Can You Keep a Secret?

by R. L. Stine

  He pretended to be hurt. “Come on. It’s a plan—isn’t it?”

  Riley’s uncle once showed up in a new red Corvette and took Riley for a ride in it, and he’s been obsessed with Corvettes ever since. He draws them and puts together plastic model Corvettes. He even made his parents take him to the Corvette factory in Kentucky one summer so he could watch them being made.

  “Are we going to vote or not?” Callie demanded, ignoring Riley’s suggestion.

  “Okay,” I said. “How many want to take the bag of money to the police?”

  Callie and I raised our hands. No one else.

  Eddie laughed. “You’re outnumbered. So … now what? I say we hide the money in some safe place till we know more about it.”

  Danny eyed Eddie suspiciously. “And you get to choose the safe place?”

  “Stop it, Danny,” I said. “We’re starting over, remember. We have to keep the secret, all six of us. And we have to trust each other. We’re friends, right?”

  “Sure, we’re friends,” Danny said. “But we never had thousands of dollars before.”

  “And you think that could mess up our friendship?” Eddie demanded.

  Danny backed away. “I just meant someone might be tempted to … you know … maybe take some of it. I mean, no one here is rich. We’ve all got money problems, right? I just want to know who makes the rules, here? Is it you, Eddie?”

  “I guess,” Eddie said. “I’m the one who found the money. I think—”

  “But we’re going to split it equally, right, Eddie?” I broke in. I could see Danny was ready to fight again. “All six of us share the secret, and all six of us get the same share. And we all have a say about things.”

  “For sure,” Eddie said.

  Danny relaxed. He helped Callie to her feet and slid his arm around her waist.

  “So we’re definitely going to hide it somewhere?” Roxie asked.

  “Just to be safe,” Eddie said. He raised the briefcase and unlatched it. “Hey, how about this? A symbol of good faith.” He reached in and pulled out a stack of bills.

  I grabbed his arm. “Eddie? What are you doing?”

  “I told you. A symbol of good faith.” He counted out six hundred-dollar bills and handed one to each of us. He jammed one into his jeans pocket. Then he latched the briefcase shut.

  Roxie raised the money close to her face, holding it in both hands. “Wow. I never held a hundred-dollar bill before. Hard to believe it’s real.”

  Callie shook her head. “I just want to go on record,” she said, folding the bill in her hand. “If something bad happens because of this, I warned everyone.”

  “Relax, Callie,” I said. “Seriously. Just chill. Nothing bad is going to happen.”

  Whoa. Was I wrong.

  14.

  Eddie said he knew the perfect place to hide the money.

  So we piled into Danny’s SUV, and Eddie directed us to the pet cemetery outside Martinsville where he works. It was late, nearly midnight, and there were few cars on the road.

  About a mile from Martinsville, a deer leaped out onto the highway in front of us. The headlights lit it up—so bright I could see the startled look in the animal’s eyes. Danny hit the brake and swerved hard, making us all scream.

  My hand squeezed the arm of the door so hard, it throbbed with pain. I forced myself to breathe. I let out a cry as the deer managed to scamper to the other side.

  “What a boring night!” Riley joked. We all laughed. Tense laughter.

  I sat next to Callie, and I could feel the fear and tension coming off her. She clasped her hands tightly together in her lap. And she kept her eyes straight ahead, focused on the road in the darting headlights.

  I wanted to say something to make her feel better. It always makes me uncomfortable to be with someone who is unhappy. I’m not a rah-rah cheerleader type. But I like people to be happy. But as I said, I don’t know Callie very well at all. So I didn’t know what to say to her.

  Danny slowed the car as the tall main gate and the sign PET HEAVEN filled the windshield. Eddie directed him to the side of the wide cemetery lot. He jumped out of the passenger seat, the briefcase gripped tightly in his hand.

  Snakes of cloud floated over the pale crescent moon. The old trees that dotted the grounds stood still as death, black against the purple night sky.

  We followed Eddie into the cemetery, our shoes sinking into the soft dirt. Once again, I felt a chill at the back of my neck, felt all my senses go alert.

  Something evil here …

  Why did I keep having that frightening feeling? Was it just because this was a cemetery? Because the decaying corpses of dozens of dogs and cats were lying under our feet?

