Scream and Scream Again!

  “Yes!” I shout. Then two sets of big hands clamp down on my arms. No!

  “Look who it is, Finn! The skateboarding kid,” Mandry says, like he’s so happy to see me.

  “Good job, kid!” the other guy, Finn, snarls. “You made our job a lot easier!”

  I glance around for my ghost friend, but he’s gone!

  “I knew you kids were after the money!” Finn hisses. He shakes me. “Who told you about the bag?”

  “It was a—!” I start to protest, but then I shut my mouth. They’d never believe me about the ghost. What do I do?

  Mandry hauls me up. He holds on to my arm with a tight grip. I’m, like, shaking from fear. He doesn’t even notice. He drags me over to the empty grate.

  He and Finn look down into the hole.

  “Huh,” Mandry says. “Pretty small hole.” He kicks a clump of pressed earth into the gap, and it falls for a moment before we hear it hit the ground. It’s a ways to the bottom.

  “Let me go!” I manage to say. “My friend will be looking for me.”

  “I don’t think so,” Finn says. “If your friend was here, he’d have helped you. No, I think you got greedy and came back to find the bag all by your little, puny self.”

  “That’s not true!” I argue.

  Mandry shakes me hard. “Shut it!”

  Finn looks me over. “I got an idea,” he says. “We’ll lower you into the hole. You hand up the money. We’ll haul you out, and we won’t tell no one you was ever here. Deal?”

  I don’t trust these guys one bit. I glance around desperately. Where’s the ghost?! He got me into this, the least he could do is help me get out!

  “No!” I say. “Just let me go, and I won’t tell anyone anything. You can get the bag yourself.”

  “Don’t be scared,” Finn says. “You just do us this favor. Get the bag, and we won’t tell the cops.”

  Mandry shakes his head. “Your folks’ll be pretty sad to get called down to the station at two a.m.”

  I think of my mom and dad. They’d be so disappointed.

  “Okay,” I say. “But I want some of the money.”

  “Deal,” Finn says, clapping his hands. “Mandry, where’s our rope?”

  A few minutes later they’ve tied the rope under my arms. I sit on the hole’s edge, my feet dangling into the dark who-knows-what. At least they’re letting me use their flashlight.

  I am so mad at that ghost kid! If I ever see him again, I’m going to punch him in the face, even if it freezes my hand off.

  “Get on with it,” Mandry says. “We don’t want to be here when they come to blow the place up!”

  I scoot forward. The rope tightens under my arms. I edge off into the small hole.

  The two men start lowering me hand over hand. I’m jerked down, down, down. . . .

  I shine the flashlight all around. It’s a room. A tall room. Perfectly square, with brick walls. There’s a bundle of something below me. Fabric? It doesn’t look like a bag. . . .

  I SCREAM! It’s a skeleton! It’s a skeleton wearing clothes and clutching a bag!

  “What is it?” one of the guys shouts. They let the rope drop, and I plummet right on top of the pile of bones!

  I roll off the skeleton and huddle away, panting.

  “What’s down there?” Mandry yells.

  “Bones!” I say, and gasp for air. “A skeleton!”

  I can hear the two guys laughing up above me.

  And then I see my friend, the ghost. He’s sitting next to the skeleton, with his head down.

  It’s him, I realize. The skeleton is the ghost boy’s body. I clench my fists. I really want to be mad at him for getting me into all this, but I can’t. He looks so sad sitting there. My hands relax.

  “That’s you, isn’t it?” I ask softly. He looks up at me, silvery tears shining in his eyes. He nods. “I’m sorry.”

  “Do you see a bag?” Finn calls down.

  “Yeah,” I say. “It’s here.”

  The two men hoot and congratulate themselves from up above. They’re such jerks.

  I cross to the skeleton and shine the light on it. Though the clothes are just rags now, I see the same kind of tweedy shorts material as the ghost is wearing. The same shoes.

  I carefully lift the skeleton’s arms from around the bag. The bag is made of carpet. It’s curly and a little moldy, but inside the open zipper I see it’s full of stacks of bills.

