by R. L. Stine
He pushed back his black hair and gazed around. He looked bigger — wider — indoors than outdoors. Like he was almost too big for my bed. He wasn’t fat, just a big kid.
I pulled my tall lab stool across from him and sat down on it. “Something weird happened to me last night,” I said. “Maybe you can help me.”
He squinted at me. “Help you?”
“I went over to McClatchy’s house,” I said. I pointed out the bedroom window. “And these lawn gnomes —”
His eyes went wide. “You went outside at night? Really?”
“Well … yeah,” I said. “And these lawn gnomes … they were alive. They grabbed me and —”
He suddenly looked away. I could see pink circles on his cheeks. He was blushing. He mumbled something, but I couldn’t hear him.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Do you know about the lawn gnomes coming alive? Tell me. You have to tell me!”
He shrugged his big shoulders. “You know,” he muttered. He kept his eyes on the window.
“No, really,” I said. “I don’t know. Tell me. How do the gnomes come alive? They’re just hunks of painted plaster, right?”
Elliot sighed. “Come on, Jay. You know the answer. Why are you doing this?”
“I don’t know the answer,” I said. “I need you to tell me. They grabbed me, Elliot. It was totally scary. They took a marker and made a big M on my forehead.”
“Oh, wow,” Elliot muttered.
“They kept repeating this word. Malfunction. Malfunction. Do you know what that means?”
He finally turned his eyes to me. “No,” he said. “No. What does it mean?”
“I’m asking you!” I cried. “Why can’t you help me? Listen. Mr. Phineas got free and caused a car crash. And the driver of the car kept saying the same word. Malfunction. Malfunction. What does it mean? Why was he doing that?”
“Beats me,” Elliot said.
He jumped to his feet and strode to the lab table. He gazed over the table and picked up a test tube. “You’re into science?”
I could see he wasn’t going to help me. I followed him to the table. “I like to experiment with chemicals,” I told him. “Create different mixtures and see how the chemicals react. And sometimes I come up with things. You know. Inventions.”
He set the test tube down carefully. “Inventions?”
I nodded. “I’ll show you,” I said.
I pulled up the thing I’d been working on. I handed it to him.
He rolled it around in his hand. “It’s a candle?”
“It looks like a candle,” I said. I took it back from him. “But I call it a light-stick. See, you don’t need a match to light it up. I treated it with chemicals. You just blow on the end to light it, then blow once more to put it out.”
I raised the light-stick between us, sucked in a deep breath, and blew on it. Quickly, I turned my eyes away. I knew how bright the flash would be.
It made a FIZZZZZ sound, then a POP. A bright yellow flame exploded from the end of the stick. The flame surrounded both of us in bright light.
Elliot’s eyes bulged. He uttered a sharp cry. And dropped to the floor with a groan. His head bounced on the floor. He lay sprawled on his back, eyes shut, not moving.
I let out a startled gasp. Was it too bright for him? I blew out the light-stick. Then I whirled around the side of the table and dropped to my knees beside him.
Oh, no! What have I done?
“Elliot? Elliot?” I repeated his name. “What happened? Are you okay? Can you hear me?”
He opened his eyes. A smile spread over his face. “Just joking,” he said.
He sat up. “Ha-ha. You looked totally freaked.”
I swallowed. My mouth was dry as cotton. “No way,” I lied. “I knew you were faking. I knew it was a dumb joke.”
Elliot laughed some more. He climbed slowly to his feet. He looked kind of dizzy to me. His eyes were darting from side to side.
Was it really a joke? Or did the flash of light knock him out somehow?
Weird.
“Cool invention,” Elliot said. He picked up the light-stick and studied it. He raised it a few feet from his face and blew gently on it.
“No. It only works once,” I told him. “It burns off the chemicals, so it won’t light anymore.”
He set it down on the table. “It’s still totally cool. You make a lot of inventions like this?”
