Page 138 of Holding on to Chaos
“What’s that noise?” he asked.
“You don’t want to know.”
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Donovan’s call had caught Eva dragging a wailing Willa out of the Snip Shack. The woman had started proclaiming her need for a perm, and Eva had barely been able to wrestle her out of the stylist’s chair. It was definitely Uranus’s work that had the salon touting “FREE PERMS AND PIXIE CUTS” at ten o’clock at night on Halloween.
She stuffed Willa in the passenger seat of her Mini and ran around to the driver’s side.
“Willa, what place in town could hold sixty or so people?”
“Why won’t you let me get beautiful curls?” Willa howled.
“Because you would hate your beautiful curls in the morning. Trust me. Now, focus. Where can we imprison a large chunk of the town’s population?”
“The movie theater or the high school, I suppose?”
“Good thinking. Where does the principal or guidance counselor live?”
Willa pointed the way and Eva swung the wheel of the car in the direction. “If you behave yourself, we’ll stop and get you hot rollers somewhere.”
“So, I can have curls?” Willa asked holding up her curtain of stick-straight hair.
“Yes, the temporary kind that won’t make you cry in the morning.”
“Okay, turn here.”
They found Huckleberry Cullen, dressed as a vampire chasing off a troop of costumed adults who were toilet papering his house and giggling like children.
Eva ordered Willa to stay in the car and jumped out of the car.
“Go home!” she said, shooing the cackling neighbors out of the yard.
“It’s the sheriff’s girlfriend,” one of them giggled.
“5-0! 5-0!”
“Let’s go!”
A man who looked to be in his fifties looped a strip of toilet paper around Eva’s shoulders before scampering off behind his friends.
“Are you Huckleberry?” Eva asked, crumpling the toilet paper into a ball.
“Huck,” he said, scraping a hand through his thick hair. “Thanks for the assist. Usually they’re not all insane at the same time.”
“Huck, I need access to the school.”
His eyes narrowed as he studied her. “Ah, hell. Are you crazy, too? Are you planning to hack the planetarium’s computer to phone home?”
Eva rolled her eyes. “No time to convince you of my sanity. I need your keys to the high school.”
“Why?”
“I need a bigger jail.”
“Maybe I’d better come with you.”
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