Fabulous Five 016 - The Hot-Line Emergency (3 page)

Christie dropped her purse on her desk in the hotline center
the next Tuesday evening. Tim Riggs waved at her with the candy bar he was
eating, and Kyle Zimmerman, who was sitting at the ninth-grade cubicle instead
of Pam Wolthoff, smiled a hello. Mr. Snider was at a long table at the back of
the room grading papers.

Tim got up and sauntered over to Christie's booth. "How
did you like the movie Friday?" He was so tall she had to look straight up
to talk to him.

"Fine," she said, smiling. She didn't want to tell
him that she had had so much on her mind that she hardly remembered what it was
about.

"Did you ever find the popcorn stand?"

Christie blushed. She knew Tim was teasing her. He had been
awfully nice to her when they were on the Super Quiz team together.

"I found it all right," she said, laughing. "That
shows you how smart I am when I can't even find the popcorn in a theater."
They chatted a few minutes longer before he went back to his cubicle.

Christie checked to see if she had plenty of paper and then
sharpened a few pencils before sitting down. She looked at her watch. She was
on time.

The first three calls she took were from kids needing help with
biology. The chapter everyone in the seventh grade was working on was tough,
but Christie was able to help them. The next call was for help with English,
which was a snap, and the next was for help with social studies, which was also
easy. Christie was humming happily to herself when the phone rang for a sixth
time.

"Homework hot-line center. This is Christie, how may I
help you?"

"I'm having trouble with algebra," came a slightly
muffled voice.

She froze. It was the caller who had said he set fires. She
reached for the algebra book and asked cautiously, "What's your problem?"

"I'm having difficulty with number fifteen," he
said.

Christie led him through the problem, and he seemed to catch
on easily as they worked through a few more. Everytime he spoke, she listened
closely. His voice, even though he seemed to be disguising it, sounded
familiar. She just couldn't pin it down.

She was relieved when they finished and was about to hang up
when he said, "What did you think about my little trick?"

"What trick?" she asked, trying to sound as if she
didn't know what he was talking about.

"Don't kid me. You know what trick. Everyone in school
was talking about the bubbles in the City Hall fountain."

"Did you do that?"

"Who else? Pretty spectacular, wasn't it?"

"Actually, I thought it was juvenile," she said.
There was no way she was going to encourage him by saying she thought his
little stunt had been funny.

The line was silent for a moment. Then the caller spoke
again in a hurt-sounding tone. "What do you know? It got everyone's
attention, didn't it? It got yours, too."

"It may have," Christie snapped, "but a lot
of people had to work hard to clean up the fountain. That's wasting taxpayers'
money."

"Why do you care about that? All you do is hang out
with your friends at Bumpers anyway. When did you ever save the taxpayers any
money?"

"Look," Christie said, "this is a dumb
conversation. I wasn't impressed by your putting soap in the fountain, if you
really did do that. Let's leave it at that. Now, can we end this conversation
so I can get back to helping kids who really need help with their homework?"

"Sure. But if the bubbles didn't impress you, maybe I
can think of something that will."

A chill went through Christie. She hadn't meant what she
said to be a challenge to him. "Wait a minute. You don't have to prove
anything to me. Let's forget we even talked about it, okay?"

"Umm, let's see. What
would
impress you?"
he asked.

Her anger flared. "
Nothing
you could do would
impress me.
Now stop it
,
and get off the line!
"

"I've got it!" he cried. "It's something that
you and all the friends you hang out with will get to see up close.
You
won't be able to miss it
."

Christie panicked. "Wait a minute," she pleaded. "Don't
do something you'll regret."

"Don't worry. I told you I would never do anything that
would hurt anyone. But you'll really notice this trick."

"Those aren't tricks you're do
. . ."
The phone clicked before she could finish the sentence. He had hung up.

Christie stared at the telephone as if she expected to see
the caller's face appear on the receiver. Who was he? That voice, it sounded
vaguely familiar. If she could only hear it more clearly, she thought she might
recognize it.