  There are a couple of wooden crates in the room. As I sit down on one, I hear bottles clanking inside. I take out a bundle. It’s American money, but so weird-looking. “They’re not really bills. They say ‘Five Silver Dollars,’” I call up.

  “We’re rich!” Mandry shouts. “Those are better than real money. They’re worth a ton. All rare and stuff!”

  “Hand up the money!” Finn snarls. “Tie the bag to the rope.”

  “Pull me up first!” I shout. “I’ll bring the money with me.”

  “You won’t fit through the hole, kid,” Mandry says. “Don’t worry, we’re not monsters. Once we have the money, we’ll pull you up.”

  I look at my ghost friend. He’s shaking his head!

  “No way,” I insist. “You guys gotta bring me up first. I’ll, like, tie the bag to my leg or something.”

  “Tie the bag to your leg? Come on, kid. Quit messing around. We wouldn’t leave you down there!” Finn says. “In fact, I think we should split the money with you. It’s only fair. We’ll give you a quarter of it.”

  “A quarter?” Mandry shouts at his partner. “No, Finn! Ten percent, tops!”

  They begin to bicker. I sigh. I decide they must be honest about pulling me up if they’re going to yell at each other about how much of a share to give me. I tie the rope around the handle of the bag.

  “Okay, guys,” I yell. “Pull the money up.”

  “Way to go, kid,” Mandry calls down. I catch sight of his face in the hole, way up in the ceiling. He gives me a thumbs-up. Then, once the bag is close, he reaches his big, beefy arm in and grabs the bag.

  “Okay!” I yell. “Throw down the rope.”

  I hear fragments of their discussion as I wait for them to throw the rope down.

  “Must be over a million dollars’ worth. . . .”

  “Can’t tell anybody or they’ll take it away. . . .”

  “The kid might tell. . . .”

  “Hey!” I shout. “I won’t tell anyone. Now throw down the rope.”

  They act like they don’t hear me.

  “Can’t trust kids. . . .”

  “No one knows where he is. . . .”

  And then lower, whispered: “And then we can keep it all for ourselves.”

  “Let me out! This isn’t right!” I scream. “Let me out of here!”

  But I see the grate slipping back into place.

  “No!” I cry. Then I hear them moving heavy machinery over the grate, to seal me down here and shut out the noise.

  “No!” I scream. Only the ghost can hear me. He’s shaking his head, his hands pressed over his ears.

  My heart is pounding in my rib cage. They can’t do this! I grab the three crates and stack them up. But since there are only three crates, even in a tower, they don’t reach halfway up to the ceiling! Then the crates sway, and the stack crashes to the ground. I jump and land on my feet.

  I rant for a while, pacing around the tiny room, cursing the construction workers and their parents. Then I curse the ghost and his parents, and everyone who ever knew him and anyone who ever worked at the bottle factory.

  I slump down on a crate in the corner. I’m not giving up. No way. I cross my arms and think. I look around the odd, tall room. Why was it built?

  I peer down through the slats of the crate at the bottles inside. They’re cloudy with age, but brown liquid sloshes inside.

  “What is this, liquor?” I ask.

  Ghost boy nods again. I think about the room. From the clothes the ghost is wearing, I’d say he died around 1930. That date and th
e crates of liquor come together in my head—Prohibition!

  I remember it from history class. Liquor was outlawed, and bootleggers had all sorts of hideouts to store their booze and money.

  “Were you working for bootleggers?”

  The ghost nods again. He’s looking at his skeleton, staring at something. I shine my flashlight on the bones and see a glint of silver metal.

  Moving closer, I poke at the skeleton with my index finger. The boy perks up as I slide an object out of the pocket of the tweed shorts. It’s an old-fashioned pocket watch.

  The ghost is so excited now he’s jumping up and down behind me.

  “Was this yours?” I ask. “Seems too big to belong to a kid.”

  The ghost points and points to the watch. Mimes opening it.

  I press the little knobby thing on the top, and the watch pops open. Inside, the face is totally clean. It’s cream colored, with fancy Roman numerals. Then I see the photo sealed into the inside of the cover.

  It’s a boy, smiling, his arm thrown around the shoulders of a little girl. They’re standing in front of Goolrick’s Pharmacy, right here in town! That place has been there forever.

