“Take it easy, Brit,” Jeff said. “We’ll stay with you. They won’t attack all of us.”
“We’ll walk you home,” Louisa offered. “Don’t worry.”
They walked me all the way to my front door. “Thanks, guys,” I told them. “You’re really good friends.”
For some reason, that sent Frankie into a fit of laughter.
“Frankie, quit it!” Louisa rolled her eyes. “You’ve been acting so weird lately. All you do is laugh. This isn’t funny.”
“Ha! Ha! The joke is on you,” Frankie said, and started to laugh some more.
The laughter pounded in my head. “Cut it out, Frankie!” I yelled. I just couldn’t stand the sound.
I broke away from the group and ran into my house. “Mom?” I called.
No answer.
“Mom?” I called again. My eyes searched the kitchen. There was no sign of my mom. And no sign that she’d been there.
No groceries. Nothing on the stove.
My heart began to race.
“MOM!” I screamed. “Where are you?”
No answer.
I turned and ran for the stairs.
“Jimmy?” I called. “Jimmy? Are you home?”
I waited to hear his voice.
But all I heard was a faint hissing sound.
Mom must be taking a shower, I tried to tell myself. It’s only the shower running.
That’s all.
Just the shower.
But the hissing sound grew louder—and turned into rattling.
I searched frantically for a place to hide.
All I could think of was the hall closet.
I dashed for it. I threw open the door—and screamed.
There they were—five ugly jokers in pointy green hats!
Waiting for me.
Leering at me with their hideous grins.
Each one held a stick—with a horrible, grinning skull perched on the top.
Their lips curled into an ugly sneer.
Then one moved forward. It raised its skull-stick high—then it lunged for me.
“Nooo!” I cried.
I dropped to the hall floor. I covered my head with my arms. I squeezed my eyes shut.
Three more jokers circled me. Danced around me. Swatted me with their skull-sticks.
They laughed and screamed. And chanted.
“All red and black must bow to green!
All red and black must bow to green!”
Over and over again.
I hugged my arms more tightly around my head.
They rattled their sticks wildly. Shrieking now. Shrieking madly.
Then all the noise stopped.
Gone. The jokers must be gone.
I slowly raised my head—and gasped.
They were still there! Hovering above me. Staring at me in eerie silence.
“Leave me alone!” I screamed. “Go away!”
The first joker stretched his hand toward me.
“Get away from me!” I cried, shrinking away.
But he yanked on my arm and pulled me to my feet.
I stared into his horrible eyes. And they began to glow an evil red.
“Wh-what are you going to do?” I stammered.
The joker glared at me. He lifted his skull-stick high in the air. The other jokers did the same.
They began to shake them again. More frantically than before.
The rattling was deafening.
I threw my hands over my ears. But I couldn’t drown out the terrifying sound.
The skulls seemed to start breathing. A green mist poured from their nostrils. Their hollow cheeks began to pulse. And from deep within their sockets, their eyes began to glow.
The jokers started singing their horrible chant.
“We shake the skull with eyes that gleam!
We make our marks, we laugh and scream!
Her army strengthens day by day
You play her game! She’ll make you pay!
All red and black must bow to green . . . . ”
Then they stopped—and ran out of the house.
My legs collapsed underneath me.
I couldn’t move.
I didn’t even move when the front door began to open.
I only stared.
“Brittany!” my mom exclaimed as she and Jimmy walked through the door. “Why are you sitting on the floor?”
I didn’t answer. What could I say?
Mom held out a hand to help me.
“Where were you, Mom?” I asked quietly. “I came home and nobody was here.”
“Jimmy had a late doctor’s appointment,” she replied. “It was the only one we could get. I told you about it this morning.”
“You did? I—I guess I wasn’t listening.”
I knew I wasn’t listening. For the last week all I’d been thinking about was Mrs. Marder and her hideous jokers.
“Hey, Brit?” Jimmy said. “Want to see my new card trick?”
“Not now!” I yelled. A deck of cards was the last thing I wanted to see—
But then I changed my mind.
I was beginning to get an idea—
“Sure, Jimmy,” I said. “I’ll watch your new trick later.”
I turned toward the stairs. “Mom, I’m not hungry. I think I’ll go up to my room.”
I gripped the banister and slowly began to climb the steps.
“Hey, Brit?” Jimmy called after me. “What’s that thing on your arm?”
I glanced down.
My pulse suddenly thundered in my ears.
There it was.
Dark and clear.
The sign of the club.
18
The next morning before school, I found Jeff by his locker.
“Take a look.” I held out my arm and pushed up my sleeve.
“Oh!” he moaned. “The jokers got you! But how?”
I told him all about it. Including the new line of the rhyme.
“I’m really scared,” I admitted, shuddering.
“So am I,” Jeff said. “And Frankie is acting totally crazy.”
“I know,” I agreed. “The jokers have gotten him three times now. That’s enough to make anyone crazy, I guess.”
“You know, I was thinking—he seems to get worse with each mark on his arm,” Jeff pointed out.
I stared at him. “You’re right. I didn’t realize it—but you’re right!”
