The Secret of Grim Hill

by Linda DeMeulemeester

  All the hairs stood up on the back of my neck. I really needed to keep a closer eye on my sister. That goth girl was a bit too creepy, and I wanted Sookie to stay away from her.

  “Don’t go off talking with anyone unless you check with me first,” I warned her. Sookie got her stubborn look. “Cindy told me she never comes out to talk to people. But I look a lot like her sister, so the first time we met, she’d come to see if I was her.” Sookie smiled. “Now she visits me almost every time I’m up here. She likes me. I’ll ask her more questions about the school if you want.”

  “Don’t ask her anything without me,” I demanded. I should have said it a lot louder, but then Emily from the Ghosts stumbled and made a horrible shot.

  If the Ghosts kept playing like this, we were sure to win the scholarship.

  As long as nothing else interfered with our practices.

  CHAPTER 8 A Sinister Warning

  AS THE NEXT weeks flew by, I couldn’t get enough of soccer. So when the coach scheduled an extra practice early Saturday morning, I woke up with lots of energy, eager to get on the field. I’d been having the same dream every night about winning the match and getting the coveted scholarship to Grimoire School.

  After I dressed, I slipped on my shin pads, socks, and my totally cool soccer boots. They felt squishy and soft. My game had improved even more because of them.

  Mom and Sookie were still asleep when I made my way to the kitchen, which was a first for me. After I’d finished a bowl of cereal and was about to leave, Mom came downstairs rubbing her eyes and yawning – but she was dressed in a skirt and sweater instead of her Saturday jeans.

  “I’ve been called into work today, so you’ll need to take care of Sookie,” Mom said.

  The red kitchen clock above the sink said quarter to eight. Sookie was a slowpoke, so I’d never get to practice in time.

  “But I’ll be late.” Worry crept into my voice as I pictured the coach’s eyes, as gray and cold as a gravestone. My skin prickled with goose bumps.

  “Sorry. I didn’t know you had to get to practice so early or I’d have mentioned it last night.” Mom grabbed her purse and left quickly out the front door. I scrambled upstairs – this wasn’t going to be easy.

  Just as I thought, I had to drag Sookie kicking and screaming out from under her patchwork quilt.

  “You can pick out any movie you want for tonight.” I never let her choose, but I’d promise her anything and everything if she’d hurry right now.

  “No.” She wasn’t even tempted.

  “You can wear whatever you want from my closet.” That was hard for me to offer, but she didn’t care. She just shook her head.

  “Do you want cookies for breakfast? What about three extra dollars from my allowance,” I bargained, but nothing worked.

  “It’s cold outside and I want to watch cartoons. I don’t want to go!” Sookie hollered. “You can’t make me.”

  “If you don’t get up, I won’t ever play cards or Monopoly with you again.” Okay, I’m not proud, but I threatened her. “And if you don’t hurry, I’m never inviting Jasper here again.”

  I expected her to say she’d tell Mom. She didn’t. Instead her eyes got kind of watery, but then she pulled on her jacket over her pajama top. She tugged on a pair of jogging pants that she dug out of her clothes hamper. She didn’t even ask me to help her brush her hair. For a few short moments, Sookie was eerily silent, and I almost believed she had become more cooperative – until, that is, she came out of the house behind me, slamming the door so loud it echoed down the street.

  Sookie sullenly trudged up Grim Hill next to me. Her angry breaths turned to white puffs in the chilly morning air. It was as if she had steam coming out of her nose and mouth. As she crunched dry cornflakes that I’d dumped in a plastic cup for her breakfast, I heard her sniff a lot.

  I don’t know what got into me, but I snapped. “Don’t be such a baby and hurry up!” Honestly, if I wasn’t afraid to be late, I would have never been so mean to her. The guilt twisted in my stomach. Maybe I’d take her with me to meet Jasper this afternoon. He’d been bugging me again lately, saying that we had to talk about the journal. My stomach tightened another notch because I’d gone out of my way to avoid him, making sure I ducked out of school early with Mia and Amarjeet before the last school bell. I didn’t have time for anything but soccer – didn’t he and Sookie get that?

