Nightmare Hour

  “Please…let me go! Let me go!” I tried to scream. But a clown slapped his gloved hand over my mouth.

  Frantic, terrified, I grabbed his red, bulby nose. I yanked at his bright-yellow ruffle. Then, with a burst of power, I jerked myself free for a moment. I spun away from them, desperate to get back to my seat.

  But the clowns surrounded me quickly. I gazed at a blur of grinning, painted smiles. And above the smiles their eyes, watery, cruel eyes.

  The circus music drowned out my screams as they dragged me into a small, dark tent and pulled the flaps shut.

  They shoved me into a wooden chair and tied me down with a heavy rope. “You could die laughing!” a fat, bald clown said.

  And then they all took up the chant: “You could die laughing! You could die laughing!”

  They pulled out enormous red and yellow feathers and waved them at me. “You could die laughing! You could die laughing!”

  “Why are you doing this to me?” I screamed. “Why? Tell me!”

  They stopped chanting. “Because you are afraid of us,” the fat clown said. “Because you know our secret.”

  “You know that we aren’t funny,” a tall, skinny clown with huge red ears said. “You know that we are scary and cruel.”

  “We have to find the kids who are afraid of us, the kids who know our secret,” the fat clown said. “We have to stop them. We can’t let our secret get out.”

  “But why do you do it?” I asked, my voice high and trembling. “Why pretend to be funny when all you want to do is terrify kids?”

  The skinny clown winked at me. “Why not?” he said.

  “Yeah. Why not?” a fat clown croaked. “It’s a lot of fun. And we get paid to do it!”

  “Some kids are smart,” the skinny clown added. “They know they should be scared. But their parents always try to convince them they shouldn’t be! It’s a riot!”

  The clowns all laughed.

  As they talked, I struggled to free myself. But the rope was too tight. I was trapped.

  I swallowed hard. Sweat poured down my forehead. I realized that I was doomed.

  “You could die laughing! You could die laughing!” They began chanting again, circling me, their stomachs bouncing, their big shoes flopping on the tent floor.

  Then they lowered their feathers and began to tickle me. My face. My cheeks. Under my chin.

  “You could die laughing! You could die laughing!”

  “No! Please!” I begged, straining at the rope. “I won’t tell anyone! I won’t tell! Please…”

  They tickled my forehead. Tickled my armpits. Tickled my stomach.

  And I was gone.

  I died laughing.

  Of course, I didn’t really die laughing. Choking and sputtering and gasping for air, I made a deal with them.

  If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.

  It’s hard to believe, but I’ve been with the circus for ten years now. I’m a big star with my picture on all the circus posters and billboards. Everyone knows Mo-Mo.

  Mo-Mo the Clown. That’s me.

  Of course I’m not afraid of clowns anymore.

  But a lot of kids still are.

  And they must be stopped.

  When we run out into the circus ring, I’m the one who chooses a volunteer from the crowd.

  I search for the boy or girl who looks the most frightened. I study their faces, their eyes. I can tell if they’re afraid of clowns.

  I pick the kids who are most scared.

  Then I squirt water in their faces, and trip them, and shove them into barrels, and smack them with rubber fish, and hit them and poke them and smash their heads and knock them to the ground and run over them in a truck.

  Funny, huh?

  Late at night when the circus is shut down and all the people have gone home, we clowns sit around in our trailer and talk. We talk about all the cruel, violent things we do to kids--and how everyone laughs and applauds and thinks it’s wonderful. So far we’ve kept our secret.

  And now that I’ve told you the story, YOU would never tell--would you?

  Because I’ll tell you another secret:

  You could die laughing.

  The Dead Body

  INTRODUCTION

  ILLUSTRATED BY JOHN COLLIER

  My heart is beating. I run…faster…faster! I can’t see him, but I know he’s coming after me. I force my legs to move faster. But a bony hand grabs my shoulder. He’s caught me! I scream--and wake up!

  A terrifying dream. I’ve been dreaming it ever since I was eight or nine. You see, when I was a kid in Ohio, we had a thick woods behind our house. In the middle of the woods stood a tall mound of smooth, white stones. We stayed away from those stones. All the kids in my neighborhood believed that a dead body was buried beneath them.