“Maybe we should talk to Mr. Emerson,” Jeff suggested. “We’ll tell him we can’t go to Max’s anymore.”
“It’ll never work,” I said gloomily. “We can’t tell him what’s happening. He’ll think we’re all crazy. Or worse—he’ll say that we made up the story to get out of going. Then we’ll really be in trouble.”
“Yeah, that’s true. Okay. We’ll go to Max’s this afternoon,” Jeff told me. “But we have to say no more cards. And we have to mean it!”
“Right,” I declared. “No cards, no jokers.”
Usually the school day seemed to drag by so slowly. But the one day I wanted to last forever whizzed by. I couldn’t believe it when the three-thirty bell rang.
“So who’s going to break the news to Mrs. Davidson and Max?” I asked as we headed toward Fear Street. “Who’s going to tell them we’re not playing cards?”
“I’ll do it,” Jeff volunteered. “And I won’t let them talk us into changing our minds.”
We turned a corner. Mrs. Marder’s house loomed in the distance. No way were we going to cut through her yard today!
We hurried past her gate—and the cats hissed at us.
“They’re really hissing loudly!” Louisa quickened her step.
Louisa was right. I’d never heard her cats hiss this loud before. And it seemed to be getting louder.
“Wait!” Louisa cried. “It’s not the cats! Look!”
Louisa pointed a trembling finger at some bushes ahead.
Jokers!
Six horrible jokers jumped out from behind the shrubs.
br />
We froze in place.
The jokers leapt forward.
Circled us.
They rattled their skulls in our faces.
And began their awful chant:
“We shake the skull with eyes that gleam!
We make our marks, we laugh and scream!
Her army strengthens day by day,
You play her game! She’ll make you pay!
All red and black must bow to green . . . .
For she alone is now our queen!”
“Let’s get out of here!” Jeff yelled.
We broke through the horrible circle—and ran.
The jokers came after us. One of them whacked Louisa with its skull-stick.
“Split up!” I screamed.
We broke off in different directions.
I darted across the street. So did Frankie. Then we ran opposite ways. I glanced over my shoulder.
None of the jokers were chasing me.
Oh, no! They were all after Frankie.
What were they going to do to him?
19
I spun and ran after him. “We have to help Frankie!” I cried to the others.
The jokers grabbed Frankie. They held him by his arms and legs—and dragged him down the street.
They pulled him into the vacant lot across from Mrs. Marder’s. The lot with the big hole in the ground.
Jeff and Louisa raced over to me. Louisa was clutching her arm.
“Brit! It got me!” she cried. “One of the jokers hit my arm and—look!”
Next to the club on Louisa’s arm was a diamond.
“Help!” Frankie’s cry rang out from the lot. “Help me!”
We raced over to the lot. But when we got there, Frankie was nowhere to be seen. Neither were the jokers.
“Frankie?” my voice shook. “Where are you?”
As if answering me, the jokers popped out of the hole.
They laughed an evil laugh. They shook their skull-sticks hard. Then they ran off.
Louisa, Jeff, and I ran to the edge of the hole. We peered in. Frankie stood at the bottom, staring down.
“Frankie?” Jeff called. “You can come up. They’re gone.”
Frankie didn’t move.
“Come on, Frankie. It’s really okay,” I said.
Frankie stared down, motionless.
“You’re scaring me, Frankie!” Louisa cried.
“Let’s pull him out,” Jeff suggested.
The three of us leaned over the hole. We grabbed Frankie’s arms.
“One, two, three!” Jeff called, and we pulled.
Frankie didn’t fight us. But he didn’t help either. We struggled—but we finally tugged him out.
Jeff, Louisa, and I fell back on the ground, trying to catch our breath.
Frankie sat in the dirt, staring into space.
“Oh, no!” Louisa cried. “Look! Frankie’s arm!”
I was afraid to look. But I did.
There it was.
A heart.
“Oh, no, Frankie,” I moaned. “You have all four suits!”
What will happen now? I wondered. What will those horrible jokers do to him next?
Frankie glanced up, as if reading my thoughts.
I gazed into his face—and screamed.
His eyes bulged from their sockets.
His mouth twisted in a horrible grin.
His tongue hung out of his mouth.
“Frankie!” I cried. I turned frantically to Jeff and Louisa.
They were staring at Frankie in horror. They began to shrink away from him.
I turned back.
“Frankie?” I gasped.
He seemed to have shrunk.
He wore a shiny black clown suit. And a green floppy hat with bells at the tip. And little green pointy shoes.
Frankie grinned horribly at us.
Only he wasn’t Frankie anymore.
20
He was a joker!
Frankie opened his mouth and let out a terrible scream.
Then he whirled around and ran off, laughing.
He headed for Fear Street.
“Let’s follow him!” I yelled.
We chased him as he ran down the street, letting out little shrieks.
He ran fast. Faster than we could.
He ran to the end of the street and turned.
When we reached the corner, he was gone.
“That was so awful!” Louisa moaned. “Poor Frankie!”
“That’s what will happen to us if we don’t stop Mrs. Marder!” I exclaimed.
