“Lily, this is an excellent poem. I love how you tell me about your emotions. Living inside a shell would be quite lonely, though, don’t you think? I’d like to help you come out of your shell more in class!”
To help me come out of my shell, Mrs. Larson calls on me three times before the last bell.
I guess Darby is growing on me.
For one thing, she saved a seat for me every day at lunch for the last two weeks, and I actually liked sitting by her. Plus, I like talking to her, because she tells so many funny stories that make everyone laugh, so now I feel a little bit less shy around everyone. And even though Darby keeps offering me quackers and cheese, I don’t care anymore. Now I don’t even know why I was so upset about the quacking thing in the first place. I mean, it was pretty creative — and I’m creative, too. So we have that in common.
Best of all, today is Saturday and she’s coming over to my house for the second time! We’ve decided that we’re Insta-Friends. We’re thinking that we can sell Insta-Friends boxes on the Internet with nothing in them and get rich!
Darby arrives in her pedal boat, which is about the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. It’s a boat that has bike pedals to make it go! I come down to the lake and meet her on our dock to tie up the boat. I start winding up the rope around the cleat on the dock, but I can’t remember how to do it, so Darby shows me. She says it’s called a cleat hitch, and she’s been tying them since she was zero years old.
She ties it one-handed. In her other hand, she has a brown lunch sack — and it’s moving.
“What is that?” I ask.
“I brought you a moving-in present,” she tells me. “Look!” She holds open the bag and I look inside.
“Pick it up!” she says.
“Is it safe to touch it?” I ask.
“Of course! Haven’t you caught a frog before?”
I reach in the bag and cup it in my hands. It squirms around, tickling me. It’s kind of dry feeling, not slimy like I expected.
“It’s cute!” I say.
“I know. I love frogs,” Darby says. “I named her Rizzlerunk.”
“Rizzle what?” I ask.
“Rizzlerunk! She’s named after Captain Rizzlerunk. He was the captain of a ship that sunk in the middle of the lake during a huge storm, like a hundred years ago,” she tells me.
“What?”
“Captain Rizzlerunk! He crashed his ship into an island that used to be in the middle of the lake. He hit it so hard that it knocked the top off the island! The top of the island floated to the shore at Pine Lake Park.”
“The island floated?” I ask.
“Yeah. You can still see it at the beach there!”
“Darby, islands don’t float,” I say. “They’re the tips of mountains connected to the bottom of the ocean.”
“This isn’t an ocean,” she says. “It’s a lake! You sound like you don’t believe me, Lily, but it’s true. I know because it’s one of the ghost stories that my dad is writing about in his book.”
“His true ghost story book?” I ask, a little bit sarcastically. “My dad says ghost stories can be explained by science.”
“So . . . you’re a skeptic,” Darby says. “Maybe science can explain ghosts, but there’s no proof that ghosts don’t exist. Come over to my house soon, and I’ll show you some stuff that will convince you!”
“Okay.”
I cross my fingers behind my back.
“I wish my dad was a writer,” I say. “I’d probably be able to eat a lot more candy.”
“That’s true,” Darby says. “But sometimes I’d rather have a dentist dad than a writer dad. My dad’s been working on his book forever — like before I was even born! He’s not very fun to be around when he’s writing. Now he bought a cabin on the lake, away from our house, so he has somewhere quiet to go and work. I don’t know why he had four kids if he wanted quiet!”
“Four kids?” I ask her.
“Yep,” she says. “We call it the Dorski Zoo.”
“Cool,” I say. “It sounds fun.”
“It’s fun,” says Darby, “but I wouldn’t mind having my own room, like you do. Come on, let’s build Rizzlerunk a house so she can have a room! I’m a pro at building frog houses.”
I follow Darby while she collects building materials from our bushes. Then we sit down next to the lake.
“Are you glad you moved here?” she asks me, breaking a stick in half.
“Kinda,” I say, “but I wish I could live in two places at once. I miss my old room and my old neighborhood and my old friends — especially my best friend, Mary.”
