“Sorry.” Amanda shrugged. “Someone had to let me in.”
“Go away, Rita,” I muttered. “I am definitely not in the mood for you,” I said.
She stuck out her tongue. “I’m not in the mood for you, either, Scott,” she snapped. “But I just saw that you wet your pants when you were in the graveyard this afternoon.”
“Huh?” I leaped to my feet. My jaw dropped open, down to my knees. “What are you talking about?”
She raised her iPad in front of her. “Mickey Klass put it on his Instagram a few minutes ago,” she said. “Look.” She pushed it into my face.
I saw a picture of me on my back in the graveyard with Kenji standing over me in his black coat. The caption read: “Scott wet his pants when he saw the headless zombie.”
“That’s a LIE!” I shrieked. “That’s a total lie! I didn’t wet my pants. He put this on his Instagram? First the YouTube video, and now this?”
“The whole school will see it,” Rita said. “They’ll believe it, too.”
“Get OUT!” I screamed. “Get out of my room!”
Amanda put a hand on my arm. “Don’t blame her. It’s not Rita’s fault.”
“But she’s enjoying it too much,” I said.
I pushed Rita out of the room and shut the door. Then I began pacing back and forth in front of Amanda, clenching and unclenching my fists.
“What are we going to do? What are we going to do?” I murmured over and over. I stopped pacing. “I know. We’ll call the police. The Klass brothers are thieves, right? They stole your backpack.”
Amanda shook her head. “Scott, take a deep breath. Think for a minute. If we call the police on them, how will Mickey and Morty react? It will make them angry, right? And when they’re angry, how will they treat us?”
I thought about it. “Worse? A lot worse? A hundred times worse? Two hundred times worse?”
“You’ve got it,” she said. “If you think they’re bad now …” Her voice trailed off.
“Okay. You’re right,” I said. “No police.” I started pacing back and forth again. “What if we force their parents to send Mickey and Morty away to school?” I said. “Or what if we force their parents to move? To leave town?”
“That sounds a little difficult,” Amanda said. “In fact, it’s crazy. You’re not thinking clearly, Scott.”
“You’re right,” I said. I was breathing so hard, my heart was pounding in my chest.
“I’ve got it!” I cried. “We can get Wolverine. I know we can. He’ll come and just rough up the Klass brothers a little. You know. Scare them. He doesn’t have to punch out their lights. He could just scare them. No. Wait. It wouldn’t have to be Wolverine. He’s too big a star. It could be someone else. Not as important. Maybe one of the Guardians? Or … or … it could even be Ant-Man. And —”
Amanda grabbed me and forced me to stop pacing. She led me to the edge of the bed and pushed me down. “Calm your brain, Scott. You’ve gone a little berserk. Those characters aren’t real — remember? Remember?”
“But we need a plan!” I cried. “We can’t go on like this. We need a good plan!”
“That’s what we need,” Amanda said softly. “A good plan.”
Wouldn’t you know it? We had a good plan a few days later.
In school on Monday morning, kids I passed in the hall gave me big smiles. I knew why they were smiling. Because of Mickey Klass’s Instagram.
I smiled back. I pretended I didn’t know anything about it.
The main hall was more crowded than usual. Some kids were on ladders, putting up Halloween posters and banners.
Mr. Duffy, the art teacher, was darting back and forth, directing traffic, telling kids where every poster should be hung. Everyone likes Mr. Duffy. He’s big and round and jolly, and wears these insane bib overalls every day. The only problem is, he’s a total control freak.
“Wait right there, Scott,” he said, holding me back by the shoulders. “Wait till we get this banner up straight. Don’t walk between the ladders.”
“No problem,” I said.
Halloween. My least favorite time of year.
Yes, I know. Most kids love Halloween. They love the costume parties and the candy and all the scary movies they show day and night on TV.
You may have guessed that I’m not a scary-movie guy.
But my big problem with Halloween is Mickey and Morty. They think the whole point of the holiday is to go wild and scare Amanda and me to death.