“Well, yeah,” I said. “Mostly I just mix chemicals together to see what will happen.”
He pushed back his hair and turned to the window. A beam of yellow sunlight poured onto the bedroom floor. “Jay, want to go outside?”
“Yeah,” I said.
I led the way downstairs. “Just going out for a walk,” I called to my parents. We stepped out the front door.
I felt a shiver of fear roll down my back. I searched the front yard for lawn gnomes. But I didn’t see any.
Across the street, McClatchy stood on a tall ladder with hedge clippers in his hands. He was busy trimming the tall hedge and didn’t see us as we walked past on the street.
I felt angry all over again. I pictured him kicking Mr. Phineas. I felt bad that I didn’t get my revenge last night.
Elliot and I turned the corner and kept walking. The sunlight felt good on my face. The warm air smelled fresh. I started to calm down.
Elliot kicked a stone to the curb. “I kind of heard what you were talking about with your dad,” he said.
I kept my eyes straight ahead. “Really?”
“Yeah. He sounded pretty steamed.”
“He can get a little stressed sometimes,” I said. “He’s been on my case a lot lately.”
Elliot stopped walking. We stood in the shade of a fat old tree. The tree limbs trembled above us in the wind, making the sunlight shimmer.
“Why has he been on your case?” Elliot asked. “Do you want to tell me about it?”
I swallowed. “Well …”
I didn’t want to talk about it. I never talked about it with anyone.
Elliot’s eyes locked on mine. He was waiting for my answer.
And suddenly, the words just blurted out of me: “I burned down our house.”
Elliot’s mouth dropped open. He started to talk but couldn’t get the words out.
I led the way over to the wide tree trunk and sat down on the grass. The grass was still wet from the morning dew, but I didn’t care. I decided to tell Elliot the whole story, the whole ugly story.
He sat down beside me, rested his back against the rough tree bark, and crossed his legs in front of him. “You’re serious?” he said finally. “You really burned down your house?”
I nodded. “No joke.”
“Jay, that’s horrible. How did it happen?”
I took a deep breath. “My friend and I were in my room. Just messing around. I had a lab table in my old room, too. And lots of chemicals and stuff. I’ve been interested in chemistry since I was eight — four years now.”
My chest felt fluttery. I could picture everything that happened so clearly.
“I had just started working on the light-stick. The thing I just showed you,” I said. “I wanted to show it off to my friend. But I didn’t have it quite right yet. I mean, I didn’t have the chemicals right.
“But I held it up and blew on it really hard. And it exploded. I mean, it made a huge blast, like a bomb or something. A big flame shot out of it and … and …”
I had to stop to catch my breath. Even though we were in the shade, sweat poured down my face. My chest felt like a bird was fluttering its wings inside it.
“The flame shot out onto my lab table,” I continued. “It … it set some chemicals on fire. The chemicals flamed up. With a roar, an incredible roar. The flames caught my bedroom curtains. And … and … my whole room was burning.
“My friend and I were coughing and choking on the black smoke. It was everywhere, all around us. We covered our faces with our shirt-sleeves, and we … we just ran o
ut of the house.
“It … burned. The whole house. It just burned black. My friend and I … we were okay. We weren’t burned or anything. But I was in shock. I mean, really in shock. I just couldn’t believe that I’d done anything so horrible.
“But there was our house. Still smoking. The wood crackling. Just a big black pile. A big black pile …”
My voice trembled. I pictured our house. Everything we owned. Burned. Wrecked. Ashes.
“That’s the story,” I said finally. “That’s what happened. I haven’t told it to anyone — till now.”
He stared at me. He didn’t reply. He scratched the side of his face. I could see he was thinking hard.
“That’s horrible,” he said finally, in a soft whisper. “Just horrible. Jay, I … I don’t know what to say. That’s the worst thing I ever heard.”
“Oh, wait,” I said. “It gets worse. A lot worse.”
