“You don’t have a dog,” Kenji said. “I know you don’t have a dog.”
“Hey, you’re right,” I said. “That’s what I’m late for. I’m supposed to go to the pound and pick out a dog, and then brush its teeth.”
Mickey turned to his twin. “Is this guy supposed to be funny?”
Morty shrugged. “Beats me.”
“This is a simple dare,” Mickey said. “We want you to sneak into that old house and stay in there for half an hour without scaring yourselves to death.”
“Go in that old haunted house?” Rita said, pretending to be scared.
Amanda and I exchanged glances. The three bullies obviously hadn’t seen us come diving out the window.
“Forget about that. We have a dare for you,” I said.
Mickey sneered. “Don’t make me laugh. I have chapped lips.”
“Listen to our dare,” Amanda said, arms crossed tightly in front of her parka.
“What are you doing for Halloween?” I asked. “Going over to the party at the elementary school to drink the little kids’ blood?”
Morty turned to Mickey. “This guy is a riot.”
“We have these awesome skeleton costumes,” Kenji said. “We’re going to hang by the graveyard and give people a heart attack when they walk by.”
“Good plan,” I said. “But we have a dare for you. We dare you to come to our Halloween party.”
They all got big sarcastic grins on their ugly faces. “Ooh, fun,” Morty said. “Will we sing Halloween songs and carve our own jack-’o-lanterns?”
“Can we sit by the fireplace and tell ghost stories?” Kenji asked.
They burst out laughing.
“It’s not a baby party,” Amanda said. “Our party is inside the old haunted house.”
That stopped them. Their grins faded.
“Everyone knows that house is seriously haunted,” Morty said.
I stuck out my jaw. “So?”
“So you’re going to have a party in there?”
I nodded. “It’s going to be the best Halloween party ever. And we dare you to come.”
They grew silent. They exchanged glances. Then more silence.
Mickey burst out laughing. “I get it. Morty, Kenji, and I go into the haunted house. And you three never show up. Right?”
“Wrong,” I said. “We’ll be there.”
“I don’t like it,” Kenji told the twins. “It sounds like a trap.”
“We wouldn’t trap you,” I said. “We’d be too scared. After all, you dudes carry hockey sticks.”
“We just want to have an awesome party,” Amanda said. “And you’re the only three guys we know who wouldn’t be scared to go into that house on Halloween night.”
I had to smile. Amanda really knew how to spread the flattery. I didn’t think they could resist that.
And they couldn’t.
“Okay. We’ll be there,” Mickey said.
“We accept your dare,” his twin agreed. “But it better be a good party.”
“Yeah, it better not be a baby party,” Kenji said.
“Are you sure you three wimps won’t be too terrified?” Mickey asked. “You’ll be shaking and quaking and crying and begging us to let you go home.”
“No, we won’t,” Rita answered.
“You’re such total cowards,” Mickey said, scowling at me. “I’ll be surprised if you last ten minutes.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “There will be plenty of surprises for all of us.”
And I was right.
A huge storm hit our town Halloween morning. Big raindrops pattered my bedroom window and woke me up with a shock. I thought someone was pounding on the window.
Lightning crackled, and the thunder seemed to be right over our house. I walked to my window and gazed down to the street. A river of water rushed along the curb, and big gray puddles the size of ponds dotted the sidewalk.
Amanda and I were supposed to go to the old house to do a final check and make sure everything was ready for the party. But I had a stomachache. I’d raided the Halloween candy Mom bought for trick-or-treaters, and maybe I had too many Snickers bars.
Also, neither one of us felt like going out in the storm. We’re both a little afraid of being hit by lightning. I told you, we’re not the bravest people in the world.
But after the party tonight, we’d both have proof that we were braver than Mickey, Morty, and Kenji.
Amanda and I worked some more in the old house Wednesday and Thursday after school. We actually got the front door to open, which meant we all wouldn’t have to climb in through the kitchen window.