Last year, they stopped us on the way to a costume party. They took our cell phones and actually forced us to climb up onto a high limb of a tree overlooking the elementary school playground. Then they left us there.
Amanda and I were freezing to death in our costumes, clinging to the tree limb for dear life. Could you guess that we’re not good at climbing down trees?
I have a problem with heights. I get dizzy looking down at my shoes.
It was a windy night and the limb kept creaking and swaying, making cracking noises like it was going to break off.
We were terrified and freezing and terrified. Did I mention terrified?
Finally, a man came by in an SUV full of kids he was taking to a Halloween party. He spotted Amanda and me up there, stopped his car, and rescued us. We found our cell phones on the ground, tilted against the tree trunk.
The man asked how we got stranded up there. We were afraid to tell him about the Klass brothers. We told him we lost a bet.
That was last year. I had nightmares late at night about what the Klass brothers planned to do to us this Halloween.
Kids were moving the ladders down the hall. They had one more orange-and-black banner to put up. A kid in my class, Jerome Jackson, grinned down at me from the top rung of a ladder. “Hey, Scott — I saw your picture!” he shouted. He laughed and a bunch of other kids laughed. The entire hall rang with cruel laughter.
Scott, you can get through this, I told myself.
I spotted Mickey Klass in front of the music room, and I stopped and pressed my back against the wall. He was talking to the two most awesome cheerleaders in our school, Rosie McGregor and Luanna Jones. He was gesturing with both hands and making funny faces, and they were tossing their heads back and laughing.
Was he telling them about Amanda and me?
Whatever he was telling them, they were really into it. I could see that Mickey was doing everything he could to impress them. And as I watched, something inside me snapped.
And I decided it was time. Time for a little payback. Time to start paying Mickey back for all the bad times he had given Amanda and me.
My idea flashed into my mind as I watched the two cheerleaders grin and laugh and shake their heads at his story.
We have a dress rule in our school. Boys can’t wear baggy jeans that sag down low so everyone can see your boxer shorts. Only regular jeans are allowed, and they have to be held up by a belt.
A lot of kids don’t like it, but it’s a school rule. And Mr. Lundy, the vice principal, is in charge of enforcing the dress code.
But somehow Mickey and Morty ignore the saggy jeans rule completely, and they never get caught or sent home or anything. I don’t know how they get away with it. Maybe Mr. Lundy is afraid of them, too?
Mickey was teasing Luanna now. He tugged her long black hair, and she laughed. I started to creep closer. My eyes were on Mickey’s baggy, faded jeans. They sagged way down, and you could see his black-and-white-striped boxers.
One tug, I thought. One hard tug and the pants go down to the floor.
Yes. That was my plan. Simple, right? I intended to pants Mickey in front of the two most awesome girls in school.
It was a simple plan but a good one. Because I knew at lunch today, kids in the cafeteria wouldn’t be talking about the photo of me being terrified in the graveyard. They’d be talking about how I pantsed Mickey in front of Rosie and Luanna.
I knew I’d be the hero of the story, and he would be the total fool.
&nb
sp; Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. I wanted to laugh out loud, but of course I didn’t. If I laughed, I wouldn’t be able to sneak up behind Mickey.
Which I did.
I crept up behind him. Lowered my hands — reached for the back of his jeans.
And let out a startled scream.
I felt a hard tug at my waist. I stumbled. Almost fell.
It took me a few seconds to realize my jeans were down around my ankles.
Rosie and Luanna shrieked. Their eyes went wide and they started to roar with laughter. Mickey had this big dumb grin on his face.
I think I stopped breathing. I think time stopped and the world froze.
It all didn’t seem real.
Until I spun around and saw Kenji Kuroda standing behind me. And a few seconds later, my brain clicked in, came back to life, and I knew that Kenji had figured out what I planned to do — and pantsed me.
Pantsed me in the crowded main hall in front of the two most awesome cheerleaders in school.
