by R. L. Stine
“I know,” Maia said, wiping her running nose with her hand.
“He attacked me. It’s not like he was some innocent kid.”
“Yes, I know,” Maia repeated edgily.
“He fell and he was killed. It’s not like I intentionally tried to kill him. It was an accident. You have to remember that. An accident.”
“I know.”
“Well then, what has you so upset, Maia?” Della asked patiently.
“It’s just that… we’re going to be caught. Everyone’s going to find out. About the accident. About us being there by ourselves without Mr. Abner… about everything.”
“That’s just not true,” Della insisted. “It’ll be weeks or months before the body is discovered—if ever. There won’t be anything to tie us to it.”
Maia started to cry again. It took Della a long time to calm her down. They talked for more than two hours, with Della doing her best to reassure Maia that all their lives would soon return to normal and that their secret would remain one.
At first she felt angry that Maia was acting so much more upset than she was. After all, Della had been the one who was attacked, the one who shoved him, the one who… killed him.
But looking around at the frilly room filled with dolls and stuffed animals, and thinking about Maia’s strict, overbearing parents, Della became more understanding. Maia didn’t have much of an opportunity to act like a grown-up. Her parents were doing everything they could to keep her a child.
By the time Della had finished talking to her, Maia seemed much calmer. “Now, get some sleep,” Della told her, heading toward the bedroom door. “You’ll feel much better tomorrow. I know you will.”
“Thanks, Della,” Maia said, smiling for the first time. “Sorry I’m being such a drag.”
Della waved good-night and headed downstairs and out of the house. It felt good to breathe some fresh air. Maia’s room had been hot and stuffy. Della was surprised to see the pavement wet. It must have rained while she’d been inside.
She walked quickly along the street, which seemed to glow from the streetlights being reflected on the wet pavement. The wet lawns glowed too, and Della suddenly had the feeling she was walking on a different planet, a green, wet, glowing planet of soft light and eerie silence.
Her house was dark except for the yellow porchlight. Her mother must have gone to bed early. She pulled open the screen door and something dropped at her feet.
An envelope.
She bent down and picked it up. She examined it under the yellow light. There was no writing on the outside of it. Just a black smudge, probably a fingerprint, in the lower right corner.
She felt something bumpy inside.
She let the screen door close and stepped back to open the envelope. She tilted it and let the bumpy object drop into her hand.
It was a tiny silver skull.
A skull from the chain around the dead man’s neck?
Peering into the envelope, she saw a small square of note paper inside. Her hand shaking, she pulled it out.
A single line was scrawled in pencil on one side.
It said: I SAW WHAT YOU DID.
CHAPTER 8
“My first thought was that it was one of your tricks, Ricky,” Della said, jabbing his chest with her index finger.
Ricky backed away, looking terribly hurt. “Della, give me a break. I wouldn’t pull anything that stupid.”
“You mean as stupid as hiding the canoes?” Suki chimed in.
They were sitting tensely around Della’s living room, everyone from the overnight except for Pete, who’d be late because his family always ate dinner late. It was Tuesday night, two nights after Della had found the skull and note tucked in her door. Her mother was playing bridge at the Garrisons’, up the street.
Although they really didn’t want to get together, especially so soon after the overnight, the six members of the Outdoors Club realized they had no choice. They couldn’t just ignore the envelope. They had to try to figure out who had put it there—and why.
“Are you sure you didn’t do this?” Suki accused Ricky, glaring at him with obvious dislike.
“Cut Ricky some slack,” Gary broke in. “He isn’t totally insensitive, you know.”
“Yes, I am,” Ricky said, grinning at Gary. “But I didn’t grab the skull off the dead guy’s neck and leave it for Della.”
“Look,” Gary said, standing up and reaching into his jeans pocket. “I got one too.” He pulled out an identical silver skull.
“Gary—how? Where’d you get it?” Della asked.
