Free Josie Griffin Is Not a Vampire by Heather Swain Page A

trailed off because I had no explanation.
    Kayla looked up sharply. “She was scared.”
    “Of what?” I asked.
    Kayla drew in a breath as if she was going to explain something but then she thought better of it. She shook her head and looked away.
    “I’m sorry your friend took off,” I said. “Look, um…” I dug around in my bag for a pen and paper and scribbled my cell number. “I could lend you
Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters
, if you want.” I handed her the paper. “It’s a good read and…”
    A loud pounding shook the back door. “Open the door!” Maron yelled. “I got locked out.”
    Kayla and I looked at each other and cracked up. “Should I leave her out there?” Kayla asked. “Let the lunatics take over the asylum?”
    “She’d just come in through the front,” I said.
    “I’m not sure she’s that smart,” Kayla said. “But I probably shouldn’t wait to find out, which means you should get out of here.” She smiled down at the contact info I gave her and placed it carefully between two pages of her book. “Thanks for this.”
    “Sure thing,” I called as I ran for the front entrance. “See you next week!”

chapter 9
    w hen I stepped into the late afternoon humidity, I hesitated before heading to my car. Something didn’t add up here. Kayla was right. It would be strange for one of the girls to take off and leave her stuff. And even stranger that Maron wouldn’t keep shoes and clothes in case another runaway showed up without any luggage. Plus the whole thing seemed to freak Kayla out and that bothered me. These girls might be runaways, but that didn’t mean their lives were disposable. I probably should have left right then, but I had that feeling like someone was being wronged and I didn’t want to walk away from injustice. So against my better judgment, I slipped around to the back of HAG to see exactly what Maron had thrown away.
    I found the big green Dumpster by the back door and just as I was about to lift the lid, I heard the door open. Quickly I slid between the Dumpster and a brickwall because if Maron caught me snooping she’d have me spearing trash on the side of the road in a nano-second. Note to self: never hide behind a Dumpster on a sweltering August day again. Three words: stink, stank, stunk!
    However, crouching back there gave me a perfect view of who was walking out of HAG—none other than Atonia Babineaux, my social worker, which seemed kind of odd. She had her phone pressed to her ear. “I’ll be there in five minutes,” she said as she walked by. She hung up and practically skipped across the pavement. Her skin was rosy, her hair was soft and silky, and she looked vibrant. A far cry from the withered old woman I met in her office the other day. Either she really hated her social work job or the lighting in her building was truly evil. As she passed the Dumpster, I heard a cell phone ring. I expected to hear her pick up, but instead, she stopped and turned around and I panicked. Was it mine? I squished my bag against my body to muffle the noise, because it would be mighty hard to explain to my social worker what the heck I was doing behind a Dumpster. Then I realized it wasn’t my ringtone. It didn’t seem to be hers either because she walked toward the Dumpster with a quizzical look on her face. I pushed myself farther against the wall but luckily, instead of coming around to the side, where she could have seen me, Ms. Babineaux stepped in front. I heard squeaking metal as she lifted the lid and the ringing got louder. Obviously it was coming from inside the trash bin. Whowould throw away a perfectly good cell phone? Ms. Babineaux must have been wondering the same thing because she stood there, muttering, “What the…?” until the ringing stopped and the phone beeped twice as if it had gotten a voice message. The Dumpster rattled as the lid crashed down.
    Ms. Babineaux huffed, then stomped off, growling, “I don’t have time for this.”