Don't Scream (9780307823526)

by Nixon, Joan Lowery

I carefully carried the cake across the lawn and up the steps of the Maliks’ porch. As I balanced the flat, rectangular pan on one hand and prepared to ring the doorbell, I heard Mrs. Malik snap, “Don’t push your luck.”

  A deeper voice—Mark? Mr. Malik?—said, “Like it or not, we’re here. You can spend your time griping, or calm down and make the best of it.”

  “If it weren’t for …” Mrs. Malik moved away from the door, and I couldn’t catch the rest of what she said.

  I knew I couldn’t ring the doorbell now. As quietly as I could, I tiptoed down the porch steps, walked a few feet, then turned to face the Maliks’ house. Humming loudly, I clumped up the stairs and across the porch.

  Mr. Malik opened the door and faced me before I’d had a chance to knock.

  “Hi,” I said. “Remember me? Jess Donnally. I live next door. My mom sent over this welcome cake. She’ll come and visit some other time, after you’re settled in.”

  He took the warm pan, stared at the cake in bewilderment, then managed to say, “Thank you,” before shutting the door firmly behind him.

  Weird, I thought. Except for good-looking Mark, that is a truly weird family.

  CHAPTER

  two

  A short while later, I was busy serving burgers, fries, and Cokes, chatting with the customers, and flashing a friendly Bingo’s Burgers smile, when Mark Malik stepped up to the counter.

  “Hi. Thanks for bringing over the cake. It was great,” he said.

  “Mom made it. It’s one of her specialties. I’m glad you liked it,” I said.

  Mark lowered his voice. “I’m afraid my dad wasn’t very friendly when you came. He should have invited you in. It’s just that the cake kind of took us by surprise.”

  “Why were you surprised?”

  Mark shrugged. “Well, because we weren’t expecting anything like that.”

  “Really? Mom’s cake was just the beginning. Mrs. Snyder, across the street, will probably bring over a fresh peach pie, and Mrs. Hickey will show up with a meat loaf. You know the custom. It’s called being neighborly.”

  “That’s a custom? I never heard of doing anything like that.”

  “Well, I never heard of not doing it.” I paused, aware of the line that was beginning to form behind Mark, but my curiosity won out. “Where did you say you’re from?” I asked.

  “The East Coast,” he answered.

  “Where on the East Coast aren’t they neighborly?”

  Linda Pruett leaned around Mark’s shoulder and said, “Jessie, what’s keeping this line? I’ve got four hungry kids waiting to eat. They’re going to tear up this place if I don’t get some food inside them pretty quick.”

  “Sorry,” Mark said, and he stepped back, giving Mrs. Pruett a glowing smile.

  Caught off guard, she patted his arm and said, “That’s all right, son. I’m sorry to have to interrupt.”

  “No problem,” Mark said. With a wave in my direction, he strode to Bingo’s main door and left.

  “Two doubles and four treasure boxes, and no cheese on the burgers,” Mrs. Pruett said, quickly collecting herself. “Cokes all around, and make sure none of the treasure boxes are missing their prizes this time.” She jerked her chin toward the door. “That was a good-looking boy you were talking to, Jessie. Seems like a nice, polite boy, too. I haven’t seen him around here before. Did his family recently move to Oakberry?”

  “Yes,” I answered as I scrawled the order and clipped it to the trolley leading to the open kitchen. “They moved in today.”

  “What’s their name?”

  “Malik.”

  “Any relation to the Maliks down around Sweet Home or Halletsville?”

  “I don’t think so.” I told Mrs. Pruett the total, took the bills she handed me, and gave her change.

  “Where are they from?” Mrs. Pruett persisted.

  “The East Coast,” I said. “That’s all Mark told me.” I loaded Mrs. Pruett’s order on a large tray and turned to the next customer.

  Mark obviously had come to Bingo’s just to see me. Hugging a little smile that no one could see, I promised myself that as soon as possible I was going to find out as much as I could about Mark Malik.

  It was getting late, near the end of my shift, when Eric Dodson wandered in. He squinted up at the menu board, which spread across the counter area over my head, then looked at me.

  “Hi, Jess,” he said.

