Night of the Puppet People

  “These are way cool,” Bird murmured. He made the knight puppet stagger across the floor. “But it’s going to take a while to figure out which string does what.”

  I finally untangled the knots in the sultan’s leg strings. I raised the control sticks till he stood up straight. The tiny jewels in the sultan’s turban sparkled in the light cast down by the flashlight.

  I still had a heavy feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach. But I was determined to get over my ridiculous fear. “Check this out,” I said.

  I moved the sultan forward across the floor. I made him swing his arms as his legs rose and fell. It looked as if he was walking!

  I turned him around and then had him walk up to the princess. He raised a hand to his middle and took a low bow.

  “Wow!” Bird exclaimed. “Ben, that’s excellent. How did you do that?”

  “I … I’m not sure,” I stammered. “It was easy. It was almost like he was walking himself.”

  We practiced for a few more minutes. Bird figured out how to make the knight marionette wave his sword in the air. Jenny quickly became good at making the princess glide gracefully over the floor, holding her head high like royalty.

  Working the sultan seemed to come naturally to me. I really wasn’t sure what I was doing. The puppet really did seem to move on its own.

  “Are you still up there?” Coach Sparrow’s shout echoed off the attic walls.

  “Coming!” Bird called down to him.

  We carefully hung the puppets back in the cabinet and made sure the doors were shut tight. Sheets of rain pounded the roof above us. The electricity was still off.

  We used the flashlight to guide our way down the steep, creaking attic stairs. Coach Sparrow, a halogen lantern in one hand, greeted us in the hallway. “You guys were up there a long time,” he said. “Did you find anything interesting?”

  “Not really,” Bird answered quickly.

  His dad turned to Jenny and me. “I spoke to your mother. I told her since the storm is so bad, you two should sleep over here. And she agreed.”

  “Yaaay. A sleepover!” Bird declared, pumping his fists in the air. “Can we have hot chocolate and Oreos? Aren’t you supposed to have hot chocolate and Oreos at a sleepover?”

  Jenny rolled her eyes. “You’ve been watching the Disney Channel too much,” she said.

  “Anyway, we can’t make hot chocolate without electricity,” Bird said.

  “We have a gas stove, remember?” Coach Sparrow said. “I think we can manage it.”

  He lit some candles in the kitchen, and we sat at the counter with our sleepover snacks. Jenny and I didn’t have our usual argument over the best way to eat an Oreo. That’s because we only wanted to talk about our puppet skit.

  As soon as Bird’s dad was out of the room, we started thinking up jokes and story ideas and talking about how Anna and Maria were going to be so shocked and horrified when they saw how much better our marionettes were.

  Coach Sparrow returned to the kitchen to bring us more flashlights. And we immediately stopped the puppet talk and changed the subject to the storm. Bird really didn’t want his dad to know we’d found the puppets. I guess Bird thought he’d say we couldn’t use them, and then we wouldn’t have anything at all for the variety show.

  Lightning flashed outside Bird’s bedroom windows. The thunder was so close, it sounded like it was coming from inside the house.

  Bird has bunk beds in his room. I hoisted myself up to the top bunk, and he dropped into the bottom. Jenny was in the tiny guest room down the hall.

  We couldn’t get to sleep. The storm was so noisy. And we were both excited about the puppet skit and about finally being able to win against Anna and Maria.

  I couldn’t wait to see their faces when the three of us walked onstage with our puppets, and Anna and Maria realized that, for the first time ever, they were total losers.

  Ha.

  Bird finally fell asleep. I could hear his slow, steady breaths in the bunk beneath me. I stared at the ceiling, watching the bursts of light from the lightning flashes through the window.

  I yawned, but I still didn’t feel sleepy. I tried counting backward from one hundred. Sometimes that helps put me to sleep.

  I was at seventy-two when I heard the sounds.

  Soft thuds. A clump clump clump sound.

  Coming from above my head?

  I held my breath and listened, totally alert now.

  Clump clump scrape thud.

  Footsteps. Yes. Definitely. Footsteps. Above me. In the attic.

  Impossible, I thought. And then my next thought was: THE PUPPETS.

