I gazed up at the clear blue sky. Then I lowered my eyes to the grave wall.
And I realized my horror-filled morning wasn’t over.
Because I saw that the grave was too deep.
No way I could climb out.
Shall I skip the part where I claw and kick and strain and push and pull and fall and scream and slide back onto the muddy grave floor? Shall I forget about the part where my heart pounded so hard that my chest hurt, and I tore off all my fingernails, and the mud filled my sneakers and made me seem to weigh two hundred pounds?
You don’t want to hear every detail, do you?
You don’t want to hear about me cold and shivering and soaked through with mud and freezing rain water. And you definitely don’t want to know my thoughts while I was trying to climb out — because, believe me, they weren’t pretty.
Let me just say that escaping from that grave took many tries. And when I finally crawled out, panting and wheezing, my tongue hanging out like an exhausted dog, I stayed there on my hands and knees for a while. I breathed the fresh, cool air and thought as many evil thoughts about Mickey, Morty, and Kenji as I could.
I slumped home, staying close to the houses, walking in the shade in hopes that no one would see me. Luckily, Mom had gone to work, so I didn’t have to make any explanations. How could I explain that I’d spent nearly an hour rolling in mud in an empty grave?
It took me a while to decide where to hide my muddy clothes. Finally, I rolled them into a ball and shoved them into the back of my clothes closet underneath the sleeping bag. I knew Mom wouldn’t find them there. The only problem was, how bad were they going to smell?
No time to worry about that. I took a fast shower, pulled on some clothes, grabbed my coat, and ran all the way to school. “Sorry I’m late,” I told Miss Curdy. “I had to see my orthodontist.”
That was the best excuse I could think of. I don’t have an orthodontist, but almost everyone else in my class does. “Scott, open your mouth,” she said.
I hesitated, then opened my mouth wide.
“You don’t have braces,” Miss Curdy said.
“I know,” I replied. “That’s why I had to see the orthodontist.”
Later, I pulled Amanda to the back of the lunchroom. “We’ve got to talk,” I said. “Desperate times.”
She squinted at me and raised her lunch bag. “Scott, do you have lunch?”
I shook my head. “I don’t care about lunch. We need to talk.”
I found an empty table in the shadows at the back, and I dragged her over to it. I told her about my adventure in the graveyard this morning. She listened intently as she chewed her ham sandwich.
“No más,” I said, repeating a slogan I’d heard in a TV commercial. “No más. They have to be stopped. No more Mr. Nice Guys. We need to hit them and hit them hard.”
Amanda swallowed. Her face filled with surprise. “You mean with fists?”
“Of course not,” I said. “But we need to put a stop to them. We need to get our revenge now.”
“Any ideas?” she asked.
I didn’t answer. At the far end of the cafeteria, I saw Mickey and Morty stride in. When they walked side by side, there was no room for anyone to pass. They were as wide as trucks. Real hairy, mean-looking trucks.
Morty grabbed a slice of pizza off a girl’s lunch tray and gobbled it down. He and his Neanderthal brother slapped each other low fives.
“Scott? Any ideas?” Amanda repeated.
“We need to brainstorm,” I said.
“Excuse me? What does that mean?”
“I don’t know,” I confessed. “It’s something my dad says a lot. I think it means to think up ideas.”
“Well, okay. Let’s think. How can we scare the Klass brothers and Kenji?” Amanda rubbed her chin like she was thinking hard. “It’s almost Halloween….”
“Yes!” I exclaimed. “The scariest holiday of the year. We should definitely be able to scare them on Halloween.” I thought hard. “Hmmmmmm. Hmmmmm.” I thought harder. “Hmmmmmmm.”
Amanda rested her chin in her hand and thought, too. “Hmmmmm.”
“Hmmmmm. Hmmmmmm.”
We were both humming away.
“I don’t have a single idea,” I said.
Amanda sighed. “Neither do I.”