“Oh, I know how that feels,” Darby says. “I miss my best friend, Jill, too. We were best friends since kindergarten.”
“What happened to Jill?” I ask.
“She moved to London last year because of her mom’s job.”
“That’s sad.”
“Yeah,” Darby agrees. “But if Jill were still here, you might not be my friend. So maybe it’s not so bad.”
“You mean she wouldn’t like me?” I ask.
“No, she’d like you,” she says. “But — well — it’s hard to explain. Everything would just be different.”
“Not to be mean or anything,” I say, “but I’m kind of glad that Jill moved.”
“That is mean!”
Darby smiles and puts the last leaf on the roof of the tiny frog house.
“There! Now Rizzlerunk has a brand-new house, just like you! Only yours is a little bit bigger.”
We put Rizzlerunk into her house. She sits for a minute, then hops away. We try to catch her, but she leaps into the lake and starts swimming back toward Darby’s end, and neither of us wants to get our shoes wet.
“I hope she comes back,” Darby says.
“I guess she misses her old house,” I say.
I know how that feels.
I can’t believe this. I’m going to Darby’s haunted house! Mom didn’t even ask me first. She just needed somewhere for me to go after school while she went to an appointment, so she called Darby’s mom and arranged it. Now I have to go.
“Darby,” I say when I see her at school in the morning, “you said your house is a zoo, right?”
“Yep,” she says. “The Dorski Zoo!”
Good. I imagine her house filled with zoo animals, instead of ghosts, but I’m still scared. For the first time since we moved here, I don’t want school to end!
It ends.
I follow Darby to her bus (this time on purpose). We sit together near the back. To take my mind off where we’re headed, I unzip my backpack and get some pens and paper out so we can draw.
“Want to play heads and bodies?” I ask Darby. “Abby and I play all the time. I’ll draw the head, but you have to look away. No peeking. Then I’ll fold it over so all you can see is the neck, and you draw the body. When we unfold it, we see what we get.”
I draw a weird man’s head, then fold it over and hand it to Darby. I look out the window at the passing trees while she draws. When she’s done, we unfold the paper and look at it.
“Lily!” Darby says, looking terrified. “This is the ghost of Captain Rizzlerunk! After his ship sunk, he turned into . . . into . . . this!”
“Very funny,” I say.
“It’s true! And one night he came out of the lake and crawled to the old pump house in our yard. He left a trail of dead grass — and it’s still dead! We think he lives in the pump house. My brothers and sister and I won’t go anywhere near it.”
I know — well, I think — she’s making this up, but it still creeps me out. The bus squeaks to a stop.
“Let’s go!” Darby says, grabbing my hand.
The girl who gets off the bus ahead of us looks like a mini Darby, but with frizzy hair — same glasses and everything. She runs ahead, spinning around in circles like a tornado.
“That’s my sister, Katy,” Darby tells me. “She’s in second grade. Do you think she’ll spin fast enough to fly away like a helico
pter?”
We walk down a long driveway to a really old-looking house. Darby opens the door and steps inside. I stop and look around before I follow her. The house is covered in peeling white paint and lots of cobwebs. It does look haunted. I peek inside. It’s dark, but I hear someone singing and dishes clanking, which are normal sounds. I hold my breath for good luck and step inside. There’s a bigger version of Darby at the sink — with the same glasses! — doing dishes.
“Mom!” Darby says. “This is Lily, who I told you about!”
“Hi, Lily Who I Told You About!” says her mom, wiping her hands.
“Hi,” I say, feeling shy.
I hate meeting new people. I never know what to say to them. But her mom starts talking.
“I’m so happy to meet you, Lily!” she says. “We’re all thrilled that Darby’s been spending time with you.”
“Yeah!” says Katy. “You — and not Jill. Darby’s a lot nicer now.”
“Dawby nicew!” says a baby voice behind me.
