* * * * *
The wind whipped my hair back as I rode over to Penny’s house. Ryan would already be there, telling her about last night and getting grilled in return. Not that he needed that with all the other crap going on in his life.
Yeah, Penny nagged a lot, but we had one of those, what do you call them?—symbiotic relationships. Kind of like those birds that clean out crocodiles’ mouths and don’t get eaten, only not as gross. Basically, I kept the jerks off Penny’s back all through junior high, since she was a target for reading all the time in the cafeteria. In return, Penny helped me not fail my math classes, which kept my parents off my back. It’s kind of hard not to eventually become friends with someone who ensures your survival.
But that didn’t stop her from being annoying sometimes.
“…and it was a really dumb idea,” she finished nagging Ryan as I stepped—no, vaulted—in through the front door of her house.
I kicked my shoes off before Penny’s dad complained about dirt and slid across the hardwood floor and into the sitting room. At least, Mrs. Hart called it a sitting room. It was really a place full of antiques and a white couch where Penny got yelled at if she got anything below an A minus on her report card. Now Penny was using it to yell at Ryan. He sat on the Couch of Shame while she stood near the glass coffee table, hands folded over her red shirt. Ryan had already sunk halfway into the couch under her words. If I’d gotten here any later, he probably would’ve melted through to the floor. He never was very good at standing up for himself. Being the big mouth was usually my duty.
“Penny,” I said. Translation: stop nagging Ryan and listen.
She did. Her black hair bobbed around her shoulders as she faced me. “Is anything Ryan’s telling me true? I hope not, for your sakes.”
I hated to drag her into this. It was pretty lousy after she’d helped me with Algebra all last year. “Sit down.”
She did. Ryan sat up straighter on the couch, shooting me a look of gratitude.
Penny didn’t notice. Her eyes narrowed a bit at me. In other words, I had better make this convincing, or she’d start lecturing me, too. Well, better me than Ryan. It didn’t bother me too much, mostly because I had, well, my parents as parents.
I could barely hear my own voice as I told her what happened, starting with our toilet papering job last night and ending with the note that gave me a foot injury that morning and of course, the shadow guy across the street. “I’m wondering if he’s the one who delivered this,” I finished as she read the note.
Penny shrugged and let her hands slap onto her knees. Here it came. She was almost as obsessed with rules as my mom. “I can’t believe what you guys are telling me. Why couldn’t you have just gone to Jerry and talked to him instead of—”
“We nearly got abducted by shadow people, and you’re worried about us toilet papering the Kool Spot?” I asked. “Not to mention Jerry’s the one not talking to us. Um…what’s the bigger offense?”
“Sorry.” She leaned forward, resting her hands on her knees. “I don’t believe the story about that. I can’t. It doesn’t make any sense.”
It was my turn to sigh. I’d expected this, though. Penny always thought things through like a computer, which was why she was such a great help all the time. If someone walked up to me and said they’d seen shadow people walking through a portal in the middle of the park, I guess I’d be pretty skeptical, too. But it was better than hearing her grill us on the evils of a harmless prank.
“That’s fine. I didn’t expect you to,” I said. The grandfather clock on the wall ticked away. I needed to prove the truth to her, and could think of only one possible way to do that. “But I still want to talk to Jerry. And I want you to come with me. Both of you.”
Penny looked up at me as if I’d grown antlers. Or aced an algebra test. “After you left his business covered in toilet paper?”
Heat crept up my neck. “Well, yeah. Since that didn’t work out too great, I figured we could talk to him about why he put that sign up.” I nodded to Ryan. He returned the nod. The sign still sucked—maybe even more now—but figuring out what those shadow people were had kind of taken priority. Especially since the leader said they were coming after me. For that, we needed Penny. And to get her help, we had to get her to the Kool Spot to prove our case. I really, really hoped Jerry knew something about last night. Except for the fact that we’d toilet papered the place.
Penny put her chin in her hand like a thinking detective. She always did that in the middle of reading one of her mystery novels. “That’s the first thing you should’ve tried. Let’s go. I don’t like that new policy, either. I’d love to hear Jerry’s reason for it.”
“And why I have the plague now,” I added. I couldn’t imagine not having an escape on the weekends anymore.
She and Ryan stood just as another chill swept over my skin. The folded-up note poked at me in my pocket. Given to me by one of the shadow guys. I almost opened my mouth to tell my friends I’d changed my mind, that I’d just sit and twiddle my thumbs about this instead, but I couldn’t. I was Rita Morse, so that was out of the question.
Or maybe the note was some attempt to keep me from finding out what was going on in the first place. I decided I’d think of it that way.
Penny’s dad demanded she had to be back by one o’ clock. He didn’t give a reason, so I think it was because he wanted to be a control freak as usual. In other words, we had to hurry.
“You really need to break rules more,” I said to Penny as we grabbed our bikes. “You ought to stay out until…one thirty!”
“I wish.” Penny stared down at her bike for a long time as she pulled it out.
My bike clunked all the way to downtown as my stomach rolled with nerves. Ryan’s did, too. My front tire started to look, well, sorry. It spread out on the pavement like a squished slug as I rode. I must’ve run over something sharp cutting through the library last night. But hey, it beat whatever those shadow people would have done to us.