“I went out for the mail after school yesterday afternoon, and it was in the mailbox,” Gary said. Suki grabbed the skull out of his hand to examine it.
“Was there a note, too?” Della asked.
“No. No note.”
“This is weird,” Ricky said.
“He’s very deep, isn’t he?” Suki cracked.
“Lay off, Suki!” Ricky cried heatedly.
“Make me,” Suki muttered. She handed the skull back to Gary.
“Please. We’ve got to cool it,” Gary said, looking at Suki. “We can’t start going at each other’s throats. We’ve got a real problem here. Whoever dropped off these skulls knows where we live!”
The room grew silent. Della shuddered, thinking about someone standing on her front porch, opening the screen door and tucking in the envelope. Someone standing right outside her front door. Someone who saw them that night in the ravine. Someone who watched them cover the man’s body with leaves.
And then? And then this someone, this witness to their crime, did what? Uncovered the body? Pulled the silver skulls off the chain? Delivered them to Della and Gary? For what reason?
“Did anybody else get anything?” Ricky asked. “I didn’t.”
“I didn’t either,” Suki said.
Maia shook her head no. Sitting in an overstuffed armchair in the corner with her legs tucked tightly beneath her and a frown frozen on her face, she hadn’t said a word the entire time.
“Where’s Pete?” Suki asked.
“He’ll be here soon,” Della said. “But he told me this afternoon he didn’t get anything.”
“Why just us two?” Gary wondered. He got up from where he was sitting beside Suki on the leather couch and walked to the living room window. “Why just us two?”
He stopped suddenly and turned around. “Hey—I just thought of something. I lost my wallet. Did anybody else lose a wallet?”
“I did,” Della answered, raising her hand as if she were in school.
No one else said anything.
“It was in my backpack. I’m sure of it,” Della said, walking over to Gary at the window.
“Mine too,” he said. “Maybe that explains how the guy got our addresses.”
Della suddenly remembered the noises she’d heard from the tent late at night, the footsteps she’d followed. Maybe they weren’t caused by a raccoon after all. Maybe someone had been there, just a few feet from where she had slept. Maybe this someone had gone through the backpacks and stolen the two wallets.
Della looked out into the dark front yard. He could be out there right now, she thought. She walked quickly to the side of the window and pulled the curtains shut.
“We’ve got to go to the police,” Gary said suddenly, looking at Della.
“No!” Maia cried, her first word of the night. “You can’t! I mean, we can’t.”
“But, Maia—” Gary started.
“We’ve all got too much to lose. Our parents will never trust us again,” Maia shouted, tensely gripping the side of the armchair. “Everyone in town will know that—”
“But this guy knows where we live!” Gary shouted back at her. He tossed the silver skull high in the air. It hit the ceiling and dropped to the beige carpet at Maia’s feet.
“Gary, cool your jets,” Suki said. She patted the couch cushion beside her. “Come back and sit down. Let’s all try to think about this calmly, okay?”
<
br /> Gary shook his head. “I’m calm,” he insisted. But he came back and sat down next to Suki, leaning forward on the couch, putting his hands between his knees and loudly cracking his knuckles.
“Yeah, you’re real calm, okay,” Suki said. “So what do you think this guy with the skulls wants anyway?”
“I don’t know,” Gary said, cracking the knuckles of his other hand.
“To frighten us, I guess,” Della said.
“But not to turn us in,” Suki added. “If he was going to turn us in to the police, he would’ve done it already, right?”
“Probably,” Gary admitted.
“If he was going to report the body, he would’ve reported it,” Suki continued. “But that’s not what he wants. He just wants to make us squirm, to frighten us. Why?”
Gary shrugged.
“Just for kicks, right?”
“Maybe.”
“Well, what if we don’t scare so easy?” Suki suggested. “What if he doesn’t frighten us, and we don’t go running to the police? What if we just ignore his stupid skulls? He’ll probably just go away.”
