“I’m speaking to him in his language,” Paige explained, hopping from side to side.
Fatima couldn’t help herself and let out a giggle. Charles jumped backward.
“Everybody stop!” Jaclyn whispered. “Let me do this.” She was on both knees now, her hands clasped together. “Charles, please, please come over here. I can’t lose you. You’re an indoor bunny. You can’t survive out here. Come on, buddy . . . please?” When Charles still didn’t move, Jaclyn couldn’t take it anymore. Finally, she shouted, “Charles Benedict Hyde, come over here right now!”
Startled, Charles turned and ran between the bars of the gate.
“That worked well,” Fatima said.
Jaclyn ran up to the iron gate and grabbed the bars. Charles hopped along the stone path all the way to the front door. When the wind caught the shutter of the first-floor window, Charles looked at it curiously, and then hopped toward it.
“Oh, no . . . ,” said Jaclyn.
Charles leaped onto the windowsill and scurried into the house.
“What are we going to do?” Jaclyn cried, whirling around to Paige and Fatima.
“There’s only one thing we can do,” said Fatima.
“No way! I’m not going in there!” said Paige, her eyes bulging. “A mad scientist lives there! There’s probably a bunch of dead zombies inside!”
“Technically zombies are undead,” Fatima corrected her.
Jaclyn knew she shouldn’t sneak into someone’s house. On the other hand, nobody lived in this house. It was a dead guy’s house. And she couldn’t imagine a dead guy would mind too much. She could just run inside, scoop up Charles, and take him back home. Nobody would have to know that any of this ever happened.
She turned back to her friends just as Fatima was saying, “No, werewolves change under a full moon. Zombies eat brains!”
“I’m going in!” Jaclyn announced. “Who’s with me?”
“I am,” said Fatima. “I’ve always been curious about this house.”
“Forget it! Not me!” Paige said.
“You’d rather stand outside by yourself?”
“Yes.” Paige looked around the creepy street. “I mean no.” Her shoulders slumped. “Okay, fine. I’ll go.”
Jaclyn lifted the latch on the gate. To her surprise, it swung open easily. The girls crept up to the house, Paige glancing nervously over her shoulder. Jaclyn tried the front door.
“It’s locked.” She sighed.
“Well, if the window is good enough for Charles . . . ,” said Fatima. She walked over to the open window and climbed inside. Jaclyn and Paige followed.
They found themselves in a sitting room. The furniture was covered in dusty white sheets.
Fatima wandered over to the corner, where there was a large wooden clock with a pendulum that had stopped swinging long ago. “This grandfather clock must be really old,” she said.
Paige joined her. “Yeah. I bet it’s actually a great-grandfather clock.”
Jaclyn crouched down and looked under the couch. “Charles? Charles?” she whispered. It was hard to see in the dim light, but she could tell he wasn’t there. She walked over to a closet under a wooden staircase. She cracked open the door. Inside was an overcoat, a raincoat, and a dingy white lab coat.
Fatima looked over Jaclyn’s shoulder. “I could write a whole series of articles about this place!” She took out her phone and started snapping pictures.
“We have to find Charles and get out of here,” said Jaclyn. She hurried into the next room, but what she saw inside stopped her dead in her tracks. “Whoa!” she called out. “You’ve got to see this.”
Paige and Fatima followed her voice to a decrepit science lab. Cloudy glass beakers and test tubes full of murky liquid lined the shelves. There were old cracked microscopes and what looked like a dead jellyfish floating in a jar. There was a glass display case of insect bodies hanging on the wall.
Fatima approached a rusty metal desk in the middle of the room. “What do you think is in here?”
Before Jaclyn could respond, Paige yelled out, “Hey! I found Charles!”
Fatima and Jaclyn whipped around and saw Paige chasing after a furry creature with wiry gray fur, thick yellow claws, and bright green eyes.
“Paige! That’s a rat!!” Jaclyn shouted.
Paige came to a halt. She thought for a second. Then smiled. “Hey! I found a rat!” She chased after it again.
“She never ceases to amaze me,” said Fatima. She opened the desk drawer and pulled out a heavy, leather-bound notebook. Her eyes sparkled. “Jackpot!”