  Yes. I pictured them. The three marionettes, freed from the cabinet, walking around up there. Walking on their own.

  Lying flat on my back, I balled my hands into tight fists. My whole body tensed, every muscle tight, as I listened.

  I tried to wish the sounds away. I tried to tell myself it was the storm. The thunder. The rain pounding the roof.

  I tried to convince myself it was my imagination.

  It had to be.

  But no.

  Bump bump thud.

  They were walking around up there. The princess, the sultan, the knight. It had to be them. But how was that possible?

  Clump clump clump.

  Right above my head. In the attic above my head.

  I wanted to hide under the blanket, but I knew I had to go up there.

  I kicked off the bed cover and dropped heavily to the floor. “Bird — wake up! Wake up!” I grabbed his shoulders with both hands and started to shake him.

  He’s a very deep sleeper. He groaned but didn’t open his eyes.

  “Wake up! Bird — come on! Bird! You’ve got to wake up!”

  Finally, he raised his head from the pillow, blinking. “Huh? What’s up? Is it morning?”

  I grabbed a flashlight and jammed it into his hand. “Follow me! Hurry! It’s the puppets!” I cried.

  He shook his head. “What about the puppets?”

  “You’ll see.” I tugged him to his feet. “Hurry.”

  I darted out into the hall. Clicked on my flashlight and followed the circle of light to the guest room. “Jenny! Wake up!” I tapped on the door. “Wake up!”

  The door swung open. She was still in her jeans and sweater. She hadn’t changed for bed. “I’m awake, Ben. What do you want?” she demanded.

  “It’s the puppets!” I cried. “I heard them. Walking around upstairs.”

  She grabbed my shoulder. “Take a breath. You’re totally losing it.”

  “No. I’m not,” I insisted. “You’ll see. You’ll see.” I pulled away from her and trotted barefoot toward the door to the attic stairs.

  Bird and Jenny followed close behind. “I knew we shouldn’t have messed with puppets,” she said. “I knew you would freak, Ben.”

  “I’m not!” I cried. “I’m telling you the truth. They’re up there. You’ll see.”

  I swung open the door and swept the beam of light up the stairs. The steps felt cold under my bare feet as I grabbed the shaky banister and pulled myself up.

  “You’ll see. You’ll see.”

  My heart was pounding so hard my chest hurt as I reached the landing. I stepped into the attic, sweeping my light all around.

  Bird and Jenny came right behind me. Our flashlights cut through the clutter of cartons and covered furniture.

  “Oh, wow!” I cried. “Look!”

  A creature. Moving fast. I saw the dark glow of its eyes. Its paws thudded over the attic floor.

  Too stunned to move, I froze. And watched it leap onto the top of a carton, paws scraping and skidding. Then it dove back to the floor and came racing toward us.

  “Whoa.” I felt it brush my leg. Felt a thump on my bare foot. And then it spun around and hurtled back from where it had come.

  “A squirrel!” Bird cried. He aimed his light beam down at the creature. The squirrel’s eyes lit up like car headlights. Frantic, it bounced against one wall
, tumbled into a carton, thumped its way to the cabinet holding the marionettes.

  “How did a squirrel get up here?” Bird asked. “Must be a hole in the attic ceiling.”

  “Does your dad have a net or something?” Jenny asked. “How are we ever going to get it out of here?”

  Bird scratched his head. “Open the window, maybe.”

  The squirrel darted back and forth in a panic. Its tail rose stiffly behind it. Its dark eyes glowed, wide with fright.

  Bird raised the window at the far end of the attic. “Squirrel! Here, squirrel!” he called.

  The terrified animal darted back and forth over the cartons. Jenny and I tried to chase it toward the open window. But we were only frightening it more.

  Finally, it gave a wild leap — and vanished out into the night. Breathing hard, Bird instantly slammed the window shut. “Victory!” he choked out.

  Jenny slapped my back. “Way to go, Ben. You heard a squirrel running around up here, and you went nuts. You didn’t hear puppets walking around. You heard a squirrel.”

  I stared hard at the cabinet at the other end of the narrow room. Then I turned to my sister. “Are you sure?”

