Watcher in the Woods by Robert Liparulo

Author:Robert Liparulo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2010-03-29T04:00:00+00:00

When he got there, David’s homeroom was empty. A brown lunch bag sat on the teacher’s desk, next to a stack of papers and spiral notebooks, so he guessed she’d been there and gone off somewhere. Mrs. Moreau, according to the class schedule Dad had brought home. He unslung his backpack and leaned it against the side of the desk. In Pasadena, backpacks were banned from classrooms, but Dad had said they were still okay here—just more evidence that Pinedale hadn’t caught up with the rest of the world.

The windows at the back of the classroom looked out onto an athletic field. Three older boys were on the track that circled a large grassy area. Two were jogging; the other was either in the middle of some extreme stretching exercise or was hoping to replace a contortionist next time the circus came through town. The room was smaller than the ones David was used to. He counted the desks: four rows of five desks each. In Pasadena, only private schools limited their class size to twenty. He supposed Pinedale was too puny to have big classrooms.

He walked around the teacher’s desk to a bulletin board on the far wall. There were notices about the hot-lunch program; chess and computer club meetings; a list of fund-raisers—entertainment books, popcorn sales, cake walk: it was enough to make David wonder if they were supposed to be students or salespeople. Sports announcements—once again, it grated on him that the school didn’t sponsor an eighth-grade soccer team. Supply lists. Emergency exit procedures. Where to park. How to drive. When to eat. If David had to read all this, if he had to know it, he would go out of his mind.

Walking past the teacher’s desk again, something caught his eye: his father’s name on a piece of paper. Not unusual, given his position at the school. But this wasn’t a memo from him or about him. Someone had handwritten his name—Edward King—in the margin of a newspaper. Next to it was a drawing of a face with mean eyes under a V-shaped brow. Horns poked through the hair, and the mouth was full of fangs. A balloon speech box started at his mouth and disappeared under a stack of papers.

He reached to move the stack away so he could read the words. Before his fingers touched the stack, a voice startled him.

“You must be David.”

He spun to see a woman pressing a sheath of papers to her chest with both hands, glaring at him. She was in her forties and birdlike—not in the dainty way, but angular and severe. She was thin and tall and slightly stooped, reminding David of a vulture. Adding to the image was the fuzzy gray sweater draped over her shoulders. The dress underneath was bright red.

Her frown disappeared so quickly, David wasn’t positive he had seen it at all. In fact, her whole countenance seemed to change in a heartbeat from cruel to kind, but maybe it had been a trick of the light.

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