“No, Grandfather, it’s okay!”
The old man raced across the room. “Out of my way, boy!” he bellowed as he raised the wooden stake.
Mercy screamed.
“Grandfather, NO!” Peter yelled, and covered Mercy with his body. “It’s okay! She’s alright! I kissed her!”
“What?” Grandfather gasped, eyes wide with alarm.
“I staked her with a pencil, but I kissed her – she’s okay now!”
“It’s true, it’s true,” Dill groaned from the corner, his hands hiding his eyes. “I saw it all, the whole horrible thing…ohhhhhhh…”
“The staking?” Grandfather demanded.
“The kissing,” Dill moaned.
Grandfather grabbed Mercy’s face roughly and turned it this way and that. He looked at her eyes, then forced open her mouth and peered at the even row of small white teeth.
“Dear God in heaven,” Grandfather whispered.
“That’s Gilbraith Chalmers’ coffin, Grandfather!” Peter said, and pointed at the pine box. “They gave her Gilbraith’s dried blood when she was about to die – that’s what made her a vampire!”
Grandfather approached the coffin and peered inside. From his rear pocket, he produced a cross and touched it to the dried brown stains inside.
The coffin immediately burst into flames.
“Outside!” Grandfather yelled. “Outside!”
“I’m goin’, I’m goin’!” Dill howled as he hopped towards the staircase, rags still binding his ankles.
Fire from the coffin spread to the piles of trash around it.
Mercy and Peter ran up the stairs. Grandfather grabbed Dill under his arms and sprinted up the steps behind them.
By the time they reached the lawn outside, the entire first story of the house was ablaze.
Mr. Chalmers lay sprawled on the grass. His wife knelt beside him, blotting a cut on his mouth with the edge of her dress. They watched in shock as the windows shimmered with crackling yellow light, but neither of them paid any more attention to the fire when they saw the little girl running out the front door.
“MERCY!” Mrs. Chalmers screamed, and ran to her daughter.
“Mommy!” Mercy cried as her mother swept her into her arms.
Mr. Chalmers tottered to his feet, bawling like a baby, and grabbed Mercy to his chest. He sank to his knees and cradled her in his arms. His wife hugged them both for dear life.
Dill, Peter, and Grandfather stood by the old man’s truck and watched the family embrace in the light of the growing flames.
“See?” Peter said. “Sometimes the books are wrong.”
Grandfather grunted.
Dill leaned against the truck. “With everything I’ve seen tonight, I’m gonna have to get some therapy…”
“The pencil in the heart?” Peter asked.
“The kiss on the lips,” Dill scowled.
From behind them in the truck came a scream. “AAAAAAAAHHHH!”
Dill jumped two feet in the air and came down with his hands bunched in his hair.
“What was that?!” he cried out.
There was a banging from inside the metal box in the truck bed. A little girl’s muffled voice called out, “Can somebody please get me outta here?”
“Who’s that?” Dill gasped.
“Agnes – and it sounds like she’s okay now!”
Grandfather cautiously unchained the metal box.
“I think I peed my pants. AGAIN,” Dill moaned.
“You mean, since the other day in the cemetery?” Peter asked.
Dill paused.
“…uh, yes. Yes. That was the only other time, yes.”
Dill paused again.
“And then only a little.”
40
The fire trucks came far too late to save the house, but they watered it down until there was no danger of it spreading to the surrounding forest.
Agnes and Mercy – both fully recovered – cried in a far corner of the yard, then laughed and talked, at least until Agnes’s parents showed up, and then the crying started all over again. A couple of sheriff’s deputies came and tried to sort out how one little girl who had gone missing, and another who had been dead and buried a week, now seemed to be fine and dandy. The deputies spent a lot of time talking to Grandfather, the Chalmers, and Mercy and Agnes. Peter and Dill kept out of the way as much as they could.
While the deputies were still questioning the adults, Mercy broke away and stole over to the truck.
“Hey, Peter. Hey, Dill,” she said shyly.
“Hey, Mercy,” Peter smiled back.