  Roxie brushed up against my side. “This is way creepy,” she said in a voice just above a whisper.

  I nodded. I pointed to a tall gravestone. In the dim light, we both read the inscription: HARRY. 2004–2016. MY BEST FRIEND. WE’LL GO FOR WALKS IN HEAVEN.

  Roxie shuddered. “That gravestone probably cost big bucks, right?”

  “Probably,” I said. “People love their pets.” But I wasn’t thinking about the gravestone. I was thinking about how I had such a feeling of dread every time I came here.

  Roxie twisted her face in disgust. “Ooh. What’s that rotten smell?”

  I shrugged. “Beats me.” I held my breath. The odor really was totally putrid.

  Eddie led us along a narrow, rutted path between two rows of graves. A few of the gravestones were draped with wilting flowers. One of the stones had a color photo of a German Shepherd printed on its front.

  I brushed back my hair and wiped away drops of sweat from my forehead. It was a warm night, and there was no air here at all, not the tiniest breeze. As if the whole world was still and dead.

  Toward the back of the cemetery, I saw a yellow light. I stared hard and realized it was the office building. The light was on in the front. Was Mac Stanton awake? Could he see us from there?

  I stepped away from Roxie, eager to ask Eddie about the light in the office. “Mac can’t see anything from there,” Eddie said. “We’re too far away, and it’s too dark.”

  He stopped at an open grave, dirt piled in a low mound at one end. The grave was about three feet deep. A shovel lay on its side beyond the mound of dirt.

  Eddie turned and waited for the others to catch up. “This is perfect.”

  Danny stepped up beside him. “You’re going to bury the briefcase in this grave?”

  Eddie nodded. “Yeah. It won’t take long to cover it up. We’ll bury it here, then come back as soon as we know it’s safe.”

  “Better be soon,” Riley muttered. “I haven’t found a summer job.”

  “Yeah,” Roxie chimed in. “That hundred dollars you gave us isn’t going to go far.”

  Callie remained silent, her arms crossed in front of her. She hadn’t said a word the whole drive to the cemetery.

  “We’ll come back and get it as soon as we know no one is looking for it,” Eddie said. “You know I work here. So I’ll be able to keep an eye on it.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” Danny said. “You keeping an eye on it.”

  “Give it a rest, Danny,” I said. “We said we’re going to trust each other, remember? Stop trying to start fights.”

  He raised both hands and put this innocent, wide-eyed expression on his face.

  “Eddie isn’t going anywhere,” I told him. “He isn’t going to take the money and fly off to the Bahamas.”

  “Not a bad idea,” Riley joked. No one laughed.

  “If you have a problem, you’ll know where to find him,” I told Danny. “So stop trying—”

  I felt my phone buzz in my pocket. Who would call me after midnight?

  I tugged it out and raised the screen to my face. Then I tapped to accept the call. “Sophie? What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Emmy? Where are you?” Her voice sounded tiny, frightened. “Where are you?”

  Panic tighte
ned my throat. I had to think fast. No way I could tell her where I was. “I’m … uh … with my friends. Why? What’s wrong, Sophie? Is something wrong?”

  “I … sorry … sorry to bother you, but…”

  “Sophie? Are you home? Is everyone okay?” My voice cracked on the word okay.

  “Yeah. Fine,” she answered hesitantly. “I … was walking home from the library. I stopped at Lefty’s. You know. To see if there was anyone I know there. But the place was almost empty, and I really wasn’t hungry…”

  “And? Why are you telling me this?” I demanded.

  I looked up and saw the others watching me. I turned and walked a few steps down the path between the gravestones. Behind me, I could hear Eddie shoveling the dirt onto the grave.

  “I think I saw it,” Sophie said. “Emmy, I think I saw it. The wolf.”

  I gasped. “Huh? You saw it? Where? Where were you?”

  “Walking home. By the Malcolms’ house. You know. Across from the playground.”

  “The wolf was on the playground?”

  “It was watching me, Emmy. It stood with its head down, and its back arched. I could see the black fur raised on its back. It followed me with its eyes. Incredible blue eyes.”

  No! Could it really be the wolf from my dreams?

  “What did you do, Sophie? Did you run?”

