by Clare Hutton
Charlotte grabbed hold of her wrist. “I didn’t want to tell you this, Becky,” she said, her brown eyes wide and apologetic, “but there are all kinds of rumors about the McNally house. Everybody thinks there’s something wrong with it. No one’s lived there for years.”
“What kind of rumors?” Becky asked, feeling hot and uncomfortable. Everyone was giggling and staring at her with wide, amused eyes.
“Well,” Charlotte said, and swallowed nervously, “like that it’s the headquarters for a werewolf pack.”
A sixth grade girl in the circle around them nodded eagerly. “I heard they transform in the basement there every full moon.”
Paul from Becky’s social studies class broke in. “No, a scientist used to live there who wanted to learn how to bring back the dead. Instead, he ended up making zombies and other monsters.” He lowered his voice ominously. “And some people say these vicious creatures still roam the neighborhood at night.”
Tonya shivered. “My little brother wouldn’t even trick-or-treat on your street last year,” she said.
“No,” said Lila, tightening her own perfect ponytail, “I always heard that there was a headless ghost haunting the McNally house.” She gave Becky a superior little smile. “I wouldn’t want to spend the night anywhere near there.”
Charlotte winced and squeezed Becky’s arm reassuringly, but Becky felt like her insides were frozen. She looked slowly around the circle at everyone’s faces. Some of the people around her were laughing, some were looking at her pityingly, and some were making exaggerated expressions of horror.
Apparently her parents’ dream house was actually a total nightmare.
“I’m sorry, but mummies are just gross,” Becky said. “Can you believe they pulled people’s brains out through their noses? Disgusting!”
“Well, they didn’t do it while the people were alive,” Nate said mildly from the other side of the porch table. He’d come over to work on their project that Friday after school. He pushed his shaggy brown hair out of his eyes and grinned at her. He really was pretty cute, Becky realized. She’d known who he was since she moved to town last year, but they’d never talked much.
“How come you asked me to be your partner for this?” she asked, and then felt her cheeks heat up. Sensing her tension, Bear sat up from where he had been lying at her feet and pushed his cool nose against her hand. She gave him a pat.
“I just thought it might be fun,” Nate answered. “You seem pretty cool.” He started to flush, too, and Becky noticed a spray of freckles across his cheeks. “Not to mention that your drawings are going to make our presentation the best,” he added. “That mummy cartoon is hilarious.”
“Thanks,” Becky said, smiling. Bear thumped his tail twice against the floor of the porch, stood up and circled around, then lay down again contentedly.
A breeze rustled the branches of the evergreen trees next door, and Becky glanced toward them. It almost felt like the McNally house was looking back at her, its boarded windows like unfriendly eyes, and she tried to push the feeling away.
“Have you heard any stories about the McNally house from kids at school before?” she asked Nate.
“About how it’s haunted and full of vampires and zombies?” he asked. Becky nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Nobody really believes them, though. I know I don’t. I’ve never seen anything unusual about it.”
“But doesn’t it bother you when people say our street is creepy?” Becky asked.
“Nah,” Nate said. “They’re just kidding around.” Becky nodded. She’d have to try to look at it that way.
Becky’s nine-year-old brother, Jake, opened the door and wandered out onto the porch, holding an apple. “I’m bored,” he said cheerfully. “What’re you guys doing?”
Nate pushed the poster board that had been lying on the table between them toward him. “Isn’t your sister a good artist?” he asked.
“Yeah, these are funny,” Jake agreed, and took a loud, crunchy bite of his apple. “So they let you just draw mummy cartoons for homework in middle school?” Without waiting for an answer, he looked around. “Hey, where’s Bear?”
Becky glanced toward the floor, where Bear had been flopped a few minutes before, and her heart dropped like a stone. The big dog was gone.
She stared at Jake and Nate, who were looking wide-eyed back at her. Jake gave a low whistle. “Mom and Dad are going to kill you,” he said.
