My Kind of Crazy - Robin Reul Page 0,4

wave, hoping she will take the hint and be on her way, but instead she crosses her arms and stares at me.

“You’re Hank Kirby, right?”

My back stiffens. “How do you know my name?”

“I know who you are. I’ve seen you around.” She smiles. “I’ve been waiting for you to come back.”

This girl is starting to creep me the hell out.

“What do you mean ‘come back’?” I ask nervously. What if she’s a serial killer? What if she’s about to chop me into bits, divide me into a bunch of garbage bags, and toss me in the county dump alongside a bunch of rotting produce and stained, saggy mattresses? I can’t die a virgin.

She reaches behind her and I panic. This is it. She’s going for her knife. I start to back away, but she’s looking at me with this confused expression. When her hand comes around, she’s not holding a knife at all.

She’s holding a box of sparklers.

My box of sparklers.

She’s seen me. She must know what happened, that I’m responsible. I’m totally screwed. Oh God. Who has she told?

“Impressive,” she says as she places the box in my hand. I quickly shove it into my back pocket and pull my sweatshirt over it to make sure it’s completely hidden from view. “Too bad it didn’t burn the place down. That would have been beautiful. Lord knows I’ve thought about it a thousand times myself.”

Now I’m the one looking at her like she’s whack-a-doodle. “What are you talking about? I didn’t try to burn down her house. I was trying to ask her to prom. Jesus. You didn’t tell anyone that, did you? Does anybody know you found this?”

“Prom? That’s disappointing. And also slightly pathetic,” she says with a smirk and scoops that mane of hers up into a ponytail, twisting a hair band around so it looks as if a small poodle is hanging off the back of her head. “And no, I didn’t tell anyone. Your secret is safe with me.”

I don’t know who this chick is or what her deal is, but I do know that hanging around chitchatting in front of Amanda Carlisle’s house at 2:30 a.m. with an empty box of sparklers in my back pocket is probably not a stellar idea. I dart past her, pick up my bike, and swing my leg over it, angling myself in the direction of home. “Well, thanks. I better get going. See ya.”

She shakes her head and bites at her lip. “Don’t you even want to know my name?”

I shoot a glance down the road. A pair of headlights appears in the distance. Time to go. “Uh…sure.”

“It’s Peyton.”

“Yeah, well, I’ll see ya ’round, Peyton,” I say and push off. I don’t wait for her to say good-bye, and halfway home I start to feel like a jerk about that. I mean, the girl saved my ass. She could have handed that box over to the police, or even to Amanda Carlisle.

The more distance I put between us, the more questions I have. Who the hell is this girl and how does she know my name? Why did she save my box of sparklers? And how do I find her again? I have no idea what she wants from me.

It’s like my entire life flipped upside down when she gave me that box. Suddenly, my fate is in this chick’s hands. Why did she protect me like that? And what if she decides to stop?

For the third time in six hours, I flip my bike around and pedal furiously toward Amanda Carlisle’s house. If I don’t find Peyton, I’m gonna spend the foreseeable future worried that she might share what she knows.

Amanda’s street is empty, with no sign that we were ever here. I know I didn’t imagine Peyton because the corners of that box dig into my spine as I pedal, but there’s not as much as a light on in a neighboring house, not a single jogger in sight. I’m pretty certain her jogging story was a load of crap, but just to be safe I pedal up and down a few streets on the chance that I’ll see her.

Zip. Nada.

I better get my ass back before Dad wakes up for his shift and discovers I’m gone. I race home and stash the empty sparkler box with the others behind my bin of old comic books underneath my bed, then grab an Avengers T-shirt and faded pair of jeans that are lying on the floor. I