trixie decided not to go back out into the night in pursuit of a cup of coffee.
she thanked the night clerk for his information and went back up to her room.
she undressed and got back into bed. she hoped she would not have any more dreams.
the place was quiet enough, she had to give it that.
she clicked off the little lamp on the stand beside the bed. as she did she noticed that the stand had a single drawer in it, the kind of drawer that often held a gideon bible.
a bible… that reminded her of the too friendly man who had tried to pick her up on the highway… he looked land sounded like a bible salesman…
a bible salesman! of course…
she had thought there was something familiar about the pickup truck man, but she had been too concerned about just getting away from him to really think about it…
when trixie, joey, and tony had been in the fifth grade, a new boy had suddenly appeared in the class.
his name was pete pickering. his father was a bible salesman and pete, when questioned by the teacher, ms whitley, stated without a great show of enthusiasm that he, too, would like to be a bible salesman when he grew up.
young pete was one of those people, who, at any stage of their lives, seem about twice as old as they are in years. it would be a stretch to say that ten year old pete seemed twenty years old, but there was something ponderous, like an adult, about him.
the other children did not take to pete.
he just has this way of staring at things, donna gilliam, the class princess, declared. what is he looking at? is he just staring into space?
he’s a big goop, donna’s lieutenant, shirley tompkins, agreed.
tony did not consider pete worthy of being recruited into his circle.
trixie, whose parents were socialists and militant atheists, thought being a bible salesman was indescribably weird. she mentioned pete to her mom when she went home that night. her mom was interested in the little details of trixie’s days, and trixie regularly gave her a few crumbs of information about them.
you should ask him, trixie’s mom said, why people should have to buy the bible.
yes, i will do that for sure, trixie replied, in the is-she-being-sarcastic way that annoyed her mom so much.
after his first day, neither joey nor trixie gave pete much thought.
tony kept an eye on pete, as he kept an eye on everybody.
pete was an average student. he did not make any friends.
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