  I still dream about those stones. I see them start to shake. And then I see a gruesome, decayed body climb out from under and stagger toward my house, groaning, “I’m coming to get you, Bobby. I’m coming to get you!”

  That’s where I got the idea for this story. Welcome to my nightmare….

  The tree bark scratched my hand. The slender limb trembled beneath me. I tightened my grip on the trunk and squinted down at the kids on the ground. I suddenly felt dizzy. Their grinning faces became a blur.

  “What’s wrong, Willy?” I heard Travis call. “Need a ladder to get down?”

  “I--I’m okay,” I stammered. But I wasn’t okay. I’d climbed halfway up the tree, and there was no way I could get down.

  “Should I call the fire department?” Travis shouted. I heard the other kids laugh the way they always do.

  And then Travis started the familiar chant: “Willy the Wimp! Willy the Wimp! Willy the Wimp!”

  I wanted to clamp my hands over my ears, but I couldn’t let go of the tree trunk. I hugged it tightly, my whole body shaking. “My name is Will--not Willy!” I shouted.

  But that made them chant even louder. “Willy the Wimp! Willy the Wimp!”

  How many years have I had to listen to that chant?

  I shut my eyes and gritted my teeth. I hated them. And I hated Travis, even though he was my best friend. But most of all, I hated myself, for being such a weakling, for being such a coward, for being Willy the Wimp.

  “Stop it!” I shouted. “Stop it!” I shook a fist at them--and lost my balance.

  I toppled off the limb and started to slide down the trunk. The bark scraped the skin off my hands and ripped the front of my shirt. I slid to the ground, landed hard on both feet, and dropped to my knees.

  “Wow. Let’s see you do that again!” Travis exclaimed.

  My hands were bleeding. I wiped dirt and bark off my torn shirt, then brushed a clump of leaves from my hair. I glared at Travis. “Give me a break.”

  But he never did. He was always daring me, always challenging me to do dangerous things. Always showing off in front of the other kids how he was brave and I was a wimp.

  I’ve always been the smallest kid in the class. Even in first grade I looked younger than everyone else. Why did that give them the right to pick fights with me and laugh at me?

  As I trudged home, hands shoved deep into my jeans pockets, I thought about some of Travis’ mean tricks. The time in science class he dropped a big cotton ball down my back and said it was a tarantula. The time he took his squirt gun and squirted the front of my pants just before I had to go up in front of the class and give an oral book report.

  And all the stupid dares. Daring me to dive into Handler’s Creek when the water was only a few inches deep. Throwing my cap onto the school roof and daring me to climb up and get it. Telling me the girls’ locker room was empty and daring me to sneak inside, even though he knew it was filled with girls.

  And Stupid Will always took the challenge. Stupid Will went for every dare.

  The next morning I got to school a little late. I stepped into the room and stared at the drawing on the chalkboard. Someone had drawn a big tree with me clinging to one high lim
b and a little kitten on another limb. Underneath, it said: WHICH ONE IS THE SCAREDY-CAT?

  I turned to find everyone grinning at me.

  Looking at those grinning faces, I knew I couldn’t take any more of this. I knew I had to do something. But what?

  A few days later I found myself back in the woods. Mr. Kretchmer, our teacher, was leading the class to Handler’s Creek to collect insects.

  As we followed the dirt path that twisted between the trees, Travis came up beside me, grinning as always. “Dare you to swim the creek,” he said.

  I rolled my eyes. “Ha ha. Very funny.” It hadn’t rained in weeks. Even I knew that the creek was just a mud bog.

  “I’m going ahead to see if we have the creek bed to ourselves,” Mr. Kretchmer announced. “I want to get everything set up. Keep to the path.” He turned and hurried away.

  Our shoes crunched over the dry ground. The bright sunlight prickled the back of my neck. Up ahead a column of glittering white insects swarmed above the tall grass.

  The path curved through a grassy clearing. I shifted my backpack on my shoulders and saw a small wooden shed at the back of the clearing.