Dill just scowled and hid behind the truck.
“I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”
“I understand. It wasn’t your fault.”
“I don’t think I’m going to be going back to school,” Mercy said.
Dill popped out from behind the truck. “Really?”
“My mom and dad said there’s nothing here for us now…and it might be hard with people talking about it, so…I think this might be the last time we see each other.”
“That’s awesome,” Dill beamed.
Peter kicked him.
“OwwwwWWW,” Dill grunted.
“I just wanted to say thank you. I’m glad we…” Mercy stopped and blushed. “I’m glad it turned out the way it did.”
“Me, too,” Peter said.
“I’ll never forget you, Peter.”
She leaned over and kissed him lightly on the cheek. Then she smiled and ran back to her parents.
“Oh God,” Dill choked out, and made puking sounds. “This just gets worse and worse.”
“Be quiet, Dill.” Peter laughed, then stopped. Grandfather was walking over.
“Get in the truck,” the old man muttered. Dill and Peter hopped in immediately.
41
Grandfather drove down the tree-covered driveway and out into the main road. The very first light of morning was just starting to color the sky.
“Well?” Peter asked.
“Those people should be hanged,” Grandfather snarled.
“Mercy and Agnes?!”
“No, the Chalmers, her parents. Doing what they did…playing with dark forces like that, with no regard for the consequences…a family of bad apples.”
“They just wanted to save their daughter,” Peter pointed out. “Wouldn’t you have done that for Mom? Or for Beth?”
Grandfather looked down at him and narrowed his eyes.
“Or me?” Peter asked.
“Them, maybe. But not a troublemaker like you,” Grandfather grunted, and turned back to the road.
Peter smiled. Things were definitely back to normal now.
“What if Agnes talks?” Dill asked worriedly.
“She won’t,” Grandfather answered.
“How do you know?”
Grandfather glowered. “I made sure of it.”
“What about Mercy?” Peter prodded. “She said this was going to be the last time I see her.”
“Which is a good thing, as far as I’m concerned,” Dill added.
“I convinced her father that getting out of town might be just what the family needs,” Grandfather said.
“You did that?”
“Thanks, man,” Dill said gratefully. “I owe you one.”
“The official story will be that Mercy had a rare heart condition, one that caused her to lapse into a coma. The family, in their grief, dug up her coffin and miraculously found her alive. In their shock, Mr. Chalmers knocked over a lantern and set the house ablaze.”
“And Agnes?”
“In a fit of mourning, Agnes ran away from home and was sleeping in Mercy’s old bedroom, unbeknownst to the Chalmers. Luckily she made it out of the house, too, after the fire started. And that’s the official story, to be entered into the town history books,” Grandfather stated bitterly.
“Poop,” Dill said.
Grandfather turned sharply towards Dill. “What?!”
“
It’s like the cholera story,” Dill explained. “The official story. Death by poop.”
“Hm.” Grandfather turned back to the road. “A whole avalanche of it, boy. History repeats itself once again.”
“What about Katie?” Peter asked.
“Who?”
“The girl who called you. She saw Mercy – in fact, she saw Mercy fly off with Dill.”
“Hrm.” Grandfather paused. “Did anyone else?”
“No.”
“Well, you’ll just have to deny it, then.”
“You want us to lie? Everybody’ll think she’s crazy!”
“I can live with that,” Dill nodded.
“Just stick to the official story,” Grandfather said. “The unofficial story always has a way of getting out, anyhow.”
“But how are Mercy and her parents going to move? Do they have insurance?”
“No.”
“Then how are they going to move without any money?”
“They have it now,” Grandfather scowled.
“How? No one’s going to buy a burned-down house.”
“I already did. On the condition that they leave and never return.”
Dill and Peter stared, open-mouthed.
“Mom said you were doing okay when we moved here, but…you have that much money?” Peter asked.
“I have enough.”
“Can I borrow a twenty?” Dill pleaded with his best puppy dog smile.
“No.”
“How about a dollar?”
