“Only three more months of school!” Dan cried. He raised both fists in the air and let out a cheer.
“We’re going to camp this summer for the first time,” I told Zane. “Up in Massachusetts.”
“For eight weeks!” Dan added happily.
Zane brushed back his blond hair. He leaned over the handlebars of my dad’s bike and began pedaling harder. “I don’t know what I’m doing this summer,” he said. “Probably just hanging out.”
“What do you want to do this summer?” I asked him.
He grinned at me. “Just hang out.”
We all laughed. I was in a great mood and so were the guys.
Dan kept pulling wheelies, leaning way back and raising his front tire off the ground. Zane tried to do it — and crashed into a tree.
He went sailing to the ground, and the bike fell on top of him. I expected him to whine and complain. That’s his usual style. But he picked himself up, muttering, “Smooth move, Zane.”
“I want to see that one again!” Dan joked.
Zane laughed. “You try it!”
He brushed the dirt off his jeans and climbed back onto the bike. We pedaled on down the path, joking and laughing.
I think we were in such great moods because of the truce. We could finally relax and not worry about who was trying to terrify who.
The dirt path ended at a small, round pond. The pond gleamed in the sunlight, still half-frozen from the long winter.
Zane climbed off his bike and rested it on the tall grass. Then he stepped up to the edge of the pond to take photos.
“Look at the weeds poking up from the melting ice!” he exclaimed, clicking away. “Awesome. Awesome!” He knelt down low and snapped a bunch of weed photos.
Dan and I exchanged glances. I couldn’t see what was so special about the weeds. But I guess that’s why I’m not a photographer.
As Zane stood up, a tiny brown-and-black chipmunk scampered along the edge of the pond. Zane swung his camera and clicked off a couple of shots.
“Hey! I think I got him!” he declared happily.
“Great!” I cried. Everything seemed great this morning.
We hung out at the pond for a while. We took a short walk through the woods. Then we started to get hungry for lunch. So we rode back to the house.
We were about to return the bikes to the garage when Zane spotted the old well at the back of our yard. “Cool!” he cried, his blue eyes lighting up. “Let’s check it out!”
Holding his camera in one hand, he hopped off his bike and went running across the grass to the well.
It’s a round, stone well with green moss covering the smooth gray stones. It used to have a pointed red roof over it. But the roof blew off during a bad storm, and Dad hauled it away.
When we were little, Dan and I used to scare each other by pretending that monsters and trolls lived down inside it. But we hadn’t paid much attention to the old well in years. Dad kept saying he was going to tear it down and cover it up. But he never got around to it.
Zane clicked a bunch of photos. “Is there still water down there?” he asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Dan grabbed Zane around the waist. “We could toss you down and see if you make a splash!” he declared.
Zane wrestled himself out of my brother’s grasp. “I’ve got a better idea.” He picked up a stone and dropped it down the well.
After a long wait, we heard a splash far down below.
“Cool!” Zane exclaimed. He took several more pictures until he had finished the roll.
Then we made our way inside the house for lunch. We hurried upstairs to clean up.
Zane stopped at the doorway to his room.
I saw his eyes bulge and his mouth drop open. I saw his face go white.
Dan and I ran up next to him.
We stared into the bedroom — and cried out in horror.
“The r-room — it’s been trashed!” Dan stammered.
The three of us huddled in the doorway, staring into the bedroom. Staring at an unbelievable mess.
At first I thought maybe Zane had left the windows open all night, and the strong winds had blown everything around.
But that didn’t make any sense.
All of the clothes had been pulled out of the closet and tossed over the floor. The dresser drawers had all been pulled out and dumped over the carpet.
The bookshelves had been emptied. Books littered the floor, the bed — they were tossed everywhere. One bed table was turned on its side. The other stood upside down on top of the bed. A lamp lay on the floor in front of the closet. Its shade was ripped and broken.
“Look!” Zane pointed into the center of the room.
Sitting on a tangled hill of clothes was Rocky. The dummy sat straight up, his legs crossed casually in front of him. He sneered at us as if daring us to enter.
“I-I really don’t believe this!” I cried, tugging at the sides of my hair.
“What don’t you believe?”
Mom’s voice made me jump.
I turned to see her coming out of her bedroom. She tucked her blue sweater into her jeans as she walked toward us.
“Mom!” I cried. “Something terrible has happened!”
Her smile faded. “What on earth?” she started.
I stepped aside so she could see into Zane’s room.
“Oh, no!” Mom cried out and raised both hands to her cheeks. She swallowed hard. “Did someone break in?” Her voice sounded tiny and frightened.
I peered quickly into my room across the hall. “No. I don’t think so,” I reported. “This is the only room that’s messed up.”
“But — but —” Mom sputtered. Then her eyes stopped on Rocky on top of the pile of clothes. “What is he doing down here?” Mom demanded.
“We don’t know,” I told her.
“But who did this?” Mom cried, still pressing her hands against her cheeks.
“We didn’t!” Dan declared.
“We’ve been outside all morning,” Zane added breathlessly. “It wasn’t Trina, or Dan, or me. We weren’t home. We were riding bikes.”
