Jerome followed close behind.
Turning, they stood and waved to him. “Good luck!” called Roxanne. “Be careful!”
Then they disappeared over the sill.
As he watched them go, Charlie noticed a short, dumpy-looking girl standing on the sidewalk in front of the house. When he saw the rats scamper across the lawn a moment later, he expected the girl to scream and run away. To his surprise, she knelt and picked them up, gently placing one on each shoulder.
The rats appeared to be whispering in her ears. The girl laughed, a clear, happy sound that made Charlie feel good despite how frightened he was. But when she stood up and began to walk away, a cloud of mist enveloped her.
After about ten steps she simply disappeared.
Charlie shivered and remained staring out the window for a long time. Finally he turned and picked up the paper the rats had left with him. He noticed that his fingers were trembling as he unrolled it.
Printed across the top of the page in big, bold letters were the words IMPORTANT INFORMATION. At the bottom was a drawing of a skull. Between them, written in the same shaky cursive as the receipt, was the following:
To: Charlie Eggleston
From: S. H. Elives
Regarding: The Skull of Truth
Mr. Eggleston,
It appears you did a most unwise thing this afternoon. While you may fear I will be angry with you—and I certainly have good reason to be, considering that you took an item from my shop without paying for it—the truth is, my immediate reaction is relief that the skull is no longer my problem.
My second reaction is to feel some concern. Though some former customers might tell you that this is an unusual response, this is an unusual situation. You have taken into your hands what I consider to be the most dangerous item in my shop. What will happen when it is unleashed on the world I cannot say.
I can, however, offer you some advice and a few words of warning.
First: Be careful what you say.
Second: Be careful to whom you say it.
Third: Remember that often it is smarter to say nothing at all.
Finally: Under no circumstances should you let the skull out of your possession!
It will be a while before I can come back to your area. When I do, I will expect you to return the skull to me in good condition. Failure to do so will be to risk the most dire consequences.
Until that time, my deepest condolences on your foolish action, and my best wishes for surviving the situation.
Sincerely,
S. H. Elives
Charlie stared at the letter for a long time. The old man had to be crazy. But if he was, then maybe craziness was catching. It was almost easier to believe that he himself had lost his mind than that he had just read a letter delivered by a pair of talking rats.
He glanced at the letter again and wondered if the rats had known what it said. Probably not, or they would have asked why the skull wasn’t in his room.
Charlie felt a sudden sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.
Under no circumstances should you let the skull out of your possession!
Was leaving it in the garage letting it out of his possession?
He had an uneasy feeling he should go get the thing.
He shuddered. Going to the garage attic in the middle of the night to retrieve a skull was the last thing in the world he wanted to do. But what if he didn’t go get it, and in the morning it was gone? Would the old man have him arrested for being a thief if he couldn’t return the skull when Mr. Elives came back and asked for it?
Charlie reread the letter, studying every word. The more he thought about it, the more he was sure that leaving the skull in the garage was a bad idea.
Grumbling to himself, he slipped into his clothes, then tiptoed down to the kitchen. Trying not to make too much noise, he dug a flashlight out of the tool drawer. Stewbone, curled up on his bed in the corner, whined in his sleep.
Charlie opened the back door of the house as quietly as he could and stepped onto the porch. The night was cool, the air crisp, the half moon bright enough that he didn’t need the flashlight until he reached the garage. Dew glistened on the grass, and a chorus of spring peepers singing in the cemetery made him think of the swamp.
Slipping through the garage’s side door, Charlie flicked on his flashlight, then retraced his steps from earlier in the evening. At the back of the garage he climbed the shaky wooden ladder to the attic.
The peak of the low ceiling was only a foot or two above his head. The cramped space was filled with several decades of family debris. Cobwebs stretched from rafter to rafter. A square of pale moonlight—the back window—was crisscrossed with dark lines made by the branches of the ancient apple tree that grew behind the building. Charlie could hear a scuttering and a scratching in the corners. Hoping the sound came from squirrels and not more rats, he began to pick his way along the floor.
Finally he came to the skull. It sat on an old brassbound trunk, right where he had left it. Playing his light over it, he again felt shivery at the sight of its yellowing ivory dome and empty eye sockets—and more shivery still as he remembered the weird way in which he had ended up with the thing. He truly had not meant to take it out of the shop.
“What is this all about?” he said aloud.
He didn’t really expect an answer, of course. So when a dim yellow light began to glow in the skull’s eye sockets and it started to speak to him, it was all Charlie could do to keep from screaming.
FOUR
Truth to Tell
The voice was masculine but surprisingly high and light. It clearly came from the skull, even though there was no actual sound. It was as if the words were flowing directly into Charlie’s brain.
“Look, I’d been in that shop forever! I was dying to get out.” The skull paused, then shrieked: “Dying to get out! That’s pretty good!”
It began to laugh hysterically.
