Charlie sighed. Whatever he finally decided to do with the skull, he had better get home now. He was going to be in enough trouble as it was, especially when his mother saw his wet pants, swamp-stained halfway up his thighs. He wasn’t supposed to get wet at all when he came down here, much less go wading. The fact that he had been running for his life wouldn’t make much difference to her. Maybe he could think of a story to cover that on the way home, too.
He looked for a way to attach the skull to his bike but couldn’t find any. Finally, reluctantly, he tucked it inside his jacket. It was only then, when he felt its smooth weight against his stomach, that the full horror of the thing hit him.
He was carrying a human skull!
Jumping on his bike, he pedaled for all he was worth, away from the swamp, away from the magic shop; away from the entire horrible afternoon.
The Eggleston family lived in a rambling old ivy-covered house on the edge of town. They had moved here when Charlie was in kindergarten, and Mrs. Eggleston had been working on restoring the place ever since. She was constantly stripping the paint off old woodwork and trying to bring it back to what she called “its original beauty.”
Despite her efforts, the house had the kind of look that tended to inspire rumors about ghosts and hauntings. The fact that its backyard bordered on the town cemetery did nothing to discourage those rumors.
Neither did Charlie. Over the years he had reported numerous ghostly happenings to his classmates—all of them, of course, completely the products of his imagination. The truth was, he had gotten so used to the cemetery that it held little terror for him now. In fact, he liked to go there whenever he wanted to be alone.
It was almost seven-thirty when Charlie reached his home. Stewbone, the family’s ancient springer spaniel, barked a friendly greeting from the front porch.
“Shhh!” said Charlie. “I don’t want them to know I’m here.”
Stewbone lay back down, put his head on his paws, and gazed at Charlie mournfully.
Charlie walked his bike quietly up the driveway, past his mother’s blue pickup truck and his father’s maroon van. Painted on the side of the van were the words EGGLESTON’S MEAT MARKET along with a big picture of a dancing cow, which Charlie had always thought was kind of sick. The truck and the van were in the driveway because Charlie’s mother had long ago taken over the garage—a ramshackle old structure originally built as a horse barn—for her furniture refinishing business. Though the walls were sagging and the roof had a coat of moss that Mrs. Eggleston was constantly nagging her husband to do something about, Charlie liked the building just the way it was.
He slipped inside. Walking past benches covered with brushes, scrapers, and chemical strippers, he made his way to a rickety ladder at the back of the garage. The ladder led to a low attic, which was where Charlie had decided he would stash the skull. He figured getting rid of it before he went into the house would save him at least one set of explanations.
When Charlie left the garage he spotted his mother waiting at the back door of the house. She was tapping a wooden spoon against her forehead and muttering, “Charlie, Charlie, Charlie.”
This, he knew, was not a good sign.
Stewbone was sitting beside her, wagging his tail.
“Traitor,” muttered Charlie.
Stewbone trotted over and licked his hand.
When Charlie got to the door his mother stopped tapping the spoon against her own forehead and used it to give him a sharp tap on his. “Did you forget that Gramma Ethel and Uncle Bennie were coming over for dinner this evening?”
“I didn’t forget!” he said indignantly, though in truth it had completely slipped his mind.
“Then where have you been? Never mind! Tell me later. Right now get upstairs and get cleaned up. Good grief, look at your pants. Don’t let your father see those or you’ll be grounded for a week. On the other hand, maybe I’ll tell him about them myself. I’m a little tired of covering up for you, Charlie.”
“It wasn’t my—”
“None of your excuses! Just get changed. If you hurry, you can join us for dessert, which will make your grandmother feel better. It may also get her off my case—something you are going to pay for, bub.”
She gave him a swat on the rear with the spoon as he hurried past. “And be quick about it!”
Then she scurried through the kitchen, back into the dining room. Charlie could hear his father’s deep laugh and the delighted squeals of his little sisters, Tiffany and Mimi.
