We’re allowed to walk to the Country Store all by ourselves. It’s an old, dusty store, so old that it still has horse hitches out front! Not only that, but people still actually hitch their horses up there. Only now they aren’t cowboys — they’re girls. Lots of girls are into horses out here. They ride horses, talk about horses, and draw horses. I don’t like horses that much. I can draw a lot of things, but I cannot draw horses.
At the Country Store, we go straight to the candy racks. We look at every single piece of candy and pick the ones with the best wrappers: tons of Jolly Ranchers, Dubble Bubble, Laffy Taffy, Smarties, Starbursts, and other good stuff.
When we get home, we go into my room with some tape and scissors and get to work unwrapping the candy. Mom brings us a bowl and tells us to put the unwrapped candy into it, and says that we can only have three pieces each.
“One for the bowl, one for me,” Darby says, popping some Laffy Taffy into her mouth as soon as Mom walks away. Then she pops in another one and another one and another one. I look at her.
“Hey! What about our Rizzlerunk pledge?” I remind her. “‘Loyalty and honesty for all.’ You invented it!”
“It’s a two-person club!” she says, smiling with purple teeth. “We only need to be honest with each other. Get it? Anyway, your mom didn’t count the candy, so how will she know?”
Even though Darby is eating the whole time, the bowl still fills up with unwrapped pieces. There’s no way she can eat it all. We put all our wrappers into a pile on the bed, like a Mount Everest of candy wrappers. We start cutting and taping and folding and twisting and make these totally cool Rizzlerunk Club bracelets. They even have charms on them! And they say Smarties right on the top, which makes them extra cool.
I put mine on and hold up my arm. “We can never take them off.”
“Right,” says Darby. “Not even for a bath!”
She holds up her wrist with the bracelet on it. “To Rizzlerunks,” she says. “Best buds under frogs!”
Dad calls us for dinner.
“That’s what you made with all those wrappers?” Mom asks me, looking at my bracelet.
“Well, there are a lot left,” I tell her.
“Is there candy left?” Abby asks.
“A whole bowl,” I say, proud of myself for only eating three pieces. “You can have some — if Darby says it’s okay.”
I look at Darby, and she just nods yes. Her lips are blue from Jolly Ranchers, and she doesn’t eat any dinner. When we’re all done, Mom puts a little piece of Darby’s chicken on the floor for Snort, but Snort doesn’t come.
“Where’s Snort?” Dad asks. We all start calling her, but she still doesn’t come. I go downstairs to look for her and hear whimpering coming from my bedroom.
“Snort, what’s wrong?” I yell down the hall, but as soon as I walk into my room, I see. The candy is almost gone. The rest is spilled out of the bowl all over my bed. It seems like she’s whimpering because she feels sick, but then I notice her swinging her nose from side to side and scratching her mouth with her paw.
“Dad!” I call. “Something’s wrong with Snort’s mouth!” Everyone comes running.
Dad pulls up Snort’s lip and shows us her teeth. Her jaw is stuck together with a green Jolly Rancher. So Dad and Mom carry her upstairs to their bathroom and get to work being a dentist and hygienist. Dad holds Snort and keeps her lips off her teeth while Mom uses one of those pokey metal dental tools to chip away at the candy.
“Good thing you didn’t buy chocolate,” Dad tells us. “Or Snort might be going to pig-dog heaven.”
After Mom and Dad get her mouth unstuck, Mom spends the next half hour brushing Snort’s teeth.
“These bracelets sure take a lot of work!” Darby says to Mom. Mom just looks at us and doesn’t say anything.
On Monday, Darby and I both wear our candy-wrapper bracelets to school. When we take off our coats in the coatroom, Gabriella immediately spots them. She walks straight over to me and grabs my wrist like she’s my best friend.
“Those are so cool!” she tells us. “I want one!”
“We made them for our club,” Darby says. “They’re our uniforms.”
“What club?” she asks. “You can’t have a club!”
“Yes, we can,” says Darby.
“Well, I want to be in it, then,” she says.
“You can’t be in two clubs at once, Gabriella,” Darby tells her.
