Bad Monkeys Read Online Free PDF Page B

door. I froze. I was totally exposed; there was no way he wouldn’t see me.
    Then Carlotta called out from the front steps of the school: “Guadalupe!”
    The janitor paused with one foot in the van and looked to see who she was yelling at. That bought me an extra few seconds. I did the only thing I could: movedup into the blind spot directly behind the driver’s seat and made myself as small as possible.
    The janitor slid behind the wheel. I crossed my fingers that he’d hang out for a while, maybe give Carlotta a chance to start lobbing oranges onto the van’s roof, but not today: quicker than you can say “Guadalupe!” we were on the road. The janitor drove north again, away from Siesta Corta.
    I couldn’t see out, so I passed the time by staring at the toolbox. Although I’d closed the lid, I’d forgotten to latch it, and every time we hit a bump it threatened to fly open and dump its contents. Also, I’d left the padlock lying in plain view on the blanket; I kept waiting for the janitor to notice it in the rearview mirror and pull over to investigate.
    After we’d gone about fifteen miles, he did pull over. I raised my head up as high as I dared, trying to get a sense of whether we were coming into a gas station or some other place where people would hear me if I screamed. It didn’t look like it. It looked like we were in another roadside turnaround.
    The janitor set the parking brake and killed the engine. He didn’t get out. He rolled his window down, dug around in his pockets for a moment, and lit a joint.
    Today I didn’t begrudge him. Let him smoke all the dope he wanted; as long as he didn’t come in back and kill me, I’d be totally cool with it.
    I listened to the cars buzzing past on Route 99. Come on, Officer Friendly, I thought. Get your vice detector working… There was a lull in the traffic, and I heard a new sound: voices.
    Voices approaching the van?
    Voices off in the distance. Boys’ voices, shouting, excited, like in a playground. Then I heard a wooden crack! , and I thought, ball field, and I thought, oh shit.
    I really didn’t want to die, you know? But I didn’tthink I could just sit quiet if the janitor started with the monkey noises again. If it came down to that, I thought I was probably going to have to bash him over the head with the toolbox.
    But he kept his fly zipped. Maybe he was worried this spot was too public, or maybe he was storing up images for later. Whichever, he just sat and watched, and smoked—first the joint, then half a dozen cigarettes.
    Finally he’d had enough, and got moving again. He drove another three or four miles up the highway before turning off on a side road. The road was in bad shape, and the toolbox lid started jumping again—and just to make things more exciting, we were going uphill, so the blanket kept sliding underneath me. I had to hook my hands under the bottom of the driver’s seat and hang on.
    We made a last turn, onto gravel, and pulled into a garage. The janitor parked and got out. My adrenaline level spiked as he walked to the back of the van, but he continued around to the passenger’s side without stopping, jangling his keys. There was a hum of an electric motor as the garage door rattled shut, followed by more key jangling, and the squeak of another door opening and closing. And then, incredibly, I was alone. He hadn’t even come close to discovering me.
    I crawled back to the toolbox and got the knife. I thought about taking everything, but I didn’t want to overload myself without knowing how far I might have to run. I figured the knife was the most important piece of evidence, not to mention the most useful if I happened to get cornered.
    I got out of the van on the passenger’s side and looked for the button that activated the garage-door opener. I couldn’t find it, but on the wall right where you’d expect the button to be, I saw a small metal panel with a keyhole in it. I whipped out one of my paper clips and