  “Is that your sister?” I ask. He nods, beaming at me. I have a thought, and I carefully pry the photo out of the setting. On the back, in an elegant scrawl, it reads Billy Jr. and Wilhelmina, 1931.

  “That your name?” He smiles. He points to his sister in the photo. “Yeah, she’s cute.”

  I close the case and notice it’s inscribed with a name: William H. Gust.

  “This is your daddy’s watch,” I say. “William Gust. And you’re Billy. Well, if I ever get out of here, I’ll look up your sister, Billy. I’ll get this watch to her.”

  Billy nods again, solemnly. He puts his hand over his heart, saying thank you.

  I sigh, settling down on the ground to sit with my back pressed against the dusty brick wall. It’s cold against my skin. I shudder in my T-shirt, shorts, and hoodie. “My dad’s going to kill me. If I ever get out of here alive.”

  Billy smiles. I can tell he feels bad about the mess he got me into. He sighs, silently.

  I close my eyes, just to rest them for a moment.

  When I wake up, I find I’ve curled up onto my side and Billy’s skull is staring right at me! Let me tell you, it’s not a nice surprise to wake up face-to-face with an old, desiccated skull grinning at you. I stretch, and that’s when I see the light.

  About halfway up the wall, there’s a little light coming in; a square of light blue. I shine the flashlight at it and realize what it is—it’s daylight! Outside the factory a new day has dawned, and sunlight is coming through a hole in the wall.

  “What time is it?” I cry. Billy shrugs. He’s pacing the floor.

  I yell “Move, move!”’cause he’s blocking my way. I stack the three crates up again. This time, I set them against the wall, for stability. If I stand on my toes, I can reach the hole. It’s a small rectangular space, covered with ivy. I yank at the ivy, pulling it out of the way.

  “It’s a vent!” I shout down to the ghost boy. I can see out, and the little vent is set right above ground level. There are brown weeds growing right in front of it. I never thought I’d be so happy to see dead grass!

  The vent is small—too small for me to get through. But the bricks are old and crumbly—at least they are in other parts of the building. Maybe I can dig my way out!

  Then I hear something that nearly makes me tumble to the ground—it’s the voices of construction workers. “Hey!” I shout. “Help me! Let me out!”

  My cries for help get a little more frantic as I remember they’re demolishing the building today. TODAY! It could come crashing down on top of me at any moment!

  “HELP!” I yell. “Help me!”

  It’s no good. I’ve got to help myself.

  “I gotta knock some of the bricks out!” I shout to Billy. “Quick, what can I use?”

  I climb down my stack of boxes. I look around . . . Maybe I could hack at the wall with my flashlight? Or maybe one of the bottles from the crates. My eyes fall on the long, hard leg bone from the ghost boy’s skeleton, but he taps me on the shoulder. ICY!

  “Don’t touch me!” I shout again.

  Billy rolls his eyes and points to a brick lying on the floor. It’s come out of the wall, down near the floor, along with a couple others. I peer in the hole, expecting to see dirt behind it, but instead, there’s another layer of bricks. Weird.

  “You think I should use a brick to hit other bricks?”

  He nods really fast. He kind of looks like he’s hiding a grin, actually.

  I don’t know what’s so funny—the building could get blown up at any second! I lift the brick, and it’s heavy. Like, really heavy.

  Good, I think. Maybe it’ll work.

  I heave it up onto the top of my stack, and then I shimmy up there.

  WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! I lift the heavy brick and drive it into the crumbling wall.

  There’s a glint from the brick in my hands. It’s . . . There’s paint chipping off it. I stop just long enough to flick a chip of rust-colored paint off the brick.

  Gold.

  It’s gold under there.

  I’m holding a gold brick in my hands.

  And suddenly, I look at the wall in a whole new way. The bricks, I see, aren’t shaped quite right. They’re more smooth and are a little smaller than normal bricks. And each has a slight pyramidal shape to it.

  “Is that a wall of GOLD BRICKS?” I ask the ghost.

  He throws his arms out, like Ta-da!