Jaclyn looked over Fatima’s shoulder. She knew that she should focus on finding Charles, but she was just too curious. Fatima flipped through the pages, which were filled with handwritten scribblings.
“These look like records of all his experiments,” said Fatima.
Something caught Jaclyn’s eye. “Wait!” she said. She flipped back through the notebook until she found the page again. At the top was written, “Perfection Potion,” followed by some kind of formula.
Jaclyn and Fatima locked eyes.
“What do you think it does?” Jaclyn whispered.
Fatima didn’t respond.
Paige’s voice cut through the silence. “Uh . . . guys?” she called from the sitting room. “Weren’t the lanterns in the front yard out when we came in here?”
“What?” said Fatima, dashing over to her.
Without thinking, Jaclyn ripped out the page from the notebook and stuffed it in her pocket. She shoved the notebook back in the drawer, and then ran to join her friends. They all looked out the open window. The gas lanterns at the front steps were now lit.
Then they heard a key turn in the front door.
Chapter Four
Do Not Open
Click.
The front door of Enfield Manor unlocked. As the knob began to turn, Jaclyn’s eyes darted to the coat closet beneath the staircase. She grabbed Paige and Fatima by their wrists and pulled them inside. She closed the closet door just as the front door opened. They huddled together, peering through the slats.
A man walked into the house. He was older and tired-looking, with a scruffy gray beard and weathered skin. He wore brown overalls, heavy boots, and a white shirt stained with red splotches. His hands were large and calloused. He carried a gray canvas duffel bag over his shoulder. Whatever was inside the bag clanked as he walked.
Paige gripped Jaclyn’s arm and whispered, “Is he a werewolf?” She turned to Fatima. “I thought you said werewolves only come out during a full moon!”
Jaclyn gritted her teeth. “Shh! You’re going to get us caught.”
Fatima pulled out her phone and started talking softly into it. “This is Fatima Ali. I’m here in the coat closet at Enfield Manor—”
What are you doing?! Jaclyn mouthed.
“Taking notes for an article. This is a journalist’s dream. Nobody knows anything about Enfield Manor. If I can break this story, forget the school newspaper—I’ll get hired by the Fog Island Times.”
“The only thing that’s going to be in the Fog Island Times is our mug shots. Put your phone down.” Jaclyn grabbed for the phone. Fatima pulled her hand away. In the scuffle, the phone dropped to the ground with a thud.
The girls froze. Paige held her breath. Through the slats in the door, Jaclyn saw the man take a step toward the closet. Then another. The wooden floorboards creaked beneath his boots. He reached out and grabbed the doorknob. Jaclyn’s stomach twisted into a knot.
Then, she heard a scratching sound above her. Something was scurrying around on the second floor. The man looked up.
“Darn rats,” he said, his voice low and hoarse. He turned and walked up the stairs. The girls heard his heavy boots stomping above them.
“Now’s our chance!” Jaclyn whispered.
They sprinted out of the closet, and out the front door. They tore across the yard, kicking up the gravel as they ran. None of them dared to look back to see
if the man had caught a glimpse of them. They kept on running until they turned the corner off Cedar Street.
When they were safely out of sight, Fatima stopped and bent over, clutching her side to catch her breath. “Can we please stop running now?”
“That was terrifying!” said Jaclyn.
“I hated every second of it!” said Paige. “Except for the part with the rat. That was pretty cool. But the rest was awful!”
“Who was that guy?” Fatima wondered aloud. “And what do you think was in that bag? An ax? A chainsaw?”
A look of fear crossed Paige’s face. “A smaller bag?!”
Jaclyn didn’t say anything. She slumped down on the curb and put her head in her hands. Fatima and Paige sat down next to her. Without even asking, they both knew what was on her mind.
Fatima put her arm around Jaclyn. “It’s okay. I’m sure Charles will make his way home.”
Paige added, “He has an excellent sense of direction. He’ll miss you too much and then he’ll hop on back.”
Jaclyn’s forehead creased with worry. “I hope you’re right.”
When Jaclyn, Paige, and Fatima got back to Jaclyn’s house, her mom was standing in the front yard, tapping her foot impatiently, her arms crossed.
