Dream Chasers Read Online Free PDF Page A

own concerns. “Does anyone know if she has a boyfriend?”
    â€œLea’s had lots of boyfriends,” Mrs. Lucas said. “She’s a pretty girl, but it hasn’t gone to her head. She still takes the time to be nice to everyone.”
    â€œThat’s refreshing,” the younger teacher said. “So many girls won’t give each other the time of day once they figure out the pecking order.”
    Jenna tried to picture pretty, outgoing Lea in the middle of a group. Would people look up to her or ridicule her for talking to so-called losers? The distant pain of her own high school tinged her thoughts. Along with another memory of a boy even more inept than she was, who had followed her around like a lovesick puppy because she had been nice to him. He had turned up at the end of her laneway, outside her window in the dead of night, and finally on the shortcut through the woods from school to her house.
    Her pulse quickened. “Sometimes it’s the quiet ones who adore from a distance that are the most dangerous.”
    Heads swivelled towards her around the table. Eyes narrowed. “You’re talking as if something bad has happened to her,” Nigel said.
    â€œWell, aren’t we all?” Mrs. Lucas countered. “I know Lea. I’ve taught her English for two years. She’d never leave her mother without a word. They were extremely close. She wrote me a journal piece once about how they escaped from Bosnia together on foot through the mountains after her father was killed by the Serbs. Lea felt a huge obligation to her mother, for all that she’d lost and given up so that Lea could be safe. She’d never cut off ties of her own free will. I agree with Jenna, she’s been abducted...or worse.”
    That silenced the threesome for a moment. As the unspoken words “by whom?” hung in the air, Jenna’s thoughts returned to the boyfriend Crystal had described. The police should be looking for this boy. They should be dragging him down to the station— preferably over hot coals, she thought, indulging a private fantasy about all the sleazeballs she’d known—and they should be forcing him to confess to the part he’d played in her disappearance.
    â€œDoes anyone know who she’s going out with right now?” she asked.
    Mrs. Lucas grunted. “I gave up trying to keep up with today’s kids long ago. They seem to hang out in groups and try each other out as casually as I change clothes.”
    The pregnant teacher laughed. “That’s not saying much, Pat! How many outfits do you have? A sweat suit for winter and a white T -shirt for summer?”
    But Mrs. Lucas merely shrugged and brushed imaginary lint from her white T -shirt. “But you know what I mean? Sometimes it’s hard to tell if they’re dating or just friends.”
    â€œAnd sometimes it’s not, the way they hang on each other,” the pregnant one said. “I remember hearing she was dating one of the theatre students. But then again, actors and relationships...here today, gone tomorrow.”
    â€œBut seriously,” Jenna said, “if we could figure out who her boyfriend is—”
    Mrs. Lucas’s eyes narrowed. “You seem awfully focussed on a boyfriend. Do you know something we don’t?”
    Jenna felt her face burn. Damn! Just when she was beginning to feel more confident with the woman, her stare reduced Jenna to a small child again. “No, no! I just think...you know how boyfriends can be. Jealous, possessive. He could be the culprit.”
    Looking unconvinced, Mrs. Lucas snapped her tupperware shut and carried her coffee mug to the sink. “Well, it’s a stretch. Much more likely that some pervert got her. The jail sentences they get, and the way these girls dress, it’s a disaster waiting to happen.”
    The bell rang, and a collective groan rose from the tables as teachers pushed back their