Watch Me by Norah McClintock

Author:Norah McClintock
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: JUV000000
Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
Published: 2008-09-30T16:00:00+00:00

chapter nine

I was supposed to go straight home after school, but I didn’t. Instead I went back to the alley where Drew and I had ditched the purse. The Dumpster was still there. Or, at least, a Dumpster was there. I couldn’t tell if it was the same one. I also couldn’t tell if it had been emptied or not. To find out, I had to drag some crates over and stack them up so that I could climb on top and look inside. The garbage came three-quarters of the way to the top. I didn’t see the purse, but if this was the same Dumpster, a lot of other stuff must have been thrown into it in the past three days.

I looked around but didn’t see anyone. There were eight or nine doors that opened into the alley, but no windows. I was in the clear.

I took another look into the Dumpster. There were a lot of green garbage bags in it, but there was no bad smell. I also saw scraps of foam rubber, big chunks of Styrofoam, a broken chair and a big tangle of wire. I didn’t see anything that looked like rotten food or, worse, anything moving, like, say, rats.

I hauled myself up until I got one leg over the edge of the Dumpster. Then I pulled my other leg up and sat on the edge with my legs dangling down inside. I looked at all the garbage. Maybe the purse was in there, and maybe it wasn’t. There was only one way to find out for sure. I took a deep breath and dropped down into the Dumpster.

One of my feet landed on a green garbage bag and broke it. Something leaked all over my sneaker and soaked into my sock. I pulled my foot out. It was covered in goo. At first I thought, what is that? what if it’s poison? what if it eats into my foot? what if—? I almost gave up right then. Then I thought about what Jana had told me, and I put my foot down onto another spot.

I wished I had a pair of gloves, but it was too late to do anything about that. Carefully, in case something sharp was hiding under all the garbage, I began to hunt through the Dumpster. At first I piled stuff on one side as I dug down. But when the pile got too high, things began to fall back onto me. So then I started throwing stuff out into the alley. That made it a little easier. I dug and dug. Pretty soon it started to smell. The green garbage bags that were near the bottom were all broken, and there was more goo—smelly goo—all over the place. I tried to breathe through my mouth as I continued searching.

Finally I made it to the metal floor of the Dumpster. The smell was making me gag. I had thrown a lot of stuff out and was down so deep that I started to worry I wouldn’t be able to climb out again.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.