He sighed and trudged up the back stairs.
In his room Charlie stripped out of his wet pants and sneakers, then went next door to the bathroom to wash his hands. When he thought about what he had been handling, what he had just stored in the garage, he washed them twice more to be safe.
Five minutes later he clattered down the front stairs and entered the dining room as if nothing had happened.
“Hey, Charlie!” said Uncle Bennie, who was about to tuck a piece of lemon pie into his mouth. “I missed your sparkling conversation.”
“I had an important Scout meeting,” lied Charlie, quickly and easily. “I couldn’t miss it, because we’re planning a first-aid demonstration for the county fair, and I’m in charge.”
Actually he had quit Scouts six months ago, though he couldn’t remember now whether he had told his mother or not.
“That’s nice,” said Uncle Bennie. He sounded totally unconvinced, which made Charlie feel indignant.
“Don’t those Scout boys care about your family?” asked Gramma Ethel.
Gramma Ethel was really Charlie’s great-grandmother. She had been married to Grampa Albert, who had delighted and amazed Charlie by playing Pull-My-Finger every time he came to dinner, until it was time for Charlie to enter kindergarten, and Mrs. Eggleston had made him stop. Three years ago Grampa Albert had died unexpectedly of a digestive problem one night after a holiday dinner. Since then, Uncle Bennie had been in charge of bringing Gramma Ethel to family gatherings.
“Andy Simmons ate a bug today,” put in Charlie’s youngest sister, Mimi, who was in kindergarten now herself. “Then he spit it out. It was gross.”
She looked very pleased with herself. Charlie wondered if the story had any truth to it. He still hadn’t figured out how to tell when Mimi was fibbing.
“He did not,” said Tiffany, who was in third grade. “You’re just making that up.”
“Am not,” said Mimi. “I saved a piece. You want to see it?” She put down her fork and began digging in her pocket.
“That’s enough, girls!” said Mr. Eggleston sharply. “Charlie, sit down and eat your supper. Your mother dished up a plate for you. It’s cold, but that’s what happens when you don’t get home on time.”
Charlie sighed. It would be perfectly easy for him to pop his plate into the microwave and warm it up. But Mr. Eggleston had had to eat cold meals if he was late when he was a kid, and he figured Charlie should be held to the same standard.
Charlie took his place next to his uncle and stared at the cold beef stew. It reminded him of the swamp.
“Sorry you weren’t here earlier, old man,” said Bennie, putting a friendly hand on his shoulder. “I’ve got to leave in a few minutes. I’m starting a new class tonight.”
Charlie sighed again. Uncle Bennie was his favorite relative. He always had some new trick to demonstrate, or a new joke that Charlie could take to school the next day. Bennie got a lot of them from his roommate, Dave, who worked at the TV station over in Edgemont.
“What is it this time, Bennie?” asked Mr. Eggleston cheerfully. “Underwater basket weaving? How to make a fur coat from your cat’s hairballs?”
“Archie!” snapped Mrs. Eggleston.
Bennie made a face at his brother-in-law. “The class is in storytelling. This fabulous storyteller just moved to town—she’s the new children’s librarian, Charlie—and she’s teaching a class at the Evans Memorial Building.”
“I’d like to learn to tell storie
s,” said Charlie.
“You don’t do anything but tell stories,” said Gramma Ethel. “Good grief, boy, you wouldn’t know the truth if it snuck up and bit you on your heinie.”
“Gramma!” said Mrs. Eggleston sharply.
“Well, it’s a fact,” said Gramma Ethel. “Mark my words, Veronica: If that boy doesn’t learn to tell the truth soon, he’ll come to no good end.”
Charlie pushed back his chair and ran from the table.
“There,” said his mother. “Now see what you’ve done!”
“Oh, fiddlesticks,” said Gramma Ethel. “If the boy can’t take the truth he should get out of the frying pan.”