“We should go to Max’s house right now,” Louisa declared. “And call the police.”
We turned down Fear Street and ran on to Max’s.
It felt strange to be standing on his porch without Frankie.
Louisa rang the bell.
No one answered.
Louisa pressed the bell again—but no one came to the door.
“That’s weird,” Jeff said. “Mrs. Davidson knew we were coming.”
I pounded on the door. As I did, it opened. I stuck my head in. “Mrs. Davidson?” I called.
She didn’t answer.
“We have to hurry!” Louisa exclaimed. “Mrs. Davidson won’t mind if we go in and call the police.”
“Right,” Jeff agreed. “This is an emergency!”
We hurried inside.
“First let’s see if Max is in his room,” I suggested. “He might get frightened if he hears someone in the house.”
We ran down the hall to Max’s room.
Max sat in his bed, wearing his white pajamas. Shuffling a deck of cards.
“Max?” I spoke softly so I wouldn’t startle him. “Hi!”
He turned to face us. “Oh, hi,” he greeted us. “Want to play Hearts?”
“No!” Louisa exclaimed. She rushed over to his bed. “You know those awful jokers, Max?”
He nodded.
“They came alive. They attacked Frankie,” Louisa told him. “And he changed! Right in front of us, Frankie turned into a joker!”
Max’s pale blue eyes grew wide with fright. I hoped hearing bad news wasn’t going to make him sicker.
“We have to use your phone,” Jeff put in. “We have to call the police.”
“The phone’s in the kitchen, right?” I asked him.
But Max didn’t answer. He was mumbling something. At first I couldn’t understand him. But slowly the words became clear.
“She’s done it!” Max was saying. “She’s done it! She’s done it!” He chanted over and over.
“Max!” I cried. “Stop that! You’re making it worse!”
Max’s eyes turned to meet mine.
“Don’t you see, Brittany?” he asked softly. “She’s done it! It’s too late. We’re all doomed. All of us!”
21
“Max!” I cried. “What are you saying? You’re scaring me!”
But Max didn’t answer me. He kept repeating, “We’re doomed. We’re doomed.” I wondered if he had a fever or something.
Luckily, at that moment, Mrs. Davidson appeared in the doorway of his room.
“Hi, kids!” she exclaimed. “Sorry I wasn’t here when you arrived. But I’m glad you came today!” She smiled as she walked into the room.
“Mrs. Davidson, we have to call the police,” Louisa blurted out. “Something awful has happened to Frankie!”
“They got him!” Jeff sputtered. “They got Frankie!”
“Who got him?” Mrs. Davidson cried.
“They got him!” Jeff repeated. He was getting more upset by the second. “They got him!”
Mrs. Davidson gasped. “Has he been kidnapped?”
We all started talking at once then.
“Wait! Wait!” she cried. “If Frankie’s been kidnapped, I’d better call the police right now!”
“Yes!” we all cried. “Call the police!”
Mrs. Davidson hurried from the room.
I let out a huge sigh of relief.
&
nbsp; At last someone was helping us!
“She’s done it,” Max kept muttering. “She’s done it!”
“Take it easy, Max,” I said. “Everything is going to be okay now.”
Max gazed up at me with his pale blue eyes. “She’s crazy, Brittany,” he whispered. “Completely crazy. You know that, don’t you?”
“I know she’s evil,” I said. “Poor Frankie! Maybe that’s where he ran. Maybe he ran to her house—”
“Brittany?” Louisa cut in. “Mrs. Davidson doesn’t really know what happened. I think we should talk to the police. We have to tell them everything—right now! The sooner we tell them, the sooner they can help Frankie!”
“That makes sense,” I said. “I’ll catch Mrs. Davidson before she hangs up.”
I ran down the hall. As I neared the kitchen, I heard Mrs. Davidson’s voice through the door.
“No, Officer,” she was saying. “These kids wouldn’t lie! They wouldn’t say their friend had been kidnapped if he hadn’t been!”
Mrs. Davidson sure was sticking up for us!
I pushed open the kitchen door. Mrs. Davidson had her back to me.
“Why, Officer!” she exclaimed. “That’s a terrible thing to say. I assure you these kids are not making this up!”
I opened my mouth to say something to Mrs. Davidson.
Then I closed it.
I stared at Mrs. Davidson.
I tried to make sense of what I saw.
But I couldn’t.
“Yes, Officer,” Mrs. Davidson said. “You have my word.”
Mrs. Davidson was talking.
But she wasn’t on the phone.
The phone hung on the wall across the room from Mrs. Davidson.
It was an old phone.
Too old to be a speakerphone.
“Can you come and talk to these kids, Officer?” Mrs. Davidson asked. “Yes, right this minute. The sooner you get here, the sooner you can get to work on this case.”
But Mrs. Davidson wasn’t talking to the police.
She wasn’t talking to anyone!
22
I stood there, frozen.
I stared at Mrs. Davidson’s back as she pretended to talk to the police.
I stared at her beautiful apple-green blouse and her dark green slacks . . . and her green suede shoes . . . .