I turn around and there’s a miniature version of Katy and Darby and her mom. Same glasses! They must have been on sale or something.
“This is my brother Deke,” Darby says. “He just turned three.”
“Deke twee!” says Deke.
“Deke, this is Lily,” says Darby.
“Hi, Weewee!” says Deke.
Everyone starts laughing. Then Darby opens a cupboard and gets out a box of Pop-Tarts. I can’t believe it. Pop-Tarts! Mom would never buy those! We sit down in front of the TV next to Katy and Deke with our snack. This house is so much more fun than mine.
“You get to watch TV on weekdays? You are so lucky!” I say, feeling sorry for myself.
“We don’t have as many rules since Daddy moved out!” Katy says.
“Your dad moved?” I ask Darby.
“Mm-hm,” she says. “He moved into the writing cabin I was telling you about — just till he finishes his book.”
“It’s a haunted writing cabin!” says Katy.
“Scaaawy cabin!” says Deke.
I’m not surprised by that.
“C’mon, I’ll show you my room,” Darby says, pulling me off the couch.
I follow her up a creaky wooden staircase into the bedroom she shares with Katy. She kneels down by her bed and opens a small door to a dusty, dark space filled with boxes. There’s a spiderweb inside with a spider in the middle of it.
“That’s Charlie,” Darby says. “My pet spider! Creepy, huh?”
Creepy, I think, but not a ghost!
We sit on her bed, and I look at a bulletin board on the wall, covered in photos of a blond girl. Darby’s in some of the pictures; others look like school portraits. In one portrait, the girl has perfect curly ponytails and is wearing a dark blue sweater with a logo on it, a white button-down shirt — and a necktie!
“Why is that girl in a necktie?” I ask.
“That’s Jill!” Darby says. “That’s her school picture from London. They all wear uniforms; that’s why she’s dressed like Harry Potter.”
Jill looks like one of those perfect girls who never get dirty. “Do you write to each other?” I ask.
“No, she sent me that photo, but it took forever to get here, and I sort of forgot to write back.”
“Sort of forgot?” I ask.
“Well, I guess I didn’t want to. I mean, I was sad when she left. I was . . . but now I’m kind of glad. And I get into a lot less trouble.”
“Is that why your sister says you’re nicer since Jill left?” I ask.
“Yeah. Jill just made me do not-nice stuff.”
“Made you?” I ask.
“Well, she didn’t make me. It’s just — she’d come up with lots of ideas. She made them seem like tons of fun, but they usually turned out to be bad.”
“I swear, sometimes she still makes me do naughty things,” Darby says. “Like the Ghost of Jill lives in my head.”
“She’s haunting you from London!” I say.
“Speaking of haunting,” she says, pulling me up from the bed, “I’ll show you my parents’ room.”
I imagine bloody red footprints on the ceiling and I get a shiver. But when she opens the door, it just looks like any parents’ room. It’s all red, but it’s more like brick red than blood red.
“Where are the footprints?” I ask her.
“Under the paint,” she says. “My parents weren’t going to leave them there! Duh!”
I look at her. She must be making this stuff up.
“Now I’ll take you somewhere even creepier — if you dare.”
“Okay. Fine,” I say.
I’m feeling braver. So far this house seems more zoo-like than haunted.
We run outside, across the lawn to a little white shed. The wood looks old and rotten, and the window is cracked. An open rusty padlock hangs on the door. She pushes the door open, and we stumble inside. It’s crowded with stuff.
“Check this out,” Darby says, pointing to a portrait of a woman. “We call her the Babysitter because she watches you wherever you go. Keep looking at her and walk over there.”
I move to the opposite corner of the shed. She is still looking right at me.
“My dad said it was a girl who lived here a long time ago, and she died in this shed! He told me that her bones are inside a big, rusty toolbox.”
I look down at my feet.
I scream, running back to Darby, the Babysitter’s eyes still watching me. All of a sudden it’s dark.
The window is blocked by something. Darby pushes at the door, but it won’t budge. We hear a scratching sound.
