Dead Man Talking by Casey Daniels Page A

tent that had been set up for their supplies. It was complete with a cloth-covered table, crystal drinking glasses, and five picnic baskets, no doubt packed with tasty lunches. The second thing that caught my attention was Mae being interviewed by a reporter. Greer, of course, was recording the whole thing for posterity.
    Watching me watch them, Ella put a hand on my shoulder. “You didn’t see the show last night, did you? Pepper, how could you miss something so important?”
    “I tried to watch.” I cringed at the memory, and my stomach flipped the way it had the night before when I sat down and turned my TV to the local PBS station. “I saw the opening. You know, the one where the words Cemetery Survivor float across the screen. I bet Greer thought of the name of the show. She’s the only one dumb enough to think of anything that boring.”
    “That’s all you saw?”
    “I turned it off,” I admitted. “I even unplugged the TV. I couldn’t stand the thought of anyone seeing me in a show that stupid. I couldn’t stand the thought of watching myself in a show that stupid. My mother called from Florida three times so I could tell her what was going on. I didn’t answer my phone. Two of my aunts called after the show was over and left messages about how cute it was and how good I looked. I didn’t talk to them, either. My only consolation is that they watched because they felt obligated. Nobody else could possibly have—”
    “So where do you suppose all these people came from?”
    I stopped dead in my tracks and looked around some more. There were a few people hanging around on the sidewalk outside Team One’s section. They were polite
and apparently interested in what was going on. A couple of them had cameras.
    “You’re not telling me these people actually . . . ?” It was too weird, even for my brain to wrap itself around. I glanced from the lookers-on to Ella’s sparkling presence. “People watched? They . . . they actually care?”
    She grinned from ear to ear. At the same time, she looped an arm through mine and piloted me toward my section. “It’s amazing how fast word travels. But don’t get carried away, there’s good news and bad news,” she said, in that motherly way of hers. “The bad news is that the judges awarded the first ten points of the competition to Team One. They said they were more organized and got more accomplished last week.”
    I swallowed this bitter pill because it was, after all, the absolute truth.
    “And the good news?”
    “Well, the good news!” Ella beamed. “According to the station, they got hundreds of calls for more information before the show ever aired. And they’ve gotten even more calls this morning. So many people are interested, they’ve scheduled a repeat of the show in prime time on Thursday night. Isn’t it fabulous?”
    “It’s unbelievable.”
    I meant this just the way I said it. It was improbable that anyone would have wasted their Sunday night with the likes of Cemetery Survivor . It was pretty pathetic, too. Ella took my unbelievable to mean something more like cool . Which would explain why her smile never wilted.
    “The publicity is priceless,” she said, nearly swooning. “If we’ve got this sort of a following after only one episode, imagine what’s going to happen next week.”
    I was still trying to work my way through the weirdness of the whole thing. “It’s a fluke,” I said, convinced.
“There may have been a few losers who watched the show, but—”
    I heard the commotion before I was close enough to see what was going on, and the noise brought me up short. I turned, all set to ask Ella what was up, but she marched me right along, and like the little engine that could, she didn’t stop, not until we ducked under the branches of an overhanging tree and stepped into the section assigned to my team.
    I took one look around and nearly keeled over. “You’re kidding me, right?”
    Ella giggled. “Does it look like