Haunted Mask II

  Contents

  Title Page

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  Teaser

  About the Author

  Also Available

  Copyright

  I don’t know if you have ever spent any time with first graders. But there is only one word to describe them. And that word is ANIMALS.

  First graders are animals.

  You can quote me.

  My name is Steve Boswell, and I am in the sixth grade. I may not be the smartest guy at Walnut Avenue Middle School. But I know one thing for sure: First graders are animals.

  How do I know this fact? I learned it the hard way. I learned it by coaching the first-grade soccer team after school every day.

  You might want to know why I chose to coach their soccer team. Well, I didn’t choose it. It was a punishment.

  Someone set a squirrel loose in the girls’ locker room. That someone was me. But it wasn’t my idea.

  My best friend, Chuck Greene, caught the squirrel. And he asked me where I thought he should set it free.

  I said, “How about the girls’ locker room before their basketball game on Thursday?”

  So maybe it was partly my idea. But Chuck was just as much to blame as I was.

  Of course, I was the one who got caught.

  Miss Curdy, the gym teacher, grabbed me as I was letting the squirrel out of its box. The squirrel ran across the gym to the bleachers. The kids in the bleachers all jumped up and started running and screaming and acting crazy.

  It was just a dumb squirrel. But all the teachers started chasing after it. It took hours to catch it and get everyone calmed down.

  So Miss Curdy said I had to be punished.

  She gave me a choice of punishments. One: I could come into the gym after school every day and inflate basketballs — by mouth — until my head exploded. Or two: I could coach the first-grade soccer team.

  I chose number two.

  The wrong choice.

  My friend Chuck was supposed to help me coach the team. But he told Miss Curdy he had an after-school job.

  Do you know what his after-school job is? Going home and watching TV.

  A lot of people think that Chuck and I are best friends because we look so much alike. We’re both tall and thin. We both have straight brown hair and dark brown eyes. We both wear baseball caps most of the time. Sometimes people think we’re brothers!

  But that’s not why I like Chuck and Chuck likes me. We’re best friends because we make each other laugh.

  I laughed really hard when Chuck told me what his after-school job was. But I’m not laughing now.

  I’m praying. Every day I pray for rain. If it rains, the first graders don’t have soccer practice.

  Today, unfortunately, is a bright, clear, beautiful October day. Standing on the playground behind school, I searched the sky for a cloud — any cloud — but saw only blue.

  “Okay, listen up, Hogs!” I shouted. I wasn’t making fun of them. That’s the name they voted for their team. Do you believe it? The Walnut Avenue Hogs.

  Does that give you an idea of what these kids are like?

  I cupped my hands around my mouth and shouted again. “Line up, Hogs!”

  Andrew Foster grabbed the whistle I wear around my neck and blew it in my face. Then Duck Benton tromped down hard on my new sneakers. Everyone calls him Duck because he quacks all the time. He and Andrew thought that was a riot.

  Then Marnie Rosen jumped up behind me, threw her arms around my neck, and climbed on my back. Marnie has curly red hair, freckles all over her face, and the most evil grin I ever saw on a kid. “Give me a ride, Steve!” she shouted. “I want a ride!”

  “Marnie — get off me!” I cried. I tried to loosen her grip on my neck. She was choking me. The Hogs were all laughing now.

  “Marnie — I … can’t … breathe!” I gasped.

  I bent down and tried to throw her off my back. But she hung on even tighter.

  Then I felt her lips press against my ear.

  “What are you doing?” I cried. Was she trying to kiss me or something?

  Yuck! She spit her bubble gum into my ear.

  Then, laughing like a crazed fiend, she hopped off me and went running across the grass, her curly red hair bouncing behind her.

  “Give me a break!” I cried angrily. The purple gum stuck in my ear. It took me a while to scrape it all out.

  By the time I finished, they had started a practice game.

