Helens-of-Troy by Janine McCaw

don’t see
her, we’ll just keep going, no sweat.” He glanced at his watch.
“Whoa. I’ve got to go now. I promised Mr. Czewzinski I’d show up
early today. He said he’d show me how to tune the engine. I don’t
think you’ve noticed, but my car’s been sounding like shit lately.”
He waved, honked his horn twice, and started to pull away from the
curb.
    Thank God, Helena thought. If you only
make it to school one day this year, make it today. “I’ll tell her.
And Ryan, no drinking and driving, do you hear me?”
    “I never drink until after the game,
Mrs. LaRose. I promise. The coach would have a fit.”
    “That’s not what I meant. You’re still
underage.”
    He squealed away in as much of a squeal
as the old Toyota could muster.
    “Ryan,” she said to herself, “I have a
feeling you are going to be my granddaughter’s best friend and my
daughter’s worst nightmare. And you live right next door! How
conveniently Shakespearean.”
    Helena headed back into the house and
wandered into the breakfast nook. As she began to unroll the
newspaper onto the kitchen table, she noticed some dirt falling
from between the damp pages. At least she hoped it was
dirt.
    “Eeww,” she said, taking a napkin from
the holder on the table’s Lazy Susan and wiping the debris off.
“Environment or not, I miss the plastic bag the paper used to come
in.”
    She picked up the paper and studied the
weather page. “It’s supposed to be a gorgeous day,” she said as she
stood and waited for the coffee to finish brewing. Below the
advertisement for Williams Hardware she saw a tiny story about the
streetlights being shattered on Main Street again.
    “You’d think they would know better
than to fix them before Halloween,” she sighed as she put the paper
on the counter and poured herself a cup of java. Her eyes skimmed
down to the bottom of the page. There was a report that a coyote
was on the loose and it had been dining on a few gourmet
selections, specifically a Siamese feline and a purebred miniature
poodle. The owners had discovered their half-mutilated remains
deposited outside their back doors. “Sucked the guts right out of
him,” Warren Curtis had been quoted as saying in the
article.
    “Coyote my ass,” Helena thought aloud,
walking over to the back door. She turned on the porch light to
survey her own back stoop from the window. Thankfully the coast was
clear. There were no dead animals to have to remove before the
girls came down. None that she could see, anyway. She thought again
about the encounter Ellie had with the wild dog last
night.
    “He’s getting too big for his
britches,” Helena said, walking back over to the
counter.
    “What’s that, Mother?” Helen asked,
entering the kitchen in her blue flannel pajamas.
    Helena started to tell her daughter
about the news item, and then thought the better of it. “I was just
talking about my ass. It’s getting too big for my britches. Coffee
dear?” Helena asked, taking another mug from the cupboard and
turning towards her daughter.
    “God no. I don't want anything that
might keep me up tonight,” Helen replied. “I was so tired
yesterday, but I couldn't sleep a wink.” She leaned against the
counter. “I kept thinking I heard something howling at the moon. I
hate Halloween.”
    Helena put the mug back. “I guess you
were still a little wound up. Moves can be a bit
unsettling.”
    Helen looked at her mother in
disbelief. “It wasn’t the move that was unsettling. It might have
started out that way, but somewhere between stuffing all our
earthly possessions in a van, leaving the home and relationship
I’ve known for the past five years and arriving here in Amityville,
the day got even worse.”
    “It’s not always so crazy around here,
I can assure you,” Helena said.
    “Oh, that’s a relief. You act as if
it's normal, the police showing up and taking a dead man from your
home. I still can’t believe we weren’t all taken away