“I can’t think clearly,” I said. “I spent the morning trying to claw my way out of an open grave, and I’m just not thinking clearly.”
“You still have some mud behind your ears,” Amanda said, pointing.
I rubbed a finger behind my ear and felt a smear of dried mud.
“I know. We should have some kind of scary party,” Amanda said. “You know. Invite Mickey, Morty, and Kenji. And then do everything we can to scare them to death.”
“Like what?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. We’re brainstorming — aren’t we?”
“Wait. I know!” It was my turn to jump to my feet. “I know! I know! I’ve got it. I know what will work. I know what will terrify them!”
Amanda’s eyes went wide. “What? What is it?”
The bell rang. Right above our heads. It isn’t really a bell. It’s a long buzzer, loud enough to make your teeth rattle if you’re sitting right under it, which we were.
No time to tell her my brilliant idea. We had to hurry to class. Loud voices rang off the tile walls. Lunch trays slammed. Kids trotted toward the cafeteria doors.
“Let’s talk tonight,” I called to Amanda. “After dinner.”
She nodded and disappeared into the crowd of kids. I hung back. I saw the Klass brothers and Kenji were still at a table, gobbling up someone’s lunch. I didn’t want to run into them.
Believe it or not, I made it through the rest of the afternoon without any trouble. School picture day didn’t happen. They told us the photographer got sick. Or maybe he broke his camera. I really wasn’t listening. School picture day seemed like old news.
Finally, I had a plan to frighten the three cavemen and enjoy some revenge. I couldn’t be bothered with unimportant matters like yearbook photos.
After school, I walked Rita to her piano lesson. Then I made my way home, plotting and scheming all the way. Mom wasn’t home yet.
I carried my backpack upstairs — and stopped at the landing.
I heard strange noises. Scraping and bumping. Coming from my room?
I stepped up to the bedroom doorway — and gasped.
I gazed at a white-haired woman I’d never seen before. She was pawing through things on my dresser top.
She turned, startled to see me.
“Hey —” I blurted out. “Who are you?”
We stood there staring at each other. She had wavy white hair down to her shoulders. Her face was powdery and pale, and her skin was drawn tight against her cheeks. Her lips were gray. The only color on her face was in her bright blue eyes.
She wore a black outfit with a skirt that fell nearly to her ankles. She turned away from my dresser, a confused expression crossing her face.
Suddenly, I remembered. “Aunt Ida?” I cried. “You’re Aunt Ida?”
“Yes,” she said. “And you’re …” Her voice was scratchy.
“Scott,” I said. “You must be a little surprised. You haven’t seen me since I was a baby.”
She smoothed her white hair back with both hands. “Scott. Of course. Is this your room?”
“Yes,” I said. “The guest room is down the hall. Let me show you.” I motioned for her to follow me.
She glanced back at my dresser as we stepped into the hall. “I like your room,” she said. “Funny. I remembered this house completely differently.”
I stopped outside the guest room door at the end of the hall and waited for her to walk inside. I inhaled her perfume as she stepped past me. It was strong, very lemony.
Aunt Ida sat down on the bed and smoothed her long black skirt over her legs. “This is very nice.” She smiled at me, and I saw something gleam, like a sp
ark of light. It took me a few seconds to realize she had a gold tooth in the middle of her mouth.
Late afternoon sunlight washed in from the two windows. Before it became the guest room, this was my mom’s sewing room. Her old sewing machine still stood in the corner, piled high with books and magazines.
“Mom says you’re a world traveler,” I said.
Her gold tooth gleamed again. “Yes, I am. I guess I’m a restless spirit, Scott. I can’t stay in any one place for long.” Her hands were long and bony. They played with the folds of her skirt.
“I bet you have some great stories,” I said.
She nodded. “Some of them are so strange, I don’t believe them myself.” She shook her head. Her white hair shone in the sunlight.
“Can I help you bring up your suitcases?” I asked.
She hesitated. “They are being delivered. They are coming later.”
“Would you like something to drink?” I was trying to be a good host. I wished Mom was home.
