The Blue Girl by Charles De Lint Read Free Book Online

closed, but it turns out you forgot to turn the key.”
    “The key,” she repeats.
    “I mean, there’s unfinished business happening here,” I say.
    “I guess  ...”
    She sounds unconvinced, and I don’t blame her. I’m not so convinced either.
    We sit there on the steps for a while, watching the people go by on the sidewalk below, the pigeons doing their synchronized air show. We finish the apple we’ve been sharing. Imogene sets the core on the ground by her knapsack.
    “What if it’s the dead kid?” she finally says.

 
     

    I’d been going to my new school for a little over three weeks when I realized that someone was watching me— and it wasn’t Ken or Barbie, or any of that crowd of theirs.
    Well, really, why would they bother? Sure, they liked to rag on people like me, but it was only when we invaded their sphere of influence. It wasn’t like they needed to go stalking the people they considered to be losers. One or another of us was forever stumbling into their proximity to be tripped or mocked.
    No, this was someone else, and I wasn’t imagining it. I have a sixth sense for that kind of thing. I just know where people are, if they’re checking me out, and I never get lost. It’s one of the reasons Jared always hated playing games like hide-and-seek with me. He felt I had an unfair advantage— which, let’s face it, I did.
    So anyway, I knew I was being spied on, but for the longest time, I couldn’t get a fix on who it was. That feeling would come to me and I’d turn to look, fast, but there was never anyone there. Or at least no one who seemed to be paying any particular attention to me.
    I thought I was losing my touch until, a week or so later, I finally spotted him not too far from my locker, right near the hall to the gym and auditorium.
    He was this pale, nerdy guy—sort of like a tall Harry Potter, the way the character is pictured on the books and in the films, you know, with the black glasses and the kind of messy hair, but gawkier and with a narrower face. Actually, Jared insists the image was stolen from a Neil Gaiman comic book, the one about the kid who discovers he’s this great magician—wait a minute, that’s the basic plot of the Harry Potter books, too, isn’t it?
    But I digress.
    I dumped my math book in my locker and grabbed what I needed for my next class. Closing the door, I gave the combination lock a spin, acted like I was going to go the other way, then quickly turned and headed for my stalker.
    He ducked down the hall, and by the time I got to the corner, he’d disappeared. Not poof, disappeared. He just managed to slip off before I could see where he’d gone.
    I wanted to ask Maxine about him, but I didn’t see that much of her during the day except for lunch and after school.
    It took another week before I spotted him again—while Maxine was with me, I mean. I’d caught glimpses of him, but he always managed to duck away before I could confront him.
    “Who’s that?” I asked.
    I nodded to where a line of kids were waiting to be served what passed for food in the cafeteria. And Jared was right. The music they piped in here really did suck. But the Barbie girls really seemed to like the old Backstreet Boys song that was playing, at least judging from the way they bobbed their heads to the beat.
    “Who’s who?” Maxine replied.
    “The tall, pale guy with the Harry Potter glasses?”
    “I don’t see a tall, pale guy, with or without glasses.”
    I glanced at her, then looked back, but he wasn’t there anymore.
    “Though I’m surprised,” she went on. “I would have thought you’d reference Buddy Holly. Or at least Elvis Costello.”
    “That’s funny.”
    “It wasn’t that funny.”
    “No, I mean, funny-strange,” I said. “He’s gone. But where could he have gone? He was right by the end of that line, and it’s too far to the door for him to have slipped out. I only looked away for a second.”
    Maxine got an odd look. “You must