“No.”
“You know,” Dill said, looking down at his hand like he was studying his nails, “somebody might start asking some questions someday…and, well…I might just start talkin’.”
Grandfather jammed on the brakes and screeched the truck to a halt.
“I won’t talk,” Dill babbled in panic, and made a zipping motion over his lips. “I swear!”
“We’re home,” Grandfather snarled.
Peter looked outside. Sure enough, there was the giant gloomy house. The sun was just beginning to peek over the treetops of the forest.
Dill bolted out the truck door. Peter followed him.
“You an’ me are okay, right?” Dill called out to the old man…from a safe distance. “We’re still friends, right?”
Grandfather didn’t say anything, just walked towards the front door and went inside.
“Jeez, your grandpa hates me,” Dill muttered.
“Well, when you try to blackmail him…” Peter trailed off, then grinned. “We did it, Dill.”
Dill put out his hand as though to keep Peter away. “Don’t talk to me.”
Peter looked genuinely surprised. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s your fault I saw what I saw tonight!”
“Look, I’m sorry I dragged you to Katie’s house – but it all turned out okay. Besides, you got to fly! That must’ve been really cool!”
Dill reflected for a second. “Actually, that was really cool. Except when I peed my pants.”
“I thought you said – ”
Dill flailed his arms all around like a crazy man. “That’s not what I’m talking about!”
Peter looked puzzled. “Then what?”
“YOU KISSED HER, MAN!”
“Yeah?”
“How could you DO that? How could you do that to me?! Make me watch that, blechh…”
Peter smiled. He knew exactly what to say to make Dill flip out.
“You know…it wasn’t that bad.”
“OH GROSS! Dude, this is worse than a chick flick!”
“I was thinking about doing it again…”
“AAAAAAHHH! STOP! STOP IT!” Dill stormed off towards his own house. “I’m going to be sick,” he muttered to himself.
“Hey Dill – ”
“Don’t ‘Hey, Dill,’ me! I don’t know who you are anymore!”
“Kissing is great, Dill – you should try it sometime.”
Dill pointed angrily at Peter. “I DO NOT EVER WANT TO TALK ABOUT THIS EVER AGAIN! EVER!”
“See you at the bus stop in an hour, Dill,” Peter called.
Dill grumbled and snuck into his front door.
Peter grinned and looked back at his own yard. He had about thirty minutes before his Mom got up – thirty minutes to pick up all the garbage scattered by the trashcans and come up with a believable excuse for why the back screen door was shredded to bits.
Piece o’ cake.
He yawned and then whistled a tune as he walked towards the house.
The sun rising over the trees had never looked so beautiful.
PETER AND THE CHANGELING
1
Peter’s little sister Beth was crazy, there was no doubt about that. He just never realized how crazy until the afternoon of Mom’s job interview.
Peter and Dill had come home from school and were sitting in the kitchen eating ice cream sandwiches. Peter was a straightforward kind of guy who just took big bites out of his, while Dill claimed there was an art to it. He held up the bar of vanilla ice cream with its chocolate wafers on the top and bottom, then demonstrated step by step.
“First you gotta wait till the chocolate bread is soft. Then you gotta lick the ice cream sticking out between the bread pieces…then you gotta bend the bread top and bottom till they touch and you got, like, a big ‘ol chocolate ravioli with ice cream inside. Then you eat it.” He wolfed the ‘ravioli’ down in two bites. “Mmmmm MMM.”
“You eat the whole thing at the end, anyway,” Peter pointed out. “Why do you do all that stupid stuff?”
“It all just comes out as poop at the end, anyway,” Dill said in a mocking, fake-intellectual voice. “Why don’t we skip all the in-between stupid stuff and just eat p– ”
“DON’T SAY IT,” Peter shouted. “I’m EATING, you dork.”
Dill continued in the nerdy professor voice. “But it would be so much simpler if we would skip ice cream sandwiches and just eat – ”
“SHUT UP!” Peter yelled.