“Fine,” Gabriella says. “I was just joking. I wouldn’t want to be in your club anyway. What kind of stupid club wears garbage bracelets for a uniform?”
She sticks out her tongue at Darby, then goes to her desk.
The next day, Gabriella and the other Jilly Beans are wearing bracelets just like ours. And by Friday, everyone’s wearing candy-wrapper bracelets — even the boys. Mikey was wearing one when he was on SHTV this morning as the Mystery Kid of the Week! And worst of all, everyone is calling them “Gabbys,” like she invented them! Darby and I sit in our invisible clubhouse feeling invisible. We take off our Gabbys and put them in our pockets.
“I think we should have invisible uniforms,” says Darby. “That way no one can copy them.”
“Yeah, I hate copycats,” I say.
“Yeah, I hate copycats,” Darby repeats.
The two kids on SHTV lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance, then read the news. Today one of the kids has a booger hanging from his nose. It’s green. It’s so big, I’m surprised that it’s not acting like a green screen and I can’t see the background through his face! I’m distracted by the booger, but then I hear what he’s saying.
“This week’s Mystery Kid of the Week,” he announces, “just started at Sunny Hills at the beginning of this year and made a splash on the playground her first day. She’s in fourth grade, has brown hair and brown eyes, loves to draw, and has a sister in first grade.”
Darby looks at me and smiles. Oh, no.
“I don’t want to be the Mystery Kid of the Week,” I whisper. “I don’t want to have to go on SHTV on Friday!”
“You’re so lucky!” Darby says. “It’ll be fun!”
Mrs. Larson tells us to be quiet. I spend the rest of my day worrying about being on SHTV. I’m so worried, I don’t even think about the fact that I’m going to the Dorski Haunted Zoo again after school. But I’m not that scared this time anyway.
“We should take a bunch more frogs to your end of the lake,” Darby says on the bus after school. “Like, fifty frogs. That way, there’s no way they’ll all leave. Even if your end of the lake is haunted by a giant bullfrog ghost.”
“It’s not a ghost, Darby!”
“It is too!” she says. “I can feel it! I have my dad’s sense for feeling ghosts. He says all of us kids do. But Mom doesn’t. She even told me that she thinks my dad’s wasting time on his book. But I don’t. People need to know about ghosts!”
We get off the bus and sprint through the rain to Darby’s house. We eat some Pop-Tarts, then put on raincoats and rubber boots and head to the lake. Darby steers us clear of the pump house, and that’s fine with me. I don’t ever want to go near that again. I don’t care if Captain Rizzlerunk isn’t real. The place just freaks me out.
We decide to take the rowboat this time, since it’s windy. Darby gets the oars, and we put on life jackets and hop into the boat. She rows us to the swamp. There are plenty of frogs around. They must like the rain. I don’t think we’ll have any trouble finding fifty of them. We start gathering them up and putting them in the boat.
“This is taking a long time, and it’s kind of wet,” I say, shivering.
“We’re almost there!” Darby says. “Let’s count them. One, two, three . . .”
The frogs are hopping all over the bottom of the boat. There’s no way we can count them.
“Forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty!” I say. “Close enough, anyway. Let’s go to my house. It’s cold out here.”
Darby rows against the current. We’re making progress, but it’s s
low. The waves are big, so we pretend we’re sailors out in a storm. Darby’s dad is a sailor, so she’s pretty good at it.
“Argh! Look to the leeward! Come about! Come about! Pull in the main sheet! Watch the jib!”
“Aye, aye, Captain!” I yell.
“Lean starboard! Lean port!”
“Aye, aye, Captain!”
The boat rocks dangerously. Darby’s getting tired, so I take over the oars, but the wind is getting stronger, and I’m not getting anywhere. We’re close to Darby’s dad’s cabin.
“Let’s go see my dad!” Darby says.
Thinking of the haunted cabin makes me row harder, but the wind is blowing us closer to shore. Darby takes over the oars and steers us to the dock. It almost looks like night outside, the clouds are such a dark gray. It definitely looks like night in Darby’s dad’s yard.