“A ghost!” Darby says.
She sounds really scared! Suddenly, the door flies open.
A WEREWOLF!
We both scream. I run out the door, past the werewolf, away from the shed, down the lawn toward the lake. There’s another tiny shed near the water. I hide behind it. Where’s Darby? I look around.
Then I notice it. A trail of dead grass, starting at the shore of the lake and coming right up to me. OH, NO! Captain Rizzlerunk! I’m hiding behind the pump house!
I’m frozen behind the pump house. I swear I hear something moving inside. It must be the ghost of Captain Rizzlerunk! I try to get up, but I’m too scared to move. I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared — ever!
“Lily! WHERE ARE YOU?” Darby is calling me. I’ve never felt so relieved. She comes sprinting around the side of the pump house.
“WEREWOLF! Behind me!” she yells. “RUN!”
I stand up and sprint behind Darby along the path of dead grass. It leads from the pump house to the lake, just like Darby told me! We run onto the dock and leap into the pedal boat. Darby unties us and pushes off.
“RAAARGH!” The werewolf comes to the edge of the dock.
We both scream again. Then the werewolf rips off his mask.
“You jerk, Kyle,” yells Darby. “It’s my stupid brother!” she tells me.
He looks exactly like Darby but taller — same glasses!
“Gotcha!” he says, smiling and waving.
Darby sticks out her tongue at him.
“You weren’t lying!” I say as we pedal away from the dock. “Your house is like a zoo — and a haunted house. It’s a Haunted Zoo!”
“I told you,” she says.
“Your whole family looks alike, and you all have matching glasses!”
“Yeah. They were on sale.”
Darby reaches into a beat-up old cooler that’s tied to the back of the pedal boat and pulls out some life jackets.
“Safety first!” she says, like a super-excited park ranger.
We put them on, then she starts pedaling toward a swampy cove filled with lily pads and cattails. There are a few ducks swimming along the edge of the lily pads, but when we pedal toward them, they flap their wings and skim across the water until they’re far away.
“Heeeeere, duck, duck, duck! Heeeeere, duck, duck!” I call them, like Mom does.
“Quack, qu
ack, Kwakiutl,” yells Darby.
“Very funny.”
I reach up and pet a cattail. It’s shaped like a hot dog but feels fuzzy, like it’s made of brown felt. Darby picks one and breaks it in half. It’s white and cottony on the inside. I look down the long stems of the lily pads. They’re like cords that go straight down to the bottom of the lake and plug into the muck. Our boat cuts a path through them.
Suddenly, I spot a little greenish-brown lump on one of the leaves. “Hey, there’s a frog!” I say.
Darby pedals toward it, and I reach down and grab it. I pet its back. “I think it’s Rizzlerunk!” I tell her.
I hand it to Darby.
“I think you’re right! Let’s bring her back to your house! Only this time we should bring friends, too. Maybe if she doesn’t feel lonely, she won’t swim away.”
We collect four more frogs and put them in a bucket that Darby keeps on the boat. There are so many frogs that it’s easy to find them once we know what we’re looking for. Kyle is still sitting on the dock, so Darby yells to him.
“Tell Mom we’re going to Lily’s house!”
“Did he hear you?” I ask.
Darby shrugs. Her house really isn’t very strict! I figure Mom’s home by now, so we start pedaling back to my end of the lake.
About halfway to my house, Darby points toward an old cabin. It’s tiny, with just two windows and one door. It looks exactly like a face. A scary face. The yard is overgrown with trees and blackberry bushes, so it looks dark even in the daylight.
“That’s my dad’s cabin!” Darby says. “That’s where he’s staying while he finishes his book!”
“It does look haunted!” I say, promising myself never to go there.
“Want to go see if he’s there?” she asks me.
“I don’t think we should leave the frogs in the boat,” I say.
Darby points toward the shore again, this time to a humongous house a little farther down the lake.
The Rizzlerunk Club Page 3