Thriller

by Jon Scieszka

  “Maybe we will die,” I said. “I don’t know.”

  Crying. She was crying again. If I could have been braver I would have put my arm around her and told her that I didn’t think we would die. It wasn’t what I believed but only what I hoped.

  A noise! Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch! A helicopter.

  “Abdullah!” My uncle opened the door roughly. “Go up to the deck. Leave your hands by your side. Don’t touch your weapon, but let them see it. Now! Quickly!”

  My legs were weak. Stumbling, I made my way up the six steps to the well deck.

  The helicopter was above us. I looked up and saw the big gun protruding from the side and a soldier with a rocket launcher pointed down at me. There was no one on the deck except me.

  “Hold your hands out so they can see them!” Mussa’s voice came from the darkness.

  Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch! The helicopter made a slow circle in the air. I looked down and saw the red target beams crossing my chest. One crossed my face. At any moment I could be killed.

  A single shot hit the deck next to me, splintering the wood. My teeth couldn’t be still in my mouth. The helicopter moved again, more red target beams crossed my body, and then the huge, deadly bird moved away into the darkness.

  “They didn’t kill him,” Mussa said. “They’re still thinking!”

  The night passed slowly and as the first gray rays of morning entered the cabin I thanked God for giving me another day. The girl Erica was asleep, lying on her side. I was nearly asleep when I heard footsteps. It was my uncle.

  “The Volunteers have worked out a deal,” he said. “We leave the hostages aboard except for one man, who we will turn over to the army. The Volunteers will get two hundred fifty thousand dollars. From that the Volunteers will keep half and the army will get a quarter and we will get a quarter.

  “It’s not a bad deal unless they have made another deal that we don’t know about.”

  “What will happen if they have made another deal?” I asked.

  “They will kill us as we pull away from the yacht,” my uncle said. “It depends on how much they want to save these people.”

  When it was time for me to leave the girl, I freed her wrists. She rubbed her hands together and looked up at me.

  “I’m sorry that you were hurt,” she said, touching my hand. “I thought I was doing the right thing.”

  “I don’t know if there is a right thing that fits everybody,” I said.

  We had lived. When we reached the shore there were a few soldiers waiting for us but many more Volunteers, all with weapons beneath their coats, or nearby in case the soldiers tried to betray us. Some of the people cheered us and that was good. Mussa came over to me and said that all was forgiven.

  “We finished with a profit,” he said. “We have done well, little brother.”

  It was what I expected from Mussa. When we get the money we will be generous with it and my mother will talk to me again about going to London or Brussels or anyplace away from Somalia. But I won’t leave.

  In Marka when the sun is high the people don’t cast large shadows because they are thin. It is just a small shadow, almost as if it had been casually cast upon the hard ground. Old people laugh at the shadows of thin people, but they can laugh because we are not farmers, but fishermen. When the sun is too hot and the ground is too hard to grow what we need to survive, and when the fish die, their white bellies facing the sun as they float onto the shore, it is a different world than the old people know. It is a different world than the white girl, Erica, knows. I think of her going to school and telling her classmates about being captured. I wonder if she will remember me as a fool or as somebody who just wanted to let her pee? I wonder if she will ever look at a map of Somalia and think about what is happening here?

  I will never know. Each of us will live in the memory of the other for a little while, but we will fade away. That is the human way, I think.

  Thad, the Ghost, and Me

  by Margaret Peterson Haddix

  The ghost boy is trying to talk to me.

  “Please,” he moans in his wispy voice. “Please help me.”

  I ball my hand into a fist and punch him in the stomach.

  “See,” I say over my shoulder to my cousin Thad. “It’s not real. It’s just one of those fake hologram things they always have at haunted houses. See how the ghost goes away when I block the light?”

  The thing is, even though he’s pale and see-through and barely even there, the ghost doesn’t go away. I move over to the right, then back to the left, and no matter what I do, the ghost boy’s image stays whole.

  Whoa, I think. How’d the Bloomingburg Bunnies and Chicks 4-H Club get their hands on such smoking hologram equipment?