“Why d-don’t you j-just go in the c-c-cabin by y-yourself?” I say, shivering.
“You’re freezing, Lily,” Darby says. “You need to come in. Don’t be scared. I’ve been here before. My dad works here alone all day, so it must be okay.”
From the lawn, the cabin face looks especially evil. We walk up some steps to a deck. Some of the boards are broken, and Darby steps over them carefully.
I follow her step by step to the door. She touches the door, and it mysteriously creaks open.
“Dad?” she yells. “Daaaad!”
There’s no answer.
“Maybe he’s not here,” she tells me, “but it’s okay to come in and warm up. Come on.” I step in through the door. The wind blows it shut behind me and it slams — BOOM! Darby and I both scream.
“Darby, I’m scared!” I tell her.
“It’s fine,” she says.
She takes off her life jacket and coat and lays them over the old couch. I lay mine down, too. There’s a desk in the middle of the small room with an actual typewriter on it.
“Look at this!” Darby says. “It’s Dad’s book. This must be a new chapter!” Darby starts reading.
“‘Chapter Twelve: The Claws — rough summary. Minnesota, 1986. Patty Jameson, eight years old, was reading quietly on the couch, listening to an angry storm. Her father, Joe, was looking for a flashlight, opening drawers, slamming them shut, cursing that they weren’t prepared. Her mother, Dianne, was running water into the kettle to make hot chocolate for Patty. Suddenly — CRASH — the lights flickered, then went out. Patty lay in total darkness; complete silence. She called in vain for her mother and father, too afraid to move. Then the noise began: a quiet scratching on the floor near the couch. She called out, “Daddy? Mommy?” but was answered only with scratching. The sound was getting louder, closer to her, when suddenly . . .’
“That’s all he’s written,” Darby says.
“But what happens?” I say. “I need to know!”
“She probably died,” Darby says. “Someone usually dies.”
“I need the bathroom,” I say. “Will you come with me?”
“I’m not staying out here alone!” says Darby.
Darby and I go into a small bathroom with one lightbulb, a dirty toilet, and an old bathtub. She shuts the door.
“Doesn’t your dad get scared in here by himself, writing about ghosts all day?” I ask as I sit down on the toilet.
“He told me that being scared inspires him,” Darby says.
“I’d be so scared here, I’d be peeing my pants all day instead of writing,” I say. We both start cracking up.
Suddenly we hear a faint noise outside the door. It’s a scratching sound! “Shh!” Darby whispers. “Did you hear that?”
There’s another scratching sound. It’s on the door.
“Hide!” Darby says in a loud whisper. She turns off the lights, and we jump into the bathtub and huddle together. We hear another, longer sound, like claws scratching from the top of the door to the bottom.
“I’m so scared!” I squeak.
“Shh!” Darby warns.
For a moment, it’s totally quiet. Then we hear another scratch. The door handle shakes — then turns! We hear another long, loud scratch — and the door bursts open!
Darby and I both scream. The lights go on. “Daddy!” Darby says. “You’re so mean!”
I look at her and she’s smiling. I’m still shaking.
“Sorry, Darby.” He giggles; the bathroom lightbulb sparkles in his eyes. “When I saw the boat, I knew you were here and I just couldn’t resist! Hey! Is this Lily?”
“Hi,” I say.
“Lily, this is my dad, Doug,” says Darby.
“Do you two want some hot chocolate?” he asks us.
He heats up milk on the tiny stove and makes us some cocoa with marshmallows and everything. I guess I thought he would be scary and weird since he’s a writer, but actually he’s really funny and nice, even though he looks a little like a Sasquatch.
Darby tells him about the frogs in the boat, and how we were taking them to my house when it got too stormy.
“I can tow you over with the motorboat,” he suggests.
We put on our raincoats and life jackets and head back outside into the wind. The frogs are still in the boat, sitting in a half inch of rainwater.
Darby and her dad work together to tie our boat to the back of his. He can tie knots even faster than Darby!
“Can we go in our boat, with the frogs?” Darby asks.
“Of course!” Doug says.
