Nobody's There Read Free Page A

seen the police come. Did they have their sirens on?”
    Abbie groaned. “I shouldn’t have done it, Davy. I was angry. I wasn’t thinking. No matter how I felt about what Dad was doing, I shouldn’t have thrown the rocks. Do you understand that what I did was wrong, and now I have to make up for it?”
    â€œThey didn’t put you in jail.”
    â€œNo, but I’m on probation. The judge gave me a job to do. That’s what the phone call was all about. Do you want me to tell you more?”
    â€œNo,” Davy said. He held out the remote control toward the television set and turned his back on Abbie.
    Before the package arrived, Abbie put the dishes in the dishwasher, changed the sheets on the beds, added some towels to the laundry, and put the first load into the washer. Then just as ordered, she sat down and read everything in the large envelope. The printed flyers and letter told her the same things the judge had said, but they also gave her a name, phone number, and address.
    The telephone rang again, and Abbie grabbed it before Davy could get to it.
    A familiar voice said, “Hi, Abbie. Want to go to the mall this afternoon?”
    Abbie leaned into the warmth of Gigi’s best-friendship, pulling it around her shoulders, clinging to its support. “I can’t,” she answered. “Today I have to visit the woman I was assigned to.”
    Abbie explained about the Friend to Friend program. “Mrs. Wilhite made it clear I wouldn’t fit in with the other girls in the program. They’re all straight-A students, at the tops of their classes.” She smiled as she added, “Like you.”
    â€œI know about the program,” Gigi said. “Wendy Banes is in it. So is Judy Hanks.” Then she added, “Tell me, what is your assignment like? How old is she? Do you have to spoon-feed her or anything like that?”
    Abbie laughed. Gigi always had a way of making her feel better, no matter what the problem. Gigi had immediately understood how Abbie felt about her father; and the night before, when Abbie had told Gigi about why she’d been arrested, Gigi had insisted that she not blame herself, that anyone would have done the exact same thing.
    â€œI can’t answer your questions, because I haven’t met the woman yet,” Abbie said.
    â€œDo you know her name?”
    â€œEdna Merkel, 6615 Darnell Street,” Abbie read aloud, and sighed. “I have no idea what she’s like.”
    â€œI know,” Gigi said. “I can picture her in my mind. She’s way overweight, with thin white hair and thick ankles, and she’s probably at least a hundred years old. She nibbles on chocolates and giggles when she talks and wears some kind of sweet perfume that smells like marshmallows.”
    Abbie laughed again. “Right. And her dresses are printed cotton housedresses, which she saved from the forties.”
    â€œAnd tidy little hats.”
    â€œWith veils and one red rose.”
    â€œNo. One yellow sunflower.”
    Abbie and Gigi both broke into laughter. As soon as they calmed down, Gigi said, “Call me when you get back from visiting her and tell me everything. Okay?”
    â€œWill do,” Abbie said. “I gotta go now. I’ll talk to you later.”
    As she hung up the telephone, Abbie’s good mood vanished. She would soon meet Edna Merkel,and for better or worse she was stuck with her.
    â€œI can’t take it,” Abbie murmured, but as soon as her Saturday-morning chores were finished and her mother had returned from her half-day at work, Abbie borrowed the car and drove to Edna Merkel’s house on Darnell.
    It was a small two-story brick building on a street of similar houses, built so near the gulf that the air carried a clinging fragrance of salt and seaweed. Abbie guessed that the houses in Mrs. Merkel’s neighborhood had all been built at the same time, probably way back in the