  My guilt didn’t evaporate. Fine. I’d blow the last of my allowance on pizza for us. Maybe we could go to a park. It was about time Sookie made some friends her own age – not that she ever had time to socialize. She was always stuck coming to soccer with me.

  Despite bullying Sookie, I was still fifteen minutes late for practice. She sat in a miserable heap on the bleachers while I ran off to do laps and catch up with Amarjeet and Mia.

  “Did you hear about Emily, the girl on the Ghosts?” asked Amarjeet. “Her dad didn’t want her to play in the soccer practices on the weekend when she was supposed to be visiting him. Well, he suddenly got transferred up north, and now her parents are having a big custody battle. Emily’s not allowed any more visits with him.”

  The three of us looked at each other, but this time we didn’t laugh. Instead we said nervously, “Well, at least she can play soccer.”

  As I ran around the field, I thought about Emily and her dad, Amarjeet’s smoldering school, and Mia’s broken-hearted sister – all the coincidences made my heart thump even harder. It wasn’t just as if nothing was going to get in the way of the scholarship match – it was more ominous than that. It was as if no one got in the way of soccer.

  Caught up in my whirlwind thoughts, I’d stopped in mid stride, so it was a second before I noticed that everyone had begun stumbling as they ran laps. Sookie had chosen this time to revenge the bad way I’d treated her. She’d started kicking soccer balls at us as we ran, and she knocked over all the water bottles, tossing them onto the field and into everyone’s way.

  Before I could stop her, she took all of our jackets and piled them in front of the goal posts. The coach walked toward her purposefully. A worry hit me like a punch in the gut. What if Sookie became a distraction at practice? Distractions had a way of being eliminated around here. I ran toward her.

  By the time I reached Sookie and the coach, all I heard was Ms. Sinster softly say, “Now sit up on the bench and wait patiently for your sister.”

  Sure, that sounded innocent, but there was something about her tone of voice that made me feel as if the gates of hell would open up if Sookie didn’t do as she was told. It was enough to make stubborn Sookie nod meekly, march over to the bench, and sit down.

  Warily, I returned to practice, keeping one eye on the soccer ball and the other eye on Sookie. She didn’t budge until we got a quick lunch break. I brought her some orange slices and half the egg sandwich I’d packed for myself – I hadn’t had time to pack her a proper lunch. When I went back on the field, Sookie took one look at Ms. Sinster and sat back down on the bench.

  Once I started chasing the ball again, I kept checking on Sookie, even when Mia elbowed me during a time-out and pointed to the bleachers. Some of the guys from Darkmont had come to watch us. Mia smiled up at Mitch. Golden-haired, green-eyed Zach waved at me. I waved back. Sookie glared at me the whole time they were there, and for a while after they left. But she sat quietly on the bench until practice finished. She didn’t start complaining until we were getting ready to leave.

  “I hate it here. This place is bad. I’m not going to come with you anymore. You’d better quit the team.”

  Because the coach was close by, I wanted Sookie to keep quiet.

  “Stop complaining and I’ll buy you pizza and take you to the park,” I said.

  “Cindy said that you wouldn’t listen to my warning,” Sookie snorted.

  When Sookie mentioned Cindy’s name, Ms. Sinster’s head snapped up, and she moved in the direction of where we were sitting on the lowest bleacher.

  The coach appr
oached us as I nervously wondered how Sookie had managed to escape my radar again after she’d caused trouble. Quickly I whispered, “When was that weird goth girl here?”

  “Just now,” Sookie said smugly. “Guess you don’t know everything.”

  The coach came closer to us. Her long, straight black hair swung against her shoulders.

  “Oh,” Sookie continued, “and Cindy says to remind you that you’d better not win the soccer game. She says – ”

  Ms. Sinster raised a claw-like hand toward Sookie as she approached us.

  “Shut up!” I told Sookie.

  CHAPTER 9 A Diabolical Distraction

  SOOKIE STOPPED HER excited babble and looked up at me in amazement. “What?”

  Ms. Sinster stood in front of us. “Great playing, Cat,” was all she said.