“Jaclyn Isabelle Hyde,” her mom called out.
Jaclyn winced. She hated her middle name. But that was because she only ever heard it when she was in trouble.
“Oh no . . . ,” said Jaclyn. “The garage.” She had totally forgotten about the mess. The door was still open, and everything inside was coated in frothy red lava.
Fatima turned to Jaclyn. “Remember when you said this day couldn’t get any worse?”
Jaclyn’s mom met them at the sidewalk. “Young lady . . .”
“I know, Mom. You’re disappointed—” said Jaclyn.
“Disappointed doesn’t even begin to describe it. How in the world did Mount Vesuvius erupt all over the tools, the Ping-Pong table, and the lawn mower?”
“I’m sorry. I’m still tinkering with the lava formula. I was going to clean it up—”
Her mom interrupted, “And you burned the cookies. We trusted you, Jaclyn. You could have burned the whole house down. What in the world was so important that you’d leave the house in such a state anyway?”
Fatima and Paige looked at Jaclyn.
“Uh . . . well . . . ,” Jaclyn began. She had no idea what to say. But she knew she couldn’t bring herself to tell her mom that she’d lost Charles. “We went to buy more cookie dough . . .”
Jaclyn’s mom looked surprised. “Store-bought cookie dough?”
“I know, Mom, but I—”
“So, where is it?” Mom interrupted.
“Where’s what?” Jaclyn asked.
“The cookie dough.”
“Oh . . . ,” said Jaclyn. “Um . . .”
Fatima piped up, “Paige ate it!”
“I did?” said Paige. “I did. I was really hungry.”
Jaclyn’s mom gave Paige a concerned look. Then she turned back to Jaclyn. “Well, I don’t even know where to begin. Your father is very upset. He loves that lawn mower.”
Jaclyn looked down.
“Did you at least remember to clean Charles’s cage?” said Mom.
Jaclyn swallowed hard. “Of course I did.”
After Paige and Fatima went home, Jaclyn flipped through her science notebook and found the lava formula. She couldn’t figure out what had gone wrong. It was supposed to flow down the model of Mount Vesuvius, not explode everywhere. The formula was a failure. She ripped the page out of the notebook and folded it up. She went to the storage shed in the backyard. It was overgrown with weeds. Her parents barely ever went inside. She scooted toward the back corner, where she’d hidden a cardboard box that said DO NOT OPEN. She lifted the lid and put the formula inside, on top of an old math test that she’d gotten a C+ on and didn’t want her parents to find. She closed the box and put it back in its hiding place.
Later, Jaclyn mopped the floor of the garage. She couldn’t believe she’d ruined the cookies, totally trashed the garage, lost Charles (possibly forever), snuck into someone else’s house, nearly been killed by some sort of werewolf man, and lied about all of it.
Jaclyn squeezed out the mop, dripping the last of the bright red lava into the soapy bucket. Then she used a damp sponge to clean her dad’s tools, the Ping-Pong table, and the volcano. It took a while, but when she was done, everything looked as good as new. Then she spotted Charles’s cage still sitting in the corner of the garage. Her mom must not have noticed it in the mess. Jaclyn took off her shoes, then folded up her white socks into a ball that kind of looked like Charles, at least from far away. She put the sock ball in the cage and carried the whole setup back up to her room. She passed by her parents, who were reading in the living room.
“All clean, Jaclyn?” her mom asked.
“It’s like Mount Vesuvius never erupted,” said Jaclyn. She turned to her dad. “I’m really sorry.”
Dad didn’t look up from his book. “Me too. I thought you could handle the responsibility.”
Jaclyn stared down at the floor. “Mom?” she said softly. “Can you drive the volcano to school on Friday on your way to work? Our science teacher wants to see how all the projects are going before the fair next week.”
Mom gave her a concerned look. “Will it be ready in time?”
Jaclyn nodded. “The volcano is fine. I just need to rethink the lava formula.”
Jaclyn put Charles’s cage on the dresser, and then collapsed on her bed. She stared up at the ceiling. What had happened to her? She was Jaclyn Hyde! She was supposed to be perfect! And this was about as far from perfect as she could ever imagine. That’s when she remembered the crumpled piece of paper from Dr. Enfield’s lab. She pulled it out of her pocket and laid it on the bedspread.