We put the batteries in some eerie-looking, old-fashioned torches and hung them on the wall. We placed about a million candles everywhere.
We didn’t hear any moans and groans. No whispers telling us to stay. That made us feel a little more confident.
We checked all of the scares we had planted, the jumping skeletons, the laughing jack-’o-lanterns, the filmy ghosts that were set to float down from the dark ceiling.
Amanda and I were excited. Everything worked perfectly. We knew we could terrorize the three bullies — especially when we told them we were locked in the house … trapped … and the ugly wooden mask came floating down the stairs on its own.
But then we had a disaster.
I was halfway up a ladder, trying to hang the big bag of green slime over the dining room door, and the bag broke. I screamed as the thick goo plopped onto my head, and I toppled backward off the ladder.
I landed hard on my back. I felt my breath whoosh out, and my chest throbbed. I struggled to breathe as the green goo oozed over my head, my face, my shoulders.
Amanda came rushing over and dropped down beside me on the floor. “Are you okay?”
“No,” I groaned. “How am I supposed to breathe with this green gunk covering my nose and mouth?” That’s what I wanted to say. But actually, it came out, “Glub glub glubbbb.”
“You’ve ruined the ghostly protoplasm,” Amanda said. “That was one of our best surprises.”
“Glubbbb glub,” I said. I tried to pull the disgusting stuff off my face with both hands. And now my hands were covered with it.
Amanda shook her head. “You’ll never get it off.”
“Thanks for your support,” I said, finally pulling enough of it away so I could speak. “What if I go home and take a shower?”
“Probably won’t help,” she said. “The slime will stick to your skin.”
I grabbed her hand and rubbed green gunk up and down both sides of it. Then I smeared some on her cheek.
She let out a shriek. And then we both started laughing. It was just so ridiculous.
After we stopped laughing, she helped pull me to my feet. Somehow I had stepped in the slime and it was all over my shoes. It gave me an idea. I made slime footprints from the dining room door to the nearest wall. The footprints made it look as if some ghostly creature had walked to the wall and then just vanished.
“Very cool,” Amanda agreed.
We went home happy, satisfied about our plan. I took a long, hot shower and most of the green slime washed off.
Now it was Halloween morning with thunder roaring right outside my window and rain beating against the glass like an ocean wave. The perfect weather to scare three bullies.
I helped myself to breakfast. Mom was at work. Rita was still asleep. She can sleep through anything.
My phone rang just as I finished my Corn Flakes. I squinted at the screen and saw that it was Mickey Klass calling. “Hey, Mickey. What’s up?” I said.
“How’s it going, Scotty?”
He knows I hate it when people call me Scotty. “Okay.”
“Hey, listen. About your party,” he said. “Morty and I and Kenji … we got a better invitation.”
I made a gulping sound. “Huh? What did you say?”
“We changed our minds, Scotty. We’re not coming to your party.”
I squeezed my phone so
hard, it popped out of my hand. It hit the rug and bounced a few times.
Not coming to the party?
I grabbed the phone in a trembling hand and raised it to my ear. “But — but — but —” I sputtered.
Mickey laughed, a nasty horse laugh. “Just messing with you, Scotty,” he said.
“You mean —?”
“We’ll be there. And you’d better be there, too.”
My heart was still pounding. I let out a sigh of relief. Even Mickey’s jokes are cruel.
“We’ll be there,” I said. “Eight o’clock.”
“Sure that isn’t past your bedtime?” He laughed his obnoxious laugh again.
You won’t be laughing after tonight, Mickey, I thought.
* * *
Amanda, Rita, and I got to the old house at seven and started lighting candles. I have to admit I felt way tense. I mean, a lot was riding on this party. Like my whole life.
If it worked, Amanda and I wouldn’t have to live in terror anymore. I could walk to school without having to worry about being heaved into an open grave. Life wouldn’t be scary anymore. What a thrill that would be.