As the questions skittered through her mind, Mr. Snider came
back into the center and sat down at his table.

Christie hung up the telephone and walked over to him. "Mr.
Snider, can I talk to you for a minute?"

"Surely, Christie. What is it?"

She quickly filled him in about the two telephone calls. The
pleasant smile that was usually on his lips faded. He stroked his curly gray
beard as he concentrated on what she was saying.

"Do you have any idea at all who the caller is?"
he asked when she was finished.

She bit her lip as she thought. "No, sir. It seems as
if I may have heard his voice before, but I can't be sure."

"Could it be someone you know who's playing a trick on
you personally?"

"I've thought and thought, but I don't know who it
could be."

"Curtis Trowbridge and Jenni Linn each had calls from
jokesters, but it was only silly stuff, and they seemed to have stopped,"
he said.

Christie wondered if she should tell him about her call from
Clarence Marshall but decided not to. Clarence was only joking around.

"Did he give you any indication at all about what he
meant when he said he was going to do something that all your friends would be
able to see up close?"

"Nope."

Mr. Snider tapped his fingers on the table. "Hmm. Tell
you what, Christie. I want to do some checking with Mr. Bell and some other
people. This caller may or may not be doing what he says he's doing. He may
just be taking credit for things that have already happened to shake you up.
Either way, we don't want to encourage him."

"Okay, Mr. Snider. Thanks."

The teacher must have seen how worried she was. "You've
handled it just right, Christie."

Christie walked back to her cubicle and sat down dejectedly.
How was she supposed to know how not to encourage the caller? She hadn't
encouraged him in the first place, but he still called a second time. She had
done her best to let him know she didn't think much of what he was doing,
if
he was truly setting the fires and putting bubbles in the City Hall fountain.
She looked at the phone and hoped it wouldn't ring again.

Christie hurried down for breakfast the next morning. Her mother,
who was principal of Mark Twain Elementary School, was sitting at the table
dressed in a blue pin-striped suit with a loose matching bow at her neck, doing
paperwork. Her father had his jacket off and was reading the business section
of the morning newspaper. Christie thought he looked nice with his red paisley
suspenders and matching tie. She dropped down into the chair between them and
grabbed part of the paper her father wasn't reading.

"Well, don't you say 'good morning' anymore?" her
mother asked.

"Sorry. Good morning," Christie said, her eyes racing
across the pages searching for stories about fires, soap bubbles, or anything
else a kid might think was funny and do to get attention. Nothing leapt out at
her.

"There's an indoor tennis tournament for twelve-
through fourteen-year-olds next month," her father said, looking over his
cup of coffee at her. "Are you interested in entering?"

"I don't know if I'll have time," Christie
answered. "I'd have to practice evenings to get ready, and I'm not sure I
can, now that I'm on the homework hot-line team and have to keep up my own
grades."

A look of disappointment flickered in his eyes. He loved to
watch her play tennis, and she knew he hoped that someday she would turn pro.
On the other hand, her mother wanted her to make all A's, go to college, and
become a Rhodes Scholar. Christie had decided a while back that she couldn't
satisfy everyone, and she was just going to do the best she could at what she
wanted to do. Deep down she knew they would both love her, whatever she did.

She took a piece of toast from the stack in the center of
the table and poured herself juice and milk. Mostly there was boring news in
the paper. She knew the caller couldn't have caused the train wreck outside of
town and couldn't have been the man that held up a bank in Elmsford. Besides,
the description of the robber said he was six foot tall and wore a ski mask. A
seventh-grade boy might wear a ski mask, but she didn't know of any that was
six feet tall.

The mystery caller had claimed to be responsible for two
fires plus the bubbles in the fountain. One of the fires was on Pleasant Hill
and the other on Catherine Street. They were a long way from each other and
City Hall. They must be ten or fifteen miles apart, anyway. Her friends were
right. He
had
to be lying to her. If the caller was in the seventh
grade, which she believed, he couldn't be out riding his bike those distances
late at night.

"What are you grinning at?" her father asked.