Charlie was too terrified to join in the skull’s merriment. Dropping the flashlight, he clutched his head, as if to drive out the intruding voice.
“What’s the matter?” the skull asked.
With a squeak (he wanted to scream, but couldn’t get one out) Charlie turned and began to stumble toward the ladder.
“You get back here right this instant, young man!”
Now Charlie did scream. He tried to move even faster, with the result that he tripped over a pair of old skis and went crashing into a pile of cardboard boxes. The boxes tumbled to the floor, with Charlie sprawled on top of them.
“For heaven’s sake, settle down!” ordered the skull. “I won’t hurt you.”
“I don’t believe you!” He was creeping toward the ladder now, moving backward so he could keep his eyes on the skull.
“That’s pretty funny,” snickered the grisly relic, “given the fact that I couldn’t tell a lie if my life depended on it.” After a fraction of a second it shrieked, “If my life depended on it! Oh, god—I kill me!”
The thought of not being able to tell a lie was so startling that Charlie actually stopped moving. “What do you mean?”
“Just what I said. I cannot tell a lie, even if I try. Dee dee-dee dee-dee, die dee-die dee-die.”
Charlie shook his head. “I never thought a dead person would find things so funny.”
“You think if I start to cry it will bring me back to life?”
Charlie felt himself redden, then got angry at being embarrassed by the skull. “Of course not! I just figured being dead was . . . was . . .” His voice trailed off, since he wasn’t sure what he thought about it.
“Well, it ain’t no picnic. But then, being alive wasn’t that easy, either.”
“You can say that again,” muttered Charlie.
“Nah, you heard me the first time. Speaking of heard, did you hear the one about—”
“Oh, stop it! I’m in no mood for jokes!”
“Bad sign. Do you have a fever?”
“I’m not
sick, I’m scared!”
“Of what? Me? Forget it. I wouldn’t hurt a fly. No, that’s not true. I hate flies. Always buzzing around me, creeping into my eye sockets. Man, I hate it when they get inside and crawl around. Tickles like crazy. I’d swat them in an instant if I still had hands. But I wouldn’t hurt you, not after the favor you did me today!”
“What favor?”
“Getting me out of Elives’ shop.”
“How did that happen, anyway?” asked Charlie suspiciously.
“It was fate.”
“Fate, my foot! I had no intention of stealing you from that shop.”
“I think liberating would be a better word,” said the skull primly. “I wanted a way out, and you provided it. Didn’t you feel the electricity between us when you looked into my eyes and asked me that question?”
“What question?”
“What question? You said, and I quote, ‘Want to come home with me?’ I remember it distinctly. You mean you didn’t really mean it? Gad, I’m crushed. Oh, well. You shouldn’t ask if you’re not interested. But that’s what opened the lines of communication: you staring into my eyes—well, my eye sockets—and asking me a question.”
Charlie shivered. “Can I go now?”
“You are planning on taking me with you, aren’t you?”
“Well, actually—”
“I wouldn’t risk the wrath of Elives if I were you, buddy. The old guy can be pretty tough.”
Charlie sighed. “How long are you planning to stay?”
“How would I know?” Charlie could almost hear the shrug in the skull’s voice. “As long as it takes, I guess.”
“As long as what takes?”
“Whatever is supposed to happen.”
“What are you talking about? What’s supposed to happen?”
“I don’t have the slightest idea,” said the skull impatiently. “Life is mysterious.” It paused, then added, “Death, too, for that matter.”
With the skull tucked under one arm and the flashlight clenched between his teeth, Charlie climbed back down the ladder.
“This is going to be fun,” the skull said as Charlie reached the last rung. “I haven’t had a boy to hang around with since Hamlet was a pup. I bet you’ll have fun, too, as long as—”
It broke off, as if it had said too much.
“As long as what?” asked Charlie nervously.
“Oh, nothing,” said the skull airily. “Nothing at all.”
Charlie was suspicious, but too tired to argue.
“Look at that moon!” cried the skull when they left the garage. “Oh, it has been too long since I’ve seen the moon.”
Charlie looked up. With the ragged scraps of cloud crossing its surface, the moon really was beautiful. However, it also looked mysterious, and somewhat frightening.
Shivering, he continued toward the house.
“The closet?” cried the skull, once Charlie was back in his room. “You’re going to put me in the closet?’
“Well, if I leave you on my desk, I’m going to have to explain you to my mother. Does that sound like a good idea?”
After he asked the question, he was half afraid the skull would say yes. After all, just because he thought it was a bad idea didn’t mean the skull would. But it sighed and said, “Oh, I suppose you’ve got a point. All right, the closet it is. Sheesh. Some grand return to the world this is.”
Being careful, so as not to chip it, Charlie placed the skull between a stack of games and an old box of Legos on the top shelf.
Then he went to wash his hands.