Mom rushed into the kitchen carrying Beth in her arms. Strangely enough, Mom was dressed in a silk blouse, black skirt, and high heels. Beth, not strangely at all, was wearing corduroy pants and a long sleeve shirt with her Strawberry Shortcake bathing suit over the top of them.
For over a year, Beth had worn that one-piece Strawberry Shortcake bathing suit almost every day. During the summer it was fine – the weather was hot, and little kids sometimes wore their bathing suits all day long. But Beth refused to give it up when cooler weather rolled in. And she wanted everyone to know she was wearing it. Wearing it under her shirt and pants wasn’t good enough; nooo, she had to wear it outside her normal clothes.
A week ago Dill and Peter had been playing checkers in the den when Beth walked into the room – wearing her bathing suit, of course.
“Why do you think she does that?” Dill had whispered. “The bathing suit, I mean.”
Dill was whispering because if Beth was ignoring you, it was usually best not to draw her attention. Unless you wanted your toys broken or your hair pulled.
“I don’t know. Why don’t you ask her?”
“Hey Beth, why do you wear – ”
“SHU’ UP!” Beth screamed at him. Then she kicked the checkerboard into the air and ran out of the room.
“Maybe she likes Strawberry Shortcake a LOT,” Peter mused.
“I like TV, but I don’t walk around wearing one.”
“You can’t wear a TV.”
“Just because you said that, I’m going to go find a dead TV somebody threw out on the side of the road and I’m gonna make clothes out of it,” Dill said resolutely. “I’m gonna take out the insides and I’m gonna cut a hole in the top for my head and I’m gonna wear it around like poor people wear barrels in old movies.”
“If you do that, everybody’ll see you naked through the TV screen.”
Dill thought about that for a second. “I’ll turn it around and wear it backwards, so all they’ll see is my butt. That wa
y I can moon everybody, and they can’t say anything, cuz I’m wearin’ clothes.”
Thankfully, so far, Dill had not made good on his threat.
2
Back in the kitchen, Mom shifted Beth from her left arm to her right. “Peter, I’ve got a favor to ask you.”
Peter winced. Whenever Mom said she had a favor to ask, it wasn’t a favor, it was a command with ‘please’ attached to it.
“I sent out my résumé to Charterton University.”
“What’s a rez-uh-may?” Dill asked as he unwrapped a second ice cream sandwich.
Mom ignored him. “The Legal Affairs department just called and asked if they could move up my interview from tomorrow to today – ”
“What’re you interviewing for?” Dill asked before licking the ice cream sandwich.
“ – so I need you to babysit Beth for the next couple of hours.”
“What?!” Peter shouted.
“Wha?!” Beth asked in almost equal shock.
“HA haaaaa,” Dill said to Peter, imitating the bully from THE SIMPSONS.
“No way!” Peter refused.
“Nunh-unh!” Beth bellowed. “No ba’ysit!”
“Guys, this job is very important to me,” Mom said calmly, but with a great deal of stress in her voice. “I need you both to be on your best behavior and help me out here, okay?”
“No! Let Grandfather babysit her!” Peter said angrily.
“Y – NO!” Beth said, quickly changing her mind. She hugged Mom fiercely. “I wan’ stay w’ you!”
Mom pried Beth’s arms from around her neck. “I’ll be back soon, sweetie. Until then, you’re going to be good and do what Peter says, okay?”
“Nooooo!” Beth wailed.
“Why can’t Grandfather do it?” Peter asked. Grandfather was the only one Peter had ever met who could keep Beth in line. She was so scared of him, she ran out of the room every time he walked in.
“I already asked him and he said no.”
“Why not?!”
Mom rolled her eyes. “He said he had something important to do. Like my job interview isn’t ‘important’ enough for him…”
At that very moment, Grandfather walked into the room, looking like he always did: fancy tie, suit vest, dress pants, and wild, unkempt beard. He retrieved his set of keys from the kitchen counter without looking at anyone else.
PETER AND THE VAMPIRES (Volume One) (PETER AND THE MONSTERS) Page 21