"Cut it out!" I was fuming. He probably had two hundred dollars in his back pocket and I'd have to work for eons in a place I hated because of his stupid antics.
"Just tell me where you're going!"
"Trevor, quit it! Get out of here! I'll get a restraining order if I have to!"
"Do you have a date?" He wasn't going to give up.
"Go away!"
"You're meeting someone?"
"Buzz off!"
"Do you have an interview? An interview...with the vampire?"
"Get out of my face!"
"Are you going to...work?"
I stopped. "No! Are you totally crazy? That's so lame!" "You are! You've got a job!" He danced around. "I'm so proud of you, my little gothic baby has found herself a job!"
I was fuming inside.
"Trying to better your life? Or are you paying Daddy back for that fancy little tennis racket?"
I was ready to hit him and this time send his head flying off into the distance instead of a can of spray paint.
Just then Matt pulled up. "Trevor, dude. You said you'd be on the steps. I don't have time to drive all over town trying to find you. We have to go"
"Good, your baby-sitter found you," I said.
"I'd offer you a ride to work, but we have places to be," Trevor teased.
As the Camaro whizzed off I looked at my watch. Great! My first day of work and I was late.
Chapter 10 Working Ghoul
Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower, and a Hawaiian sunset loomed behind the reception desk at Armstrong Travel, a constant reminder that there was life outside Dullsville, and that excitement was very far away.
The only thing exciting about working at Armstrong's was the gossip. Under normal circumstances, I found the scandals of the town quite boring--the mayor seen cavorting with a Vegas showgirl, a local TV reporter from WGYS faking an alien abduction story, a Brownie leader embezzling earnings from the cookie bake-off.
But now life was different--there have been Mansion family sightings!
Ruby, the perky partner, filled me in on all the latest. She's like a walking National Enquirer.
"It's still a mystery what the husband does"-- referring to the Mansion family--"but he's obviously wealthy. The butler does the grocery shopping at Wexley's on Saturday at exactly eight o'clock P.M. and picks up the dry cleaning on Tuesdays--all dark suits and cloaks. The wife is a tall pale woman in her mid-forties with long dark hair and she always wears dark sunglasses."
"It's like they're vampires," Ruby concluded, not knowing about my fascination. "They've only been seen at night; they look so ghoulish, dark, and brooding, like they're straight out of a B-movie horror flick. And no visitors have been inside that house. Not one. Do you think they're hiding something?"
I was hanging on Ruby's every word.
"They've lived there for over a month," she continued, "and haven't painted the place, or even cut the grass! They've probably even added creaky doors!"
Janice laughed out loud and ignored her ringing phone. "Marcy Jacobs was saying the same thing," Janice added. "Can you imagine? Not mowing your lawn or planting flowers. Don't they wonder what the neighbors think?"
"Maybe they don't care what the neighbors think. Maybe they like it that way," I interjected.
They both looked at me in horror. "But get this," Ruby said. "I heard that the wife was at Georgio's Italian Bistro and ordered Henry's special antipasto...without garlic! That's what Natalie Mitchell says her son said."
So? I thought. I like a full moon. Does that make me a werewolf? Big deal. And who can trust Trevor and his family? The buzzing of the front door brought the gossip session to a complete halt. And the new customer made us all buzz.
It was Creepy Man!
"I have to finish something in the back!" I whispered to Ruby, whose eyes were riveted to the bony man.
I scurried as fast as I could, not looking back until I was safely standing behind the Xerox machine. Yet I yearned to run to good ol' Creepy, squeeze his fragile body and tell him I was sorry for the Trevor Halloween paint job. I wanted to listen to all he had to say about the world as he knew it, his adventures and travels. But I couldn't, so I cowered behind the copy machine and copied my hand.
"I'd like two tickets to Bucharest," I heard him say, taking a seat at Ruby's desk.
I craned my neck to see him.
"Bucharest?" Ruby asked.
"Yes, Bucharest, Romania."
"And when would you be going?"
"I'm not going, madam. The tickets are for Mr. and Mrs. Sterling. They would like to depart on November first, for three months."
Ruby fiddled with her computer. "Two seats...in economy?" "No, first-class please. Just as long as the flight attendants serve them some bloody wine, the Sterlings are always happy!" he said in his thick accent, laughing.
Ruby laughed back awkwardly, and I chuckled inside.
She went over the itinerary and handed him a copy.
"It's like giving blood, the cost of tickets these days!" Creepy Man laughed, signing.
This was getting good!
Ruby swiped his credit card. "And you're not going, sir?" she asked, as he signed his name, trying to pull more info out of him. Way to go, Rubes!
"No, the boy and I will stay behind."
Boy? Was he referring to Gothic Guy? Or did the Sterlings have a child I could baby-sit? I could play hide-and-seek with him in the Mansion.
"The Sterlings have a boy?" Ruby asked.
"He doesn't get out much. Stays in his room listening to loud music. That's what they do at seventeen."
Seventeen? Did I hear him right? Seventeen? He was talking about Gothic Guy. But why wasn't he in school?
"He's always had a tutor. Or as you say in this country, he's been home-schooled," Creepy Man answered, as if he had read my mind. Or he should have said, Mansion-schooled! No one was home- schooled in Dullsville.
"Seventeen?" Ruby repeated, trying to pump more information from his brittle bones.
"Yes, seventeen...going on one hundred." "I know how that is," Ruby interjected. "My girl just turned thirteen, and she thinks she knows everything!"
"He acts like he's lived before, if you know what I mean, with all his grand opinions about the world." Creepy Man laughed a maniacal laugh that sent him into a coughing frenzy.
"Can I get you anything else?"
"I'd like a town map."
"Our town?" she asked, with a laugh. "I'm not sure we even have them."