The Night's Legacy by P.T. Dilloway Read Free Book Online Page A

on spring break from fourth grade.  She had employed a cunning ruse by pulling a fire alarm to distract security while she climbed up Jeff’s skeleton, using the wires holding him together where she didn’t have natural footholds.  “I thought you were going to faint.”
    Mom still hadn’t lost her temper when someone from maintenance got a ladder to bring her down.  She had looked Lois in the eye with a Glare and said, “I’m very disappointed in you, young lady.  I want you to apologize to everyone whose time you wasted.”  She had spent hours apologizing to security guards, maintenance workers, and even some of the tourists who’d come back after the impromptu fire drill.  At the end of the day Mom had given her a hug and said, “That was a very big girl thing you did, sweetheart.”  They had gone home, where Lois still didn’t get any dessert.
    At this memory she wanted to turn and flee, but Mom was already guiding her towards the escalator to the second floor.  The gift shop was just to the right, sandwiched between the displays of meteors and precious gems.  Seeing the rows of red and blue T-shirts she winced, thinking of what had happened in Durndell.  Maybe this was some kind of cosmic justice.
    As if Lois were going to school for the first time, Mom looked her in the eye and said, “If you need anything, you call my office.  Understand?”
    “I know.”
    “Come upstairs when you get done for the day, all right?”
    “Sure, Mom.”
    “We’ll go out for dinner, I promise.”
    “Great.”  She waited for Mom to do something embarrassing like hug or kiss her, but all she did was pat Lois’s shoulder before shuffling off towards the elevator.
    Taking a deep breath, Lois walked into the gift shop and straight into a nightmare.  A man stood up from behind the counter and smiled at her.  She could already feel her face turning hot as Tony said, “Hi, Lois.  Small world, huh?”
    * * *
    Lois gave herself credit for not fainting.  She did have to grab onto a rack of discounted T-shirts for support.  “You work here?” she asked.
    “Yeah.  So you’re the Lois Locke they said was starting today?”
    “I guess so.”
    “I wouldn’t have pegged you as the director’s daughter.”
    “Most people don’t.”  Most people expected her not only to be as smart as Mom but as sweet and unassuming as well.  As if she were supposed to be Mom’s clone instead of her daughter.  “How long you been working here?”
    “About a year.  Helps me pay the bills.”  He flashed a smile that brought back unwanted memories of his backseat.  “You making some extra cash for the summer?”
    “Yeah.  Mom said there was an opening and I leaped at the chance.”
    Before they could say anything else, she heard a girl shriek, “Oh my God!  Lois!”
    A blond girl seized Lois in a vise grip even tighter than Mom’s first hug back at the hospital in Texas.  After nearly choking the air from Lois’s lungs, the girl pulled back and smiled expectantly.  Lois glanced down at the girl’s nametag.  “Hey—Melanie.  How are you?”
    Melanie pouted.  “You don’t remember me, do you?  Melanie Pullman.  We had American Lit together in high school?  You came over to my sleepover, remember?”
    “Oh, yeah.  Right.”  That been Lois’s senior year in high school.  As a freshman in the grips of puberty with acne, braces, and thick glasses, Melanie had been one of the few kids uncool enough to hang out with Lois.  The acne and braces were gone but the glasses remained.  She tried to think of how old Melanie would be:  twenty-five?  “What have you been up to?”
    Melanie seized the opportunity to spew out her entire history for the last ten years.  After Lois had left, Melanie had finished high school and then done two years at Ren City Community College, just missing Lois’s brief stay there.  “College wasn’t really for me.  I’m not super-smart like you and your mom.”  So