"Oh, I just made up my mind about something that's been
bothering me," Christie said happily.

"A way to improve your back stroke, maybe?" Mr.
Winchell asked.

She shook her blond head, grabbed her books, and headed out
the door. She'd have to see Mr. Snider and tell him.

"That's good thinking, Christie," the teacher said
when she talked to him before algebra class that afternoon. "You're right,
it
would
be difficult for a thirteen-year-old boy to go to locations
that are so far apart in the evenings without his parents' wondering what he
was up to. Maybe he lives near City Hall or Catherine or Pleasant streets, but
it's unlikely he could have set both fires
and
put the soap in the
fountain."

"He may have done one of them," Christie said, "but
I don't think he did all three. And I don't think he's as bad as he wants me to
think. I looked in the paper this morning and didn't see anything he might have
done last night."

"I talked with Mrs. Brenner, the guidance counselor,
this morning," said Mr. Snider. "We both think you handled the caller
in just the right way. If he calls again, why don't you try to find out who he
is without letting him think you're interested in his tricks. I'll ask the
other seventh-graders on the team to do the same if he talks to one of them.
That way we can try to help him, or who knows—maybe he'll even forget about his
little game in a few more days."

While they were talking, the class had come into the room,
and Christie went to her seat.

"How's the hot-line going?" asked Dekeisha. Liza
and Kevin turned to listen to their conversation.

"Pretty good," answered Christie. "We're
getting a lot of calls."

"Are you getting any prank calls?" asked Liza.

Christie remembered not to say anything about the mysterious
caller. "There are a few kids who think they're funny. But I know who they
are."

"What kinds of things do they say?" asked Dekeisha.

"Oh, things like, 'Do you have any hot lines to tell
girls.' Dumb stuff like that."

"I'm glad I couldn't be on the team if that's the kind
of calls you get," said Kevin.

"They're not all like that," Christie responded. "Most
kids who call do need help."

As Mr. Snider called the class to order, Christie looked
around the room at the boys. Was one of them the caller? She could eliminate
Scott Daly, Joel Murphy, Matt Zeboski, and Curtis Trowbridge. She knew them too
well and thought she would recognize their voices even if they were disguised.
Besides, Curtis was on the team and was too serious. It could be anyone else in
school, however. Somewhere in Wakeman Junior High was a boy who was either
trying to make a fool of her or had problems.

"Christie!" called Beth and Melanie. "Wait up
so we can walk with you."

"We had a cheerleaders' meeting," said Melanie, "and
thought you'd already be at Bumpers."

"Miss Simone asked me to take some stuff to my mother,
and I had to go to the office to get them."

"There's no way we'll get seats," said Beth. "If
you don't get to Bumpers fifteen minutes after school lets out, forget it."

"There's always some boy's lap," said Melanie,
wiggling her eyebrows up and down.

Christie rolled her eyes in Melanie's direction and
pretended to make a disgusted face. "Melanie Edwards, you're too much."

As they rounded the corner, Christie noticed a crowd
gathered in front of Bumpers.

"What's that all about?" asked Beth.

The kids seemed to be looking at the front of the fast-food
restaurant. "I don't know," said Christie.

"Mr. Matson put up a new front door," said
Melanie. "It's wooden."

Christie could see the door clearly now. "That's not a
new door, it's a sheet of plywood. The glass must have been broken." Jana
and Katie were standing with the others. Randy, Keith, and Scott were with
them.

Melanie tapped Jana on the shoulder and asked, "What
happened?"

"Mr. Matson said someone threw a rock through the glass
in his door last night. He doesn't know who did it," Katie said.

The sight of the raw wood nailed to Bumpers' doorway made
Christie's stomach do flip-flops. It gave her the same feeling she'd had when
someone ran into her family's car in a parking lot and left without leaving a
note. It was as if the place where she and her friends hung out after school
had been violated.

"It's something you and all the friends you hang out
with will get to see up close
. You won't be able to miss it."
The words echoed in Christie's ears. It looked as if the mystery caller had
struck again.