  Outside I hear the supervisor blowing a whistle.

  “STOP!” I shout. And SMASH! SMASH! SMASH! I drive the brick into the wall. The space I’ve made is tiny, but I can just about get my head through.

  The whistle blows again.

  Oh God! I hack at the wall even harder. There! A brick falls out and I think I can just . . .

  I get my head through. Then my shoulder. I’m straining, straining, trying to get out when I feel a COLD, ICY push on my backside. I jump through that hole!

  The whistle blows a third time.

  “Come on, Billy!” I shout. I poke my head back into the hole. “Come on!”

  He shakes his head and turns back to his skeleton. He lays down on top of the bones, and I see him fade away. I tear myself away from the sight.

  I hear a fourth whistle!

  “Stop!” I shout. I stumble to my feet and take off running around the building.

  “Don’t blow it!” I scream. I’m waving my hands like a crazy person. “STOP!”

  The workers are all gathered way outside the fence. One of them looks up and sees me. He points.

  “Holy smokes!” he yells. “Cut it! Frank! There’s a kid in there! Stop!”

  I sink to my knees, falling, hands to the cement. “There’s gold down there . . . ,” I say, though they’re too far away to hear. “There’s gold, and the body of a kid . . .” I collapse.

  The Elm Grove Senior Center is really cruddy. It smells like bleach and old people, which I guess makes sense because the place is full of them. Elderly people are lined up in wheelchairs out in the corridor, gazing off into nowhere, and wandering around in stained bathrobes. This place is the pits.

  There was a huge scene when we first arrived.

  The manager’s a jerk. He’s a short man with a belly busting the buttons of his shirt.

  “I don’t understand, what relation are you to Ms. Gust?” he kept asking.

  “We’re friends,” my father said. “We want to help her out.”

  “Ms. Gust has a yearly contract,” he protested. “She has to pay the whole year, even if she wants to move out.”

  “We’ll pay it,” my dad said.

  “It’s more than twenty thousand dollars!” the manager said. He crossed his arms, like he knew that would be a huge deal breaker.

  “We can pay,” my dad repeated. I kind of wanted him to, like, snap out a big roll of bills or so
mething, but my dad’s cool. He’s patient with everyone, even blowhards like the manager.

  “We’ll release her when and if your check clears,” the manager said. Just then a secretary hustled out. She was gaping at me and had the newspaper in her hand.

  “Ronald! Don’t you know who this is?” she asked the manager. “That kid’s the Skateboard Millionaire!”

  That’s the dumb name the reporters gave me when the story broke.

  The manager’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. He stared down at the newspaper and then back up to me. On the front page was a photo of me holding up one of the gold bricks, shaking hands with the school superintendent.

  The headline read: “Skateboard Millionaire to Donate Three Million to Local School System.”

  The manager grabbed the paper and read aloud, “‘Local hero Jamal Parker, the twelve-year-old who recently discovered more than two hundred million dollars in gold bullion in the basement of the abandoned McCrary bottle factory, has announced he and his family will donate three million dollars to the Fredericksburg school system. His only condition? The school must build skateboarding facilities at each of its institutions and offer skateboarding as a physical education class. . . .’”

  Ronald then did a total about-face. He shook my dad’s hand, congratulating him and thanking him and just making a fool out of himself.

  “We can accommodate any of your wishes, Mr. Parker. But you know, there’s no need to withdraw Ms. Gust from our care. She’s one of our favorite guests. Instead, you could upgrade her care. We offer a platinum premium care package—”

  As my dad started to protest, I snuck away to meet Ms. Gust.

  And now I’m sitting in her tiny room, eating sticky butterscotch candies from a green glass dish.

  Wilhelmina Gust is eighty-nine years old. She wears her white hair in two braids that crisscross on top of her head. She pushes the candy dish at me. “Take another,” she says. “You’re a nice boy, coming to visit with an old bird like me!”

  The room is overheated and crammed with porcelain knickknacks. There are three framed photographs on the wall, and if I had any doubt about who she was before, it vanished when I saw the biggest photo. It’s her and Billy; looks like they’re dressed up for the first day of school or maybe for church. It’s him, all right.