  What was that lying on the grass in front of the shed? I squinted hard to focus. “Hey!” I took off running. “Hey!”

  I stopped a few feet from the shed and stared at the man on the ground. He lay stiffly on his side, arms and legs very straight. A mask--a black wool mask--covered his face. Through the eyeholes I could see that his eyes had rolled up into his head. Only the whites showed.

  “Hey!” I called to the others, my voice high and shrill. I waved wildly. “Hey--come here! Hurry!”

  The whole class came running. They stopped when they saw the body lying on the grass. After a startled hush, their voices rang out, everyone talking at once.

  “Is he alive?”

  “Why is he wearing a mask?”

  “What happened to him?”

  “It--it’s a dead body,” I stammered. “I don’t believe it. I’ve never seen a dead body.” I stared down openmouthed at the masked face, the white eyeballs.

  “Someone--hurry! Go get Mr. Kretchmer!” a girl yelled. But no one moved. I guess we were all too shocked, too horrified.

  And then Travis shuffled beside me, his dark eyes flashing, his mouth turned up in that familiar grin. “Will,” he said loudly, loud enough for everyone to hear, “Will, I dare you to touch him.”

  “Huh?” I took a step back. “Touch a dead body?”

  Travis’ grin grew wider. “I dare you to pull up his mask and touch his face.”

  Silence all around. I could see that all eyes were on me.

  I stared at Travis, then turned to the dead body. I swallowed. I took a deep breath.

  “I dare you,” Travis repeated. He knew that I never turned down his dares. Everyone in the class knew it.

  “Okay,” I said, swallowing again. “Okay. Okay. I can do it. No big deal--right?”

  I took a small step toward the body, then another. When I dropped to my knees beside it, a few kids gasped.

  “Is he really going to touch it?” someone whispered.

  “He’ll chicken out,” I heard Travis reply.

  No way, I told myself. I’m not chickening out. I’m doing it.

  My hand trembled as I reached for the black mask.

  My fingers gripped the bottom of it.

  With a sharp tug, I started to pull the mask up over the face.

  And the dead man’s right hand shot up and wrapped around my wrist.

  “Ohhhhh.” A low moan escaped my throat.

  Behind me came the horrified cries and screams of the others.

  The dead man’s fingers tightened around my arm. His blank, white eyes glared out from the mask at me. His other hand grabbed my shoulder.

  Screams and shrieks rang out around me. I didn’t move. I couldn’t move.

  Staring at me with those blank, dead eyes, the corpse opened his mouth and rasped, “Let…the…dead…rest!”

  “N-no--” I stammered. “Please--”

  “Let…the…dead…rest!” the corpse repeated in his dry whisper.

  I turned and saw kids holding each other, screaming and crying.

  The dead man’s hands slid to my throat.

  “Travis--help me!” I shouted. “Travis--please! Help me!”

  Travis hesitated for a moment, his face white with fear, eyes darting wildly from side to side.

  Then he spun away and took off, running into the woods.

  A few kids ran after him. The rest stared in horror as the corpse tightened his grasp around my throat.

  “Let…the…dead…rest!” With a low grunt he started to choke me.

  “I guess I’ll have to take care of you myself!” I cried.

  I squeezed his hands and tugged them off me. Then I grabbed his head and twisted it hard. Gripping the sides of the mask, I raised the dead man’s head, then banged it down. Banged it against the ground. Banged it again. Again. Again.

  Until he lay still.

  Wheezing, gasping, my chest heaving, I let go of him and staggered to my feet. I bent over and pressed my hands against my knees, struggling to catch my breath.

  The other kids stared at me wide-eyed. Trembling. Crying. “Go get Mr. Kretchmer,” I told them. “I’m okay. Hurry. Go get him.”

  They took off, eager to get away. I watched them until they disappeared into the trees.

  Then I turned to the body on the ground. “They’re gone, Uncle Jake. You can get up,” I told him. “Thanks a lot. It worked perfectly. They’ll never call me Willy the Wimp again.”

  Uncle Jake sat up and tugged off the mask. He mopped sweat off his forehead. Then he rubbed the back of his head. “Will, you play kind of rough,” he groaned.