  I picked the wimpiest-sounding haunted house in three counties to take my cousin Thad to. Me, I like them all, the scarier the better. But Thad—don’t get me wrong. He’s a good kid. He’d have to be, being related to me and all. But he’s just a little bit . . . disadvantaged.

  Yeah, that’s the right word for it. He’s had to put up with stuff like his parents thinking it was cool to name him Thaddeus Eugene. And calling him that in front of other people. And making him take violin lessons instead of playing football like me. And telling him it might be dangerous to build a potato cannon or shoot a marshmallow gun. (I mean, marshmallows! Really? Really?)

  All that wasn’t so bad when he was just a little guy. People always think little kids with big round glasses are cute. But Thad’s in fifth grade now. I have exactly ten months to get him ready for middle school.

  If I don’t, those middle school kids are going to eat Thad alive.

  I should know. I just started middle school this year.

  So even though it kind of creeps me out that the ghost boy isn’t going away—and, in fact, seems to have really felt my punch and is doubled over in pain—I don’t let on. I look back at Thad, who’s pressed his scrawny body so tight against the opposite wall that he could almost be part of the ugly flowered wallpaper. Maybe he’s going for a camo effect with the haunted-house graffiti painted over the ugly flowers: KEEP OUT! and DIE! DIE! DIE!

  I smile encouragingly at Thad, anyway.

  “We’re really lucky,” I tell him.

  “W-w-w-why?” Thad asks. “B-b-because the flesh-eating zombies who hang out with ghosts haven’t found us yet?”

  For a moment I wonder how Thad knows about flesh-eating zombies. Oh, yeah—I told him. Somebody had to. Aunt Myrna almost never lets him watch TV, and he’s not allowed to read anything scarier than Heartwarming Dog Stories. He’s never even seen a PG movie. Sick, huh? Disadvantaged, just like I was saying.

  The ghost in front of me lifts both arms, trying to grab my shoulders. Of course his hands go right through me, but I have to stop myself from taking a step back. This really isn’t a good time to think or talk about flesh-eating zombies.

  “No, I mean, we’re lucky we got here before the crowds,” I tell Thad—staying focused, just like my football coach is always telling me to do. “We have the place to ourselves.”

  “Except for the g-g-ghost,” Thad stammers.

  “Yeah, here’s the thing,” I say. I turn around completely, turning my back on the ghost so I can look Thad square in the eye. “In middle school, you’re going to have to be brave enough to face a lot worse things than fake ghosts. So we’re going to start small and build up. Fake ghosts now, maybe one of those killer sled ramps over Christmas break—we keep at it, you’ll be the bravest sixth grader at Morrow Middle School by next August.”

  “And I’ll be okay even if I get Hatchetface Hutchinson for English class?” Thad squeaks. “Even if I have a run-in with one of those big kids who already shave? Like Anthony Gorgonzola?”

  I have to hold back a shiver at the mention of Hatchetface Hutchinson—who is actually my English teacher—and Anthony Gorgonzola who, so far, doesn’t even know I exist. I’d really like to keep it that way. But just hearing those names sets off a flood of
frightening images in my brain: Hatchetface Hutchinson breathing down my neck, scolding in her cackly voice, “Now, where should that comma go?” and acting like she’ll give me the death penalty if I answer wrong. Anthony Gorgonzola strutting around like he owns the school—I’ve seen the principal hide from him, like even she’s afraid to stop him when he sneaks across the parking lot to hang out with the high school kids at lunch.

  And did I mention that Principal Van Sutter herself is a pretty scary-looking woman?

  “Right,” I say. My voice comes out sounding almost as wimpy as Thad’s. I shake my head to push the horrible images from my mind. I resist the urge to turn around to see what the ghost is doing behind me. I clear my throat and regain my focus.

  “Now, here’s the plan,” I tell Thad. I sound strong again. Confident. “You’re not going to be able to count on me being around all the time next year in middle school. You’ve got to get brave enough to be okay even when you’re alone. So I’m going to walk on through the rest of the haunted house, all the way to the end, and you’re going to stay in here with this ghost for . . .”