Charlie flopped onto his bed and stared at the wall, trying to think of things he should have said to his grandmother. The problem was, she was right—which made it really hard to come up with a snappy comeback. He had had a terrible problem telling the truth ever since The Great Toad Fiasco (as his mother liked to call it) back in second grade. He just couldn’t seem to stop himself from lying. He would open his mouth, and out would pop a whopper.
Restless, he got up and began to wander around the room, which he kept unusually tidy for a boy of his age. He was poking at his pebble collection when his mother knocked at the door and peered around the frame. “May I enter?”
Charlie shrugged. “If you really want to.”
Mrs. Eggleston rolled her eyes. “No, I hate visiting my firstborn child.” She came in and sat on the edge of his bed. “I don’t know where you got your neatness gene from,” she said, glancing around the room, “but I wish we could figure out some way to inoculate your father with it.”
Charlie smiled.
“So what happened this afternoon?” asked his mother.
A strange panic seized him. He actually wanted to tell his mother about his weird experience in the swamp. But if he told her the truth, he knew she would think he was lying. Heck, if he hadn’t been there himself, he would think he was lying. He was silent for a moment, trying to decide what to say.
“Charlie?”
He shrugged again. “Mark Evans and some of the guys tried to beat me up.”
Mrs. Eggleston looked troubled. “Any specific reason?”
Now, this was an answer Charlie didn’t want to give her. The story he had concocted in class that morning, about what was going to happen if Mark’s father drained Tucker’s Swamp, had seemed to make sense at the moment. Now that he was no longer in the grip of his passionate anger, Charlie could see he had gone over the top when he claimed it would make all the town’s wells run dry and cause the immediate extinction of three endangered species.
“It was a mob hit.”
“Charlie, if you don’t give me a straight answer I can’t help you.” His mother’s voice was soft, concerned.
“You can’t help me anyway,” snapped Charlie. “Not unless you can stop Mark Evans’s father from draining the swamp.”
A light of understanding went on in Mrs. Eggleston’s face. “I think it’s a terrible idea, too, honey,” she said gently. “I just don’t know that there’s anything we can do about it. And the town does need the jobs, now that the paper mill is closed.”
She started to say something else, but just then Mimi and Tiffany got into a screaming fight, and she had to go mediate, leaving Charlie alone in his room.
Suddenly he realized that he was exhausted. The trouble at school, the race through the swamp, the weird scene in the old man’s store, and the fuss at home had all taken their toll.
Even so, sleep did not come easily. Charlie’s rebellious mind insisted on replaying the day’s events over and over. It was well past eleven when he finally drifted into a restless sleep—and less than an hour after that when he was roused by someone knocking on his window.
Charlie opened his eyes and gasped.
Two rats were peering in at him. The smaller of the pair had its face pressed to the window. Its companion was standing on its hind legs, tapping the glass with its paws. It whacked the glass several times, clearly getting more and more frustrated. Finally, in a small but fiercely insistent voice, it shouted, “Charlie Eggleston, you silly twit! Open the window and let us in!”
THREE
Message from Elives
Charlie’s first response was to pull the covers over his head, hoping that if he ignored the rats, they would go away—or that he might move on to a different dream.
It didn’t work. The larger rat continued to pound on the glass. The sound was faint, not much louder than rain pattering against the window. But it was impossible to ignore.
Charlie considered leaping out of bed and running to get his parents. However, he was fairly certain they wouldn’t believe him if he told them he had been frightened by a pair of rats trying to convince him to open his window. Even if he did manage to get his parents to come into his room—by pretending he was sick, or something—he figured the rats would make it a point not to let themselves be seen.
The tiny pounding stopped.
Moving slowly, scarcely breathing, Charlie lowered the edge of the sheet just enough to see the window.
The smaller rat had risen onto its hind legs and was whispering in the other rat’s ear. The big rat made a face but shrugged and dropped to its haunches.
“Charlie!” called the second rat, speaking in a much more pleasant voice than the big rat had used. “Charlie, please let us in. We need to talk to you.”
