Annie Hansen Mysteries

Chapter 8

Catch us if you can, the voices whispered. Dream big, you"ll never get to university. I ignored them and my dreams of greatness. You"re bad and not very smart, they continued. You"ll never amount to anything.

Catch us if you can,Dream big, you"ll never get to university.You"re bad and not very smart,You"ll never amount to anything.Just like Samir. Your mother was a librarian. You"ll never come close to her achievements in life. Your crazy bipolar aunt took early retirement a long time ago. You got nobody now. You can"t even look after yourself. You don"t deserve any better than Samir.

Just like Samir. Your mother was a librarian. You"ll never come close to her achievements in life. Your crazy bipolar aunt took early retirement a long time ago. You got nobody now. You can"t even look after yourself. You don"t deserve any better than Samir.“Keep Samir out of this,” I whispered. “I was good in drama and now I"m a good Private Eye. Maybe I"ll be another Miss Marple or he"ll find a job in something he"s good at, like the military. Like guns. I have my G.E.D.”

“What?” Samir asked.

“Nothing.” Mistake, roared the voices. Oh, you"re bad and they"ll catch you out with it. He doesn"t like you.

MistakeOh, you"re bad and they"ll catch you out with it. He doesn"t like you.“Of course not,” I whispered, trying to be cool. “We"re not really married.” You"ll never get married.

You"ll never get married.“Shut up,” I said. The Powolskis were in the next room watching television. My voices were louder than the blare of the TV.

“What?” Samir asked, pushing me.

“Not you. Them.”

“Oh. Your voices,” he mocked.

voicesA cat slunk around the corners of the kitchen. Kitty had black, matted fur, green eyes, and mean as a she lion with its tail caught in a meat grinder. Mrs. Powolski was the only one fed that cat. She was the only one could get near it. Most of the day it slept in a special dog"s bed in the spare bedroom downstairs, because it was big as a small terrier, and come night, it would let itself out the cat door in the kitchen and be inseminated by all the male cats in the neighborhood. It also ate from garbage cans—I seen it. Sometimes when the moon shone high, she rode the fence outside, yowling at nothing at all.

That cat was clearly crazy. If it ever actually caught one of the parrots and ate it, the cat would be history, though. Mrs. Powolski would see to that. Sometimes I left the door to the birdcage open. Just in case. The birds were too smart for me, though, and definitely too smart for the cat. They stayed put until the riptide was clear.

But the main point here was looking at Samir"s cane in the corner. Something blackish and sticky was dried on the bottom of the cane. I tried to put one and one together and remember where Samir had been the night before.

I thought I might pay the nurse a call at her little house near the clinic, and see who might like to see Doc dead, who might have the brains and expertise to use a surgical drill, or the strength to knock him out first.

Nobody you know, jeered the Whisperer. Time to find out. You"ll be surprised, Annie my girl. If I didn"t know the voices were constructs of my ego, I"d have thought they"re smarter than me, but how could that be? The voices were Annie. Period. Tormenting me with the jobs I couldn"t do right. With ideas that slipped my conscious mind. Maybe they were right—I was stupid and bad.

Nobody you know,Time to find out. You"ll be surprised, Annie my girl.