“She’s right!” Maia cried, perhaps the first time she had ever agreed with Suki.
“But you’re forgetting a few important things,” Della interrupted, standing behind the couch. “For one thing, maybe he wants to do more than scare us. Maybe he wants to blackmail us or something. If he really saw what we did, if he really was there in the ravine watching us, he could hold it over us. He could blackmail us, blackmail our parents.”
“Yes, but—” Suki started.
“Let me finish,” Della insisted, hitting the arm of the couch with her open hand. “Even more important, look what this guy did. He stood by and spied on us. Then he unburied the corpse. Then he robbed it. He stole the dead man’s necklace. This guy is a creep, some kind of weirdo. He could do anything. We could all be in danger.”
“But if he really wanted to hurt us, to do something awful, he already had his chance,” Suki argued. “But all he’s doing is leaving little skulls around. I don’t think that’s enough to—”
She was interrupted by a loud knock on the front door.
“That must be Pete,” Della said, hurrying across the room. “Hi,” she said, pulling open the door.
But no one was there.
“Hey!” Surprised, she opened the screen door and stepped out. She didn’t see anyone. She came back inside, pushing the door closed and locking it.
“Am I hearing things?” she asked. “You all heard a knock too, didn’t you?”
“Maybe it’s him. Maybe he’s come back,” Maia said, looking very frightened. “Are all the doors locked?”
“I think so,” Della said. “I’ll go check.” She ran to the kitchen to make sure the back door was locked. It was. Then she checked the sliding glass doors in the den. They weren’t locked. She struggled to pull down the lock. This door was always difficult, but she managed it.
She looked out through the glass into the dark backyard. A pale sliver of a moon was just climbing over the red garage roof. She pressed her forehead against the cool glass.
What was that shadow moving across the lawn? Had she imagined it? No.
She pulled back from the window and pressed herself against the wall. Carefully, she moved her head forward just enough so that she could see out.
It was just a cat.
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Her heart was pounding. Her hands suddenly felt ice cold.
That was stupid, she thought. Frightening myself over a cat.
She realized the others must be wondering where she was all this time. Checking the back-door lock one more time just to be sure, she headed down the hall.
She was nearly to the living room when she heard the loud knocking on the front door again.
CHAPTER 9
“Who’s there?” Della called.
No reply.
Gary joined her in the hallway. “Who is it?” he shouted.
Silence on the other side of the door.
Impulsively, Gary turned the lock and started to pull the knob. “No, Gary—don’t!” Della cried. But she was too late. He had already pulled open the door.
There was no one on the front porch.
Gary pushed open the screen door and stepped outside. Down on the street, a car with only one headlight squealed around the corner and sped past, going much faster than the thirty-five mph speed limit. As it passed under a streetlight, Della could see that it was packed with teenagers.
That’s what we should be doing, she thought wistfully. Out cruising around, having a good time.
“Gary—please. Come back in,” Della called, watching him through the screen door as he explored the front yard.
“No one out here,” he said, sounding relieved. He stepped back onto the porch. “The ground is soft, but I don’t see any footprints.” He scratched his head of wavy blond hair.
“Maybe it’s a ghost,” Della joked.
“Someone’s playing a little joke,” Gary said, reentering the house and walking past her in the hallway. “An unfunny joke.”
Della closed the door and carefully locked it. They walked back into the living room.
Ricky, Maia, and Suki were standing tensely by the window. “Is he—is he out there?” Maia asked.
Gary shrugged. “I didn’t see anyone.”
“But who’s knocking?” Maia demanded, clenching her hands into tight fists at her sides.
“The Ghost of Christmas Past,” Della said.
No one laughed.
“Maybe we should go to the cops,” Suki said, looking worried for the first time. She was wearing an oversized turquoise sweater that came down nearly to her knees. She wrapped her arms around herself, nearly disappearing into the voluminous sweater.