And why? Why, I ask you? Why of all days did I choose this day to wear the Hello Kitty boxers my grandmother gave me?
You can’t imagine the laughter that echoed down the hall. Kids on ladders were laughing. A big crowd gathered around us. Kids giggled and pointed and slammed their hands against lockers and hooted and cheered and slapped their foreheads and made jokes about Hello Kitty.
Luanna was in hysterics. She laughed so hard she started to choke. Rosie had to help her to the girls’ bathroom.
“I had no choice. I had to wear these!” I shouted over the laughter. “The others were all dirty!”
Lame, right?
That made everyone laugh even harder.
Then, suddenly, the laughter was shut off. Like someone had turned off a TV or pushed STOP on a song they were listening to on their phone.
The long hall was hushed in a strange silence.
I turned and saw why the laughing and hooting had stopped. Vice Principal Lundy stood with his hands pressed against his waist, his eyes lowered to my jeans. My jeans wrinkled around my ankles on the floor.
“Scott?” His high whistle of a voice echoed off the rows of lockers. “Do we have a problem here?”
“Uh … not really,” I choked out. I started to pull up my jeans. Looking up, I saw that Mickey and Kenji were nowhere to be seen. They had vanished at the first sight of Mr. Lundy.
“Did someone do this to you?” Lundy demanded, hands still pressed tightly on the waist of his brown suit pants.
“Uh … no,” I lied. “I guess I need to wear a belt.”
He scrunched up his face. “Well … a belt might help. But, if I may say so, you might want to show better taste in boxer shorts.”
The hall rang with laughter. The laughing was so loud, I think I saw the walls shaking.
And that’s when I decided that Amanda and I had to return to that frightening abandoned house. That’s the exact moment I knew we had to go back there.
Why?
I’ll explain later.
Saturday morning, Rita came downstairs for breakfast in her winter parka. “Are you cold? Why are you wearing that?” Mom asked.
Rita shuddered. “There’s a huge wasp upstairs. It’s humongous. I tried to swat it with a magazine. But I made it angry. I put on my coat so it couldn’t sting me.”
I set down my cereal spoon. “A wasp in October? Expect me to believe that?”
“You’d better believe it,” Rita said. “I chased it into your room and I closed the door.”
I jumped to my feet. “Liar.” This was typical Rita, trying to scare me first thing in the morning. She knows I have a thing about wasps.
Mom frowned at me over her coffee mug. “Why are you calling your sister names?”
I started to the stairs. “Because she’s a liar. She’s only trying to scare me, Mom.”
“I didn’t make it up. I swear.” Rita raised her right hand. Like I was supposed to believe her. A wasp in October. Sure thing.
I hurried up the stairs and down the narrow hall. The door to my room was closed. I grabbed the knob, pushed it open, and stepped inside.
I gazed all around. Yesterday’s jeans and T-shirt were strewn on the floor where I’d tossed them. My backpack tilted against the closet door.
“Rita up to her old tricks,” I muttered.
Then I heard a loud, steady buzz. A shadow moved. I dodged to my left as an enormous wasp dive-bombed my head.
The terrifying buzz rose in my ear as the big insect thudded against my cheek, then up toward the ceiling, preparing to dive again.
“I’m hit! I’m stung!” My voice came out in a shriek. “It got me!”
My knees started to fold. But I scrambled to my feet and darted to the door. I slammed it hard, the touch of the deadly insect still tickling my cheek.
I rubbed my face. No bump. No sting.
Okay. I went berserk. I overreacted a little.
I burst back into the kitchen. “Rita was right!”
My sister had a pleased grin on her face, dimples popping. She loves to see me in a panic. I don’t know why she enjoys it so much. I try to be nice to her. Most of the time.
Mom sipped her coffee. She brushed a strand of hair off her forehead. “Did you really see a wasp?”
“It … it attacked me,” I said. “It’s huge.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Mom said. “Sit down. Finish your breakfast, Scott.”