“Bear! Bear! Come on, boy!” Becky shouted, almost in tears. She, Nate, and Jake had split up to look for Bear and she’d already checked his favorite spots: under Mrs. Baxter’s forsythia bush, in the sunny spot in the middle of the little kids’ playground a couple of blocks away, and outside the back door of the family at the end of the street who ate a lot of burgers. She didn’t know where to look next. Jake had recruited the Kolodny kids from across the street to help look, and Becky could hear them yelling for Bear from the next block.
After circling the block, Becky came to a halt back in front of her own house. She bit her lip and gazed up and down the street, half expecting to see Bear trotting happily toward her, clutching something in his mouth that didn’t belong to him. Where could he be? He had never gone so far that she couldn’t find him before, or not come when she called. Becky blinked away the stinging in her eyes.
Next door, the McNally house was quiet and dark. Becky walked toward it hesitantly and laid her hand against the boards of the high fence around the house. What if Bear had gotten in there somehow? He could be trapped inside. Maybe she should check.
Becky noticed a loose board in the corner of the fence. Maybe Bear had gone through there. If Becky pushed it aside, she would be able to slip through into the yard. She hesitated, her heart beating hard.
Going into the McNally yard would be trespassing. Her parents would be really mad if they found out.
And there were all those creepy stories about the place. They were ridiculous, of course, but … Becky looked up at where the upper story of the house loomed above the fence. It looked dark and dank and horrible.
Still, she could picture Bear, frightened and alone in the dark. Maybe he had fallen through a basement window and couldn’t get out.
“Hey,” Nate said, coming down the sidewalk toward her. “He’s not over by the elementary school.”
Becky looked up at the McNally house again. “I’m afraid he might have gotten under the fence,” she said anxiously.
Nate made a face. “You think Bear went ghost hunting?” he joked. When Becky just looked at him, he got serious quickly. “I’ll come with you,” he said determinedly. “I’ve got your back.”
Becky nodded, her mind made up, and put out her hand to pull back the loose board.
“Hey! Becky!” The call came from down the street, and Becky jerked her hand away, letting the board fall back into place. Turning, she saw — hooray! — Bear, jogging down the street toward her and looking pleased with himself. Tonya was with him, holding on to his collar. Both Nate’s buddy Noah and Robin, another girl from their class, were with them.
Becky ran toward Bear and dropped to her knees, wrapping her arms around her dog’s neck. “Oh, thank you,” she said to the other kids. “Where did you find him?” Bear wiggled in her arms and licked her face, and she laughed and tightened the hug.
“He showed up on our street,” Tonya said, “and your name and address were on his tags, so we thought we’d walk him back over to you.”
“Thank you so much,” Becky said again, climbing to her feet. Just saying thank you didn’t seem like enough to show how grateful she was. “Do you guys want to stay for dinner? We were going to cook out, and my mom won’t mind a couple more kids.”
Robin and Tonya looked at each other. “Are you sure it’s okay?” Robin asked.
“Oh yeah, my mom loves having our friends over.” Becky saw Tonya and Robin glance at each other again, and then over toward the McNally house. Maybe they hadn’t been asking if staying for dinner was okay with Bec
ky’s mom, but had meant okay like not scary. “It’s fine,” Becky assured them.
“Sounds awesome,” Noah said, and headed for the steps up to Becky’s porch. After a moment, Tonya and Robin followed him.
“You found Bear!” Jake came running down the street toward them, trailed by the two Kolodny kids, Danielle and Peter, who were about his age.
They all petted Bear and fussed over him, and he wagged his tail eagerly, loving the attention.
As the younger kids started heading toward the house, Peter accidentally shoved into Jake, who reached out a hand and steadied himself against the fence outside the McNally house. Bear stiffened suddenly and dashed between Jake and the fence. Leaning against Jake’s legs, he shoved, pushing Becky’s little brother away from the fence.
“Bear!” Jake scolded, laughing. “Don’t push!” Grabbing hold of Bear’s collar, he followed the Kolodny kids toward the house.
Becky stared at their backs. Bear’s tail was cheerfully wagging again, and Jake reached his other hand over to tousle the dog’s ears.