But as soon as we got all the candles lit around the abandoned house, we had a crisis. And, of course, the crisis was Rita.
“Why do I have to stay out of sight the whole time?” she demanded with her hands pressed against the waist of her solid black costume. “Why can’t I enjoy the party, too?”
Amanda and I glared at her. “You’re not supposed to enjoy the party,” I said. “It’s not that kind of party.”
“It’s not really a party,” Amanda said. “It’s just a way for us to terrify the three Neanderthals.”
“You have to stay upstairs out of sight till the end,” I said. “Then you come gliding down the stairs, all hidden in black, the death mask on your face, floating, floating down to scare them out of their heads.”
Rita stamped her foot. “I get all that,” she snarled. “But why can’t I have pizza and soda and tortilla chips like everyone else?”
“We just explained,” Amanda said.
“Why don’t you take a slice of pizza now?” I said. “Take it upstairs with you.”
“But I’m not hungry now!” Rita exclaimed.
A loud knock on the front door ended the argument. Rita grabbed a slice of pizza from the box on the food table and went running for the stairs.
I waited till she was totally out of sight and then pulled open the heavy wooden door. As promised, Mickey, Morty, and Kenji stood there in their skeleton costumes.
The costumes were actually awesome. If you like gross costumes. The skull masks had cracks across the foreheads and big painted spiders pouring from the cracks. The bones on the front of the costumes were yellowed and cracked. And smears of dark blood covered their chests. One of the costumes had a huge gray rat clinging to the bony ribs.
I stood to the side so they could enter the house. “Who are you supposed to be?” Kenji asked. “Wonder Woman?”
All three of them burst out laughing.
“No. Captain America,” I said. I pointed across the room. “Amanda is a Martian princess.”
“Did your mommy make that costume for you?” Mickey asked her. He flipped his fingers at one of the tall antennae on her head. She didn’t answer him.
The three of them clomped across the front room, their skulls glowing in the candlelight. They strode to the food table, and they each picked up big, two-liter bottles of Coke. The Coke was supposed to be for everyone. But they each tilted a whole bottle to their mouths and chugged.
Then they burped as long and loud as they could.
That made them laugh like fools, slapping each other high fives and bumping knuckles.
What jerks.
I tried to get down to business. “This house is definitely haunted,” I said in a low voice.
“Have you guys ever been in a haunted house before?” Amanda asked them.
Before they could answer, a high, shrill scream broke the silence. I turned to the stairway. Did it come from upstairs?
Another scream of horror, so high-pitched it rattled in my ears.
Yes. It was definitely from upstairs.
The three skeletons froze, exchanging glances.
I turned to Amanda. I didn’t know what to do. “Is that Rita screaming like that?” I whispered.
“I … don’t think it’s real,” Amanda said, but her eyes were wide with fright.
“Did we set up scream sound effects upstairs?” I whispered.
“I don’t remember.”
Mickey and Morty stepped to my sides and bumped me between them. “Look. We made a Scotty sandwich,” Morty said. They bumped me again. “Why don’t you go upstairs and see who’s screaming?”
“Uh … it stopped,” I said.
Kenji was at the food table. He had taken off his skull mask so he could jam his mouth full of tortilla chips.
“This is way boring,” Mickey said, yawning. “You call this a party? It’s more like a funeral.”
“I’ve taken geography tests that were more exciting than this,” his twin agreed.
“And you probably flunked them, too,” Amanda said.
“Don’t forget, we’re in a haunted house,” I said. “Can’t you feel the vibrations? Can’t you feel there’s some other presence here, a ghostly presence?”
Morty burped really loud again.
“Look at that!” I cried. I pretended to be surprised as I pointed to the footsteps across the floor at the dining room entrance. The footprints I’d made by stepping in the green goo. “Those footprints go to the wall and stop.”
“Who cares?” Kenji said, spitting chips from his mouth as he talked.
I started to say something about ghostly protoplasm. But I stopped as something dark came floating down over us.
