Running Out of Time by Margaret Peterson Haddix Page A

to his head, and wore a black—what was it called? oh yes—T-shirt. The T-shirt was
    covered with strange symbols; the word megadeth screamed across the front. Jessie wanted to ask what Megadeth was, but it was probably something she would have known if she hadn't been from Clifton.
    Outside, Jessie counted the change the boy had given her. Eleven cents! That couldn't be right. That meant the drink had cost eighty-nine cents. Pa would have to shoe eight horses to make that much money, and she'd just spent eighty-nine cents on some silly drink. Why, that would buy pounds and pounds of flour at Mr. Seward's store. . . . Jessie wanted to go back and tell the Megadeth boy there'd been some mistake. But maybe money wasn't the same here. She took a drink and the liquid was nice and sweet, as well as pleasantly cool. Yet somehow it was spoiled for her.
    This time Jessie noticed a small blue sign that said telephone. It was on a rectangular box mounted on a post beyond the car hitching posts. She walked over. The box had the words "Deposit 25 cents" at the top. Jessie looked through her coins until she found one that said "quarter dollar."
    Jessie lifted the club-thing that Ma had said to put by her ear and mouth. What if she got it upside down? Would she still be able to hear? For a moment, Jessie just stood there feeling strange, but then she dropped her quarter in. The little cup at her ear gave off an annoying buzz. Jessie hoped that was a good sign. She took out the note Ma had given her, with Isaac Neeley's name and phone number, and began hitting the numbers.
    With each button she pressed, the little cup at her ear gave off a tone. It was like music, she decided.
    The phone gave off another tone, and Jessie waited. Then there was a click.
    "Please dial 1 before this long-distance number," a woman's even voice said from the earpiece.
    Jessie jumped. So you really could hear people talking on a phone! She pulled the earpiece away from her ear and looked at it suspiciously. The box and the earpiece were too small for a woman to be hiding inside. And Jessie could see that no one was talking on the other side of the box. How did the voice get in the phone?
    Jessie was so surprised, she forgot what the woman had said.
    "Hello?" Jessie said. "What did you say? Can I talk to Mr. Neeley?"
    Jessie felt foolish talking into the phone. It was like talking to a book or a house or something else that wasn't alive. Jessie wasn't used to talking to anything but people. Had she done it right?
    The voice didn't answer.
    "Hello?" Jessie said again. "I just want to talk to Mr. Neeley. Can you please get him for me?"
    She didn't know what else to say. Still, no one answered. Jessie wondered if the phone worked after all. Maybe she would have to walk all the way to Indianapolis to talk to Mr. Neeley. But at least someone had talked on the phone. . . . She heard something falling through the phone. Her coin?
    Jessie took her quarter dollar out of a small door at the bottom. Maybe it was just a bad coin. That happened sometimes. There were counterfeiters around. Jessie had seen men test coins with their teeth to make sure they were real. Now
    that she noticed, this one didn't look like real silver.
    Jessie tried another quarter and hit the buttons again. Again, she heard the odd music, the tone, and the click.
    "Please dial 1 before this long-distance number," the woman said again.
    "A 1?" Jessie said. "Why? I know it's a long distance. That's why I'm using the phone—"
    Jessie had the feeling the woman wasn't listening to her. Her coin fell through the phone again.
    Jessie put the quarter back in. She hit a 1 hesitantly, but nothing happened. She hit the numbers Ma had written out for her to call.
    The odd music and clicks were almost familiar now. A new voice answered: "Please deposit one dollar and forty cents."
    At least it was something new. Jessie pulled out the rest of her money. One dollar and forty cents was a fortune. But it made sense