I settled back against the tree trunk. I brushed a spider off the knee of my jeans. Down the street, a dog barked. I heard a lawnmower start up.
I felt strange. Kind of excited and very tense and wired. I guess because I’d never told this story to anyone.
I took another deep breath. “You see, my dad was president of the city council in our old town. It was, like, a really big deal. So, when I burned down our house, it was a biiig story. It was on TV and in the newspaper and people talked about it on the radio.”
Elliot squinted at me. “Did they know it was an accident? It was an accident, right?”
I nodded. “The fire was a total accident. But I’d been in trouble before. You know. At school and stuff. Nothing serious. But a lot of people said I was mad at my dad and that’s why I burned down the house.”
Elliot shook his head. “Wow.”
“So, my dad had to quit his job,” I continued. “It was really bad around our house. I had to go to children’s court. Talk about scary! We told the whole story to the judge six times. But she didn’t believe me when I said it was an accident.”
“Wow,” Elliot repeated. “Wow.”
“The judge said I was dangerous. She wanted to send me to some kind of youth prison.” I stopped for a moment. This part of the story was hard to tell.
“But you changed her mind?” Elliot asked. “What did you do?”
“My dad made a deal with her,” I replied. “The judge said if my family moved out of town … if we moved far away, she would drop all charges and let me go.”
I sighed. “So … we moved, and here we are.”
Elliot blinked a few times. I could see he was thinking hard again. “I have one question,” he said finally. “You accidentally burned down your house because of one of those light-sticks you invented, right?”
“Right,” I said.
“But you just showed me a light-stick. Why do your parents let you work on light-sticks after what happened?”
I put a finger to my lips. “Shhhh. They don’t know about it. I had to sneak my chemistry set into our new house. They don’t know I’ve gone back to working on light-sticks. It’s a total secret.”
“Whoa.” Elliot shook his head. “Isn’t that looking for trouble?”
“Not if I’m careful,” I said. But then I added: “I try to be good. You know, I promised I’d be different here in our new home. And I’m really trying. But it’s hard. Like my bike going into the quagmire, and that car accident yesterday. Sometimes accidents happen.”
Elliot nodded. “I guess.”
I climbed to my feet and brushed off the back of my jeans. “Hey, I promised my dad I’d walk the dog and then mow the back lawn,” I said. “I’d better get going. But do you want to hang out after dinner? You know. Go to a movie or something?”
“Huh?” Elliot’s mouth dropped open. He narrowed his eyes at me. “Did you forget, Jay? We can’t go out at night. We can never go out at night.”
Why not? Why is everyone afraid to go out at night?
Those are the questions I wanted to ask Elliot. But he hurried away, and I didn’t get a chance.
Of course, he probably wouldn’t answer anyway. He’d probably mutter, “You know.” The way he always did.
Well … the whole thing was weird. There were definitely secrets here in my new town, secrets I didn’t know the answers to.
But I’m going to find out, I told myself. I’m going to find out what goes on here at night.
I turned away from the fat tree trunk where Elliot and I had been sitting. I was still feeling a little tense. But I was glad I told Elliot the story of what had happened back home. It felt good to tell it to someone who would understand.
I took two steps — and then stopped.
A lawn gnome stood a few feet away. It had its back turned. I stared at its red coat pulled down over smooth white pants. Its painted black boots. The tall red hat tilted on its head.
That lawn gnome wasn’t here before.
I know I didn’t see it.
My whole body tensed. My hands balled into fists.
It’s alive. It turned its back so I wouldn’t know it was listening. But it was here listening to my whole story.
My fear gave way to anger. I could feel it start to burn in my chest.
I pictured the lawn gnomes last night. Scampering in the dark. Alive. Alive and vicious. They tried to hurt me. They tried to scare me.
I wanted to show them they couldn’t mess with me.
I stared hard at the lawn gnome’s back, feeling my anger rise.