  “Hi,” I answered. “What’ll you have, Eric?”

  “Baked potato,” he said.

  “We don’t have baked potatoes,” I told him. “Fries okay?”

  Eric frowned and studied the menu board again while I studied him. When I was in seventh grade, I thought Eric was really something. He’s probably the smartest person I’ve ever met, and he’s good-looking in a skinny-tall kind of way. Eric’s father tried all year to get him to go out for basketball, but his grandmother gave him his first computer. No one saw much of Eric after that. From my point of view, it’s terrible to see a really tall guy go to waste.

  “How about a Meal-in-One?” I suggested. “Double meat patty, two kinds of cheese, lots of tomatoes, lettuce, pickles, and onion. Fries on the side, along with a milk shake. It covers most of your basic food groups.”

  “Okay,” Eric said, and grinned. “What you said was pure advertising hype, but at least I can report back to my mom that I had the basic food groups.”

  “Anything to make your mom happy,” I said. I took his money, wrote down his order, and clipped it to the trolley.

  Eric rolled his eyes. “Happy? It’s very hard to make her happy.” No one was at the counter, so he leaned toward me. “My mom gets uptight about things, like my showing up tonight for dinner. She kept yelling upstairs for me to come down, and I kept telling her I couldn’t come right then. I was in a chat group with some very interesting Latin professors, who were discussing the demise of classical languages, and I felt I should explain to them that Latin wasn’t totally dead in high-school curricula. Well, anyway, when the discussion was over, I came down to the kitchen to see if anything was left or get a couple of Pop-Tarts to take back upstairs, and that made her even more upset. That’s why I’m here.”

  “Welcome to Bingo’s Burgers,” I said, and handed him his order.

  “The older generation just can’t seem to adapt to modern technology,” Eric said.

  I just smiled and realized I wasn’t going to worry about tall, dateless Eric. I had my mind on Mark Malik.

  ON SUNDAY, AFTER services at Oakberry Baptist Church, Lori came over. She and I—“the long and the short of it,” as Dad liked to tease—decided to hang out on the front porch, hoping that Mark would emerge from his house and come over. But there was no sign of any of the Maliks.

  “Their car’s on the driveway, so they must be home,” Lori said.

  I picked up sleepy old Pepper and draped him over my shoulder, snuggling my chin against his soft, warm back. A bee burrowed into a golden, out-of-season blossom on the Confederate jasmine, and a half-dozen grackles swooped down on the front yard, searching the grass for bugs. “It’s probably the September heat,” I told Lori. “It takes people from the East a while to get used to Texas weather. They don’t want to go outside and leave their air-conditioning.”

  Lori nodded and stretched. “Well, if you think Wonder Boy isn’t coming out so I can get a good look at him, why don’t we walk through the woods over to the bay? And don’t tell me it’s too far out of the way to go through the woods, because it’s a lot cooler.”

  I stood up. “No argument,” I said. “I don’t have to go to work until four.”

  The woods—which had never been given a proper name—was a scraggly patch of pine, tallow, and oak—an unlovely offshoot trailing down from the thick swath of forest that spread northward and outward from Houston, through the northeastern counties of Texas, into Arkansas and Louisiana. But the outskirts of the woods—the only part I was allowed in—were one of my favorite places. Cool and quiet,
with a thick padding of damp, spongy mulch underfoot, it was a solitary place in which to think and dream.

  When I was little, I’d often heard the rumor that deep inside the woods were the remains of an ancient cemetery.

  “Early settlers,” Mrs. Snyder had explained. “I doubt if folks even remember where the cemetery is now. Long ago the trees grew up and hid the graves. Something nasty is attached to that place. It’s best left forgotten.”

  Mrs. Hickey’s smile had been smug. “It wasn’t settlers who got buried there. From what I’ve heard, it’s Harry Pratt’s last resting place.”

  “Who’s Harry Pratt?” I’d asked, and Mom had suddenly noticed me.

  “Harry Pratt was one of the meanest train robbers in these parts, that’s who,” Mrs. Hickey had said.

  “Pishtosh,” Mrs. Snyder had answered. “There’ve never been any trains around here to rob.”

