Help Wanted Read Free Page A

from her mind and ran to catch up with Faye. By the time they reached school, they’d already missed homeroom, so after a quick stop at the office, the girls dashed into math class, receiving a warning glare from Mrs. Grouse as they collected their tests. Breathing a sigh of relief, Robin slipped into her desk and caught a wink from the long-haired boy slouched next to her.
    â€œYou lead a charmed life, Bailey,” Walt murmured under his breath.
    Robin smiled and lowered her head, trying to concentrate on her test paper. No one ever called Theodore Waltermize by his real name. Tall and soft-spoken, Walt was an enigma Robin hadn’t been able to figure out even though he’d transferred to Lewis High at the start of the school year. He wasn’t handsome in that breathtaking way Parker Swanson was, yet there was something equally intriguing about him—his sandy hair, for one thing, hanging thick and wavy past his shoulders; his customary outfit of threadbare jeans and faded workshirt; the steady calm of his brown eyes; and his square stubborn jaw. She knew a lot of girls were attracted to him, because he was a main topic of fantasizing at lunch and sleepovers and in the girls’ locker room—and yet she never saw Walt with a date or even hanging out much with the other guys. A lot of her friends thought he was a brain, and therefore unapproachable, and some suspected he was really a narc because his uncle used to work on the local police force, but Robin thought that maybe he was just shy. Now, as she risked a glance in Walt’s direction, she saw that he was still watching her, and she dropped her eyes back to her paper.
    Time passed too quickly. Before she’d quite managed to finish the math test, Robin heard the bell ring, and she hastily scribbled a guess to the last problem. The room had already emptied by the time she handed in her paper. She went out glumly and found Faye waiting for her in the hall.
    â€œSo what’d you think?” Faye ran one hand back through her bleached hair and tossed her head, model-style. “Did you know anything?”
    â€œForeign language.” Robin sighed. “Come on. I’ve got to stop at my locker.”
    â€œMe, too. We should have just taken our time this morning. Saved Mrs. Grouse the trouble of flunking us.”
    Faye’s locker was right beneath Robin’s at the very end of the hall. While Faye knelt on the floor and began pulling out an impossible stash of books and papers, Robin wandered across the corridor, to the gigantic bulletin board on the wall. There was likely to be anything posted here—as Robin’s eyes traveled slowly across the hodgepodge of clutter, she saw personal messages, cartoons, and drawings; official announcements from the teachers and the principal; poems and quotes for the day; schedules of club meetings and sports events; newspaper and magazine clippings; even telephone numbers. A girl had lost her purse in the cafeteria. Someone was offering baby-sitting services; another needed tutoring in biology. Someone else had found an earring and hung it on a push pin. There were a bunch of faded photographs from the last class picnic—one of Vicki in her too-tight sweatshirt—another of Faye eating a hotdog—Walt alone, leaning against a tree—plus one of herself smiling that she had no idea who had taken.
    And then she saw the ad.
    It had been ripped from the morning paper and was practically buried beneath the photographs, yet the bold black print seemed to speak just to her:
    Â 
    HELP WANTED
    GET RICH QUICK
    DETAIL-ORIENTED STUDENT FOR CATALOGING
PERSONAL LIBRARY
    NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY
    555-4357
    Robin’s heart leapt, yet she forced herself to go back and read the ad through one more time. Detail work and books—two things she loved! An absolute dream job, it sounded like— so of course someone’s probably snatched it up by now—just my luck .… Still,