  Mrs. O’Neal held auditions for the variety show after school in the auditorium. Everyone in the sixth grade had to try out. But only ten acts would be picked for the show. And, of course, only one act would win the five-hundred-dollar prize.

  Was I psyched? Well, yes, I did want to win the money. But it was a lot more important to keep Anna and Maria from winning it.

  Jenny, Bird, and I hid our puppets behind a curtain backstage. Then we hurried into the auditorium to take seats. We didn’t want anyone to know we were doing a puppet skit. Mainly, it had to be a surprise for the two girls.

  Kids were spread out over the first four or five rows of seats. Mrs. O’Neal was behind a podium at the side of the stage, pawing through some note cards.

  I saw Anna’s sneaker shoot out into the aisle, but I couldn’t stop myself in time. And I tripped and fell face-forward onto the hard floor. I bounced once and felt the air whoosh out of my lungs.

  “Oh, did I do that?” Anna asked with false innocence. “I’m so sorry, Ben. How clumsy of me.”

  Gasping for breath, I struggled to my feet. Down the row of seats, kids were laughing at me. I felt a burst of anger in my chest. I raised a fist. Was I really going to punch Anna?

  Wait for it. Wait for it, Ben, I told myself. You’ll get your revenge up on stage.

  I must have been more tense than I knew. I’ve never punched anyone in my life. I took a deep breath and got myself in control.

  “Wow, Anna, are those sneakers size twelve?” I said. “I always wondered why your nickname is Bigfoot.”

  “Your nickname is Shut Up,” she said. She and Maria bumped knuckles.

  “Good one,” Maria told her friend.

  “Ben, please take a seat,” Mrs. O’Neal called from the stage. “We’re about to begin the auditions.”

  Anna stuck her sneaker out again, but this time I dodged around it. I found Jenny and Bird at the far end of the third row and dropped down beside them.

  Mrs. O’Neal called Shawn Klostner and Gabe Dudley to the stage. These two guys are the only sixth graders who wear their jeans real low, wear muscle shirts, and baseball caps on backward. Shawn and Gabe are always rapping in the lunch room and in the halls and before class and out in the parking lot. So guess what their act was? They rapped.

  They called it “Middle School, Yo.” It was pretty funny. Shawn was beatboxing while Gabe rapped the verse. And they slouched across the stage like rappers.

  When they finished, the kids in the auditorium clapped and cheered. Mrs. O’Neal thanked them, but she had a sour look on her face, like she had eaten a lemon. I don’t think it was her kind of music.

  Anna and Maria were next. They came onstage with a boy and a girl marionette. The boy was dressed in a dark tuxedo. The girl had a red ballroom gown and red high-heeled shoes. The costumes weren’t bad.

  “We are going to demonstrate for you all the ancient art of puppetry,” Maria announced. “Anna and I took lessons from a master puppeteer. And I hope you enjoy the sophisticated movements of our marionettes.”

  “Just get on with it,” I muttered. In the seat beside me, Jenny laughed.

  Mrs. O’Neal leaned on the podium and watched the two girls with a big smile on her face. Dance music started, and Mrs. O’Neal tapped her fingers in rhythm to the music.

  Their puppets really did look like rag dolls or sock puppets on strings. Their heads were round, and the faces were painted on. Their hair was made of strips of orange and yellow felt. And the marionettes had half as many strings as ours.

  I hate to say it, but Anna and Maria did a good job. The two puppets really did appear to be dancing together. They swayed together and spun and bowed and twirled. In perfect time to the dance music.

  When the music stopped and the two puppets took deep bows, the auditorium rang with cheers and applause. At the podium, Mrs. O’Neal clapped, too. “That was wonderful, girls. Very creative and well-performed.”

  “Thank you,” Anna said. “Maria and I would like to dedicate our performance to Suri Yukoshi, who taught us the fine art of puppeteering.”

  I groaned. Could they be any more obnoxious?

  The answer was yes.

  “And if we win the five-hundred-dollar prize money,” Anna said, “we are donating it to Suri Yukoshi’s Doll Hospital so that children can have their puppets and dolls repaired for free.”