  “Why don’t we talk about the PTA spaghetti supper,” Mom began, one eye on me.

  Mrs. Hickey wasn’t finished. “Harry Pratt had family here,” she announced. “I understand he was related to the William Pratt family, who long ago moved down Houston way.”

  “Pishtosh,” Mrs. Snyder repeated.

  The minute our guests had gone, Mom sat down opposite me, her face close to mine, and said, “I know you’ve got an active imagination, Jessie love, but don’t waste time getting scared over those silly stories about a cemetery. People like to talk about one being back there, hidden in the woods, but far as I know, no one’s ever seen it.”

  “I’m not scared,” I answered honestly. I’d seen the Oakberry cemetery, with its ornate headstones, American flags, and fat bunches of faded artificial flowers; I tried to imagine what a secret, hidden cemetery would look like. Might there be a stone angel with outstretched wings? Or were train robbers not allowed to have angels? Someday I’d take a look for myself and find out if Harry Pratt was really buried there.

  “Put your right hand over your heart, Jessie,” Mom had demanded, “and promise me you won’t go looking for that cemetery. Not now when you’re a little girl and not when you’re older. Not ever.”

  “Why?” I asked, but Mom’s gaze grew stern.

  “Because it’s not a safe place.”

  “Why not?”

  “Jessica Donnally!” Mom snapped in an explosive tone that meant business. “You’re not to go because I said so. That’s why.”

  Of course I was forever curious about the cemetery, but a promise was a promise. I’d kept my word.

  As Lori and I ambled through the outskirts of the woods, breathing in the earthy, sour-sweet smells that rose from the ground under our feet, Lori said, “I’ve never seen anyone here but us. There’s nothing in these woods worth hunting, and no shortcuts to anyplace through here.”

  “As you pointed out,” I said, “it even takes longer for us to get to the bay if we take this route. We only do it because we like to.”

  Ahead of us lay a cluster of boulders we’d named Castle Rock, which marked a turning point in the route toward the bay. I sprinted ahead and scrambled up the boulders until I reached the top. “Remember when we were kids and first named this our castle?” I called down to Lori. “We made up a whole routine of punches and kicks that we’d use on anybody who tried to take over our castle.” I laughed. “I still remember the routine. Hard fist to the stomach first, which makes the bad guy go ooof! and bend over. Then we make a double fist with both hands and bring it up under his chin, which causes him to bend backward.”

  “Don’t forget the ooof!” Lori said.

  “Right. Another ooof! We follow with another jab to the stomach, and when he falls forward we end with a neck chop.”

  I sighed. “Lori, I need to talk to you.”

  She pulled herself up to the top boulder and squeezed next to me. “What’s the problem?”

  “Remember when our social problems class took a field trip through the Community Hospital’s children’s ward, with all those little kids?”

  “Sure, I remember. Why?”

  “They have an awfully small staff of nurses.”

  “What are you talking about?” Lori asked.

  “About the kids. Some of them are real little, and they need people to play with them and hold them. A lot of them are charity cases, and sometimes their parents aren’t able to visit them more than a couple of times a month. Remember Ricky—the little boy who’s in the middle of a series of operations?”

  When Lori nodded, I continued, “The director told us that because Ricky spends most of his waking hours in his crib he can’t walk yet. Thirteen months old, and there’s no one who has the time to help him learn to walk!”

  “Are you worried about the kids? Is that it?”

  I shifted position and rubbed my right leg, which was beginning to prickle. “That’s what I want to talk to you about. What if we get some of the kids at school together to volunteer to spend a few hours each afternoon and on the weekend to play with the kids? We could each pick a day.”

  “What day?” Lori looked pained. “Besides school and homework, I’ve got piano lessons, choir practice, and driver’s ed. And look at you—Saturday and Sunday afternoons you work at Bingo’s.”

  I turned so abruptly I had to grab Lori, who nearly slid off the rock. “But you’re almost through with driver’s ed, so you could volunteer for Wednesdays. And I’m …” I sank back, taking a deep breath. “Maybe I should quit my job at Bingo’s, or at least cut back the hours. I can’t stop thinking about those little kids, Lori—especially Ricky—and the way they need us. Nothing else seems as important. I feel so selfish sometimes. Do you know what I mean?”

