The Collector by Victoria Scott Read Free Book Online Page B

Uh, huh. I don’t do manual labor. And I certainly don’t do it at 8:00 a.m. without coffee.”
    “Hands Helping Hands is a charity,” she says. “I do this every Saturday morning. It’s so much fun. You’ll see.”
    It will not be fun. And I will not see.
    I notice Blue and Annabelle walking toward us carrying shovels. Blue’s eyes narrow when he sees me. Annabelle squeezes his arm as if to calm him and says, “She got you, too, huh?”
    “Apparently.” I take the shovel from Annabelle and turn to Charlie. “So what are we doing, and how long are we doing it for?”
    She pulls the long-sleeved Hands Helping Hands shirt over her tie-dyed embarrassment. “Some people on this street want to improve the appearance of their homes. And we’re here to help do that.”
    She points to a minuscule house with peeling blue paint. “For that one, we’ve agreed to strip the paint off the front patio and repaint it.” She nods toward a home right next to us. “This one will get yard work: weeds pulled, flowers planted. That kind of stuff. There are five houses in all, and we’ll work in teams to help get everything done. You’ll be with me, Annabelle, and Blue. We’re going to be doing this house.”
    Charlie limps toward the house with the defunct yard. I run my hands through my hair and have the urge to rip out a fistful. I yank on the long-sleeved shirt that announces I’m a chump and head after her, dragging my shovel behind me on the pavement.
    As the Three Stooges act a-fool, I work in silence. I’m not sure how this is fun to them, and I’m not sure how I let this happen. Charlie and I should be doing terrible, soul-sealing activities. Instead, she somehow swindled me into volunteering . The word has a bad aftertaste, and I’d kill for a beer to wash it down with. Still, as much as I despise this, there’s a part of me that admires Charlie’s sudden take-charge attitude. If she could only learn to use that same confidence at school, she might not be such an outcast.
    Then again, this confidence of hers has me doing crap I don’t want to do.
    I jam the shovel into the dirt and wipe the sweat from my brow. “Why do you guys do this?” Charlie, Blue, and Annabelle stop what they’re doing and watch me, but no one says anything. “Any answer will do.”
    Charlie takes a few steps toward me. She knows I’m not happy. And why should I be? She tricked me into wasting my Saturday morning helping people too lazy to help themselves.
    “Dante…” She glances over her shoulder at Blue and Annabelle. The pair pretend to inspect a fire-ant mound, but I know they’re eavesdropping. “I like doing this. These people need our help. And it makes me feel good. Doesn’t it make you feel good?”
    “No, it doesn’t,” I answer honestly. I jab my thumb toward the house. “Why doesn’t the person in this house get off their ass and do this themself?”
    Charlie’s eyebrows pull together. “Because the person in that house is eighty-eight years old and restrained to a wheelchair.”
    Great. Now I’m the ass. I’ve got to be more careful if I’m going to get this girl to come to the party tonight. I’ll give her the day, but tonight…tonight it’s my turn.
    I relax the muscles in my face and chest. “I guess that’s good. Helping people who can’t do things themselves.”
    “But they do things themselves. They do!” Charlie’s mouth tugs into a smile. “See, we call it Hands Helping Hands because the people we help agree to help others. Like, for example, this lady we’re helping today, she’s agreed to work as a suicide hotline volunteer from her home. It turns into this great system of people helping each other.”
    Something flutters in my stomach. “Charlie, who started this organization?”
    She shuffles her feet and brushes dirt off her hands. “Uh, we all did.”
    “Whatever, Charlie, you started it,” Annabelle yells, then resumes her pretend fire ant inspection.
    “That true?” I