  Have you ever watched six-year-olds play soccer? It’s chase-and-kick, chase-and-kick. Everybody chase the ball. Everybody try to kick it.

  I try to teach them positions. I try to teach them how to pass the ball to each other. I try to teach them teamwork. But all they want to do is chase and kick, chase and kick.

  Which is fine with me. As long as they leave me alone.

  I blow my whistle and act as referee. And try to keep the game going.

  Andrew Foster kicked a big clump of dirt on my jeans as he ran by. He acted as if it were an accident. But I knew it was deliberate.

  Then Duck Benton got into a shoving fight with Johnny Myers. Duck watches hockey games on TV with his dad, and he thinks you’re supposed to fight. Some days Duck doesn’t chase after the ball at all. He just fights.

  I let them chase-and-kick, chase-and-kick for an hour. Then I blew the whistle to call practice to an end.

  Not a bad practice. Only one bloody nose. And that was a win because it wasn’t mine!

  “Okay, Hogs — see you tomorrow!” I shouted. I started to trot off the playground. Their parents or baby-sitters would be waiting for them in front of the school.

  Then I saw that a bunch of the kids had formed a tight circle in the middle of the field. They all wore grins on their faces, so I decided I’d better see what they were up to.

  “What’s going on, guys?” I asked, trotting back to them.

  Some kids stepped back, and I spotted a soccer ball on the grass. Marnie Rosen smiled at me through her freckles. “Hey, Steve, can you kick a goal from here?”

  The other kids stepped away from the ball. I glanced to the goal. It was really far away, at least half the field.

  “What’s the joke?” I demanded.

  Marnie’s grin faded. “No joke. Can you kick a goal from here?”

  “No way!” Duck Benton called.

  “Steve can do it,” I heard Johnny Myers say. “Steve can kick it farther than that.”

  “No way!” Duck insisted. “It’s too far even for a sixth grader.”

  “Hey — that’s an easy goal,” I bragged. “Why don’t you give me something hard to do?”

  Every once in a while I have to do something to impress them. Just to prove that I’m better than they are.

  So I moved up behind the ball. I stopped about eight or ten steps back. Gave myself plenty of running room.

  “Okay, guys, watch how a pro does it!” I cried.

  I ran up to the ball. Got plenty of leg behind it.

  Gave a tremendous kick.

  Froze for a second.

  And then let out a long, high wail of horror.

  On my way home a few minutes later, I passed my friend Chuck’s house. Chuck came running down the gravel driveway to greet me.

  I di
dn’t really feel like talking to anyone. Not even my friend.

  But there he was. So what could I do?

  “Yo — Steve!” He stopped halfway down the driveway. “What happened? Why are you limping?”

  “Concrete,” I groaned.

  He pulled off his black-and-red Cubs cap and scratched his thick brown hair. “Huh?”

  “Concrete,” I repeated weakly. “The kids had a concrete soccer ball.”

  Chuck squinted at me. I could see he still didn’t understand.

  “One of the kids lives across the street. He had his friends help roll a ball of concrete to the school,” I explained. “Painted white and black to look like a soccer ball. Solid concrete. They had it there on the field. They asked me to kick a goal and — and —” My voice caught in my throat. I couldn’t finish.

  I hobbled over to the big beech tree beside Chuck’s driveway and leaned back against its cold, white trunk.

  “Wow. That’s not a very funny joke,” Chuck said, replacing his cap on his head.

  “Tell me about it,” I groaned. “I think I broke every bone in my foot. Even some bones I don’t have.”

  “Those kids are animals!” Chuck declared.

  I groaned and rubbed my aching foot. It wasn’t really broken. But it hurt. A lot. I shifted my backpack on my shoulders and shifted my position against the tree.

  “Know what I’d like to do?” I told Chuck.

  “Pay them back?”

  “You’re right!” I replied. “How did you know?”

  “Lucky guess.” He stepped up beside me. I could see that he was thinking hard. Chuck always scrunches up his face when he’s trying to think.