  “Sorry,” I replied. “I guess I got a little carried away. I wanted to make it look real.”

  Uncle Jake was my best uncle. He was really funny and he loved practical jokes. He was always doing his white eyeball trick at the dinner table. Last week when I asked him to help me out, he jumped at the chance.

  I held out my hand and helped tug him to his feet. “Thanks again,” I said. “We really scared them, didn’t we?”

  Uncle Jake nodded. He smiled at me. “Glad I didn’t let you down. But I’ve got to get going,” he whispered. “Bye, Will.”

  I said good-bye. Then I watched him until he vanished among the trees.

  I ran all the way home after school and came bursting through the kitchen door. I couldn’t wait to tell Mom about the great trick Uncle Jake and I had played on Travis and the other kids.

  But I stopped when I saw tears running down her face. Her chin trembled. Her hands were clasped tightly in front of her.

  “Will, I’m so sorry,” she said softly. “So sorry…”

  “Sorry? Mom, what’s wrong?”

  “I have very bad news,” she said, wiping tears away with both hands. “It--it’s your Uncle Jake. He died.”

  “Huh?” I suddenly felt cold all over. “Died? When?”

  “Last night,” Mom said. “Sometime last night. I…I just heard.”

  “But--” I started.

  Mom wrapped her arms around me. “I’m so sorry, Will. I know the two of you were close. I know you thought of him as a friend.”

  My head was spinning. I pressed my face against Mom’s wet cheek.

  “Yes,” I whispered. “Yes. He was a very good friend.”

  Make Me a Witch

  INTRODUCTION

  ILLUSTRATED BY BLEU TURRELL

  People often ask if I believe in ghosts and witches. The answer is no. But many years ago I knew a woman who said she was a witch. Her name was Judith, and she worked in the same office I did.

  One day Phil, a guy in the next office, got sick. Everyone said that Judith had put a curse on him. Poor Phil. His hair turned white. His teeth started to fall out. He grew skinnier and skinnier. Then one day he was fine again.

  Judith claimed she had removed the spell
. I never really thought Judith was responsible. I wasn’t sure what to believe. But I do know this: Sometimes it would be great to have that kind of magical power. At least that’s what Stephanie thinks in this story. Stephanie wants to be a witch--in the worst way….

  “I want to be like you,” I told the witch. The witch raised her black eyebrows. Her straight black hair fell to her shoulders as she tilted her head, studying me hard with her cold, silvery eyes.

  I stared right back at her, not blinking, challenging her. My chin quivered, but nothing else moved.

  It took a lot of courage to come to the witch’s house. Most kids in the neighborhood won’t go near it, won’t even climb the hill the old house rests on.

  But I was brave.

  Or to tell the truth, desperate.

  You might think that going to see a witch is a crazy thing to do. But if you knew what my life was like, you’d understand.

  She was my last hope.

  Gemma Rogerson is a real witch, and everyone in Maywood Falls knows it. People go to Gemma for help when nothing else works. Then they ask her to cast a spell to improve their lives or to get them out of trouble.

  Sometimes they even ask her to put a curse on their enemies.

  And is she powerful!

  Gemma cast a hiccuping spell on Mr. Fraley from the used-car lot. She did it because she found out he was selling stolen cars. He hiccuped for two years without stopping, and he couldn’t sell a single car!

  I’m not making it up. It was on the news.

  It was also on the news when Gemma played a really mean joke on Mayor Krenitsky. At his press conference a million buzzing flies crawled out of his ears and nose, and long, purple worms poked out of his eyes.

  Gemma can use her amazing powers for good--and for evil.

  I didn’t care. I really needed help.

  So there I stood in her kitchen, staring her down, trying not to blink. Afternoon sunlight washed through her dust-covered windows. The light spread over the cluttered shelves against the wall, shelves of jars and bottles filled with feathers and powders and insects and tiny bones.

  Finally Gemma moved. Her long, black dress crinkled as she crossed the room. As she came closer, I could see her beautiful creamy skin. Her eyes were bright and alert, her lips full and smooth.