It had almost been like Bear was protecting Jake, pushing him away from something dangerous. But he must just be hungry and hurrying Jake along, Becky thought. There can’t really be something wrong with the old house, can there?
“Uno!” Noah shouted, holding his last card up. Game play went around the circle again, and he slammed the card down in triumph.
Becky laughed and started to gather the cards together. Everybody had gorged on the burgers and hot dogs her parents had grilled up, and then they’d settled on the porch to talk and play games as the sun set. Jake and the Kolodny kids were kicking a ball back and forth in the yard, Bear galumphing around after them, barking happily.
Next to Becky, Tonya turned away from the finished card game and blew bubbles at the younger kids from a bottle of bubble liquid she’d found on the porch. Danielle and Peter both jumped to smack at the bubbles floating over them, and Jake grabbed the opportunity, kicking the ball past them into the makeshift goal they’d set up near the fence.
“Goal!” he shouted, holding his arms up in victory. “GOALLL!!!”
“Your little brother’s cute,” Tonya said.
“Oh, he’s a total character,” Becky told her, rolling her eyes. “For Halloween, he’s already decided he wants to be a ninja vampire cat. Who plays soccer. I know it’s still more than a month away, but he likes to plan things.”
Tonya giggled. “I guess he’ll need the time if he’s going to put all that together.”
“He’s got it all figured out,” Becky told her. She picked up the pencil she’d been using to sketch with earlier and pulled over a piece of paper. “See, the ninja mask goes over his face with the cat ears on top of his head. Vampire teeth, obviously, and fake blood coming from the corner of his mouth. Cat tail and a cape. And he’s carrying a soccer ball. Totally simple.”
Tonya inspected the sketch. “Oh, now it all makes sense. I’m sure every person who opens the door to him will be like, ‘Of course! A ninja cat vampire soccer player!’ I was always just a witch or someone for trick-or-treating, and now I realize I was missing out.”
“I know,” Becky said. “I spent three Halloweens in elementary school dressed as a pirate, when I could have been, say, an undead pirate cheerleader rock star.”
Next to Nate on the other side of the table, Robin was talking to Noah about the cheerleading squad. “Everyone knows that their coach lets the girls already on the team decide who gets to join,” she said. “If they want to get treated as a sports team, they have to act like all the other sports teams, which means whoever does best in tryouts makes the squad. It’s either a sport or a popularity contest, but it can’t be both.”
Her eyes were bright and intense with conviction behind her glasses: Anything Robin believed, she believed a hundred percent. She spread her opinions widely and often talked everyone else around to her point of view. It seemed pretty likely that the cheerleading tryouts would soon be run differently. Robin always knew everything and told everyone everything.
“Knowledge is power,” Becky had heard her say once. “And if everybody knows what you want them to know, you can change the world.” Becky wasn’t sure if Robin was the world’s biggest gossip or a total force for social justice.
Nate glanced toward Becky, just the barest flick of his brown eyes, but Becky wondered if he had read her mind, because he suddenly said to Robin, “Can you believe that everyone at school was teasing Becky because she lives next to the old McNally house?”
“Because of all the ghost stories?” Robin looked outraged. “That’s awful!”
Bear had been chasing the soccer ball the younger kids had kicked in the waning light. Suddenly, he lost his footing and crashed sidelong into the fence between Becky’s house and the McNally house.
“Bear!” Becky called, but he was on his feet again in a second, shaking himself. Then he froze, staring at the fence. His shoulders stiffened, and the fur along his back began to bristle.
“What’s wrong with Bear?” Jake asked. He and his friends had stopped moving, their game forgotten.
There was a low rumble of thunder, and Becky glanced up nervously at the sky. Black clouds had covered the sun, heavy and ominous, though it had been clear a moment before. Goose bumps rose on Becky’s arms.
Then they all heard what was upsetting Bear, though it was almost inaudible at first. A throaty, pained moan was coming from the other side of the fence. Gradually, it got louder and louder, becoming a deep, mournful howl.
