The Killing Moon by Dan Padavona (books to read for 13 year olds .TXT) 📕

Derek usually beat her to school. Worry fluttered inside her chest before she figured out where he was. Odds were Derek never walked home last night. He probably stayed at Leland’s house and got high. A grin hid behind her lips. Derek played the bad boy role now and then, and she liked it.

Straightening her hair in the mirror, she closed the locker, tugged her skirt to her knees, and walked to homeroom. Her flats made slapping sounds against the polished floor before the bell rang, announcing she was late. She picked up her pace as students passed her on either side. Halloween decorations hung from the walls. Cardboard pumpkins plucked from a craft store, silhouettes of witches on broomsticks, a black cat in front of a full moon. What this place needed was a Michael Myers dummy, or Jason Voorhees wielding a machete. Anything except the safe, family-friendly Halloween decorations the school pedaled every year. She wasn’t in kindergarten anymore.

Her footfalls echoed off the walls as she climbed the empty stairwell toward the second floor. As she rounded the landing, a man appeared out of nowhere. She yelped and covered her mouth. Except it wasn’t a man, just a dummy dressed in a janitor’s uniform. A mop and bucket stood in the corner, the floor wet and glistening, as though the dummy had come to life and mopped the floor moments before Valerie arrived. It was the orange pumpkin mask atop the dummy’s head that froze Valerie in place. The Halloween Man.

She touched the mop and glared black holes for eyes. Someone had played a trick on her. For a split second, she was sure the dummy had moved.

Valerie ran past the dummy and shot a look over her shoulder before turning the corner. She didn’t stop shaking until she sat at her desk with her knapsack stuffed beneath the chair. Mrs. Wilkinson eyed her disapprovingly from the front of the room. The woman tapped her watch twice, acknowledging Valerie had arrived late for homeroom. Again.

Valerie blew out an exasperated breath and fiddled with her phone. Students gossiped around her. It was all white noise.

She sent a text to Derek.

Stay up late with Leland last night? Just say no.

She giggled to herself over the Nancy Reagan reference, steadying her nerves after the encounters with Mr. Pierpoint and the strange janitor. A hand touched her back, and Valerie jumped out of her skin. She whirled around to Maxine. The freckled, ginger-haired girl leaned back.

“Whoa. Easy, Valerie.”

“Sorry, I’m a little jumpy this morning.”

“Just a little. So I listened to the show last night.”

Valerie stopped herself from rolling her eyes. A senior member of the drama club, Maxine spent her evenings reading Shakespeare, not watching scary movies.

“Oh, thanks.”

Maxine covered her mouth.

“It was so good. You had me going for a while. But I said to myself, ‘Valerie is all right. I don’t need to call the police.’”

Setting her phone on the desk, Valerie leaned over her chair.

“You were going to call the police?”

“Heck, yes. You know, Valerie, you should join the drama club. Someone with your skill set would fit right in as a writer or actor.”

“That’s kind of you to say,” said Valerie, figuring Maxine was building her up to bring her down.

Everyone considered Maxine the best actress to come through their school in decades. Remembering Maxine spent three hours in the auditorium every weekday, rehearsing for the upcoming school play, Valerie cupped her hand to her mouth so the others wouldn’t overhear.

“Hey, Maxine. Is Mr. Pierpoint helping with the school play this year?”

The blood drained from Maxine’s face.

“Oh, God. He is beyond weird,” Maxine said, drawing her chair beside Valerie’s. “He’s not directing this year, but he’s always around. Noelle says he left his wife. Now all he does is stare at us during rehearsal.”

Valerie shook her head.

“I’m not sure.”

“He always watches us from the back of the auditorium. Last week, I opened the girl’s dressing room after rehearsal, and he was paging through the script. The directors aren’t supposed to enter the dressing rooms until after we leave, and Pierpoint isn’t even part of the team. That guy freaks me out.”

The bell rang, signaling first period would begin in three minutes. Valerie gathered her belongings and cringed. She had literature with Mr. Pierpoint during first period.

As the students filed out of the room, she glanced outside. Through the window, dead autumn leaves blew around the athletic fields. A gray handball wall jutted out of the earth. Beyond that, a row of trees, where a shadow shifted amid the thicket.

Valerie caught her breath. Someone was watching from the darkness.

CHAPTER TEN

“How are you handling your father’s death?”

Thomas bounces his legs and rubs the back of his hand across his lips. The question is inevitable, yet it catches him off guard.

Dr. Ryka Mandal brushes sable hair over her shoulder and gives him time to respond. When he first visited Mandal last spring, he found her thick accent distracting. He’s used to it now, her voice familiar as a favorite song.

“I worry about my mother. She wears a smile whenever I enter the room, whether at the office, or when I visit the estate. It seems like an act.”

Mandal nods and waits. He didn’t answer the question. She won’t continue until he voices his own feelings. Which is a problem. He doesn’t know how to respond. Can’t process the myriad emotions churning his insides.

“It’s complicated.”

“The week before he passed, your father said he was proud of you,” she says, prodding him to open up. “That he loved you.”

His chest thickens.

“I don’t recall him speaking those words when I was young.”

“How are you processing everything?”

Mandal crosses one leg over the other and sets her notes aside. This is an important moment. His response should be significant, perhaps even poetic. How does one describe emotions he barely understands?

“I can’t believe he’s gone. It hurts.”

She nods, coaxing the words out of him as though he’s on his hands and knees in