Though Charlie was exhausted, he didn’t sleep much. Every time he started to nod off, the memory of carrying the skull into the house and hiding it in his closet would drift to the surface and snap him back to wakefulness. Thank goodness that horrible yellow glow in its eyes had faded once it stopped talking to him!
He stared into the darkness, questions about the skull swirling through his mind. The problem was, the only way to get the answers was to talk to the thing, which was (a) terrifying, and (b) relatively useless, since the questions he had asked had gotten mostly wisecracks in response.
“Morning, Charlie,” said Mimi, when he dragged himself down to breakfast the next day. “I dreamed I was a monkey. What did you dream?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said, with absolute truthfulness.
His mother came to the table with a stack of toast. “You look horrible,” she said, sounding worried. “Didn’t you sleep well?”
Charlie shook his head.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart.” Suddenly she got a suspicious look in her eyes. “Did you get your homework done?”
The question, which she actually asked every morning, was little more than a ritual. Charlie always claimed his work was done, whether it was or not, and they both knew it. So when he said, “No, I completely forgot about it,” it would have been hard to say who was more astonished, Charlie or his mother.
After sitting for a moment with his spoon poised halfway between his cereal bowl and his mouth, he bolted from the table and raced up the stairs. Yanking open his closet door, he hissed, “Do you know what just happened to me?”
The skull’s hollow eyes glowed into life. “Now, how would I know that?” it asked, the words forming inside Charlie’s head.
“I don’t know how! How come your eyes light up? How come you can talk directly into my brain?”
“I’m special.”
“Well, then, maybe you’re special enough to know what just happened downstairs.”
“Sorry. I’m special, but not that special. So what did happen?”
“I just told my mother the truth!”
“What’s so horrible about that?”
“I wasn’t going to! I didn’t want to! I just opened my mouth and out it came!”
“Uh-oh,” said the skull. “I guess it’s still working.”
“What’s still working?”
“The curse.”
“What curse?”
The skull sighed. “The curse of truth. It’s this thing that happened to me a while ago. I sort of . . . uh . . . force you to tell the truth.”
“You what?”
“Oh, calm down. It won’t hurt you to tell the truth for a while.”
“Hurt me? Something like that could kill me!”
They were interrupted by his mother knocking at the door. “Charlie!” she called. “Charlie, are you all right?”
When he opened his mouth to answer her, he meant to say “I’m fine, I’ll be right down.” What actually came out was “No, I’m not all right. I’m very upset!”
He clapped his hand over his lips and glared at the skull.
The concern in his mother’s voice grew deeper. “What’s the matter, honey? Can I help you?”
Choosing his words carefully, Charlie replied, “It’s something I have to take care of myself. I’ll be down as soon as I can.”
“All right. But don’t be long. I don’t want you to be late for school.”
Normally he would have said, “Don’t worry, I’ll be on time.” This morning he found that the words would not pass his lips. “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” he replied at last.
His mother stayed at the door a moment longer, then turned and went back downstairs.
“See what I mean?” he hissed at the skull. “I’m in trouble already!”
“Well, what do you want me to do about it? Anyway, there was nothing wrong with that conversation.”
“Oh, forget it,” he said, snatching up his backpack. “I gotta go.”
“Take me with you.”
He snorted. “Are you kidding?”
The skull’s eyes glowed more brightly. “Hard to tell with me, isn’t it?”
“I can’t take you. I have nowhere to hide you, and no way to explain you.”
“Suit yourself. I just thought you might like to have me along for the benefit of my wisdom.”
“Hah!”
&nbs
p; It was, without doubt, the worst day of Charlie’s life—a three-act catastrophe that left him wondering if the appalling idea of bringing the skull with him might actually have saved him from his now compulsively truthful tongue.
Act 1 took place before school even started, when Mark Evans caught him on the playground while they were waiting for the doors to open.
“You’re a liar, Charlie!” he said.
“That’s not entirely accurate,” replied Charlie—quite truthfully, given the morning’s events.
“You lied about my father’s project!”
“Only because I love Tucker’s Swamp and your father wants to destroy it.”
That would have been enough. It might even have held Mark off. But now that his mouth was in gear Charlie didn’t seem to be able to stop himself, so he added something he had first heard from Uncle Bennie, and that he fervently believed to be true. “Your father’s a nature-destroying capitalist swine.”
That was when Mark knocked him down. Then he sat on Charlie, crying and pounding at his face, until the school principal, Mrs. Verna Lincoln, dragged him off.
Act 2 took place in the classroom and was humiliating in a much deeper way than the playground battle had been.
It started at 9:45, with the return of Gilbert Dawkins, who had not been to school for three months—a fact that had been the cause of considerable gossip and guesswork. During that time Mr. Diogen would say only that Gilbert was sick; he had refused to offer any further details.
This morning he announced that Gilbert was returning.
And he would be completely bald.
“It’s a side effect of his treatment. Naturally, I expect that none of you will tease him about it.”