Becky felt the hairs at the back of her neck prickle: The sound was almost unearthly, like nothing she’d ever heard before. It didn’t sound like a regular dog’s howl — it was much wilder, more frightening, and sadder.
Eventually, the sound died away, trembling and wavering, becoming a moan again, and finally fading.
As it stopped, Bear snapped out of whatever had been keeping him frozen and bolted across the lawn and up the porch steps. He dove under the table, knocking an empty chair over with a bang. A second later, Becky felt his head land in her lap. He was whimpering softly, and she rubbed his ears comfortingly, even though she felt sick herself. Something’s wrong, she thought anxiously. Something’s really wrong.
Thunder cracked again from the black clouds overhead, and Danielle Kolodny began to cry. Both she and her brother ran out of the yard, heading for their own house down the street.
“What was that?” Tonya asked after a second, wide-eyed.
“I have no idea,” Becky said helplessly. “Maybe another dog?” She didn’t think so, though, not really. But what else could it have been?
Noah snorted. “A werewolf, maybe.”
“I’m going to head home,” Tonya said, and there was a little tremor in her voice. “It’s getting late, anyway. Thanks for dinner, Becky.” She got to her feet.
“I’ll come with you,” Noah said, and Robin got up, too.
A minute later, all three were heading down the street, away from the McNally house. Noah and Tonya were whispering to each other, their heads together, and Becky saw Robin pull out her cell phone, no doubt ready to spread the story all over school.
As they headed back to their normal houses on their normal street, Becky found herself wishing she could go with them.
“Mom, you don’t understand,” Becky said, as her parents did the dishes. “It wasn’t just a regular noise.” At the table, Jake nodded, his face solemn. They’d been trying to tell their parents about the eerie howl that had come out of the McNally yard, but with one look at her mother’s skeptical face Becky knew they hadn’t been able to get across how very scary it had been. The kitchen was warm and brightly lit, so normal and safe that it was hard to explain just how wrong everything had felt outside.
“It was probably a stray cat in the yard next door,” her mother said reasonably. “Let’s keep an eye out, and if we see it, we can try to catch it and take it to the animal shelter.”
“Bear was really scare
d, too,” Jake said, his face stubborn. “He wouldn’t be scared of a stray cat.”
Their father’s eyebrows rose. “Wait, Bear was there? What was Bear doing when the noise started?”
“He wasn’t doing anything!” Becky said, feeling defensive. She folded her arms across her chest. Her parents exchanged a glance. She should have known that they would find a way to make this all about Bear.
“Honey,” her mother said firmly, setting down a mug, “we know you love Bear, but he needs to stay off the neighbors’ property. And that includes the empty house next door. If he’s scaring stray animals over there, he could get hurt.”
“Mom,” Becky said indignantly, “Bear wasn’t even over there. He was with us in the yard. He didn’t do anything. Whatever it was just howled at him for no reason. And you didn’t hear this noise. It wasn’t any stray cat. It was, like, a banshee or something.” She was breathing hard, and she realized as she said it that it was true: The sound felt too eerie to have been made by anything natural.
Her parents stared at her. Then her dad gave a little huffing sigh. “You can’t just make up ridiculous stories to cover up Bear’s bad behavior,” he said.
Becky blinked hard and looked away from her parents. She stared instead at the big poster of different kinds of peppers that her mom had hung over the table, trying to will back tears. They were being so unfair. “Listen,” she said, working to keep her voice reasonable, “you don’t know all the stuff I’ve heard about the house next door. Everyone says it’s haunted. Or that a mad scientist lived there, or … different things …”
The corners of her dad’s mouth twitched as if he was stopping himself from laughing, and Becky wanted to scream.
“There’s something weird about that house,” she told them. “Why do you think it’s been empty for so long?”
“The house next door is haunted?” Jake asked. He broke into a huge grin. “That’s amazing!”
Becky’s mom set down the sponge and turned around. “Of course it’s not haunted, Jake. Becky, don’t try to scare your brother. The house is empty because old Mrs. McNally lives in assisted living now, but she doesn’t want to sell it or rent it out,” she said matter-of-factly.