"Jenny!" came a woman's voice from the next room. "What in the world is going on out there?"
"Muh-OOOM!" Jenny yelled. "It's Buffy Meadows' dad! He was, like, all up in my room, watching me and stuff!" Jenny gave one last vigorous slap with the pillow. Distracted and harrassed, Gary felt the rock slip from his fingers and bounce away somewhere.
Miriam Smith rushed in from the kitchen. "Jenny, what are you - " Her jaw dropped in shock. "Gary Meadows! What on earth are you doing here? Were you in Jenny's room?!"
"He totally was, mom! I was, like, doing some cheer exercises and stuff, and then I look up and there he was, just, y'know, looking at me!"
"OK Jenny, just calm down - you go on back up to your room, and I'll be up in a minute." With one last glare, Jenny flounced back to her room and slammed her door shut.
Miriam turned to Gary with a glare. "Care to tell me what's going on?"
Gary gulped, realizing that he had no way to explain his presence in her house, much less the room of her teenage daughter. "M-M-Miriam, I - it's difficult to - I, I mean..."
"That's enough!" she snapped. "I just got off the phone with Lorraine, and she told me you were acting very peculiar since your trip. She said you'd set off looking for Jenny, that she'd done something to your daughter."
"Uhm..."
"She wouldn't say what it was, but she said it was all in your head. Now, Lorraine's a friend of mine, and Jenny and Buffy are friends, so here's what's going to happen. I'm going to go upstairs and tell Jenny that her friend's dad is really sick, and didn't know what he was doing, and you're going to turn around and go home, and we're all going to forget about this. And," she added, her expression turning grim, "If I ever find you sneaking into my daughter's room again, I'm going to call the police and have you thrown in jail! Are we clear?"
"P=perfectly," he nodded nervously. He was looking for the rock, but couldn't see it anywhere.
"OK then. Now just go home and get some rest - you need it." And with that, Miriam showed Gary out the door.
