Woman On the Run Read Free Page A

we’ll put the seeds and pulp. Sha ron , get the felt tip pen so we can draw the face. Who’s got the candle?”
    “Me.” Reuben Jorgensen gave a gap-toothed grin and held up an industrial-size candle.
    “Great. Okay, gang, let’s get going. We’ve got half an hour to put the biggest, meanest jack-o’-lantern this town has ever seen on the school’s steps.”
    “Yeah! Oh boy!” In a tangle of limbs and with a maximum of fuss and mess, Mr. Big began to take shape. Oddly, the noise and confusion soothed Julia, who was used to the clamor and bustle of a big city. Simpson was silent and deserted even at
noon
and it creeped her out.
    She watched the kids try to wrestle the seeds out of the enormous pumpkin, interfering only to pick up most of what slopped out onto the floor so the kids wouldn’t skid and fall down. Jim, the janitor, would take care of the rest.
    After about a quarter of an hour, Rafael slipped inside the classroom, eyes dry but red-rimmed. Julia hoped he would join in the fun, but he stayed on the outskirts of the whirl of activity. Julia sighed, and penned another note to his parents, asking to meet with them, and slipped that one, too, into the little boy’s lunch pail. It was the fifth note in two weeks. Much as she hated the thought, if she got no response this time, she would ask Jerry for Rafael’s home number and call his parents up on Monday.
    “Miss Anderson, lookee.”
    Julia was thinking what kind of parents could be so indifferent to the sadness of such a sweet little boy. It took her a minute to respond to the excited request. She turned to find twelve shiny faces turned up to her, so many buds to her sun. If they only knew that she was winging it, she thought wryly.
    “Look what we done.” Reuben stood proudly, one hand on the enormous pumpkin.
    “Did,” Julia corrected. But she was smiling as she walked around the desk, raising an eyebrow at Mr. Big’s ferocious stare. Pressed for time, the kids had left a lot of pulp and seeds in, but the outside had been carved into a horror movie fan’s fondest dream.
    Tongue in cheek, Julia tilted her head. “He’s real scary. Looks like something carved by Freddy Kruger.” Something sharp and painful tugged in her chest at the sighs of satisfaction. Her smile faded. They were so young. Being scared was fun at that age—things that go bump in the night, ghosts leaping out of closets, and mommy and daddy ready to make them go away with a hug and a smile.
    Who would make her ghosts go away?
    A wild clanging noise erupted. Julia jumped at the bell and cursed Jerry. Jumping and cursing Jerry was becoming an automatic reflex.
    “Bye, Miss Anderson. Bye.” In the space of a second or two, the room was emptied. Nature knew nothing faster than small children leaving the classroom at the end of the school day. In an amazingly short time, the whole school was deserted. It was Friday and the teachers left as soon as possible, too.
    She would see most of these children that evening, decked out in their costumes. A bag full of candy was waiting on the scarred and scuffed occasional table next to the front door.
    A couple of times a week, Julia stayed on after hours with one excuse or another. Herbert Davis had asked her to call collect from a public phone every two or three days since cell phone reception was spotty in the boonies and he didn’t want her to use the land line.
    Davis obviously had no idea what Simpson was like. There were three public phones in the town, one outside the school, one in Carly’s Diner and one in the grocery store. Julia had to rotate her calls among the phones to avoid attracting suspicion.
    Julia’s footsteps echoed hollowly in the corridor as she walked to the exit. The janitor would be coming soon, but for now she was alone in the deserted building. The cheery confusion created by the children hid how old and dilapidated the building was. She walked on cracked tiles, shuddering at the crumbling plasterwork and