“Okay. I’ll go first,” Casey said, grabbing for the doorknob.
“Why do you want to do this?” Margaret asked her friend. “Why are you so eager to go down there?”
Diane shrugged. “It beats doing our math,” she replied, grinning.
Margaret sighed, defeated. “Okay, let’s go. But remember — just looking, no touching.”
Casey pulled open the door and led the way onto the stairway. Stepping onto the landing, they were immediately engulfed in hot, steamy air. They could hear the buzz and hum of electronic machinery. And off to the right, they could see the glare of the bright white lights from Dr. Brewer’s workroom.
This is kind of fun, Margaret thought as the three of them made their way down the linoleum-covered stairway.
It’s an adventure.
There’s no harm in taking a peek. So why was her heart pounding? Why did she have this sudden tingle of fear?
3
“Yuck! It’s so hot in here!”
As they stepped away from the stairs, the air became unbearably hot and thick.
Margaret gasped. The sudden change in temperature was suffocating.
“It’s so moist,” Diane said. “Good for your hair and skin.”
“We studied the rain forest in school,” Casey said. “Maybe Dad’s building a rain forest.”
“Maybe,” Margaret said uncertainly.
Why did she feel so strange? Was it just because they were invading their father’s domain? Doing something he had told them not to do?
She held back, gazing in both directions. The basement was divided into two large, rectangular rooms. To the left, an unfinished rec room stood in darkness. She could barely make out the outlines of the Ping-Pong table in the center of the room.
The workroom to the right was brightly lit, so bright they had to blink and wait for their eyes to adjust. Beams of white light poured down from large halogen lamps on tracks in the ceiling.
“Wow! Look!” Casey cried, his eyes wide as he stepped excitedly toward the light.
Reaching up toward the lights were tall, shiny plants, dozens of them, thick-stalked and broad-leafed, planted close together in an enormous, low trough of dark soil.
“It’s like a jungle!” Margaret exclaimed, following Casey into the white glare.
The plants, in fact, resembled jungle plants — leafy vines and tall, treelike plants with long, slender tendrils, fragile-looking ferns, plants with gnarled, cream-colored roots poking up like bony knees from the soil.
“It’s like a swamp or something,” Diane said. “Did your father really grow these things in just five or six weeks?”
“Yeah. I’m pretty sure,” Margaret replied, staring at the enormous red tomatoes on a slender yellow stalk.
“Ooh. Feel this one,” Diane said.
Margaret glanced over to find her friend rubbing her hand over a large, flat leaf the shape of a teardrop. “Diane — we shouldn’t touch —”
“I know, I know,” Diane said, not letting go of the leaf. “But just rub your hand on it.”
Margaret reluctantly obeyed. “It doesn’t feel like a leaf,” she said as Diane moved over to examine a large fern. “It’s so smooth. Like glass.”
The three of them stood under the bright white lights, examining the plants for several minutes, touching the thick stalks, running their hands over the smooth, warm leaves, surprised by the enormous size of the fruits some of the plants had produced.
“It’s too hot down here,” Casey complained. He pulled his T-shirt off over his head and dropped it onto the floor.
“What a bod!” Diane teased him.
He stuck out his tongue at her. Then his pale blue eyes grew wide and he seemed to freeze in surprise. “Hey!”
“Casey — what’s the matter?” Margaret asked, hurrying over to him.
“This one —” He pointed to a tall, treelike plant. “It’s breathing!”
Diane laughed.
But Margaret heard it, too. She grabbed Casey’s bare shoulder and listened. Yes. She could hear breathing sounds, and they seemed to be coming from the tall, leafy tree.
“What’s your problem?” Diane asked, seeing the amazed expressions on Casey’s and Margaret’s faces.
“Casey’s right,” Margaret said softly, listening to the steady, rhythmic sound. “You can hear it breathing.”
Diane rolled her eyes. “Maybe it has a cold. Maybe its vine is stuffed up.” She laughed at her own joke, but her two companions didn’t join in. “I don’t hear it.” She moved closer.
All three of them listened.
Silence.
“It — stopped,” Margaret said.
“Stop it, you two,” Diane scolded. “You’re not going to scare me.”
“No. Really,” Margaret protested.
“Hey — look at this!” Casey had already moved on to something else. He was standing in front of a tall glass case that stood on the other side of the plants. It looked a little like a phone booth, with a shelf inside about shoulder-high, and dozens of wires attached to the back and sides.
Margaret’s eyes followed the wires to a similar glass booth a few feet away. Some kind of electrical generator stood between the two booths and appeared to be connected to both of them.
“What could that be?” Diane asked, hurrying over to Casey.
“Don’t touch it,” Margaret warned, giving the breathing plant one final glance, then joining the others.
But Casey reached out to the glass door on the front of the booth. “I just want to see if this opens,” he said.
He grabbed the glass — and his eyes went wide with shock.
His entire body began to shake and vibrate. His head jerked wildly from side to side. His eyes rolled up in his head.
“Oh, help!” he managed to cry, his body vibrating and shaking harder and faster. “Help me! I — can’t stop!”