Dark and filmy, slipping down from the ceiling. Ghostly shadows, maybe a dozen of them. The eerie see-through figures floated down over us. They were cold to the touch. They felt like raindrops on my skin. The shadows dissolved as they hit the floor.
“I-I don’t like this,” Morty stammered. He swung his fists and tried to bat the shadows away. But his fist sailed right through them.
“Is this some kind of trick?” Mickey demanded.
Amanda and I exchanged glances. We didn’t say a word. But we knew what the other was thinking.
The screams upstairs … the ghostly shadows swirling down on us …
These aren’t the scares we planted!
I heard a loud clattering at the front window. A clicking and bumping as if someone was trying to break in.
I lurched toward the front of the room, and in the flickering candlelight, I saw bony fingers on the other side of the glass. Tapping … tapping …
And then a human skull rose into view. I swallowed. Amanda screamed.
We gaped at the skeleton slapping at the window. “It … it’s not a costume!” I choked out.
Mickey, Morty, and Kenji didn’t move. They stared at the tapping bones without moving a muscle. Were they frozen in fear?
“Ooohhhhhhhhhh.”
A deafening moan, like a dying animal, rose up at my feet. I spun around, expecting to see some kind of creature on the floor. But there was nothing there.
The skeleton at the window had vanished into the blackness of the night. I backed away. My whole body shuddered.
This isn’t right. This isn’t what Amanda and I planned.
What is happening here?
“Hey, what’s that smell?” Mickey sniffed the air, then pinched his fingers over his nose.
“Yuck.” Kenji made a sour face. “It reeks in here.”
I took a deep breath and almost puked. “It … it’s like poison gas,” I whispered.
The three bullies began choking and sputtering and coughing. Tears rolled down their faces. They leaned on each other, groaning and complaining.
How to describe the putrid odor? It’s like if you took decaying meat and spoiled
milk and rotten eggs and burning tires and mixed them all together into one heavy, steamy smell.
Holding my arm over my mouth and nose, I staggered across the room to Amanda. “I’m trying to hold my breath,” she said. “But the smell … it’s inside me!”
“We have to get Rita,” I told her, tugging her arm. My stomach lurched. “We have to get Rita and get out of here.”
“I don’t understand,” Amanda whispered. “These aren’t the scares we set up. Why is this happening?”
“There’s only one explanation,” I said. “The moans we heard … the whispers. The house really is haunted. And whoever is haunting this place is out to scare us to death!”
Amanda started to the stairs to get Rita. But Morty moved quickly to block her path. “What’s wrong?” he demanded. “Where are you going?”
“We … have to get out of here,” Amanda stammered. She dodged to the right. But Morty wouldn’t let her pass.
“Get out? Why?” Mickey demanded. “The party just got started.”
I realized the smell had lifted. I started to breathe normally.
“That had to be the smell of the dead,” I said. “Don’t you see? We’re not safe here. This party was a bad idea.”
Kenji grinned. “Are you joking? I think it’s an awesome party.” He grabbed a slice of pizza, rolled it up, and jammed it into his mouth.
“Okay, okay. Let me be totally honest with you guys,” I said. I was breathing hard. Sweat rolled down my forehead.
“You’re too scared to stay?” Kenji asked.
“You want to go home to mommy and have your apple juice?” Mickey chimed in.
“Do you suck your thumb?” Morty asked. “Seriously. Do you?”
“Listen to me!” I cried. “We have good reason to be afraid. You don’t understand. We all have to get out of this house. There’s something evil in here, and it’s out to get us.”
“He’s telling the truth,” Amanda said. “We’re not just being wimps.”
“You look like wimps to me!” Mickey said. The two others snickered.
“We set up a bunch of scares,” I told them. “Amanda and I … we’ve been working in here all week. We put ghosts in the closet and scream sound effects all around and laughing jack-’o-lanterns and all kinds of creepy stuff. Because we wanted to give you guys a good scare.”