  “It’s almost Halloween,” he said finally. “Maybe we could think of some way to scare them. I mean, really scare them.” His dark eyes lit up with excitement.

  “Well … maybe.” I hesitated. “They’re just little kids. I don’t want to do anything mean.”

  My backpack felt weird — too full. I pulled it off my shoulder and lowered it to the ground.

  I leaned over and unzipped it.

  And about ten million feathers came floating out.

  “Those kids!” Chuck exclaimed.

  I pulled open the backpack. All of my notebooks, all of my textbooks — covered in sticky feathers. Those animals had glued feathers to my books.

  I tossed down the backpack and turned to Chuck. “Maybe I do want to do something mean!” I growled.

  * * *

  A few days later, Chuck and I were walking home from the playground. It was a cold, windy afternoon. Dark storm clouds rose up in the distance.

  The storm clouds were too late to help me. I had just finished afternoon practice with the Hogs.

  It hadn’t been a bad practice. It hadn’t been a good practice, either.

  Just as we started, Andrew Foster lowered his head and came at me full speed. He weighs about a thousand pounds, and he has a very hard head. He plowed into my stomach and knocked the wind out of me.

  I rolled around on the ground for a few minutes, groaning and choking and gasping. The kids thought it was pretty funny. Andrew claimed it was an accident.

  I’m going to get you guys back, I vowed to myself. I don’t know how. But I’m going to get you guys.

  Then Marnie Rosen jumped on my back and tore the collar off my new winter coat.

  Chuck met me after practice. He’d started doing that now. He knew that after one hour with the first graders, I usually needed help getting home.

  “I hate them,” I muttered. “Do you know how to spell hate? H–O–G–S.” My torn coat collar flapped in the swirling wind.

  “Why don’t you make all of them practice with a concrete ball?” Chuck suggested. He adjusted his Cubs cap over his hair. “No. Wait. I’ve got it. Let them take turns being the ball!”

  “No. No good,” I replied, shaking my head. The sky darkened. The trees shook, sending a shower of dead leaves down around us.

  My sneakers crunched over the leaves. “I don’t want to hurt them,” I told Chuck. “I just want to scare them. I just want to scare them to death.”

  The wind blew colder. I felt a cold drop of rain on my forehead.

  As we crossed the street, I noticed two girls from our class walking on the other side. I recognized Sabrina Mason’s black ponytail swinging behind her as she hurried along the sidewalk. And next to her, I recognized her friend Carly Beth Caldwell.

  “Hey!” I started to call out to them, but I stopped.

  An idea flashed into my mind.

  Seeing Carly Beth, I knew how to scare those first graders.

  Seeing Carly Beth, I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

  I started to call to the girls. But Chuck clamped his hand over my mouth and dragged me behind a wide tree.

  “Hey — get your clammy paws off me. What’s the big idea?” I cried when he finally pulled his hand away.

  He pushed me against the rough bark of the tree trunk. “Ssshhh. They haven’t seen us.” He motioned with his eyes toward the two girls.

  “So?”

  “So we can sneak up and scare them,” Chuck whispered, his dark eyes practically glowing with evil excitement. “Let’s make Carly Beth scream.”

  “You mean for old times’ sake?”

  Chuck nodded, grinning.

  For many years, making Carly Beth scream had been our hobby. That’s because she was a really good screamer, and she would scream at just about anything.

  One day in the lunchroom last year, Chuck tucked a worm inside his turkey sandwich. Then he gave the sandwich to Carly Beth.

  She took one bite and knew that something tasted a little weird. When Chuck showed her the big bite she had taken out of the worm, Carly Beth screamed for a week.

  Chuck and I took bets on who could scare Carly Beth the most and who could make her scream. I guess it was kind of mean. But it was funny, too.

  And sometimes when you know that people are real easy to scare, you have no choice. You have to scare them as often as you can.

  Anyway, that all changed last Halloween.

