drinking problem.
The only thing Rose had ever drunk to excess was iced tea, when she was about eight, and she and Chrissie decided to see how much they could drink before they popped. She could remember (thankfully, long before her diary days, so there was no record) being unable to hop up and down, her legs were so tightly crossed, while Chrissie panted, “My bladder’s bigger than your bladder.”
“I won’t drink again,” said the men in childlike voices, as they were given big shiny orange traffic vests. Each vest was padded like a flotation device, as if they might be diving for trash underwater. The heavy-duty gloves were so large that Rose’s hands fit into the palm part. Each of them was given a long wooden stick like a broom handle, but with a nail tip, to spear disgusting stuff.
“I’ve quit drinking,” said each man, aghast that he was to be placed on a roadside in public, as if he had done something wrong. Everybody but Rose had a baseball-style cap to yank down over his forehead and hide his face. Everybody told Rose to keep her back to traffic, instead of facing it, or else somebody might recognize her.
“Don’t you have to be facing the traffic in order to jump out of the way?” asked Rose.
“You’re not gonna be in the road,” said the supervisor. “You’re gonna keep the traffic barrier between you and the cars. Don’t step over it. There’s no garbage worth dying for.”
In the van, the men embarked on long, sad stories of alcohol hazes and how they had put the past forever behind them. Rose, who could not put the past behind her, envied them. She clung to her roll of plastic bags and ties.
“Forget the cigarette butts and the really little stuff,” said the supervisor. “You’re after bottles, cans, plastic bags, Styrofoam, broken suitcases, whatever.”
Each person was dropped off half a mile apart on the northbound side of Interstate 395. The van would circle, making sure nobody was dropping from heat exhaustion, or running out of drinking water, or trying to leave town.
She did not make eye contact with the teenage boys. What if she liked one of them? What could be worse than finding your first boyfriend at the side of the road during trash detail? Sharing a romantic moment of Styrofoam-stabbing?
But one of them nudged her. “Wanna wear my cap?” He was disfigured by acne and crooked teeth, but his smile was kind. He said softly, “Mostly the cars is going by so fast they don’t see you at all. Nobody’s gonna know you. But under the cap you can sort of hide out. You could stick your hair under this.”
Rose’s blond hair was shoulder length. It was thin and she rarely wore it in a ponytail because she looked bald. Rose needed all the hair she could get and liked it right up next to her face. He was offering her an old minor league baseball cap, black with a red machine-embroidered logo and a misshapen bill from going through the wash.
“Thank you,” she said. She tucked her hair inside and jammed the bill down on her forehead. The van pulled into the wide right-hand breakdown lane. Rose got out and stepped over the thigh-high metal guardrail and onto the grass, and the van drove away.
A wide, low hill had been sliced through the middle by the Interstate, two lanes in each direction lying in a shady valley between two long, grassy slopes. The north-and southbound lanes were divided by a football
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