And then I burst forward. Without making a sound, I made a leap at the gnome. I flew at it from behind — and tackled it hard around the waist.
“OWWWW.” I let out a cry of pain as my shoulder slammed into the back of the lawn gnome.
My hands grabbed solid stone. Pain shot down my shoulder as I hit the hard body. The gnome didn’t budge.
I slid to the ground. I lay in the grass, waiting for the waves of pain to fade.
Finally, I pulled myself to my feet and walked around to the front of the gnome. Its painted eyes stared blankly straight ahead. Its mouth was frozen open in a sick, red-lipped grin.
I tapped its hat. I pinched its stubby, round nose. I poked it in the eyes with two fingers.
Stone. Hard stone.
Not alive.
I must have looked like a nut job attacking a little statue!
I bent down and gazed into its eyes. Paint. Just paint. No one in there. No way it could possibly move. No way it could be alive.
But I knew they could come to life. I’d just spent the scariest night of my life watching them come to life and come after me.
How did it happen? Why?
The lawn gnomes were a mystery about this town I had to solve. Once again, I pictured Elliot’s frightened face as he said, We can’t go out at night. We can never go out at night.
Another mystery. I planned to solve it — tonight.
Of course, that night Kayla tried to talk me out of it. She paced back and forth in front of me in my room, swinging her red hair and shaking her head. “Jay, are you out of your mind?” she demanded.
“Maybe,” I said. I sat on the edge of my bed and watched her storm around.
“If you go outside, you’ll get in trouble — right?”
“Maybe,” I said.
She stopped walking and stood over me with her arms crossed. “Is it worth it?”
“Maybe,” I said.
“But you told Mom and Dad —”
“Kayla, there are too many weird things going on,” I said. “Something isn’t right about our new neighborhood.”
She poked me in the chest. “Yes, something isn’t right. It’s you.”
“Ha-ha.” I rolled my eyes. I jumped to my feet and pushed past her, heading toward the bedroom door. “I’m not going outside to cause trouble. I’m not going to do anything bad at McClatchy’s house. I promise.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Just look around,” I told her. “See if I can figure out what’s u
p with all the lawn gnomes. See if I can learn why everyone is so terrified of going out at night.”
She shook her head. “You know you shouldn’t do this.”
I grabbed two light-sticks and shoved them in my pocket. Then I hurried out of the room and down the stairs so I wouldn’t hear any more of her warnings.
My sister is a big coward. She follows every rule. I guess some people like to follow rules. I’m not one of them.
I pulled open the front door and stepped outside.
Was I looking for trouble?
Maybe.
I saw a tiny slice of a moon in the sky, but it kept disappearing behind wisps of cloud. There was no breeze at all. The air was still. The trees in the front yard didn’t move.
I stepped onto the porch and peered both ways. I expected to find lawn gnomes somewhere beside me.
But no. The porch swing stood in pale light from the streetlamp. The canvas chairs beside it were empty. No gnomes in sight.
I jumped down onto the grass. My parents’ bedroom light still glowed. They were awake. I could see their shadows on the window shade.
I had to be quiet. I tiptoed down the middle of the yard. Dad’s car was parked in the driveway. In the darkness, it reminded me of a large animal about to pounce.
Okay, yes, I was a little freaked. I mean, I don’t have nerves of steel. I’m not a total coward like Kayla. But being out here late at night when I knew it was against the rules … Well, it made my imagination go a little wild.
I turned away from it and gazed toward the street. There were no lawn gnomes in my front yard. I didn’t see any at the curb.
I felt a chill at the back of my neck. The air was so still. As if everything had frozen in place.
I was the only thing moving. The only person out here. No cars moving on the street. No animal sounds or doors slamming or garage doors rumbling or footsteps or voices or birds chirping or crickets … or … anything!
Freaky, right?
I reached the curb and gazed into McClatchy’s front yard. His house was pitch-black. Not a light on anywhere.