Jamison left his spaghetti and walked into the front bedroom to hear better.
“Stop it,” scolded an older female voice. “You want everybody to hear?”
“Stop it, stop it, stop it,” Addy mimicked almost mechanically with shrill anger. Stop it! STOP IT! STOP IT!” A door slammed. Silence.
“Ew,” piped a little voice from the Clark’s gangway down below. “You look soooooo ugly!”
Jamison moved closer to the window. Below was the Clark’s boy, hushing the bratty little kid with the blond crew cut who lived in the fancy apartment building a few houses down.
“Shh,” cautioned the Clark boy. “Don’t say that, you dummy!”
Jamison followed their gaze to Addy’s bedroom window. Addy stood with her palms pressed up against the glass. The room was dark behind her but he saw her clearly. Her face was smeared with makeup. Her lips were painted bright red and largely exaggerated. Eyeliner and bright green eye shadow was layered thickly and ludicrously in sharp angles upon her young face. She stared wildly in wonder at Jamison, then at nothing.
“You look like a witch,” yelled the brat. “Ha-ha!”
Jamison fumed. “Hey,” he yelled to the kids, “get out of here!”
Addy snarled and flung open the window. She hurled down cosmetics, powder, hairbrushes, and an assortment of small tiny bottles. A bottle struck the sidewalk below and shattered. A piece of glass made a small cut in the bratty kid’s face.
“Ouch!”
With horror, Jamison saw the Clark boy pluck a syringe out of his shoulder.
The boys fled.
Addy slammed the window shut, putting a long vertical crack in the glass. She pressed her cheek against the pane and dragged her face down, leaving a smudge of greasy make-up. A large dark shadow sailed quietly behind her head.
Jamison ran to the kitchen and called the police.
“Um, yeah,” said the officer on the phone in a quiet tone. “Thank you. We already know about the disturbance. Somebody is already on their way.”
“But there were these kids that got hurt.”
Click.
Jamison pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it. He hurried back into the studio and peered out at Addy’s now empty window. In the darkness beyond, Jamison could see that there was some damage done to the far wall. Sheets of wallpaper hung in shreds. The smeared face on the window looked back at him with large ghostly eyes and a mouth that yowled in yawning silence.