  Last Halloween Chuck and I had a horrible scare. Carly Beth wore the most frightening mask I had ever seen. It wasn’t a mask. It was like a living face.

  It was so ugly, so real. It glared at us with evil, living eyes. Its mouth sneered at us with real lips. The skin glowed a sick green. And Carly Beth’s normally soft voice burst out in a terrifying animal growl.

  Chuck and I ran for our lives.

  No joke. We were terrified.

  We ran for blocks, screaming the whole way. It was the worst night of my life.

  Everything changed after that.

  Nearly a whole year has gone by, and we haven’t tried to scare Carly Beth once. I don’t think Carly Beth can be scared. Not anymore.

  After last Halloween, I don’t think anything scares her.

  She is totally fearless. I haven’t heard her shriek or scream once the entire year.

  So I didn’t want to try to scare her now. I needed to talk to her. About that scary mask of hers.

  But Chuck kept pressing me back against the tree trunk. “Come on, Steve,” he whispered. “They don’t see us. We’ll duck down behind the hedges and get ahead of them. Then when they come by, we’ll jump out and grab them.”

  “I don’t really —” I started. But I could see that Chuck had his heart set on scaring Carly Beth and Sabrina. So I let him pull me down out of sight.

  A light rain had started to fall. The gusting wind blew the raindrops into my face. I crept along the hedge, bent low, following Chuck.

  We passed by the girls and kept moving. I could hear Sabrina’s laugh behind us. I heard Carly Beth say something else. Then Sabrina laughed again.

  I wondered what they were talking about. I stopped to glance through the hedge. Carly Beth had a weird expression on her face. Her dark eyes stared straight ahead. She was moving stiffly. She had the collar of her blue down jacket pulled up high around her face.<
br />
  I ducked down low again as the girls came closer. I turned and saw that Chuck and I were standing on the wide front lawn of the old Carpenter mansion.

  I felt a chill as I stared across the weed-choked lawn at the gloomy old house, covered in a deep darkness. Everyone said that the house was haunted — haunted by people who had been murdered inside it a hundred years ago.

  I don’t believe in ghosts. But I don’t like standing so close to the creepy old Carpenter mansion, either.

  I pulled Chuck into the empty lot next door. Rain pattered the ground. I wiped raindrops off my eyebrows.

  Carly Beth and Sabrina were only a few yards away. I could hear Sabrina talking excitedly about something. But I couldn’t make out her words.

  Chuck turned to me, an evil grin spreading across his face. “Ready?” he whispered. “Let’s get ’em!”

  We leaped to our feet. Then we both jumped out, screaming at the top of our lungs.

  Sabrina gasped in shock. Her mouth dropped to her knees. Her hands flew up in the air.

  Carly Beth stared at me.

  Then her head tilted against the blue jacket collar — tilted and fell.

  Her head fell off her shoulders.

  It dropped to the ground and bounced onto the grass.

  Sabrina lowered her eyes to the ground. She gaped at Carly Beth’s fallen head in disbelief.

  Then Sabrina’s hands began to flail the air crazily. She opened her mouth in a scream of horror. And screamed and screamed and screamed.

  I swallowed hard. My knees started to buckle.

  Carly Beth’s head stared up at me from the grass. Sabrina’s shrieks rang in my ears.

  And then I heard soft laughter. Laughter from inside Carly Beth’s jacket.

  I saw a clump of brown hair poke up through the raised collar. And then Carly Beth’s laughing face shot up from under the jacket.

  Sabrina stopped her wild cries and started to laugh.

  “Gotcha!” Carly Beth cried. She and Sabrina fell all over each other, laughing like lunatics.

  “Oh, wow,” Chuck groaned.

  My knees were still shaking. I don’t think I had taken a breath the whole time.

  I bent down and picked up Carly Beth’s head. Some kind of dummy head. A sculpture, I guess. I rolled it around between my hands. It was amazing. It looked just like her.