“But — someone had to do this!” Mom declared. “Someone deliberately tore this room apart.”
But who was it? I wondered. My eyes darted around the mess, landing on the sneering dummy.
Who was it?
We all pitched in and helped get the room back together. It took the rest of the afternoon.
The lamp in front of the closet was broken. Everything else just had to be picked up and put back where it belonged.
We worked in silence. None of us knew what to say.
At first, Mom wanted to call the police. But there was no sign that someone had broken into the house. All the other rooms were perfectly okay.
Dad returned home from the camera shop while we were still cleaning up. He, of course, was furious. “What do I have to do? Bolt the attic door?” he shouted at Dan and me.
He grabbed up Rocky and slung the dummy over his shoulder. “This isn’t a joke anymore,” Dad said, narrowing his eyes at both of us. “This isn’t funny. This is serious.”
“But we didn’t do it!” I protested for the hundredth time.
“Well, the dummy didn’t do it,” Dad shot back. “That’s one thing I know for sure.”
I don’t know anything for sure, I thought. I stared at Rocky’s sneering face as Dad started down the hall to the attic stairs. Then I bent down to pick up the broken lamp from the floor.
* * *
That night I dreamed once again about ventriloquist’s dummies.
I saw them dancing. A dozen of them. All of Dad’s dummies from upstairs.
I saw them dancing in Zane’s room. Dancing over the tangled piles of clothes and books. Dancing over the bed. Over the toppled bed table.
I saw Rocky dancing with Miss Lucy. I saw Wilbur doing a frantic, crazy dance on top of the dresser. And I saw Smiley, the new dummy, clapping his wooden hands, bobbing h
is head, grinning, grinning from the middle of the room as the other dummies danced around him.
They waved their big hands over their heads. Their skinny legs twisted and bent.
They danced in silence. No music. No sound at all.
And as their bodies twisted and swayed, their faces remained frozen. They grinned at one another with blank, unblinking eyes. Grinned their frightening, red-lipped grins.
Bobbed and bent, tilted and swayed, grinning, grinning, grinning the whole time in the eerie silence.
And then the grins faded as I pulled myself out of the dream.
I opened my eyes. Slowly woke up.
Felt the heavy hands on my neck.
Stared up into Rocky’s ugly face.
Rocky on top of me. The dummy on top of my blanket. Over me.
Reaching. Reaching his heavy wooden hands for my throat!
I opened my mouth in a shrill scream of horror.
My hands shot out. I grabbed the dummy’s hands.
I thrashed my legs. Kicked off the blanket. Kicked at the dummy.
The big eyes stared at me as if startled.
I grabbed his head. Shoved him down.
I sat up, my entire body trembling. Then I grabbed the dummy’s waist.
And flung him to the floor.
The ceiling light flashed on. Mom and Dad burst into my room together.
“What’s happening?”
“Trina — what’s wrong?”
They both stopped short when they saw the dummy sprawled on the floor beside my bed.
“He — he —” I gasped, pointing down at Rocky. I struggled to catch my breath. “Rocky — he jumped on me. He tried to choke me. I-I woke up and —”
Dad let out a loud growl and tore at his hair. “This has got to stop!” he bellowed.
Mom dropped down beside me on the bed and wrapped me in a hug. I couldn’t stop my shoulders from trembling.
“It was so scary!” I choked out. “I woke up — and there he was!”
“This is out of control!” Dad screamed, shaking his fist in the air. “Out of control!”
Mom calmed me down. Then she and I both had to calm Dad down.
Finally, after everyone was calm, they turned out the light and made their way out of the room. They closed the door. I heard Dad carrying Rocky back up to the attic.
Maybe Dad should get a lock for the attic door, I thought.
I shut my eyes and tried not to think about Rocky, or Zane, or the dummies — or anything at all.
After a while, I must have drifted back to sleep.
I don’t know how much time passed.
I was awakened by a knock on the door. Two sharp knocks and then two more.
I sat straight up with a gasp.
I knew that Rocky had come back.
The bedroom door creaked open slowly.
I took a deep breath and held it, staring through the dark.
“Trina?” a voice whispered. “Trina — are you awake?”
As the door opened, a rectangle of gray light spilled into the room from the hallway. Dan poked his head in, then took a few steps across the floor.
“Trina? It’s me.”
I let out my breath in a long whoosh. “Dan — what do you want?” My voice was hoarse from sleep.
“I heard everything,” Dan said, stepping up beside the bed. He pulled down one pajama sleeve. Then he raised his eyes to me. “Zane put Rocky on your bed. Zane did it!” Dan whispered.
“Huh? Why do you say that? We all have a truce — remember? Zane agreed the tricks were all over.”
“Right,” Dan whispered. “And now Zane thinks he can really scare us. Because we don’t suspect him any longer. Zane hasn’t given up, Trina. I’m sure of it.”
I bit my lower lip. I tried to think about what Dan was saying. But I was so sleepy!
Dan leaned close and whispered excitedly. “This morning before we went biking, Zane went up to his room — remember? He said he forgot his camera. So … he had time to mess up his room. Before he left the house.”
“Yeah. Maybe,” I murmured.
