Читать книгу Blood Stitches - Erin Fanning - Страница 7

Trick or Treat

A gust of wind scattered leaves across the University of Seattle campus. My hair tangled over my face. New contacts tortured my eyes, and books weighed down my backpack. It didn’t matter. A tornado could have snatched me up. As long as it carried me home and put an end to the anniversary of the worst day of my life.

“Watch out, Gabby.” My best friend Frank thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his pinstriped suit. “We’re being followed by a giant candy corn.”

“Giant candy corn? Yeah, right.” If I turned around, Frank would laugh and say, “Gotcha”, or some other dorky thing. The mind-numbing boredom of Calculus I, our last class of the day, always set Frank off, making him zanier than usual.

“I mean it. We’ve got a candy corn on our tail.” Frank whistled a Lester Ruben song as he sauntered ahead.

“Okay, okay. Let me see this Halloween wonder.” If I didn’t give in, Frank would never leave me alone. I whirled, ready to hear Frank’s laugh, and almost ran into a man. His face glowed orange, like someone who’d spent too much time in a tanning booth, and he wore a white cap pulled down to his ears. A yellow scarf hid his neck and chin. For once, Frank wasn’t kidding. The man resembled a giant candy corn.

Shredded paper and a postage stamp poked out of his scarf, and a moon decorated an edge of the knitting, like one of my older sister Esperanza’s creations. It didn’t seem possible, but no one else I knew added garbage and a signature moon to their knitting. A wool coat covered the rest of him, except his face and steel-tipped boots.

“Sorry.” I jumped back.

Frank’s chuckles mixed with squirrels chattering in a nearby tree. Drizzle moistened my forehead, and a cold dampness seeped into my bones. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion, like watching Esperanza unravel her knitting one stitch at a time to fix a mistake.

The man, smelling of hot chocolate and rotten eggs, stepped closer. He only reached my shoulder but doubled me in width, giving an impression of strength instead of fat, as if more than his boots were constructed of steel. I met his eyes, bloodshot with yellow flecks, and he swayed from foot to foot. “Yeah, they call me Mr. Candy Corn.” He rolled his shoulders like a gangster in an old movie and jabbed a gloved finger at me. “Some people think I’m sweet, but I’m really not.”

Him sweet? No way.

Frank stood behind me, so tall he could rest his chin on top of my head. “What’s going on?”

Mr. Candy Corn shifted his attention to Frank. “No trouble, my friend.”

“I’m not your friend, and who said anything about trouble? Aren’t you a bit old for trick or treating?”

Mr. Candy Corn threw back his head, shaking in soundless laughter.

“Let’s go.” Frank took my arm.

“Whoa, I can handle this.” I moved out of Frank’s shadow.

Protective Frank had arrived a few years ago as a package deal with his growth spurt and deepening voice. The knight-in-shining-armor routine irritated me, but I kinda liked it, complicating my already complicated feelings for Frank. “Nice costume and everything, Mr. Candy Corn, but we need to get go—”

“Wait, wait. Call me Mr. C.” He took a business card from his pocket and shoved it at me. “Here, take my card. I’m looking for this broad named Hope. One of her neighbors thought I’d find her here, and you match Hope’s description, sort of.”

“Hope?” Frank said. “Your sister’s name in English?”

I elbowed Frank in the ribs.

He clamped his lips together.

Mr. C must have spoken to our neighborhood chatterbox, Mrs. McGlinty. She called both Esperanza and me Hope and talked to anything and anybody, strangers, flowers, mailboxes, brooms. Luckily, she sometimes forgot which house we lived in, so maybe Mr. C didn’t know, either.

“Sister, eh?” Mr. C flicked his business card in my direction.

I caught it in my fist and nodded at Frank. “Ignore him. He likes to babble nonsense.” The card weighed heavy in my hand and glinted with golden specks. Alux Corn was engraved across it and nothing else, no phone number, e-mail, Web site, or address.

“What do you want with this Hope?” I asked.

“A business proposition.” Mr. C snatched the card from me and crammed it into his coat, pulling up his sleeve in the process. His wrists glowed as orange as his face.

“Um, I don’t know any Hope.” I turned to Frank. “Shall we?”

“What about Manuela?” Mr. C asked.

“Abuela? How do you know my grandmother?” Stunned, I spoke without thinking and wanted to yank back my words when Mr. C smiled, showing off kernel-corn teeth.

Frank squeezed my hand. He knew I didn’t want to talk about Abuela on this day of all days, the tenth anniversary of the Earthquake, and particularly, to this creep.

“Sure, the grandmother, figures,” Mr. C said. “There’s a dame I wouldn’t mind meeting. She’s as famous as Hope. Where can I find her?”

“No idea.” I willed myself to stay calm. “Come on, Frank. We’re outta here.”

Mr. C grabbed my arm. “One way or another, I’ll track down Hope and your grandmother.”

I tried to pull away, but Mr. C’s grip tightened.

“Listen, I don’t know a Hope, and my grandmother is dead.” I pressed my lips together, keeping a sob from leaking out.

“Back off, buddy.” Frank pushed Mr. C.

He didn’t budge, instead drawing me closer and studying my eyes. He nodded and released me. “You’re being square.”

I laughed at his cheesy gangster talk, but my laughter ended in a sniff along with a few tears. I swiped at them with the sleeve of my jacket. “If you don’t believe me, you can visit Abuela at Santo Domingo Cemetery on Cherry Hill.”

“Enough with the weeping already.” Mr. C bowed, his cap slipping and a shock of wiry hair springing out. “I’ll let you go this time, but I mean to find Hope.”

He weaved around students milling across campus. Despite his size, he moved like a ballerina, twirling along the sidewalk to miss a bicyclist and jumping onto a skateboard that had lost its passenger. He rolled out of sight, disappearing behind a throng of early trick-or-treaters. Witch hats and devil horns hid him from view.