Page 5 of The King (Masterpiece Duet 1)
No one’s in the hiding place today. That shouldn’t make me nervous. Someone doesn’t get beaten bloody every single day. Only most. A knot tightens in my stomach. I can’t stand being out in the playground today, being around running and laughter.
A shadow appears over mine, longer and wider.
I turn around fast, but the sun blinds my eyes. There’s someone standing there, way too close. How did he get here without me hearing him? I know it isn’t Mrs. Keller. He doesn’t have her curly hair or her dress. It’s not Mr. Willis with his tennis shoes and track pants. This man’s wearing dress shoes. An overcoat. And the way he stands, so tall and proud. So still. I know I would remember it if I’d seen him before, even without seeing his face. He looks strangely familiar. Like I know him from a dream.
“Hello, little girl,” he says, his voice smooth like paint, spilling over my hands and turning them every color, mixing together until they’re only black.
Is he here about Daddy?
I know my eyes are wide, hands tucked behind my back. “Hello.”
“What’s your name?”
The way he asks, I can tell he already knows. “Penny.”
“Do you know my name?”
My stomach turns over. I shake my head, lips pressed together.
“I’m Jonathan Scott. Have you heard of me?” He doesn’t wait to hear the answer. He probably knows that everyone’s heard of him, even me. Almost everyone in the city owes him something. “Mrs. Keller says you like numbers.”
I don’t like numbers. Not any more than I like breathing or sleeping. It’s something I can do without thinking. It just happens. “I guess.”
“She said you can do all kinds of tricks. Do you want to show me?”
Tricks. Like I’m a dog. And I never want to show anyone.
I don’t want to show him in particular.
I have the sudden flash of Lisa Blake from two trailers down. Her family had less than us, which was saying something. They got in deep with Jonathan Scott. Then one day her momma got her a bunch of makeup from the drugstore. A new dress. She looked like some kind of beauty queen that afternoon. It was summer. And that was the last day I ever saw her.
The cops came around, asking questions, but everyone knew not to say anything. She just disappeared. No one mentioned the makeup. The dress.
Even the kids understood—we didn’t want to end up like Lisa Blake.
“Okay,” I say, my mind racing. I can’t let him think I’m special. “I’m real smart,” I add, with a touch of boasting, because I’d never really say that. It’s pretend.
I don’t want to be noticed by him, not for my brain and not for my body.
“Are you?” He sounds like I said a joke. “What’s twenty-seven times forty-three?”
I pretend to think about it. “One thousand one hundred and sixty-one.”
“That’s right, Penny. And what about…” Now he’s the one pretending to think. “What’s sixty-nine times four hundred and twenty-eight?” After a moment he adds, “Point two.”
I don’t want to know the answer. I try to forget, but the number 29545.8 hovers in my mind. It’s like he asked me my own name. I can’t forget it if I try. “Can you say it again?”
He repeats himself, slow and patient.
I bite my lip, trying to look worried. “We haven’t done points yet.”
“Without it, then.”
I worry the hem of my dress between my fingers, wondering where Mrs. Keller is. Why doesn’t she come and help me? I know the answer. She sent him here. That’s how he knew I liked numbers. This is who she was waiting for all morning. I was afraid of a group of small boys, when instead I only needed to worry about one big one.
“Twenty-nine thousand,” I say, before taking a breath. “Two hundred and twelve?”
My failure hangs in the air, as thick as the leftover rain. I don’t want to play it dumb completely. He would wonder why Mrs. Keller called him at all. It might get her in trouble. And worse than that, he might know I’m pretending.
“Or maybe twenty-nine hundred, five hundred…and forty-five.”
“Correct,” he says softly, but he isn’t impressed. Not now that I’ve gotten it wrong.
I don’t want to put red lipstick on. I don’t want to wear a new dress. I don’t want to be interesting to a man like this. He might want me for a different purpose than Lisa, but I’m safer if he doesn’t want me at all. “Do you want to try fractions?” I offer him. “We started those.”
“No, little girl. We’re done here.”
He turns and walks away, leaving me leaning against the red brick. Only when he’s gone do I take a breath, that sickly sweet air a familiar relief in my lungs. For the rest of the school day I have to keep reminding myself that I can breathe. I’m not underwater.
