Peeled by Joan Bauer Page A

always a bad thing, Hildy. It can alert us to real danger.” The operative word, Gwen said, was
real
, not imagined.
    Imagined fears are hard to nail down. For a while I was afraid every time my mom would go out that she’d get in a car accident and never come back. I was afraid that I’d never be happy again, I’d always be crying. I wasscared that I had a weak heart like my dad and I’d die at thirty-eight just like he did.
    I was in my bedroom. I slid open my mirrored closet door and pushed through clothes to the old file cabinet. I pulled out an article Dad wrote about how the family of a murdered policeman was trying to cope with the loss.
    The chair where Larry Olen used to sit is empty now. It sits as it always did by the bookcase filled with history books, sits as a symbol of loss, and something the family can’t quite discard. “We’ve tried moving it into the other room,” said Mary, his widow, “but it doesn’t seem right there. I guess we just need to have this memory of him, even though it’s hard.”
    I looked at Dad’s old hiking boots that I kept near my bed. We were always hiking in the woods together.
    The boots that Mitch Biddle used to wear are empty now. They sit in the corner of his only daughter’s room, sit as a symbol of an important life being taken too soon.
    MacIntosh padded over and the sniffed the boots.
    “I miss him, too, Mac.”
    MacIntosh sat by the boots. I went over, kicked off my shoes, put my feet in Dad’s big boots, and stood there.
    I couldn’t exactly fill his shoes, but there was enough of him in my heart that shoe size didn’t matter. I clunked over to my desk, opened my laptop, and wrote,
    We have nothing to fear but fear itself.
    FDR said that during World War II.
    I wondered if some kind of war was trying to break out in Banesville.
    “Are you afraid to go out? Are you afraid to stay inside? Safety First has a line of home and personal security devices to make you feel safer. Stay on the line and one of our representatives will assist you.”
    Nan got the call and hung up, but lots of residents didn’t. One by one people began ordering extra-loud house alarms, mace, nightsticks.
    Banesville’s citizens were becoming alarmed and armed.
    The Bee
had a new front-page section called “The Terror Grows.”
    Random aggression
, they assured us,
was breaking out everywhere.
    At Jethro’s Gym:
A bodybuilder erupted in rage at a man who had taken his dumbbell by mistake. The man said he was pushed and suffered bruises to his hand. The bodybuilder is still at large.
    At Lull’s Cheap Gas:
A shoving contest over a gasoline pump erupted in violence.
    At the middle school:
Lunch money was stolen from students on Thursday, prompting worried parents to ask, “Are our schools safe?”
    I called Tanisha’s mom, the middle school counselor, and asked her if she knew about the stolen lunch money.
    Mrs. Bass was furious about
The Bee
’s coverage: “No money was stolen, Hildy. One kid dropped a few quarters, another grabbed them, and he was ordered by a teacher to give the money back. Everyone had lunch! I thinkparents in town should be worried, but not about this school. They should be worried about the irresponsible journalism printed in
The Bee
!”
    “Can I quote you, Mrs. Bass?”
    “You bet!”
    It was all we could do to try and set the record straight. Staying ahead of scare tactics is a full-time job.
    Elsewhere around town, Crescent Furl at A to Z Convenience now stocked a complete line of Safety First products, including the Make My Day Pepper Spray Key Chain, which, she said, was flying off the shelves.
    The Elders Against Evil dragged their lawn chairs in front of the Ludlow house and started “observation shifts,” peering through binoculars.
    “Have you seen anything?” I asked Pinky.
    She checked her observation shift report. “A tour bus, a plumber, six dogs, the mailman.”
    “No ghosts?” I asked her.
    “Not a one.”
    “What’s going on with