Invasion of Privacy by Perri O'Shaughnessy

a deserted, lifeless feeling without all the kids, almost spooky.
    He decided to go into the office to wait. He tried the door and found it locked. He pulled a quarter out of his backpack and called his mom’s office. Her machine answered. It must be after five. He looked for another quarter to call his aunt at home, but remembered loaning it to Jasper at lunch for milk. So he would just wait.
    Only one car remained in the parking lot. The door opened. A big black dog jumped out and ran straight for him.
    "Hey," Bob yelled. "Stay back!" He jumped onto the bench and got his foot ready to kick. The dog stopped short, wagged his tail, and licked Bob’s shoe.
    "Hitchcock!" a woman called. "C’mere, boy." She came running up behind the dog with her hand on a dangling leash. "Oh, hi," she said. "Bob, right?"

8
    UNCLE MATT DROVE UP IN THE BIG YELLOW TOW truck a few minutes after the lady and her dog had gone.
    "Sorry to be so late, Bob. You okay?"
    "Fine, Uncle Matt."
    "Boy, it got dark fast, didn’t it? Just sneaked up on me."
    "No problem, Uncle Matt. I just sat here on the bench. Mostly."
    "Finish your work up?"
    "Yep."
    Matt turned the radio on.
    "I almost got a ride with that lady Mom knows. She didn’t like me being alone in the dark."
    "What lady?"
    "She has this black dog who slobbers all over the place. He’s a real bruiser. She lets him run out on the field after everyone leaves. Don’t worry. She cleans up his messes. "
    "Who was it, Bob?"
    "Terry somebody. Like I said, she’s a friend of Mom’s."
    "You were right not to take a ride with anyone, even if it’s your mom’s friend. You did the right thing. "
    "I ran with her and the dog for a while, though."
    "You should have just waited for me. What if I couldn’t find you?"
    "We stayed right on the field!" he said, although Terry had wanted him to join them on a walk up the street. He’d refused and she told him she understood that he sure wouldn’t want to make his mom mad.
    She’d been nice, and wanted to hear about his trip to Monterey. She’d even said that name, Kurt Scott, sounded familiar, and she might be able to help him look.
    He told her how he had promised his mom not to look for him himself while she was thinking things over, but Terry had said, well, Bob, that doesn’t apply to me, does it?
    Maybe the look on his face made his uncle soften. "Really, it’s okay," he said. "Here you are, no harm done. Now, you leave it to me to tell your mom it’s my fault you’re late tonight. I hate to worry her with this."
    "We don’t have to tell her you were late. That would be fine with me."
    "I guess she’s less likely to get upset if she doesn’t know I left you to fend for yourself for a few minutes."
    Bob felt relieved. Uncle Matt hadn’t made a big deal out of him talking to Terry, so he didn’t need to feel guilty.
    Anyway, he’d probably never see her again.
    As it turned out, Paul did find a St. Patrick’s Day party, and he paid his respects to Dionysus, who repaid him with a skull-splitting headache on Saturday morning. When he stopped by the office on Sunday, wearing shades to keep the fog from hurting his eyes, he found several curled sheets of fax paper on the floor, where his machine always filed them.
    The faxed photo of Scott showed a large young man with longish dark hair swept back from his forehead, wearing a polo shirt, solemnly facing the camera. The features were all normal size, no awesome forehead or jutting nose or geeky neck and Adam’s apple; no facial hair.
    You could tell a lot about how a guy looked into the camera for a class picture, even if the picture quality was poor. From the polo shirt, Paul deduced that he wasn’t a flaming radical. He could even be a science student. His expression meant he wasn’t a fun-type guy either, took himself seriously. Longish hair? Youth, that was all, could go on to become a corporate banker. Normal weight, neither a runner nor a line-backer.
    So ... studious type, too big to