A Fistful of Sky by Nina Kiriki Hoffman Read Free Book Online Page B

empty and dark? Had everyone told me they were leaving?
    Only two more days of finals week left, and not that many finals; most of the students who could had already left town for Christmas vacation, so the Center had been less busy than usual. Still, for it to be empty—
    I remembered some signals from a couple of the other tutors. L.D. had tapped my shoulder and finger-waved when I looked up, and Esther had handed me a Twinkie, which she often did before she left for the night. She was the only person I knew who opened a package of Hostess and ate just one of the two treats inside. Jose had thumped the back of my head. He always did that, and I always hated it, which made him laugh.
    I had been submerged in listening to a new learning tape, and I had lost track of everything else while I focused on how I was going to help two of my English-as-a-Second-Language students study.
    Now I realized that half the lights were out, a signal to the students that it was time to leave the building before we closed for the night. Nobody else was around. Beyond the windows, the sky was dark.
    I pushed my chair back. The scrape of chair feet on carpet sounded loud with all other sound gone except the hush of the air circulation system.
    The hairs on the back of my neck prickled. My stomach lurched. It had been doing that since the flu attack last weekend.
    I stood up, stretched, and grabbed my backpack. I shoved my notebook inside.
    Something skreeked against a windowpane.
    A jacaranda tree leaned close to the windows outside the computer commons, but this noise came from the front window.
    I turned and saw the flash of a pale face against the darkness beyond the window.
    Tension clutched my chest. I couldn’t find my breath.
    Why was someone staring in? What did they want?
    The face vanished.
    My heart stuttered into motion. I breathed again, but too fast.
    I didn’t know if it was a man or a woman. Was it someone normal, or a
    member of my family who could wish themselves here?
    What if it was someone who wasn’t normal? Lately there were rumors about a campus rapist. I didn’t know anybody who had actually been attacked. But what if—?
    I was alone in the center. The door probably wasn’t even locked. We closed at eight, and maybe that was when everybody else left, but I was still here, and whoever left last was supposed to lock up.
    But usually we left together. When there were six of us walking down to the beach parking lot, which was pretty far away, I felt safe. Going down there alone after dark was not my idea of fun. Why hadn’t I been paying attention?
    I raced to the door and flipped the lock. Then I cruised through the center, checking to make sure I was actually alone. Once in a while someone hid under a desk or behind a shelf, and spent the night with books, study aids, computers, testing materials, tape players, school supplies, a couple drinking fountains, his and her bathrooms, telephones, and all kinds of administrative filing nobody but staff was supposed to see. Sometimes things were missing in the morning. A favorite target was the receptionist’s cashbox. Last year someone had vandalized the center, trashed our tools and sprayed orange mottoes across some of the walls and cabinets. We couldn’t understand it. All we did here was try to help people.
    I didn’t find anybody inside. I checked both rest rooms. Empty.
    I went to the cloakroom and got my jacket, put it on. The center was heated, but I felt cold anyway. I used my password on the center computer to access the timeclock, and clocked out. It was late, almost nine. Later than I was supposed to be working; Phil Reece, the director, might cut my hours on the Friday shift to make up for it.
    I wanted to get home, where I could cook something warm and fortifying.
    I stopped at the door and leaned to peek out the side window.
    Someone tall stood out there, across the quad, under one of the orange streetlights that lit the paths of the western campus. Light