Are You in the House Alone? by Richard Peck

Author:Richard Peck [Peck, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2000-04-01T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

Nine

I know now how stupid it was to throw that door open. But it already seemed to be past midnight. Steve might have come back from Norwalk. When I saw Phil Lawver instead, I was only a little surprised.

He was standing under the light with the collar of his suede jacket turned up all around. “Oh hi, Gail,” he said in his usual drawl. “Listen, is Alison here?”

“No, is she supposed to be?”

“Well, that’s just it,” he said. “I don’t know. I can’t figure out where she is, and I don’t like her roaming around after dark. Anything could happen. Can I use your phone to call and see if she’s home?”

I pointed out the phone to him and walked into the living room, thinking that at least the phone couldn’t ring for the next minute or so. I was standing on the hearth rug, checking the time on the mantel clock—it was nearly midnight—when I heard the voice again.

The same shrill sexless voice, ringing like a bell. But it was there in the room with me.

“ARE YOU IN THE HOUSE ALONE?”

It ended in a kind of giggle.

I whirled around, and Phil was standing in the archway. His hands were stuck in the back pockets of his cords, and he’d dropped his jacket on the floor. He was the picture of coolness, and grinning, which was a rare thing for him.

“Had you fooled, didn’t I, Gail? The sound was probably even weirder over the phone. Wasn’t it weirder?”

“Oh, no, Phil. Has it been you, all along? That’s . . . cra—”

“I’ve been keeping tabs on you. Checking you out pretty close. The phone calls just to keep in touch. And the notes. It was a lot of trouble, actually, for a cheap little—but then I guess you know what I think about you. And the hanky-panky out at the lake with Steve. That was fairly disgusting too. You’ve taken up a lot of my time, more than you’re worth, actually. Something ought to be done about girls like you, Gail. As my mother would say, you tend to lower the tone.”

“Phil, look, I think you’ve got a problem, and—”

“Don’t use the psychological approach with me, Gail. You’re more the physical type anyway, aren’t you?”

Phil Lawver was moving toward me, edging across the room as he talked, gliding around the coffee table. And there wasn’t any place for me to go, if I could have moved. I still couldn’t quite absorb it. He looked so much the way he always looked. The face crisply chiseled, the panther grace of his movements. I don’t think we’d ever really had anything to say to each other, never been in the same room alone. Till now. And he was getting closer. And it didn’t matter that I knew who he was.

“Do you?”

“What—what did you say?”

“You’re not paying attention, Gail. I said, you don’t save it all for Pastorini, do you? Be a shame if you did. He’s not worth it. He’s nothing. He doesn’t exist.

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