“No!” Maia insisted. “We still have no reason to. It may be some neighborhood kid playing a stupid prank on us.”
“I used to play this joke,” Ricky admitted, smiling.
“Big surprise,” Suki said sarcastically.
“I used to think it was pretty funny,” Ricky said. He walked over to the couch and stretched out, laying his head on the soft arm cushion. “Now I’m not so sure.”
“We’re sitting ducks here,” Della said glumly.
“Look, let’s not go over the edge,” Gary told her. “The guy’s just playing a joke. If he wanted to get in or do something really terrible, he had two chances when the door was open. He just wants to make us squirm.”
“We’re squirming,” Ricky said. “We’re squirming!”
“Let’s be ready for him the next time he knocks,” Gary said.
“What are you talking about, Gary?” Della asked warily. Gary was a great guy and everyone liked him. But one reason why people liked him so much was that he wasn’t perfect—sometimes he did crazy, foolhardy things, things that kids would talk about for weeks afterward.
Della knew Gary really well. She had gone out with him for a long time, after all. And she knew the look on Gary’s face. It was a look she wasn’t happy to see. It was his daring look. It was his fixed expression of daring anyone to stop what he was about to do next.
“Come on, Gary. What are you thinking?” Della demanded, following him across the living room.
“Nothing much. Don’t look at me like that, Della. I’m not going to do anything crazy. I just want to get a look at this joker.”
“Let’s just go home,” Maia said, joining them in the hallway. Ricky and Suki nervously followed her.
“But the party’s just starting!” Ricky exclaimed, and then laughed as if he’d made a hilarious joke.
“Come on, Maia. We’ve got to wait for Pete,” Della said.
“And besides, we haven’t settled anything,” Suki added. “We haven’t decided what to do about the skulls and the note.”
“Do? What can we do?” Maia whined. “One thing we can do is not sit around this house and let that creep terrorize us.”
Gary
had disappeared up the stairs. Now he returned carrying Della’s Polaroid camera in his hands. “How about a group portrait?” he asked, smiling.
“That’s the only way you’ll ever get this group to smile,” Ricky cracked.
“Here’s another way you can get me to smile, Schorr—leave!” Suki scowled.
“Knock it off, Suki,” Gary warned. “Stop picking on Ricky.”
“Ricky’s picking on me by existing,” Suki muttered.
“Remind me to laugh at that one later,” Ricky said, rolling his eyes.
“Come on, you two,” Della pleaded.
“I’m going. Really. I have to go home,” Maia said, pushing past them to the door.
“No! Don’t!” Gary said, pulling her back. “You’ll chase him away before I can get his picture.”
“That’s your plan?” Della cried. “When he knocks, you’re going to pull open the door, yell ‘Smile!’ and take his picture?”
“Yeah,” Gary said defensively. “That’s my plan. You got a better one?”
“Yeah. Forget it.”
“What if he doesn’t want his picture taken?” Suki asked.
“What if it makes him mad?” Ricky asked.
“Let me go home—please!” Maia begged.
“After I flash the picture, Della, slam the door and lock it. He’ll be too stunned to react quickly,” Gary said. “Then we’ll call the police.” He looked at Della. “What do you think?”
Della rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “Dumb,” she said. “But I can see that you’re going to do it anyway.”
Gary smiled. “Right.”
“Please—let me go,” Maia repeated.
“Maia, stop. We’re all in this together. We have to stick together. We have to help each other,” Della said.
“Then let’s all leave!” Ricky said. He quickly held up both hands. “A joke. Just a joke!”
Maia scowled and angrily walked back to the living room. “You can’t keep me a prisoner here,” she called.
“You’re not a prisoner,” Suki said. “But you can’t be a deserter either.”
“But you’re all acting crazy!” Maia insisted, her voice high and tense. “I just want this all to be over.”
“That’s what we all want,” Suki said. “But running home to Mommy won’t do that, Maia.”