Aunt Ida climbed to her feet. Her long skirt rustled around her. “Actually, I have to go out,” she said. Her blue eyes studied me for a moment. “I’ll be right back. Give me a hug, Scott.” She stretched out her arms.
I gave her a hug. I was startled by how bony her back felt, how frail. But she moved quickly to the stairs. “When I come back, we’ll have a nice long talk,” she said. “We’ll get to know one another.”
She made her way easily down the stairs. The smell of her lemony perfume lingered in the hall.
I carried my backpack into my room and tossed it against the wall. I took out my phone and started to text Amanda. I couldn’t wait to tell her my idea for getting revenge on the three cavemen. But halfway through the message, I remembered Amanda was at her pottery class.
I dropped down at my desk and started to work on my science notebook. But it was hard to concentrate. For one thing, I could already smell the stale odor of my mud-caked clothes floating out of the closet.
I wished I knew how to run the washing machine. I could get my clothes clean while Mom was at work, and she would never have to know about the whole tragic incident.
But I didn’t have a clue.
I bent my head over the notebook and tried to fill in today’s assignment. But I felt a familiar pull. A strange force that made me climb to my feet.
I realized at once I was being pulled to my clothes closet.
The mask. I knew it was the mask. Calling to me again. Drawing me to its hiding place in the back of the closet.
No!
I knew I had to resist. But I had crossed the room. I wrapped my hand around the closet doorknob. I started to tug the door open.
I let go when I heard a door slam downstairs. “Mom? Is that you?” I called.
I forced myself away from the closet and hurried down the stairs two at a time. Mom was in the front hall, setting down her briefcase. She sells real estate in the Valley, which is a twenty-minute drive from home. She’s usually pretty tired at night. Dad is the cook in the family. But since he’s away on his business trip, Mom has to do everything.
She kissed me on the forehead. “Scott, how was your day?”
You mean the part where I was drowning in mud at the bottom of an open grave?
“Not bad,” I said. “Picture day was canceled. Something happened to the photographer.”
“Too bad,” Mom murmured. She was sifting through the mail.
I opened my mouth to tell her that Aunt Ida had arrived. But she raised a hand and interrupted me. “Afraid I have bad news,” Mom said. “Aunt Ida called me this afternoon. She’s not feeling well. She’s not going to visit us after all.”
My mouth dropped open. It took me a few seconds before I could speak. “B-but, Mom —” I stammered. “There was a woman —”
The phone rang.
“I’ll bet that’s your father,” Mom said. She dove for the phone. “Hi, Sid. Where are you now? Still in Berlin?”
I squeezed Mom’s shoulder. “But I have to tell you something.”
She waved me away. “Later, Scott. Your dad only has a few minutes to talk.”
I sighed and slumped back upstairs to my room. My brain was doing flip-flops in my skull. I had a fluttery feeling in my chest.
An old woman was here. I hadn’t imagine her.
I sniffed the air. The lemon perfume aroma had faded away.
Who was she? What was she doing in our house?
I dropped onto the edge of my bed, leaned forward with my hands clasped tightly in my lap, and tried to think. A few minutes later, I heard the door slam. Running footsteps on the stairs.
Had the old woman returned?
No. Rita peeked into my room. She had her coat half off. Her backpack strap was tangled in the sleeve. “Come here. I’ll help you with that,” I said.
She squinted at me. “Are you actually inviting me into your room?”
I nodded.
“Are you sick?” she asked, not budging from the doorway. “Do you have a horrifying flesh-eating disease you want to pass on to me?”
“Glad you trust me,” I said. “I just wanted to help you with your backpack.”
She crossed the room, and I untangled her. “And I want to tell you something.”
“Uh-oh,” she muttered.
Mom was on the phone. Amanda wasn’t around. I knew I’d burst if I didn’t tell someone about the old woman in our house.
“Listen to me,” I said. “This is seriously creepy.”