The Kool Spot hadn’t opened yet. It wouldn’t until noon, but Jerry’s maroon car sat in one of the angle parking spots out front, dripping oil onto the pavement. He’d come early, probably to clean up the toilet paper. There was still quite a bit of it on the building, by the way, mostly short pieces hanging too high for him to reach without a ladder. But I couldn’t even laugh about it now.
We stopped on the opposite side of the street to let a bunch of cars crawl by. Penny made her trademark humph sound. Maybe the toilet paper had something to do with that.
“You know, you sound like your mom when you do that,” Ryan said.
Penny responded my slapping him on the arm. I guess she didn’t like his revenge too much.
“C’mon, guys. I don’t need you fighting right now,” I said. I’d broken up enough of their spats before.
After locking our bikes behind the hardware store, we made our way down the sidewalk and to the front door of the Kool Spot. My heart sank. Despite all my, um, persuading, the blue sign still hung in the door. Absolutely no one under eighteen allowed without a parent. I forced myself to look at a poster for Night Recon near the top of the door as I tugged on the door handle.
Locked. I should’ve known.
“Great,” I said, glancing at Ryan. He swallowed and shrugged.
“If you knock, maybe he’ll come out and talk to us,” Penny said.
So I went to Plan B: knocking on the door as loud as I could.
“Can’t you ever be subtle about anything?” Penny asked.
I responded by knocking louder.
We waited. And waited. After about two minutes, it got pretty obvious that Jerry wasn’t coming to the door. My stomach started getting upset, and it had nothing to do with the sign in the door. I nodded to Penny and Ryan. “Let’s head to the back.”
There’s a secret way to open the back door that
I’ve known since the age of ten. Since all the buildings on Dobbs Street are about a hundred years old, there’s a lot of wear and tear. I’m one of the few people who know that the lock on the back door doesn’t work quite right. If you push the door in, twist the knob just right, and then jerk it open really fast, it usually comes loose and you can get in. We entered the narrow alley, passing a stinky dumpster and holding our breath. I let the air out of my lungs as I reached out, took the doorknob, and did the secret code to make the back door swing open.
I couldn’t help what I said next. “Huh?”
The door came open okay, but what was on the other side of it made me freeze. Boxes. Jerry had stacked them up inside the door like a fortress wall. I was guessing they weren’t boxes of anything light and easy to move. One shove on them confirmed my suspicions. Jerry had put every box of his old playing cards, comic books, and old video game systems in front of the door to keep me out. He’d probably added some bricks for good measure.
“Looks like he knew you’d do this.” Penny sounded relieved. She never liked breaking rules of any kind, even if they weren’t fair. “I think I should head home now. My dad’s going to lecture me if I don’t pick up my room by tonight.”
I braced myself and rammed my shoulder into the boxes. I was getting more ticked off every second. “Jerry! What’s your problem?”
“Rita, you’re always so bullheaded,” Penny said from behind me. “We really should head back. Try to call him again.”
The boxes wobbled and moved back a couple inches. My muscles started to burn with the effort. “Tried that about thirty times. Sorry, but I’ve gotta know what’s going on here.”
Luckily Ryan gave me a hand with the boxes, saving me from straining something. Penny stood there and crossed her arms as we slid them out of the way to reveal the short hallway and green carpet of the Kool Spot. Well, I guess it was Forbidden Territory now.
“Come on,” I coaxed Penny. “Jerry’s not going to call your parents about this. The worst thing he’ll do is make us leave.”
She swallowed and took a step into the building. I really hoped I wasn’t getting her into anything that would get her in trouble.
“He’s here, all right,” Penny said.
The light was on in the storage room. That new song from Mosshead thumped out of the radio as a guy grunted out death metal lyrics that sounded like ra ra ra all the time. At least it had helped cover up the sound of us barging in.
“Now what?” Ryan asked. His face turned green.
Mine probably did, too, as last night came back to me in a rush. Maybe coming here was a bad move after all. If that one shadow guy from this morning could come out in the daytime, why couldn’t the others?
Still, I had to get this done.
I marched out of the hallway and into the main room. It stood empty. No Jerry. The bean bag chairs all sat around, waiting for customers. The computer monitors glowed with the green-and-yellow Kool Spot logo while the bargain CD bin and bookshelf collected dust. I had a feeling they’d have a pretty thick layer of it soon. I couldn’t imagine anyone over the age of twelve coming in here to hang out with their parents.
“Jerry?” I asked. He had some questions to answer.
A toilet flushed in the bathroom, which answered my question. A moment later the bathroom door squeaked open. I whirled around to face my cousin, who stood there pulling his Space Destroyer tee down over his gut with one hand and gripping the door frame with the other.
I couldn’t stop the words from coming out of my mouth. “Okay. What? Why? Who? When? You know what I mean.”
“Maybe you should let me handle this,” Penny said.
Jerry ignored her. “R…Rita,” he said, paling. His chin wobbled under his brown beard. “You have to leave. Now. I can’t explain.”
I glared over at the blue sign taped in the door and back at him. The shadows of the toilet paper streamers stretched out on the floor. Ryan shot me a look and shook his head. Better be careful about that part. “All right. Question one. Why the sign? Whoever did the toilet paper job out there must’ve—”
“I know you did it, Rita,” Jerry said quickly. “I know you too well. I’m not mad. I understand.” He pointed to the back door, sweat beading around his glasses. “Now…now…” he turned his gaze over to the back of the building. “…get behind the counter and duck!”
I jumped in place and faced the back door. A purple dot spun in midair in front of it.
Another portal was opening.
Chapter Four