  I sighed in relief. The way she’d been moving toward us had given me a horrible feeling. Most likely, I was overreacting and my uneasiness was all in my head. This was no time for my imagination to go into overdrive. I had to keep my focus, and my coach, who didn’t exactly ooze praise, had just said, “Great playing!” I floated all the way home on those words.

  It wasn’t until we got up to the front steps that Sookie reminded me that I’d promised we would get together with Jasper that afternoon. Automatically, I began to brush her off, but I hesitated because now that I was away from the practice field, an uneasiness crept up my spine again. This time, I didn’t ignore it. What if there was something to Sookie’s close call with the coach and the disturbing things she kept telling me about her new friend? Maybe it was time to face the fact that Jasper was noticing other odd stuff and that I’d gotten seriously sidetracked. “Yes,” I said. “Let’s call Jasper.”

  Before I could even finish the sentence, Sookie shot off the porch and ran across the yard to get Jasper. A couple of minutes later, she and Jasper walked up our front pathway. I sent Sookie in to grab us some juice, and I quickly told Jasper everything – about the strange coincidences that happened to the other girls on my team and how nothing got in the way of practice.

  “And after we were late for practice, Sookie kicked up such a fuss, I thought the coach would do something to her.” I stopped and thought about it for a second. “I have no idea what. And I can’t explain it because the coach didn’t even yell at Sookie. But I never felt so scared in my life. It all seems …” I trailed off, feeling foolish.

  “… diabolical,” Sookie said, sneaking up behind us. She handed us both a juice box.

  Where did she learn a word like that?

  Before I had a chance to respond, the phone rang and she ran to answer it. She always wanted to be the one to answer the phone.

  Jasper didn’t laugh or even smile at the curious worries I’d told him about. Instead he said, “I’ve been trying to tell you that there’s something bizarre about all of this. Those old newspapers I’d looked up on the computer at the library had made a huge deal about the upcoming soccer match.” Then he got an odd look on his face. “But after Halloween, when the match was over, the local paper never even mentioned which team won the game.”

  What Jasper was saying seemed vaguely familiar. “There was something like that in the old journal we found upstairs,” I said. “It didn’t mention who won, but did it ever mention if her sister got the scholarship? Maybe the answer is right there in that journal.”

  “Yeah,” said Jasper, looking a bit startled. “That’s a good idea. We should take a closer look.”

  Sookie got off the phone. “Mom will be home soon. She’s stopping at the Emporium,” she said from the front doorway.

  Jasper and I went inside and climbed up the stairs to the attic. Of course, Sookie insisted on joining us.

  “Are we going to play Monopoly again?” Sookie asked, her voice brimming with hope.

  “No, we’re looking for that old journal we found before.”

  “Alice’s journal? How come?” Sookie sounded disappointed but curious.

  At least she remembered the girl’s name. All of it seemed kind of foggy in my brain. “We just want to take a closer look at it,” I said, ducking through the low door and stepping into the attic. “Do you have any idea where we left it?”

  “We tossed it on the table.” Jasper crossed the floor and started shuffling game boxes around. “Or maybe we threw it on the desk.”

  The three of us quickly investigated – no journal. Then we checked the bookshelves, behind the battered old trunk, and under the table we had used to play Monopoly.

  “Did we dream the journal up?” I wondered out loud.

  “The three of us? Not likely,” snorted Sookie. She always was the logical one.

  “It’s got to be here somewhere,” Jasper said, wiping the lenses of his glasses clean and jamming them on his face as if they’d give him X-ray vision.

  “So what? It’s not here. Who cares, anyway?” Sookie was getting bored. She just happened to have brought out the Monopoly game.

  “We wanted to see who won the scholarship,” Jasper said. “We couldn’t find that information before, remember?”

  “Not really,” muttered Sookie. “I didn’t really pay attention. If you’re so curious about who won the stupid match, maybe I could ask Cindy. She seems to know a lot about Grimoire.”

  “Not unless I’m with you,” I said slowly. “I don’t want you talking to that Cindy. It’s not cool that she hides when I’m around.”

  “She doesn’t hide.” Sookie sounded surprised. “You just don’t look very carefully.”

