The Fiend Read Free Page A

out-of-doors with the sun warm on her face and the wind smelling mysteriously of the sea.
    She was busy snipping dead blossoms off the rosebushes when Jessie arrived home at one o’clock.
    Ellen stood up, squinting against the sun and brushing dirt off her denim shorts and bare knees. She was slim and very tanned, like Jessie, and her eyes were the same unusual shade of grayish green.
    â€œWhat are you doing home so early?” she said, pushing a strand of moist hair off her forehead with the pruning shears. “By the way, you didn’t straighten up your room before you left. You know the rules, you helped us write them.”
    It seemed to Jessie a good time to change the subject as dramatically as possible. “Mary Martha says I may be dying.”
    â€œReally? Well, you wouldn’t want to be caught dead in a messy room, so up you go. Start moving, kiddo.”
    â€œYou don’t even believe me.”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œI bet if Mary Martha went home and told her mother she was dying, there’d be a terrible fuss. I bet there’d be ambulances and doctors and nurses and people screaming—”
    â€œIf it will make you feel any better I’ll begin screaming right now.”
    â€œNo! I mean, somebody might hear you.”
    â€œThat’s the general purpose of screaming, isn’t it?” Ellen said with a smile. “Come on, let’s have it, old girl—what’s the matter?”
    Jessie exhibited her hands. A dusting of cinnamon hadn’t improved their appearance but Ellen Brant showed neither surprise nor dismay. She’d been through the same thing with Jessie’s older brother, Mike, a dozen times or more.
    She said, “I have the world’s climbingest children. Where’d you do this?”
    â€œThe jungle gym.”
    â€œWell, you go in and fill the washbasin with warm water and start soaking your hands. I’ll be with you in a minute. I want to check my record book and see when you had your last tetanus booster shot.”
    â€œIt was the Fourth of July when I stepped on the stingray at East Beach.”
    â€œI hope to heaven you’re not going to turn out to be accident-prone.”
    â€œWhat’s that?”
    â€œThere were at least a thousand people on the beach that afternoon. Only you stepped on a stingray.”
    Although Jessie knew this was not intended as a compliment, she couldn’t help taking it as such. Being the only one of a thousand people to step on a stingray seemed to her quite dis­tinctive, the sort of thing that could never happen to someone like Mary Martha.
    Half an hour later she was ensconced on the davenport in the living room, watching a television program and drinking chocolate milk. On her hands she wore a pair of her mother’s white gloves, which made her feel very sophisticated if she didn’t look too closely at the way they fitted.
    The sliding glass door was partly open and she could see her mother out on the lawn talking to Virginia Arlington, who lived next door. Jessie was quite fond of Mrs. Arlington and called her Aunt Virginia, but she hoped both women would stay out­side and not interrupt the television movie.
    Virginia Arlington’s round pink face and plump white arms were moist with perspiration. As she talked she fanned herself with an advertisement she’d just picked up from the mailbox.
    Even her voice sounded warm. “I saw Jessie coming home early and I was worried. Is anything the matter?”
    â€œNot really. Her hands are sore from playing too long on the jungle gym.”
    â€œPoor baby. She has so much energy she never knows when to stop. She’s like you, Ellen. You drive yourself too hard sometimes.”
    â€œI manage to survive.” She dropped on her knees beside the rosebush again, hoping Virginia would take the hint and leave. She liked Virginia Arlington and appreciated her kindness and generosity, but there were times