4
“Help me!”
Casey’s whole body shook as if an electrical current were charging through him. His head jerked on his shoulders, and his eyes looked wild and dazed.
“Please!”
Margaret and Diane stared in openmouthed horror. Margaret was the first to move. She lunged at Casey and reached out to try to pull him away from the glass.
“Margaret — don’t!” Diane screamed. “Don’t touch him!”
“But we have to do something!” Margaret cried.
It took both girls a while to realize that Casey had stopped shaking. And was laughing.
“Casey?” Margaret asked, staring at him, her terrified expression fading to astonishment.
He was leaning against the glass, his body still now, his mouth wrapped in a broad, mischievous grin.
“Gotcha!” he declared. And then began to laugh even harder, pointing at them and repeating the phrase through his triumphant laughter. “Gotcha! Gotcha!”
“That wasn’t funny!” Margaret screamed.
“You were faking it?! I don’t believe it!” Diane cried, her face as pale as the white lights above them, her lower lip trembling.
Both girls leaped onto Casey and pushed him to the floor. Margaret sat on top of him while Diane held his shoulders down.
“Gotcha! Gotcha!” he continued, stopping only when Margaret tickled his stomach so hard he couldn’t talk.
“You rat!” Diane cried. “You little rat!”
The free-for-all was brought to a sudden halt by a low moan from across the room. All three kids raised their heads and stared in the direction of the sound.
The large basement was silent now except for their heavy breathing.
“What was that?” Diane whispered.
They listened.
Another low moan, a mournful sound, muffled, like air through a saxophone.
The tendrils of a treelike plant suddenly drooped, like snakes lowering themselves to the ground.
Another low, sad moan.
“It’s — the plants!” Casey said, his expression frightened now.
He pushed his sister off him and climbed to his feet, brushing back his disheveled blond hair as he stood up.
“Plants don’t cry and moan,” Diane said, her eyes on the vast trough of plants that filled the room.
“These do,” Margaret said.
Tendrils moved, like human arms shifting their position. They could hear breathing again, slow, steady breathing. Then a sigh, like air escaping.
“Let’s get out of here,” Casey said, edging toward the stairs.
“It’s definitely creepy down here,” Diane said, following him, her eyes remaining on the shifting, moaning plants.
“I’m sure Dad could explain it,” Margaret said. Her words were calm, but her voice trembled, and she was backing out of the room, following Diane and Casey.
“Your dad is weird,” Diane said, reaching the doorway.
“No, he isn’t,” Casey quickly insisted. “He’s doing important work here.”
A tall, treelike plant sighed and appeared to bend toward them, raising its tendrils as if beckoning to them, calling them back.
“Let’s just get out of here!” Margaret exclaimed.
All three of them were out of breath by the time they ran up the stairs. Casey closed the door tightly, making sure it clicked shut.
“Weird,” Diane repeated, playing nervously with a strand of her long red hair. “Definitely weird.” It was her word of the day. But Margaret had to admit it was appropriate.
“Well, Dad warned us not to go down there,” Margaret said, struggling to catch her breath. “I guess he knew it would look scary to us, and we wouldn’t understand.”
“I’m getting out of here,” Diane said, only halfkidding. She stepped out of the screen door and turned back toward them. “Want to go over the math later?”
“Yeah. Sure,” Margaret said, still thinking about the moaning, shifting plants. Some of them had seemed to be reaching out to them, crying out to them. But of course that was impossible.
“Later,” Diane said, and headed at a trot down the drive.
Just as she disappeared, their father’s dark blue station wagon turned the corner and started up the driveway. “Back from the airport,” Margaret said. She turned from the door back to Casey a few yards behind her in the hallway. “Is the basement door closed?”
“Yeah,” Casey replied, looking again to make sure. “No way Dad will know we —”
He stopped. His mouth dropped open, but no sound came out. His face went pale.
“My T-shirt!” Casey exclaimed, slapping his bare chest. “I left it in the basement!”
5
“I’ve got to get it,” Casey said. “Otherwise Dad’ll know —”
“It’s too late,” Margaret interrupted, her eyes on the driveway. “He’s already pulled up the drive.”
“It’ll only take a second,” Casey insisted, his hand on the basement doorknob. “I’ll run down and run right up.”
“No!” Margaret stood tensely in the center of the narrow hallway, halfway between the front door and the basement door, her eyes toward the front. “He’s parked. He’s getting out of the car.”
“But he’ll know! He’ll know!” Casey cried, his voice high and whiny.
“So?”
“Remember how mad he got last time?” Casey asked.
“Of course I remember,” Margaret replied.
“But he’s not going to kill us, Casey, just because we took a peek at his plants. He’s —”
Margaret stopped. She moved closer to the screen door. “Hey, wait.”
“What’s going on?” Casey asked.
“Hurry!” Margaret turned and gestured with both hands. “Go! Get downstairs — fast! Mr. Henry from next door. He stopped Dad. They’re talking about something in the drive.”
With a loud cry, Casey flung open the basement door and disappeared. Margaret heard him clumping rapidly down the stairs. Then she heard his footsteps fade as he hurried into their father’s workroom.
