TWENTY-FOUR

 

I got the check the next day. It was the amount I was supposed to get for the whole summer.

I read page three of the packet again. It still didn’t make sense really, but I wasn’t planning on telling anyone anyway.

Obviously I didn’t need to work the rest of the summer now. But I didn’t want to explain to my mom what had happened. I guess I couldn’t have even if I’d wanted to from what Bosley said. So I got a job at the fast-food place I’d worked before. (It sucked so much that people were always quitting.) It made me miss my Polichat desk in the first ten seconds I worked there. But at least I had a place to go in the morning.

I only worked half days so I could hang out with Darius in the afternoons. Mom was surprised I was around more but too busy with her jobs and her own problems to ask much about it.

I cashed the check and kept the money in my underwear drawer. It felt wrong, but I did it anyway. Every couple of weeks I gave Mom part of the money like I’d just gotten paid.

When I was someplace I could use the Internet, I looked at Polichat. It seemed the same—not that I’d ever been much of an expert on it. It wasn’t until later that I remembered where it used to have Chaz’s name as editor in chief. So the next time I had the opportunity, I looked again. His name was gone.

I saw Chaz once. He came into the place I worked. I quick ran to the back where I could watch him, but he wouldn’t notice me. Don’t all us fast-food workers look the same in our stupid visors and shirts?

He didn’t look good, and he was alone.