Free Hear the Children Calling by Clare McNally Page A

signal.
    She couldn’t let it go at this. The detective had indicated Ryan was in danger—and that meant he was alive. There was only one way she would ever get a straight answer: she would have to go to Fort Lauderdale to confront the man in person.
    It would be the only way to find out what he was afraid of.

12
    T HE SMALL SCHOOLHOUSE, TUCKED AWAY IN A remote mountain community in the Southwest, had room for only fifteen children. They were all about the same age, between eight and ten. Jenny Segal sat in the second-to-last row, right behind Tommy Bivers. She often stared at the curls on the back of his head and tried to send him thought messages. Ever since her own experience at the clinic, when unseen voices told her not to do what the grown-ups said, she had wanted to talk with Tommy and ask what made him fight back.
    “Pay attention, Miss Segal,” the teacher snapped.
    Jenny sighed and went back to work. She didn’t understand why she had to learn a lot of things, like calculus and physics. It was easy enough, but she didn’t understand what a kid was supposed to do with all this information. Still, the grown-ups in her life kept insisting it was important, and she had learned not to argue.
    Until the other day.
    What had given her the strength to cause such a scene? What had given Tommy his strength?
    At last the bell rang and school was let out. As usual, Tommy took off with all his friends. Jenny’s own friends sidled up to her. As they headed down the sand-dusted main road that branched off into their own streets, Cissy Critchfield nudged Jenny and pointed to a lone figure up ahead. Jenny followed her gaze and saw one of the maintenance workers leaning against a lamppost. She never paid much attention to the workers at the center, but all the children knew this man. Well, he really didn’t seem much older than any of them. Fifteen, Jenny guessed. No one knew his name, and no one was brave enough to ask him. Jenny thought he had the scariest eyes she’d ever seen, blue so pale they seemed transparent. He often leered at the younger children, as if he knew his eyes were frightening.
    “Look at that creep,” Cissy said. “Look at those sloppy clothes. He’s always hanging around, staring at everyone.”
    “I wonder what he does here?” Jenny said.
    Another girl, Bambi Freed, put on a grin that was downright feral. “Do something to him, Cissy,” she urged.
    Cissy’s eyes gleamed. She focused them on the scraggy young man up ahead. A moment later, he threw back his head and let out a loud noise that sounded very much like a duck’s quack.
    “Stop it, you guys,” Jenny scolded. “How mean! Leave him alone.”
    “We’re just having fun, Jenny,” Bambi said.
    Jenny grumbled. “Well, have fun with someone else. Just ’cause you can make people do things . . .” Her eyes went very round suddenly, and she pointed at something over Cissy’s shoulder. Bambi started screaming, backing away. When she felt the tickling on her cheek, Cissy started to scream, too.
    “Get it off! Get it off of me!”
    Other children came running to see what was happening, and screamed and yelled at the sight of a huge, multilegged thing crawling over Cissy’s back. Its odd colors told Jenny where it had come from.
    A moment before, it had been Cissy’s pink-and-apple-green backpack.
    “Get it off!”
    “Who did that?” someone shouted.
    “Cut it out, you’re scaring her,” a boy yelled.
    Cissy went on screaming and screaming. The spiderlike creature moved with watery slowness, and at this point it was almost up to her shoulders. Finally, Michael Colpan came to his senses. He took his own backpack and swung it hard at Cissy’s back, sending the monster flying to the pavement.
    Instantly, it turned into a backpack again. And as if on cue, several grown-ups came running. Among them was Dr. Adams.
    “Cissy,” he cried, concern in his blue eyes. “What happened, sweetheart?”
    Cissy was too hysterical to answer,