Hurry, Casey, she thought, standing guard at the front door, watching her father shielding his eyes from the sun with one hand as he talked with Mr. Henry.
Hurry.
You know Dad never talks for long with the neighbors.
Mr. Henry seemed to be doing all the talking. Probably asking Dad some kind of favor, Margaret thought. Mr. Henry wasn’t handy at all, not like Dr. Brewer. And so he was always asking Margaret’s dad to come over and help repair or install things.
Her father was nodding now, a tight smile on his face.
Hurry, Casey.
Get back up here. Where are you?
Still shielding his eyes, Dr. Brewer gave Mr. Henry a quick wave. Then both men spun around and began walking quickly toward their houses.
Hurry, Casey.
Casey — he’s coming! Hurry! Margaret urged silently.
It doesn’t take this long to pick your T-shirt up from the floor and run up the stairs.
It shouldn’t take this long.
Her dad was on the front walk now. He spotted her in the doorway and waved.
Margaret returned the wave and looked back through the hallway to the basement door. “Casey — where are you?” she called aloud.
No reply.
No sound from the basement.
No sound at all.
Dr. Brewer had paused outside to inspect the rosebushes at the head of the front walk.
“Casey?” Margaret called.
Still no reply.
“Casey — hurry!”
Silence.
Her father was crouching down, doing something to the soil beneath the rosebushes.
With a feeling of dread weighing down her entire body, Margaret realized she had no choice.
She had to go downstairs and see what was keeping Casey.
6
Casey ran down the steps, leaning on the metal banister so that he could jump down two steps at a time. He landed hard on the cement basement floor and darted into the bright white light of the plant room.
Stopping at the entranceway, he waited for his eyes to adjust to the brighter-than-day light. He took a deep breath, inhaling the steamy air, and held it. It was so hot down there, so sticky. His back began to itch. The back of his neck tingled.
The jungle of plants stood as if at attention under the bright white lights.
He saw his T-shirt, lying crumpled on the floor a few feet from a tall, leafy tree. The tree seemed to lean toward the T-shirt, its long tendrils hanging down, loosely coiled on the soil around its trunk.
Casey took a timid step into the room.
Why am I so afraid? he wondered.
It’s just a room filled with strange plants.
Why do I have the feeling that they’re watching me? Waiting for me?
He scolded himself for being so afraid and took a few more steps toward the crumpled T-shirt on the floor.
Hey — wait.
The breathing.
There it was again.
Steady breathing. Not too loud. Not too soft, either.
Who could be breathing? What could be breathing?
Was it the big tree?
Casey stared at the shirt on the floor. So near. What was keeping him from grabbing it and running back upstairs? What was holding him back?
He took a step forward. Then another.
Was the breathing growing louder?
He jumped, startled by a sudden low moan from the big supply closet against the wall.
It sounded so human, as if someone were in there, moaning in pain.
“Casey — where are you?”
Margaret’s voice sounded so far away, even though she was just at the head of the stairs.
“Okay so far,” he called back to her. But his voice came out in a whisper. She probably couldn’t hear him.
He took another step. Another.
The shirt was about three yards away.
A quick dash. A quick dive, and he’d have it.
Another low moan from the supply closet. A pl
ant seemed to sigh. A tall fern suddenly dipped down, shifting its leaves.
“Casey?” He could hear his sister from upstairs, sounding very worried. “Casey — hurry!”
I’m trying, he thought. I’m trying to hurry.
What was holding him back?
Another low moan, this time from the other side of the room.
He took two more steps, then crouched, his arms straight out in front of him.
The shirt was almost within reach.
He heard a groaning sound, then more breathing.
He raised his eyes to the tall tree. The long, ropy tendrils had tensed. Stiffened. Or had he imagined it?
No.
They had been drooping loosely. Now they were taut. Ready.
Ready to grab him?
“Casey — hurry!” Margaret called, sounding even farther away.
He didn’t answer. He was concentrating on the shirt. Just a few feet away. Just a few feet. Just a foot.
The plant groaned again.
“Casey? Casey?”
The leaves quivered all the way up the trunk.
Just a foot away. Almost in reach.
“Casey? Are you okay? Answer me!”
He grabbed the shirt.
Two snakelike tendrils swung out at him.
“Huh?” he cried out, paralyzed with fear. “What’s happening?”
The tendrils wrapped themselves around his waist.
“Let go!” he cried, holding the T-shirt tightly in one hand, grabbing at the tendrils with the other.
The tendrils hung on and gently tightened around him.
Margaret? Casey tried calling, but no sound came out of his mouth. Margaret?
He jerked violently, then pulled straight ahead.
The tendrils held on.
They didn’t squeeze him. They weren’t trying to strangle him. Or pull him back.
But they didn’t let go.
They felt warm and wet against his bare skin. Like animal arms. Not like a plant.
Help! He again tried to shout. He pulled once more, leaning forward, using all his strength.
No good.
He ducked low, hit the floor, tried to roll away.
The tendrils hung on.
The plant uttered a loud sigh.