“And tonight he brought Rocky down and set him up on your bed. I’m sure of it,” Dan insisted. “I’m sure it’s Zane. We have to hide up in the attic again. Tomorrow night. We’ll catch Zane again. I know we will.”
“Hide up there again? No way!” I cried. “It’s hot up there. And too creepy. And I’m staying as far away from those dummies as I can.”
My brother sighed. “I know I’m right,” he whispered.
“I don’t know what I know,” I replied. “I don’t know anything about anything.” I slid under the covers, pulled the blanket over my head, and tried to get back to sleep.
* * *
The next night, Mom and Dad had a dinner party in honor of Zane and Uncle Cal. They invited the Birches and the Canfields from down the street, and Cousin Robin and her husband, Fred.
Fred is a great guy. Everyone calls him Froggy because he can puff out his cheeks like a frog. Froggy is short and very round and really looks like a frog.
He always makes me laugh. He knows a million great jokes. Robin is always trying to get him to shut up. But he never does.
Mom and Dad don’t have many dinner parties. So they had to work all day to get the dining room ready. To set the table. And to cook the dinner.
Mom made a leg of lamb. Dad cooked up his specialty — Caribbean-style scalloped potatoes. Very spicy.
Mom bought flowers for the table. She and Dad brought out all the fancy plates and glasses that we usually see only on holidays.
The dining room really looked awesome as we all sat down to dinner. Dan, Zane, and I were down at the far end of the table. Froggy sat at our end. I guess, because he’s just a big kid.
Froggy told me a moron joke. Someone asks a moron: “Can you stand on your head?” And the moron says, “No, I can’t. It’s up too high.”
I started to laugh when I saw Zane jump up from the table. “Where are you going?” I called after him.
Zane turned back at the dining room doorway. “To get my camera,” he replied. “I want to take some pictures of the table before it gets all messed up.”
He disappeared upstairs.
A few seconds later, we all heard him scream.
* * *
Chairs scraped the floor as everyone jumped up. We all went running up the stairs.
I reached Zane’s room first. From the doorway, I saw him standing in the center of the room.
I saw the sick look on Zane’s face.
And then I saw the camera in his hand.
Or what was left of the camera.
It looked as if it had been run over by a truck. The film door had been twisted off and lay on the floor. The lens was smashed. The whole camera body was bent and broken.
Zane turned the camera over in his hands, gazing down at it sadly, shaking his head.
I raised my eyes to the bed. And saw Rocky sitting on the bedspread. A roll of gray film unspooled across his lap.
Dad burst into the room. All of our other guests pushed in after him.
“What happened?” someone asked.
“Is that Zane’s camera?”
“What’s going on?”
“That’s what happens when you try to take my picture!” Froggy joked.
No one laughed. It wasn’t funny.
Dad’s face turned dark red as he took the camera from Zane’s hand. Dad examined it carefully. His expression remained grim.
“This isn’t mischief anymore,” he murmured. I could barely hear him over all the other voices in the room. Everyone had begun talking at once.
“This cannot be allowed,” Dad said solemnly. He raised his eyes to Dan, then me. He stared at us both for the longest time without saying anything.
Zane let out a long sigh. I turned and saw that he was about to cry.
“Zane —” I started.
But he let out an angry shout. Then he pushed past Froggy and Mr. and Mrs. Bi
rch. And went running from the room.
“Someone here has done a very sick thing,” Dad said sadly. He raised the camera to his face, running a finger over the broken lens. “This is a very expensive camera. It was Zane’s most prized possession.”
All of our guests became very quiet.
Dad kept his eyes on Dan and me. He started to say something else.
But then we all heard the deafening crash from downstairs.
“What is going on here?” Dad cried. He tossed the broken camera onto the bed and darted from the room.
The others went hurrying after him. All talking at once. I heard their shoes pounding down the stairs.
I turned to Dan. “Still think Zane is doing these things?”
Dan shrugged. “Maybe.”
“No way,” I told him. “No way Zane is going to smash his own camera. He loved his camera. No way he would smash it just to get you and me in trouble.”
Dan raised troubled eyes to me. “Then I don’t get it,” he said in a tiny voice. I could see the fear on his face.
I heard startled shouts and cries of alarm from downstairs. “Let’s check out the next disaster,” I said, rolling my eyes.
We reached the bedroom door at the same time and squeezed through together. Then I led the way along the hall and down the stairs.
I fought back my own fear as we approached the dining room.
Something very strange was going on in this house, I knew. Dad was right when he said it was no joke.
Tearing Zane’s room apart wasn’t a joke. It was evil.
Wrecking Zane’s camera was evil, too.
Thinking about Rocky gave me a chill. The dummy was always there. Whenever something evil happened, there sat Rocky.
Trina, don’t be crazy! I scolded myself. Don’t start thinking that a wooden ventriloquist’s dummy can be evil.
That’s crazy thinking. That’s really messed up.
But what could I think?
My throat tightened. My mouth suddenly felt very dry.
I took a deep breath and led the way into the dining room.
I saw Dad in the kitchen doorway. He had his arm around Mom’s shoulders. Mom had her head buried against Dad’s shirtsleeve.
Was she crying?