“About what?” he asked, without lowering the sheet any farther.
“We have a message for you.”
“From who?”
“Mr. Elives.”
“I didn’t mean to steal the skull!” cried Charlie desperately. “He can have it back!”
Realizing he was pleading with a rat, he began to blush.
“He doesn’t want the skull back,” said the larger rat impatiently. “At least, not yet. He just wants you to have some information about it.”
Charlie sighed. Maybe he should get up and talk to the rats. After all, if they could be heard through the glass, they could certainly give him the message without coming through the window. Cautiously he pulled aside the covers and climbed out of bed. As he crept toward the window he realized he was actually more frightened now than he had been that afternoon in the magic shop.
He knelt in front of the sill. Speaking softly but clearly, he said, “What’s the message?”
“Let us in,” said the bigger rat.
“That’s not the message!”
“No, but we have to come in to give it to you.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s a written message,” said the smaller rat.
The big rat turned and reached over the sill. When it turned back, it was clutching a rolled-up piece of yellowed paper.
Charlie wondered briefly where the paper had come from, then decided it must have been tucked into the ivy that twined up the side of the house. “Read it to me,” he said.
The big rat shook its head.
“Then hold it up to the window, and I’ll read it myself.”
“No can do, Charlie. We have to get you to sign a receipt to prove the message was actually delivered. If you don’t open the window and let us in, we’ll just take it back to Elives. Then see what kind of a fix you’ve gotten yourself into!”
Charlie bit his finger. The pain told him he was definitely awake. So this was no dream. Yet weird as the situation was, curiosity was starting to overcome fear. Even more compelling, he had a feeling the message truly was important. But he’d had pet rodents before, and he knew how quickly they could slip through small spaces. If he opened the window enough for the rats to pass in the message, they might let themselves in, too.
Of course, he could always slam the window on them. Except killing a talking rat felt like murder, somehow.
He stared at them. “You don’t have rabies or anything, do you?”
The smaller rat made a squeak of outrage. “Charlie Eggleston! Don’t be vulgar! Now, open thi
s window and let us in.”
Feeling as if he had no choice, Charlie pushed the window up a few inches.
The two rats slipped through the opening.
“That’s better,” said the smaller one, in a friendly voice. “My name is Roxanne.” She pointed at the larger rat. “And this is Jerome.”
Jerome nodded but said nothing; he was clearly still miffed by Charlie’s reluctance to let them in.
“How come you can talk?” asked Charlie.
“It’s a long story,” replied Jerome, “and really none of your business. Your business is this.”
While Jerome handed Charlie the rolled-up paper he had pulled from the ivy, his female companion slipped back through the open window. She returned with another piece of paper. With Jerome holding down one end, she unrolled it. “Sign here,” she said.
“What is it?” asked Charlie.
“Confirmation of delivery,” said Jerome. “I told you, we need it to show the boss.”
“Do I have to sign it in blood or anything?”
Jerome sighed. “Ballpoint pen will be fine.”
“Just a minute. I’ll get one from my desk.”
As Charlie turned to get the pen he heard Jerome mutter, “What a doofus!”
“Shhhh!” hissed Roxanne.
Charlie blushed but said nothing. Returning with the pen, he bent to read the receipt. Printed in shaky handwriting were the words “I, Charlie Eggleston, do hereby confirm and acknowledge that I have received from Roxanne and Jerome the message regarding The Skull of Truth.” At the bottom was a line for his signature. Wishing he had a lawyer, he read the note three times. It didn’t seem to promise anything or incriminate him for taking the skull. He decided to go ahead and sign it. For one thing, it was probably the only way to get rid of the rats.
After he had written his signature, he said to Roxanne (he was not at all comfortable with Jerome), “Who is that old man, anyway?”
The rat laughed, a surprisingly pretty sound. “Some questions are better left unanswered, Charlie.” Then she slipped back through the window.