Funhouse by Diane Hoh Page B

took a seat beside her.
    “The doctor said she’d be in there a while,” Doss said, his usual swaggering air gone as he gestured toward the emergency room. He seemed as worried as everyone else in the room.
    But suspicion had taken a firm hold on Tess and was growing with every passing minute. Two accidents in less than a week! In a town where things like this never happened. She didn’t care what explanation for Gina’s fall the police came up with, they’d never convince her that the saucer hadn’t been missing. It had. Someone had taken it. She didn’t have the slightest idea how someone would do such a thing. She only knew that someone had.
    But who?
    The person who had written the purple note, of course. The intention was clear from that awful poem. The police, and then Gina, hadn’t taken it seriously. Maybe they should have. If there’d been no more accidents, Tess would have agreed with them that it was just a sick joke. But now Gina had fallen, and it was clear, at least to Tess, that the note had been for real.
    What frightened Tess most was the fact that every single person who had been seriously hurt so far, with the exception of some innocent bystanders injured in The Devil’s Elbow crash, had been her age, in her group of friends: Dade, Sheree, Joey, and now Gina. Why would someone target them?
    And then Tess thought of something else, even more frightening.
    Whoever had slipped that purple note under her door had known where she lived—that she lived with Shelley in the condominium, not with her father anymore. Only a few people knew that. Only her closest friends.
    But that was impossible! None of her friends could ever do anything this horrible. Never! Could they?
    Tess glanced around the room nervously. Could shy, quiet Candace be harboring feelings of hatred and anger toward her fellow students? Why? Because she felt left out? If people didn’t pay that much attention to Candace, it was because she was so quiet. Maybe underneath that quiet, she was full of rage. Maybe she wasn’t who they all thought she was.
    Beak? Lover of practical jokes? Even he couldn’t possibly find The Devil’s Elbow crash funny—could he?
    Trudy? Remembering the temper tantrum that Trudy had thrown in the school parking lot, Tess watched Trudy for a long moment. Wearing an expensive pink jumpsuit belted in rich leather, Trudy was filing her nails with an emery board, glancing up every now and then to smile at Guy Joe, who lounged against the wall. Could Trudy have some reason for wanting the people she knew well to suffer?
    I can’t believe, Tess thought unhappily, that I am even considering the possibility that one of my friends could have done such horrid things! It’s just not possible, that’s all!
    Then who had? And why?
    Doss, she thought, as she looked across the room at him, slumped in one of the hard plastic chairs. Doss would know the Funhouse inside and out. And he’d know how to remove those metal saucers and replace them, wouldn’t he?
    The trouble with that theory, she realized instantly, was that Gina would be the last person Doss would want to hurt. Anyone who had seen the expression on his square, dark face when he looked at Gina would understand that Doss would rather break his own leg than Gina’s.
    That was when she remembered something, and sat up straight. Of course! The missing saucer hadn’t been intended for Gina. The missing keys belonged to Tess. The hole in the saucers had been created for her. And those keys hadn’t slid from her pocket at all. They’d been deliberately removed. That’s why she hadn’t been able to find them anywhere, and had to get a lift back home to pick up her extra set.
    But who would have had the opportunity to take her keys? Doss would have. She now remembered he had been standing close to her on The Boardwalk before they’d first entered the Funhouse. He could easily have filched her keys. And then he could have removed the saucer, knowing Tess would