“Like the way you eat scrambled eggs?”
“Can you stop for one minute?” I pleaded. “I’m trying to tell you something.” I squinted at her. “What’s wrong with the way I eat scrambled eggs?”
“You suck them into your mouth. Like you’re a vacuum cleaner. It’s totally gross.”
“I do not. Shut up about scrambled eggs. Listen to this. When I got home from school, there was an old woman up here.”
That got Rita’s interest. She sat down on the shag rug across from my bed.
“A strange woman in the house. She said she was Aunt Ida,” I continued. “I found her in my room. She had white hair and looked really old and pale, like her skin was stretched across her face.”
“Weird,” Rita murmured.
“Very weird,” I agreed. “I showed her to the spare bedroom. But she said she had to go out. And she hurried down the stairs and disappeared.”
Rita rolled her eyes. “I don’t get it, Scott. What’s the big deal? Aunt Ida had to go out, and she’ll probably be back soon.”
“You don’t get it,” I said. “When Mom got home, she told me Aunt Ida got sick. She isn’t coming.”
Rita picked at the white shag rug with two fingers. I could see she was thinking about what I said.
“She was a creepy old woman, pale as a ghost,” I said. “And she had a gold tooth right in the middle of her mouth. It glowed when she smiled.”
And Rita burst out laughing.
I jumped to my feet and stood over her. “What’s so funny?” I demanded. “Why are you laughing?”
She shook her head. “So lame,” she said. “Seriously.”
“Lame?” I cried. “What are you talking about?”
Rita jumped up and crossed her arms in front of her sweater. “Did you really think that lame story would scare me? Did you really think I’d totally freak and start screaming, There’s a ghost in the house?” She gave me a hard shove backward with both hands. “You’ll have to do better than that, Scott.”
I gritted my teeth. I could feel my face getting hot. I wanted to grab her and shake. “It … it’s not a story,” I said. “She had bright blue eyes and — and —”
“And she flew out the window on a broom,” Rita said. She laughed some more.
“And she reeked of this perfume,” I said. “It smelled like lemon. It was so strong, it made my eyes water.”
Rita sniffed a couple of times. “I don’t smell anything. Except your armpits. Don’t you ever take a shower???
?
“Shut up!” I cried. “Shut up. I thought I could talk to you. For once. But I was wrong.”
Rita picked up her backpack and started toward the door. “You thought you could scare me,” she said. “But I’m the scary one in the family — not you. And now it’s my turn.”
“Huh? Your turn?”
She tossed her hair behind her shoulders. “My turn to scare you.”
“But you’ve already had a million turns!” I cried.
She disappeared across the hall into her room.
I dropped back onto my bed. Shut my eyes and started to think again. I tried to remember every second I spent with the old woman. I pictured her in my room. And I realized she hadn’t told me she was Aunt Ida. I asked her if she was Aunt Ida. And she simply said yes.
Why was she in my room?
I suddenly remembered the first moment I saw her. From the hallway. She was at my dresser. She was searching for something on my dresser. Maybe she had already gone through the drawers.
Searching for something …
I opened my eyes. I felt a chill roll down my back. I had a crazy thought. A totally insane thought.
The wooden box I took from the abandoned house. The death mask and the red scarf. Was she searching for them?
Did she come from that old house? Was she the one Amanda and I heard moaning and wailing?
Was she a ghost? And did that box belong to her?
She followed me home last Saturday. She waited for a school day. She came into my room to search for her belongings and take them back.
No. No way. It was too crazy.
Rita was right. Now I was inventing ghost stories. Now I was making up a ghost story and scaring myself!
But … would she come back? Would she keep coming back till she found what she was looking for?
Suddenly, I realized my hand was on the closet door again. I jerked the door open. I had no choice. The mask was pulling me … drawing me to it with incredible force.
Crawling deep into the closet, I shoved the filthy jeans and sweater aside. I pulled myself on my hands and knees to the back. In the dim light, I could see the sleeping bag against the wall.