“Sit down?” I cried. “How can I finish my breakfast when I was almost assassinated?”
Rita was still grinning. “What does that word mean? Assassinated?”
“Never mind,” I muttered.
* * *
And that got Saturday off to a very bad start. Because this was the day Amanda and I decided to try again. To prove that we could be brave so we could stand up to the Klass brothers. And I don’t think you could say that I showed a lot of bravery facing the wasp in my bedroom.
In fact, I was maybe a little bit of a wimp.
After breakfast, Mom opened my bedroom window and the wasp flew out. No biggie. I slid into my coat and hurried to meet Amanda at the old abandoned house.
The sun was out when I left home. But as I approached the graveyard and the house across the street from it, gray clouds floated overhead, and the whole world seemed to turn to shades of gray.
As I walked past the graveyard, I kept glancing all around. I expected the Klass brothers to step in front me and tell me that my next dare in the Dare Club was to be buried alive in an open grave.
They would do that. You know they would.
But no sign of them this morning. I think maybe their mom drives them to private Bullying Lessons on Saturday mornings. Just a guess.
Amanda was waiting for me in front of the abandoned house. Her parka was unbuttoned. She had a purple knit cap over her hair. She waved as I trotted up to her.
“How’s it going?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Are we really doing this?”
“Of course,” I said. “This time, we’re going in. It’s almost Halloween, Amanda. The Hulk Brothers are probably already planning what they’re going to do to ruin the holiday for us. We’ve got to get tough.”
She didn’t answer. Her eyes were on the graveyard across the street.
I turned. “See anything?”
“No. Nothing moving over there. No headless people walking around.”
I laughed at that. I’m not sure why.
Amanda tugged at the sleeve of my parka. “Scott, what if this old house really is haunted? Everyone in town says it is.”
I pulled out my phone. “Then we’ll take pictures of the ghosts,” I said.
She studied me. “You’re in a brave mood today.”
“I’m pretending,” I confessed.
She slapped my shoulder. “I thought so.” She gazed up at the dark windows above the first floor, at the ragged, tilted shingles with their paint peeling. “What if we go in there and we’re never seen again?”
“W
ell … here’s an idea,” I said. “Maybe you should stop asking questions?”
She nodded. She played with the zipper of her coat, tugging it up and down.
A car rumbled by, loud country music pouring out from its open windows. The man and woman in the front seat gazed out at us as they passed.
“Come on, Amanda,” I said. “We’re going in. No more stalling.”
I led her around to the side of the house. We had to step through some prickly bushes. A thorn ripped a line in my coat sleeve.
The shadow of the house fell over us. The air suddenly grew cooler.
I stopped in front of a low window near the back of the house. “Maybe I can push that window up, and we can slip inside,” I said. My voice came out breathless, more from fear than from being out of breath.
“It’s pitch-black in the house,” Amanda said, eyes on the window. “That window must have a hundred years of dirt on it. I can’t see a thing.”
“We’re doing this,” I said. I grabbed the stone window ledge with both hands and hoisted myself up. It took all my strength, but I got my knees up on the ledge. Then I stretched my body up, raised my arms, and shoved the window frame.
“Yes!”
It resisted at first. I thought it was stuck. But I gave it a second try, and the dirt-caked window slid up. I pushed again, and it moved even more. The window was halfway up.
I turned back to Amanda. “More than enough room for us to drop inside,” I said. “Follow me. I’m going in.”
I squeezed the top of the window frame with both hands. Turned my body. Carefully. Carefully. And lowered my feet into the house.
My heart was pounding so hard I could hear my pulse in my ears. My shoes found the floor. I let go of the window. And stood up. Stood up inside the dark house.
And as I did, I heard a deafening sound. A horrifying, ghostly cry. A screech so nearby … so close to me in the darkness. A long, shrill screech so frightening it made me scream.
“Scott — what is it?” Amanda called from outside.
I squinted into the darkness, the screech still ringing in my ears. “I-I don’t know,” I stammered.