  “That’s very generous of you,” Mrs. O’Neal said. She glanced down at her notecards. “Next will be April Lewis, who will accompany herself on the keyboard and sing a song from the movie Frozen.”

  April wheeled her keyboard onto the stage. She had trouble plugging it into the amp, and Mrs. O’Neal hurried over to help her.

  I turned to Jenny and Bird. “What made us think we could compete with Anna and Maria?” I said, shaking my head. “Did you see how good they were?”

  Bird wiped his sweaty palms on the legs of his jeans. “We’ll be better.”

  “What makes you say that?” I demanded. “They were perfect.”

  “We’ll be more perfect,” Bird said.

  Onstage, April started to sing. She’s very good, the best singer in the sixth grade. But I couldn’t listen. I was thinking about our puppet skit, thinking about how crazy we were.

  My stomach felt as if I’d swallowed a huge rock. The back of my neck was prickly and wet. My hands were ice cold.

  Mrs. O’Neal called us up next.

  I trudged after Jenny and Bird to the stage. “We’re doomed,” I muttered. “Doomed.”

  “Come on, Ben,” Jenny said. “Let’s do our best.”

  “What have we got to lose?” Bird said.

  I followed them to the back of the stage, where we had hidden our puppets. Bird pulled open the curtain. And all three of us gasped.

  The puppets were gone.

  I blinked several times, thinking that would make them reappear. “Whoa.” I grabbed Bird’s shoulder. “This is where we hid them — right?”

  He nodded. His mouth hung open, and I saw drops of sweat on his forehead.

  Jenny pulled the curtain open more and stepped behind it. “They — they’re not here,” she stammered.

  I heard Mrs. O’Neal’s voice from the podium at the front of the stage. “Ben? Jenny? You guys? Is there a problem?”

  I stuck my head out from behind the curtain. “We … uh … can’t find our puppets,” I said.

  For some reason, that made the kids in the auditorium erupt with laughter.

  “We set them down right back here,” Jenny told Mrs. O’Neal. “But they’re not here now.”

  “Well, they didn’t walk away on their own,” Mrs. O’Neal said.

  Her words made the breath catch in my throat.

  Walk away on their own.

  I was trying to get over my problem with puppets. But … puppets co
ming alive and walking on their own was one of my worst nightmares. The night I heard footsteps up in Bird’s attic suddenly flashed back into my mind. Was it a squirrel I heard? Or had the puppets come to life?

  Was I living my worst nightmare now?

  “Are these what you’re looking for?” Mrs. O’Neal asked. She had walked to the side of the stage and had the knight puppet draped over one arm.

  “Yes,” I said. “How did they get over there?”

  I saw the other two puppets in a sitting position against the stage wall. The three of us trotted across the stage and picked up our puppets. Then we walked them to the center of the stage.

  I tried to ignore my shaking legs and the chills that made me want to drop the puppet and run away. They hadn’t walked on their own. Someone moved them, I told myself. It’s no big deal. Someone saw them behind the curtain and moved them to the side of the stage.

  I had the sultan puppet. I straightened his turban. Then I steadied the control sticks between my hands. Jenny and Bird were watching me, waiting for me to start the skit.

  “Hello, slaves,” I made the sultan say in a raspy, shrill voice, raising his hands above his head. “I am the king. See how I walk like a king?”

  I made the puppet strut in front of the princess and the knight.

  Bird made the knight raise his sword. “I am a knight because I have a sword!” he boomed. “If you had a sword like mine —”

  Suddenly, Bird stopped and stared into the audience.

  I turned and saw what he was staring at. Anna and Maria had jumped to their feet and were waving wildly to Mrs. O’Neal.

  “Sit down, girls.” Mrs. O’Neal motioned with both hands. “Don’t interrupt their skit.”

  “But this isn’t right!” Maria cried. “They can’t do puppets.”

  “They knew we were doing puppets,” Anna said. “And they are just copying us.”

  “Sit down right now,” the teacher snapped. “I really think there’s room in our show for two puppet acts.”

  “But it’s not fair!” Maria whined. “We took lessons and everything.”

  “Let them finish!” a boy shouted from the back of the auditorium. And then other kids instantly took up the chant: “Let them finish! Let them finish!”