The Man in the Woods by Rosemary Wells Page A

by a student. At the end of the year the very best of these articles was given a gold medal. If Barry de Wolf can win a gold medal with a sleep-inducing essay about the birds of New Bedford, then I can win it too , she had decided. Her father had said it was a splendid idea. Aunt Stella had said it was not the right thing for a young girl to go chasing people up into the woods or to write about it either. Nonetheless, Helen had decided to do it and had announced her intention over breakfast the morning after the accident.
    Surely, she thought, the other articles that she’d seen so far on a clipboard outside Jerry’s office didn’t hold a candle to hers. One was about growing potatoes under the sea. Another was entitled “Why I Want to Be a Teacher.” Helen began trying out titles for her story. She was good at lettering. Earlier in the week she had thought of calling her story “Near Death for Mother and Baby.” That sounded like a headline in the National Enquirer at the supermarket checkout. “Witness to an Accident” was too tame and boring. The story she had in mind would be light on the description of blood and gore and heavy on the part about chasing the rock thrower through the woods. She decided at last to call it “The Man in the Woods.” Her lettering was perfect. It looked printed. She smiled and daydreamed of the gold medal she would win. The story would be so good, she was sure it would win not only the gold medal but help earn the Whaler its state journalism prize. Then Jerry and Barry and Beverly would sit up and take notice of her. How sorry they would be that they had given her such a hard time. How admiring they’d have to be, squirming in their seats on Class Day when the principal called her name and handed her the gold medal. How grateful Jerry would be.
    Aunt Stella pretended to be surprised when Pinky rang the doorbell. “Somebody here to see you!” her soprano voice called up the stairway.
    Helen jumped and ran to the mirror. She pulled a hairbrush as vigorously as she could through her curls, trying, as always, to deny their existence. I can’t wait to get twelve more dollars saved , she said angrily to herself. I’m going to have my hair straightened and look like a normal human being for once instead of someone who stuck her hand in an electric socket.
    Pinky was doing his best to appear respectable to Aunt Stella. Helen could hear polite noises coming from him down in the living room. She could also hear Aunt Stella pacing, picking up her little knickknacks and dusting them off as she always did when she was nervous.
    “I’m going to drive both of you to the stadium,” Aunt Stella announced when Helen ran downstairs.
    Helen saw Pinky’s face fall slightly. “Oh, Aunt Stella,” she said, “there’s so much traffic. We’ll take the bus like everybody else.”
    Aunt Stella settled her gaze on Pinky’s cowlick, which was coming slowly unstuck. Helen hoped she wouldn’t attempt to fix it. “I have to pick up your new music box at Perry and Crowe anyway,” said Aunt Stella, still looking at the cowlick. She prided herself on having a way with hair. Helen knew better than to argue.
    During the ride to the stadium Aunt Stella recounted her favorite experiences from high school when she had been their age. This was bad enough, but the high school in Ireland had been called a grammar school, which somehow made things worse. She told them who had asked her to dance at the graduation ball. Helen closed her eyes. She’d heard the story many times before. Then Aunt Stella told them how difficult schools were back then. Everyone could recite from memory all thirty-six verses of “The Downfall of the Gael.” Helen prepared her arguments for taking the bus home instead of being picked up after the game. What she wanted to do was to go back to the woods and look for her lost locket. She was sure it must have been torn off by a tree branch. Perhaps it had fallen off when she’d hidden