  I was going to say “fifteen minutes,” but I just can’t, not while there’s so much panic spreading across Thad’s face.

  “Five minutes,” I say, and even that feels like I’ve just done something awful, like kicking a kitten.

  “No, please,” Thad whimpers, and his voice sounds like it did when he was a toddler. You shouldn’t ever have to be this mean to someone you used to drive around in a Little Tikes Cozy Coupe when you were three.

  It’s for his own good, I remind myself.

  I turn toward the doorway and hurry out, before I can go all soft and change my mind. Out of the corner of my eye, I get a glimpse of the ghost, who’s floating over toward Thad now.

  “Will you help me?” the ghost asks him.

  Keep walking, I tell myself. Keep. Walking.

  I wonder if my parents felt this awful when they dropped me off at day care for the first time, or sent me off to kindergarten or—did they even know what I was getting into?—watched me get on the bus for middle school. Didn’t they see Anthony Gorgonzola lurking at the back of that bus? Didn’t they ever have a teacher as terrifying as Hatchetface Hutchinson?

  You can still hear Thad if he screams for help, I remind myself.

  I’m hoping the rest of the house will be scary enough to distract me from worrying about Thad, but it’s just dusty and deserted. There’s a bunch of old-fashioned toy soldiers on the floor in the dining room. And there’s a petrified-looking loaf of bread on the kitchen counter. Except for a little more graffiti—including words you wouldn’t think 4-H members would be allowed to use—that’s pretty much it. No more ghosts pop out at me, no one chases me with a chainless chain saw, no one even asks me to stick my hand in a bowl of cold spaghetti to pretend it’s brains or guts.

  Guess the Bloomingburg Bunnies and Chicks 4-H Club blew their whole haunted-house budget on spray paint and that one sweet hologram projector, I think as I let myself out the back door. And they’re not going to make their money back because nobody’s here but me and Thad.

  I sit down on the back step, which is just an old, decaying wood plank balanced on concrete blocks. Above my head, the same kind of fake-official signs hang on the back door that Thad and I saw at the front: CONDEMNED: THIS STRUCTURE AT 458 GNARLED PINE DRIVE IS SCHEDULED TO BE TORN DOWN ON OCTOBER 31 and NO TRESPASSING: VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED TO THE FULL EXTENT OF THE LAW.

  I’ve got to admit, the signs are a nice touch. Authentic-looking. Just like the ghost. But still—why wasn’t there any fake blood? Or a strobe-lit murder scene? Or volunteers dressed up like vampires and zombies and ghouls, all jumping out at Thad and me at once?

  For the first time it hits me just how weird it is that, if you don’t count the fake ghost, I haven’t seen a single other person since we got here. I was so focused on training Thad to be brave that I didn’t think about the fact that nobody was at the front door taking our money. We just tossed it into a box on a table in the front room and kept going.

  You’d think a 4-H club would have a bunch of people standing around offering to sell you home-grown pumpkins or something when you got done. And, really, it’s the weekend before Halloween. Why don’t they have any other customers?

  I didn’t exactly tell Aunt Myrna we were going to a haunted house. I said we were going to the church hayride—which we are! We are! Just not until later tonight. So she dropped us off at the Methodist church five blocks away, and then Thad and I walked to the address I printed out from the internet.

  I dig in the back pocket of my jeans and pull out the folded-up printout: HAUNTED HOUSE, it says, 548 GNARLED PINE DRIVE. . . .

  Suddenly I have chills.

  Five forty-eight? I think. Five forty-eight? I thought for sure it was 458!

  I look back at the sign on the door. Then I peer across several backyards toward the next block. There are dozens of cars lining the cross street, with people getting in and out. And beyond that street, on a back porch that’s much bigger than the rotting piece of wood under my rear, there’s a whole crowd of people laughing and talking and joke-screaming. They look like they’ve just come out of a haunted house.

  A fake haunted house, I mean, the kind that a 4-H club puts on as a fund-raiser, just for fun.

  Not like the one I’m at, one that’s old and empty and—

  Real?

  I jump up and race back into the house. I don’t think about my own safety. I don’t think about my own fear. I’m more focused than I’ve ever been before in my entire life.

