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“Strange,” said Danny.
“What is?” I asked.
“Well, I’m sort of flabbergasted as to how Julia didn’t hear the wood of the window cracking or the intruder?”
Jules blushed slightly and scrunched her nose.
“I’m an extremely heavy sleeper,” she admitted.
“Ahhh,” he said. “Well, whoever it was that actually entered couldn’t have been that tall. These windows aren’t very far from the ground. They needed cinder blocks to see or get inside.”
He pointed at the blocks against the house.
Taylor then?
“Okay,” Danny said, “I’m going to call Julia’s parents and let them know what’s going on. Maybe they can stop by a home improvement store and get some additional locking mechanisms for the windows. Be right back.”
He left us there staring at the creepiness that was the intruder’s handiwork.
“She’s insane,” Jules said, her voice shaking.
“Or they’re insane. There’s something else that’s bothering me.”
“What’s that?” Jules asked.
“Well, who would risk getting caught boldly waltzing into your room at night? They must have known that you were a heavy sleeper, but nobody but myself and your family would know something like that.........unless you’ve told someone else? Do you remember talking about it at school with anyone?”
The blood drained from her face and she nodded, keeping her eyes steady with mine.
“Don’t you remember?” She asked. “We did, with each other, in front of Jesse. When we came back to school after Tanen’s party fiasco, you were talking about the night and broke off to tease me about that fact that I could sleep through a hurricane. Later,” she trembled, “we were all hanging out at Thatcher’s. When Jesse thought you weren’t looking, he poked me in the ribs and told me that if I wasn’t careful he’d come in while I was asleep and rearrange my furniture.
“I thought he was just messing with me, trying to get a rise out of me as usual, like he got some sort of sick pleasure out of scaring me. In the past, I’d always felt you were kind of harsh on him about me and the few times I would let you in on the stupid things he’d say to me, you’d scold him and he would just take it out on me later. That’s why I kept it from you. It’s why I’ve kept a lot of weird things he’s done from you.”
“It’s okay Jules,” were all the words I could rally up.
So it was a joint effort. I gritted my teeth and tried to hold back what I was thinking, but couldn’t.
“He’s crazy! The both are!” I said.
“This whole thing is going to be squashed tomorrow and I’m going to be the one who does it!” she exclaimed, her eyebrows furrowing at the last bit.
“You can’t Jules!”
“Why?”
“Because we need to ignore this behavior, whatever their motives are, and pretend like we have barely taken notice of them or their note.”
“So from here on we just pretend they haven’t scared the crap out of us?”
“Yes,” I said, not really certain if that was the best route to take. “I think it’s the best thing to do, for now, at least.”
“Alright Elliott, if you think that’s best..........but if things take even the slightest turn for the worse, I’m taking charge.”
“And I’ll be right there beside you.”
My Uncle Danny came back around and let us know that Jules’ parents didn’t take things well. They wanted to take Jules out of the school immediately but Danny had talked them into taking it easy and waiting to see how things turned out.
They reluctantly agreed and the next day we returned to school and acted as unbothered as we possibly could, albeit slightly more touchy-feely than usual, which was already borderline obscene. Jules held on tightly to me every second she could, said that it made her feel safer. I sort of liked that bit. If Jules felt more comfortable touching me, that suited me just fine. I witnessed Jesse and Taylor squirm a little bit at the sight of it, but this time it didn’t give me the satisfaction that it normally did.
