Creepers by Joanne Dahme

knew they could see me.
    Margaret was on the corner now, standing next to the traffic light, where a family in polo shirts stood pushing the button to change the light. She smiled at me.

    â€œCourtney, what are you doing? You ran down that block as if you were practicing the hurdles! You didn’t tell me you wanted to go out for track, too.” Was I really that easy to read? Her eyes were bright and she was truly enjoying herself. I didn’t want to crush her good spirits, but I had to know. I grabbed her by the wrist, pressing hard to feel her bones.
    â€œOuch,” she blurted out, pulling back. “Courtney?” she then asked, her green eyes saucered with alarm as I held tight to her wrist.
    â€œThe people here . . . they don’t seem to see you,” I stuttered.
    She glanced at the people passing us on both sides of the sidewalk, as if she had just noticed that indeed there were people here.
    â€œOf course they see us,” she replied, her no-nonsense demeanor kicking right in. “They’re just used to seeing Dad and me with our cemetery flyers. Let me show you,” she said, prying my fingers from her wrist.
    Before I could reach out to grab her again, she suddenly stepped off the curb and stood in the path of a red SUV that slowed to round the corner.The car screeched dramatically to a halt. People everywhere stopped to stare at me.
    â€œSee?” She smiled, vindicated. She didn’t even look at the car whose fender was poised only twenty inches from
her knees. Over her head, I could see Mr. Geyer standing on the opposite corner, clutching his flyers to his chest.
    â€œAre you crazy?!” I yelled. “You didn’t have to do that!”
    â€œBut I did,” she replied, earnest again. “I don’t want to lose your friendship, Courtney. Most friends don’t have a good time posting cemetery flyers.” She lifted her chin as if daring me to refute that.
    As she stepped back onto the sidewalk, I heard the driver of the SUV, a guy about my dad’s age, swear as he mumbled, “I didn’t get a good look at the person. He was just a blur.”

THE JITNEY RIDE HOME HAD BEEN QUIET, AS IF THE earlier enthusiasm and joy we had felt was thwarted by what seemed a new worry in each of us. I thought about Margaret and Mr. Geyer. Why wouldn’t the people in town look at them? Sure, they may have posted lots of flyers over the past year, and people got used to seeing them, like Mr. Geyer said. Even so, people glance at someone when they enter a room or walk down a sidewalk, out of simple curiosity.
    And Margaret! She could have been killed when she stepped into the street.Yet she did not appear the least bit troubled. She was sitting across from me, in front of Mr. Geyer. Her eyes were closed against the sunlight as she rested her head on the back of the seat.
    Mr. Geyer had stared out the window most of the way home looking pale and drained. At one point, I had leaned over and touched him on the shoulder, to make sure he
was okay. He had given me a weary smile and shook his head as if he couldn’t imagine what he would have done if he had lost her.Yet the strangest part of the day occurred when we got to our stop. I thought about Margaret and the big smile she had given to the jitney driver as we exited. The driver was an old guy with thick eyebrows and a hunched back. He winked at her as she called good-bye. Why was he able to see her, when people in town had not?
    I kept replaying yesterday in my mind as I sat at the kitchen table, staring vacantly at my cemetery poster propped in the kitchen bay window. It was almost noontime. Dad was at work. Mom was running a bunch of errands.We were all supposed to be practicing for the event tomorrow, but I was having trouble concentrating. I was anxious about the cemetery tour. I was nervous about yesterday. Come to think of it, I had been consistently edgy ever since I met Margaret and Mr. Geyer. Not