  “Thad!” I scream. “Thad! Get out of there!”

  I race past the petrified bread on the kitchen counter and the toy soldiers on the dining room floor. I step on one of them and it crunches under my foot and I don’t even break my stride.

  I burst into the room with the ghost, and he and Thad are sitting together in matching velvet chairs.

  “Thad!” I scream. “The ghost is real! This house really is haunted! Run!”

  I kind of expect Thad to jump up and start screaming like a maniac—well, like I’m screaming—but he doesn’t move.

  “Thad!” I shout again. “Are you too scared to run? Do you need me to carry you? Didn’t you hear me? The! Ghost! Is! Real!”

  Now Thad moves, but only a little. All he does is clutch the arm of his velvet chair a little more tightly.

  “I knew that,” he says.

  “But I told you it was fake!” My voice goes all high and squeaky. I’m kind of running around in little circles in front of Thad and the ghost, because I’m too scared to stand still. But I pause for a second. “Did you think I was lying?”

  “Just for my own good,” Thad says patiently. “I thought that was part of teaching me to be brave. Kind of like how Dumbo learns to fly thinking he has a magic feather, until he builds up his confidence, and then—”

  “Don’t talk about Disney movies!” I snap.

  “Oh, right, because then people will think I’m a baby,” Thad says, nodding to show he remembers what I’ve told him before.

  “No, because sometimes it’s a time to talk and sometimes it’s a time to run, and this”—I grab Thad’s arm and start pulling—“this is a time to run!”

  I’ve been pushing and pulling and shoving Thad around pretty much since he was born, and he always just goes along with it. But he picks this moment to go all independent on me. He digs his fingernails into the velvet chair arms and locks his leg and arm muscles in place.

  And—he’s stronger than I thought. I can’t get him to budge.

  “We can’t run away now,” Thad says. “It wouldn’t be fair to Harvey.”

  Harvey?

  I look over, and the ghost boy is pointing to himself.

  “Harvey Herkimer Baldridge,” he says, bowing slightly. “At your service.”

  It figures the ghost boy would have an even worse name than Thad.

  “We owe him,” Thad sa
id. “We trespassed in his home.”

  “Oh, you mean all those ‘No trespassing’ and ‘Con-demned’ signs on the doors are real, too?” I ask. “Not just . . . decorations?”

  I glance over at the ghost boy again—Harvey—and his face looks like he wants to say, “No, duh.” But the words that come out of his see-through mouth are, “Much as it saddens me, that is indeed the truth of the matter.”

  Okay, I’m still scared out of my mind, but I can’t help but think, Hatchetface Hutchinson would love to hear this guy talk.

  I remind myself to focus.

  “Okay, okay,” I say quickly. I force myself to stand right in front of Harvey. I kind of bow myself—there’s just something about seeing a kid in a frilly shirt and suspenders and knee pants like his that makes you think you have to bow. And then I say as fast as I can, “I’m-really-sorry-about-the-trespassing. It-was-an-accident. Sorry-for-punching-you-too. I-didn’t-know-you-were-real. My-bad. Mucho-apologies.”

  The last part is the best I can do after just two months of learning Spanish at school. I’m hoping I said it fast enough that Harvey will think it’s Latin. Hatchetface Hutchinson says people are always impressed if you use Latin.

  “Now let’s run,” I tell Thad.

  “No,” he says, shaking his head stubbornly. “Harvey told me his story. He needs our help. I want to help him.”

  And then I’m stuck. Half of me still wants to run. The other half knows I could never leave Thad behind like that, in danger.

  “And,” Thad says, “there’s a treasure. . . .”

  We’re in the ghost boy’s basement now. I’m a little fuzzy about what time period Harvey’s from—it’s hard to remember to ask smart follow-up questions like, “You say your father died in the war. Which war?” when your brain is still screaming, Run! Run! Why aren’t you listening to me and running? But Harvey’s family definitely lived here before anybody figured out that “basement” was supposed to be a code word for “place with giant flat-screen TV, wall-to-wall carpeting, and ginormous cozy recliners and couches for watching sports.”