We step into our boat with the hopping frogs, and Doug starts the engine and tows us from the dock. We splash down over the waves, which are now whitecaps. Darby and I bounce and laugh every time the boat goes over a wave. We pass by Jill’s house and look into her yard. There’s a small person in a black raincoat standing on the dock. The hood is up and it looks like the person has no face. Darby grabs my arm.
“Lily! It’s . . . it’s the Ghost of Jill!”
“That is not the Ghost of Jill, Darby!” I say, squinting through the rain.
“It’s Jill’s raincoat!” Darby says. “And she took it to London with her. I helped her pack it.”
“Maybe someone with the same coat moved into her house,” I suggest.
“JILL!” Darby calls, but it’s too stormy for the person to hear us.
“Dad!” Darby shouts. “It’s Jill, over there on her dock!”
Her dad can’t hear us in the wind, either, and keeps motoring along.
We watch as the small person turns and slowly walks off the dock, then completely disappears into the fog and rain.
“That just proves ghosts are real!” Darby says.
“It wasn’t a ghost, Darby. It was just a person,” I say.
But I’m not so sure; I saw it, too, and I saw it disappear.
Doug unties the rowboat at our dock and helps us tie it up. Darby tells him about seeing the Ghost of Jill. He smiles and winks at us.
“Sounds like a good ghost story!” he says. “You should write a book.” He gets back into his boat and starts up his motor.
“Better get back before the thunder and lightning start. Bye, honey!” He waves as he drives away. “Bye, Lily, see you again soon!”
“Let’s get the frogs out of the boat,” I say.
We get a bucket and start putting the frogs into it, then releasing them along the shore. It takes several trips to get them all.
“They won’t want to leave your house now,” Darby says. “Not in this storm!”
Suddenly, the wind stops. It’s weirdly quiet. Then we hear a croak — a very loud croak.
MWAARP!
There’s a big splash near the opposite shore — as big as if Snort had jumped into the lake.
“The bullfrog!” I say.
“You mean the ghost frog!” says Darby.
Plunk! Plunk! Plunk! One by one, our fifty frogs start hopping into the water and swimming toward Darby’s end of the lake. Darby and I turn and run toward my house, away from all of the ghosts.
The next morning in the coatroom, Darby won’t stop talki
ng about the Ghost of Jill.
“You saw her, right, Lily?”
“I think so,” I say, “but it was so rainy, it was hard to see. Maybe we were imagining it.”
“No,” Darby says, “we wouldn’t have imagined the exact same thing! It was the Ghost of Jill — I know it was!”
We turn around to go into class, and there it is — standing outside the window, looking in at us, in the same raincoat, rain pouring down.
“The . . . the G-Ghost of Jill!” Darby yells. “Do you see it?”
“I see it!” I say. “Weird!”
The ghost slowly reaches its hand out, then swings open the door. “Daaarbeeeee!” she says.
Darby turns and runs into the classroom, and I’m left staring at the Ghost of Jill. It looks right past me.
“Darby!” it says again. “It’s me! I’m back from London!”
I follow it into our classroom. Darby is at her desk with her arms over her head. Mrs. Larson is working on something. Then she stops, looks up, and smiles.
“Jill!” she says. “It’s so nice to see you back here at Sunny Hills!” Then I realize it’s not the Ghost of Jill. It is Jill!
I tap Darby on the back, but she won’t raise her head. The rest of the class is coming in, and everyone is gathering around Jill. I guess no one knew she was coming back except Mrs. Larson.
“Darby,” I say into her ear, “it’s not the Ghost of Jill — it is Jill! She’s back. Darby!”
Darby finally looks up. Jill smiles at her and waves.
With a strong British accent, she says, “’Ello, Darby! I haven’t seen you in ages!”
“Jill?”
Jill smiles at her, then turns and goes into the coatroom to hang up her wet raincoat. When she walks back into the classroom, it’s like the photo I saw come to life: perfect blond pigtails, navy blue school uniform and all.
With her accent, Jill says, “It would be brilliant if I could sit by Darby, Mrs. Larson.”
The Rizzlerunk Club Page 5