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.