  For a second, I felt guilty again. I knew I should have been better about keeping a close eye on her. But then Jasper said to Sookie, “I’ve dropped you off at the soccer field lots of times, and I’ve never seen that girl either.”

  “Do you want me to ask her or not?” Sookie demanded.

  “I’d feel better if you left her out of this,” I said.

  Sookie set her jaw in her all too stubborn way. Then she stuck her tongue out at me. Promising myself I’d pay even more attention to her the next time we were on the soccer field, I slid down on top of the trunk and sat, thinking. Jasper kept fiddling with his glasses. Sookie stared longingly at the Monopoly game.

  “You know,” Jasper finally said, “the journal and the newspaper at the library archives are probably not the only source of information about that Halloween game back then. Maybe there are other documents in the library’s online records.”

  “Right.” I nodded. Before, I didn’t want to know anything about that first soccer game, but now I felt I had to find out who won that match, the Witches or the Ghosts. “The game should be mentioned somewhere else, but I assume you did a search?”

  Jasper said, “Well, I could recheck the entire database again and maybe expand my search.”

  “That’s a plan then. We’ll expand our search.

  Maybe – ”

  The door slammed downstairs and I heard my mother.

  “Cat, come down quickly,” she called. “I want to talk to you.”

  We ran downstairs. Jasper said hi to my mom and slipped out the front door, before saying we should meet up soon. Sookie waved goodbye to him, but I only waved halfheartedly because I was too busy staring at the Emporium shopping bags Mom had put on the table.

  “I was thinking – why don’t you throw a big Halloween party next Saturday?” Mom said. “I know it’ll be a week before Halloween, but this way your party won’t get in the way of the soccer game. Invite as many people as you like, boys included.”

  This was my mom? She’d let me have a party? With boys? All last year she told me I was too young for boy-girl parties. I got that excited feeling in my stomach. Maybe Zach would come.

  Mom started pulling out decorations from the bag: expensive Halloween pumpkin lights, a large plastic jack-o’-lantern, black and orange crepe paper, packages of balloons, and weird sticky stuff to make fake cobwebs. When she hauled out fancy paper plates, napkins, and cups decorated with witches and ghosts, I couldn’t b
elieve it – all of it must have cost a fortune.

  “I don’t know what came over me. I couldn’t resist,” Mom said.

  At that point, my worries about the coach, the coincidences of the other girls, and the disappearing journal, all evaporated.

  Wasn’t I having the best time of my life, not to mention getting closer to the scholarship? As long as I kept a closer eye on Sookie and made sure she wasn’t causing any trouble – that was all that mattered.

  I couldn’t wait for my party.

  CHAPTER 10 A Grave Oversight

  BECAUSE I WANTED to keep my extraordinary luck going, when Jasper met up with me on Monday, nattering about how I’d promised to help him research the soccer match, I wasn’t into it anymore. Sure, up in the spooky attic after my scare with Sookie and the coach, anything seemed possible. But in the daylight, with my other friends waiting for me at my locker, I got impatient. Couldn’t he get over the fact that he wasn’t going to be able to find out anything about the results of the big Halloween match long ago?

  “The whole town seemed to forget about which team won,” said Jasper. “There was plenty of information before the match about which girls made the teams, and how the game was a big deal, and that everyone wanted to attend and volunteer to help out. But it’s weird that after the game was over, it was as if the match never even existed in the first place.”

  “Look,” I explained to him, “I’ve got so much going on right now. All of that stuff happened a long time ago, so I’m sure waiting a little longer to find out about it will be okay.” Then I brushed him off, thinking that it probably didn’t matter at all.

  There was no time to worry about what happened seventy years ago. When I wasn’t playing soccer, I planned my party because I was determined it would be the best time Darkmont had ever had. First, I used a computer program my dad had given me last year for my birthday and designed party e-vites to send to everyone. I cut and pasted a creepy haunted house, and used animation so that when you clicked on the door of the house, it opened to a bunch of dancing ghosts and skeletons. In spooky green letters that looked like melted wax, I wrote the date and time of the party. Everyone I e-mailed accepted.