  “Sure I do. But what about your mom and dad? Have you told them you want to quit your job?”

  “I haven’t told anyone but you,” I said, and squirmed uncomfortably. I wished Lori hadn’t brought up my parents.

  “I mean you’re supposed to be helping to save money toward college expenses.”

  “I know that.”

  “And my dad says it costs more and more. Rice, for instance …”

  I hugged my knees. “Oh, come on, Lori. I get good enough grades, but I have as much chance of Rice’s accepting me as Harvard or Yale. If I go to the College of the Mainland or one of the junior colleges, it will cost a lot less. I can handle it.”

  “I think you should talk to your parents.”

  “I will.” I turned to face her. “You don’t know how much I want to do this. I didn’t even know until I started talking about it to you. It means a lot to me. Will you help me see if we can get some volunteers and do something to help these kids?”

  “I think you ought to talk to Mrs. Emery, too, and see what she thinks. I mean before you quit your job or anything drastic like that,” Lori said.

  “I’d thought about that,” I told her.

  “Speaking of Mrs. Emery,” Lori said, “I’ve got an idea for that term paper she wants on neighborhood relations, but I don’t know if it really fits. Our next-door neighbor is such a pill. And look at your neighborhood. I mean, how can you have good relations with a crab like Mr. Chamberlin, who yells at everybody to get off his lawn?”

  “Mom and Dad have good relations with him,” I said. “He’s just a bitter old man to feel sorry for.”

  Lori sighed. “I know. Your mother sends him cakes and things, and your dad even installed one of those safety lights on his front porch. Has he ever pushed the button to blink on and off and made your dad come running?”

  “No,” I said. “Even that old Persian cat of his is crabby!”

  “Peaches!” Lori said. “What a name for an ugly yellow cat! She looks just like Mr. Chamberlin, if you think about it, and the way he acts about her …”

  As Lori went on, a creepy feeling spread over me. I found myself glancing again and again into the groves of trees, dim shadows that were splotched with narrow patches of light. Lori and I were alone. There was no sign of another human being, yet my back prickled as though
someone was staring at us. The prickly feeling wouldn’t go away.

  “Let’s go back,” I whispered to Lori.

  “I thought we were going to walk to the bay. Then you wanted to climb up here to talk and—”

  “I think we should go home instead.”

  “What’s the matter with you, Jess?”

  “I don’t know,” I whispered. “I have the feeling that someone’s here in the woods with us.”

  Lori’s head swiveled. “Where?”

  “There’s no telling. I don’t see anybody. But I feel someone looking at us. Don’t you?”

  Lori’s eyes widened, and she wiggled closer. “You’re scaring me, Jess.”

  “Then climb down. We’ll go home.” I led the way.

  Lori scurried down the rocks and dropped to the ground beside me. Her voice was breathy with fear. “Now you’ve got me doing it. I feel it, too. But why would anybody hide and stare at us?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s weird. Let’s go.”

  As we turned to retrace our steps, Lori asked, “What if whoever it is comes after us?”

  “Run!” I cried, but Lori was already ahead of me.

  CHAPTER

  three

  Lori and I raced to my house, where we sat on the porch steps while catching our breath.

  “Maybe it was our imagination,” Lori was finally able to say. She looked at me accusingly. “Or yours. No one followed us.”

  I sat up and brushed my hair out of my face. “But didn’t you feel that someone was there?”

  Lori shrugged. “It might have been some kids playing pranks. Or it could have been Mr. Chamberlin. Maybe he bent down to tie a shoe, and that’s why we didn’t see him.”

  “Oh, come on, Lori. Mr. Chamberlin wouldn’t walk in the woods. He uses a cane, and he’s afraid of falling down. Besides, we would have seen Peaches. She’s always with him.”

  Pepper emerged from a shadowy corner of the porch, stretched lazily, and climbed into my lap. I stroked him and said, “We should have had Pepper with us. Cats can see things that humans can’t.”

  Lori shivered. “Don’t do that. If somebody’s hiding just to spy on us, I don’t want to see him.”