Summer Job

"Oh… she’s gone! She’s gone!” Tom Brown rocked back and forth on his bed, moaning. His spikey platinum blonde hair stood on end from pulling on it too much. His orange eyes frantic with worry.

Rick Deacon, his roommate who was a two-years-younger fifteen-year-old with rusty brown hair and a studious demeanor, hardly looked up from his reading. Though it was summer, school was year-round at Gulinger. However, the seniors that wanted to start college early had already left. The others looking for jobs remained behind at the school while they searched. Selena Davenport had gone ahead, already in a summer program at NYU. Chen had gone to Michigan State.

“She’s going to forget me,” Tom whimpered.

“Give me a break,” Tom’s best friend, Matthew Calamori, said with a roll of his brown eyes, sitting on the edge of Rick’s bed. “You email her daily, follow her on Facebook, and text her every chance you get. I think you have digitally etched your name in every electronic device she owns—permanently.”

“Yeah…. But what if she finds a rich, manly college guy who loads her with heaps of pearls?” Tom clenched his head again, shuddering at the thought.

Lifting his wolf-gray eyes at last, Rick dryly said, “If that was all it took, then Ewan would have had her in a heartbeat.”

“How about a plethora of pearls?” Tom asked, clenching the hair of his head.

Rick merely stared then turned his eyes back to his reading.

“A deluge of pearls?” Tom winced.

Matt chuckled. “I don’t think she can be bought, Tom.”

Sighing loudly, Tom hung his shoulders. “Why did she have to go?”

Rick slammed his book onto the desktop. “Think! Tom. Think! You are supposed to be a smart person, or was that one-eighty IQ a lie?”

Tom shrank back, cringing. “Jeeze. Calm down. Don’t go all wolfy on me. I’m just having withdrawals.”

But Rick slammed his book on the desktop again, shutting it with a shove away as well as from his chair. He gathered up his things and stormed out of the room. Matt and Tom watched him go.

Glancing to Matt with a hand over his mouth, eyes wide, Tom clenched his teeth. “Did I go too far?”

Wincing, Matt shrugged. “I don’t know. Last full moon something happened and he won’t talk about it. Did he tell you anything?”

Tom shook his head. “No. But then I sort of pulled on his tail around then and he threatened to bite me if I got near his rear again.

Matt stared at him dryly. “You pulled his tail?”

Sheepishly nodding, Tom cringed. “I was joking. I offered to braid it for free.”

It was difficult for Matt not to toss up his hands and call his best friend an idiot—though Tom heard those impish thoughts clear enough so Matt really didn’t need to say it aloud. Tom shrugged again, cringing more.

“Yeah, I’m an idiot.” Tom shook his head, sighing. “I know why he’s mad now too. He—”

“Hey!” Troy Meecham ran into the room, breathless. His friend and almost clone, Randon Spade, rushed in right behind him, grinning so wide his face was near splitting open. “Mr. Deacon’s here asking for us.”

Tom cringed, ducking more with a discomfited peek to Matt.

“Are we in trouble?” Matt asked, rising from where he had been sitting.

Cracking a laugh, Troy shook his head. His dark hair and rich blue eyes cast a bit of mystery about him. “No. He’s got a job opportunity he wants to give us.”

The entire meaning behind that sentence echoed in Matt’s head. Troy’s thoughts were obvious. It wasn’t a small thing Troy was talking about. It was something once-in-a-lifetime.

Matt grabbed Tom’s arm and bolted for the door. Troy and Randon broke into laughs, chasing after them. Mr. Deacon would be on the administrative floor near the headmaster’s office. The man didn’t stroll around the school when he visited, always lingering in the business areas, something that bothered Rick who would have liked his father to visit in a less-than-business manner once in a while.

They ran down the school stairs, skipping steps. Their feet pummeled the floor up to the headmaster’s officer where, just outside, Mr. Deacon stood in his usual business suit speaking to several of the other teenagers that were over the age of sixteen. “…server’s position at the Waldorf-Astoria this weekend. It is last minute, and they will provide the main uniform, but you must wear black pants and black shoes.”

“Black pants?” Amelia asked. The pretty blonde had stayed behind at the school, planning to attend college in the fall.

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 20.09.2014
ISBN: 978-3-7368-7203-5

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