“Perfection Potion,” she whispered to herself.
Chapter Five
Rotten Apples Fresh from the Tree
Jaclyn read through all the ingredients of the Perfection Potion. She realized she had almost everything she needed in her chemistry set. There was just one ingredient on the list that she didn’t have.
Rotten apples fresh from the tree.
What could that mean? she thought. It was hard to imagine how an apple could be rotten and fresh at the same time. She had never seen or heard of anything like that before. But if she needed to find a special kind of apple, there was only one place to start: the Fog Island Orchard.
Fog Island was famous for its apples, known far and wide as the best in the world. The orchard was the pride of the island. And it was just a quick bike ride away. Now all she needed was an excuse to leave the house. Could she go to Paige’s for dinner? No, she thought, I’m in too much trouble for that. Maybe she could return an overdue library book. The only problem was, she hadn’t had an overdue library book since—well, ever. She looked out the window. The afternoon light was starting to fade. Whatever she was going to do, she had to do it fast.
That’s when she heard her mom’s voice downstairs. “David, we’re out of milk. Will you go to the store?”
“Yes, dear!” he called back.
This was her chance. Jaclyn flew down the stairs. Just before she got to the kitchen she slowed down her pace—she didn’t want to seem too eager.
“I’ll go!” Jaclyn said.
Her mom eyed her skeptically. “Don’t you have homework to do?”
“It’s done,” said Jaclyn.
Jaclyn’s parents looked at each other like they were communicating telepathically.
“Okay, then,” said Mom.
Jaclyn almost blurted out, Thank you, but then she caught herself. What kid thanks their parents for letting them run errands?
“Go straight there and back. And wear your reflective helmet—it’s foggy out,” said Dad. “What am I saying? It’s always foggy out.”
Jaclyn hopped on her bike and pedaled as fast as she could in the direction of the
store. But instead of going straight there, she made a sharp turn and rode into the gravel parking lot of the apple orchard. The lot was packed with cars. Kids in winter coats skipped out through the gates, followed by their parents carrying wicker baskets full of shiny red apples.
Jaclyn picked up a basket from the front entrance.
A woman wearing a vest dotted with apple-shaped patches greeted her. “Welcome! Are you here to learn how to make apple pie?”
Jaclyn laughed. “I already know how to do that. I’m here to . . .” Jaclyn thought for a moment. She couldn’t exactly explain the real reason she was there. “Pick some apples for my teachers.”
The woman smiled. “What a sweet little girl!”
Jaclyn beamed. She marched into the orchard and looked up at the trees. The branches were heavy with apples, but there wasn’t a rotten one in sight. She zigzagged through rows and rows of apple trees, the dry leaves crunching beneath her feet. The sun had almost set, turning the sky fiery orange. She would have to head back soon. If she wasn’t home by dark, her parents would probably never let her leave the house again.
She reached the far end of the orchard, away from the crowds. There was no one else around. It was eerily quiet. She fastened the top button of her purple cardigan and shivered. Even here, every tree was dotted with plump, ripe apples. She was just about to turn back when a strange buzzing sound cut through the silence. At first, she thought it might have been a beehive, but as she wandered toward it she saw what was really making the sound: flies. They were swarming around a small, sickly-looking tree with a knotted trunk. The tree was surrounded by a low chain-link fence. There were only a few apples on its branches, and all of them looked rotten.
Jaclyn hopped over the fence. She swatted away the flies and plucked the mushy apples from the tree until the branches were bare.
On the way out, the woman in the apple vest spotted her again. “Did you find enough apples for all your teachers?”
Jaclyn nodded. “Can I ask you a question? What happened to that tree way in the back? The one behind the fence.”
The woman looked taken aback. “Oh . . . no one ever notices that tree. It’s been here forever. No one can figure out why it grows such rotten apples. Every time we cut it down, it just grows back. Stubborn little tree.” She shrugged. “Eventually we put up a fence. It’s not the best solution, but we had to do something. You know what they say—one bad apple spoils the bunch!”
Jaclyn Hyde Page 3