Free Whistling In the Dark by Lesley Kagen

that?”
    “It’s Dottie’s ghost.”
    Troo moved a few inches closer. “That would be a real bad thing.”
    I wasn’t sure if she meant Dottie disappearing into thin air or what happened to Junie. But it didn’t matter because they were both real bad things. “I won’t ever let anything happen to you. You know that.”
    I couldn’t stop thinking about how Rasmussen had touched Junie when she hadn’t wanted him to. How scared she musta been. “Are you sure about that?” I asked. “About that molesting part?” I stopped rubbing her back because just then the thought of touching skin made me feel a little sick to my stomach right below my wishbone.
    “Fast Susie says that the man molested Junie and then had the sex with her and when he was done he wrapped her undies around her neck and pulled on ’em until she couldn’t breathe anymore.”
    After Troo fell asleep, I laid there in the dark and listened to Dottie’s ghost crying, hoping so bad that Fast Susie was wrong. Because I knew that if somebody didn’t listen to me, if somebody didn’t stop Rasmussen right away, me and Junie Piaskowski would soon have a lot more in common than our love of lanyards.

CHAPTER TEN
    It was hot for late June, much hotter than it shoulda been. Ethel said that it was so hot and humid that it reminded her of Mississippi, where she was born and raised. Like we did every Wednesday, Troo and me had spent the morning being charitable with Mrs. Galecki, who Ethel had been taking good care of for a long time. The reason why we did that, besides adoring Ethel, was when we got back to school in September, Sister Imelda would make all us kids read out loud our stories entitled “How I Spent My Charitable Summer.” What with everything that’d been going on, I hadn’t worked on my story for a while, so I promised myself that I would do that tonight even if Hall was there. It was gettin’ harder and harder to figure exactly when Hall might show up. When he did come home, you could figure on him being what Mary Lane called “sloshed to the gills.”
    After we were done helping Ethel out, she gave us each a peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich, like she always did, and then Troo and me went over to the zoo to watch Sampson get fed, which was the other thing we did every Wednesday.
    We’d just come out of the Honey Creek that ran behind the whole park and the air felt cool and nice on our bare legs. Troo had recently started smoking L&Ms that she’d stolen out of Hall’s pocket when he was passed out on the couch. She had also found a flat little blue French cap to wear that she said was called a beret . Troo just went ape for hats of all kinds. “I’ve been think ing,” she said, lighting up.
    “About what?” We were up in our favorite zoo tree and I was admiring Sampson while eating my sandwich. Troo had eaten hers on the way over.
    “About Sara Heinemann disappearing.” Troo took a puff off the cigarette and made the smoke go up her nose the way Mother did sometimes. “It’s called French inhaling.” She coughed and did it again. “I think Fast Susie is right. I think Sara has gotten herself murdered and molested just like Junie.”
    I thought Sara had gotten herself murdered and molested, too, but I didn’t want to scare Troo by agreeing with her. And I also thought—no, I knew —that Rasmussen had done it, just like Junie. And that he’d also pushed Wendy down the Spencers’ root cellar stairs because it had been so stormy dark out that night that he probably hadn’t realized it was Wendy until it was too late. He probably hadn’t gone ahead and murdered Wendy because he knew a Mongoloid couldn’t point him out in a lineup, which was what happened if you got arrested in the movies.
    Troo spat her cigarette down to the ground and wiggled off her tree branch onto mine. She pointed over at Sampson and made a surprised face and said, “Oh, look, Sally!” When I turned, she grabbed the other half of my sandwich