  “No. I couldn’t. I was too afraid. I just stared back at it. And after a while, it slinked away.”

  I suddenly felt strange. Sophie’s voice seemed to fade until she seemed far away. She was still talking, but her words didn’t make sense to me. I gasped as the dark trees all around appeared to lean toward me.

  That’s impossible. The trees aren’t moving. What’s wrong with me?

  “Emmy? Are you still there?” Sophie’s voice a mile away.

  The trees tilted toward me, reaching for me. The ground starting to tilt and sway. The sky rocking. The crescent moon sliding to and fro … trembling as if it was about to fall from the sky.

  So dizzy … why do I feel so dizzy?

  “Emmy? Are you coming home? Where are you? Please come home. It isn’t safe, Emmy. It isn’t safe out there.”

  Sophie’s voice sounded so distant. Like a million miles away.

  I tilted my head back, raised my face to the shimmering moon, and suddenly had such a powerful urge … an urge to open my mouth … to open my soul … and to howl, howl like a wolf, howl out all the wildness inside me … howl and howl and never stop.

  15.

  Someone grabbed my arm. Callie. Her eyes were wide with alarm. “Emmy? Are you okay?”

  I blinked at her. It took me a while to realize my mouth hung wide open. I closed it, breathing hard, my chest fluttery, blinking more, struggling to make her come into focus.

  “Emmy? What’s wrong?” She held onto my arm.

  “Nothing,” I managed to say. “I’m okay.”

  Her pale green eyes studied me. “You had the weirdest look on your face. Like you were going to faint or something.” I saw that the others were staring at me, too.

  “That phone call,” Callie said. “Did you get bad news?”

  “No … I…” I didn’t know how to answer her. Glancing down, I realized I still had the phone gripped tightly in my hand.

  I pressed it to my ear. “Sophie? Are you still there? Sophie?”

  Silence.

  “My sister,” I told them, tucking the phone into my jeans. “She thinks she saw the wolf. She got totally freaked.”

  “The wolf? Really?” Roxie stepped over to me. “Where’d she see it?”

  “A few blocks from our house.” I raised my eyes to the trees. They didn’t appear to be leaning toward me anymore. But my vision was still cloudy, my skin tingled, and my dizziness lingered. “I think I have to get home,” I said. “Sophie sounded pretty bad.”

  Eddie tossed a shovelful of dirt into the grave. He gazed at me. “Aren’t your parents home? Can’t they take care of her?” I could see the disappointment on his face. He probably wanted to go back to our campsite in the woods for the night.

  But I was no longer in the mood. And watching the faces around the grave, I didn’t think anyone else was, either.

  “My parents are useless in an emergency,” I said. “They just tell us to calm down and not be drama queens. No matter what.” I was telling the truth.

  “My mom just passes out the Xanax,” Roxie said. “She thinks it’s the cure for everything.”

  “I’m almost finished here,” Eddie said, tossing more dirt on the grave. “I can ride with you.” He glanced around the group. We were all standing very still, watching his work. “Hey, thanks for pitching in, everyone,” he grumbled.

  “Cut us some slack,” Riley said. “There was only one shovel.”

  I noticed that Danny had gotten very quiet. I saw his eyes follow the shovel as Eddie smoothed the dirt over the grave. I wondered what he was thinking. After a few seconds, he saw me watching him, and he turned abruptly toward the trees.

  Eddie tossed the shovel onto the ground. He wiped his hands on the legs of his jeans. “Let’s roll,” he said.

  The lights were still on in the office at the back of the cemetery. Squinting hard, I thought I saw a shadow move in the front window. But I was too far away to see clearly.

  Eddie slid a hand onto my shoulder as we walked toward the car. “You okay?”

  I nodded. “Worried about Sophie.”

  Worried about Sophie and about me.

  “What a boring night!” Riley exclaimed. That made us all laugh.

  “Hey, we’re almost rich,” Eddie said.

  “Almost,” Danny repeated. I could hear the bitterness in his voice. I hoped he wasn’t going to cause more trouble.

  * * *

  Sophie was waiting up for me in our room. Her face was sweaty even though a breeze was floating in through the open window, making the curtains dance.

  She sat up on her knees on her bed as I came in. Her nightshirt was caught beneath her legs. She tugged it free.

  I turned on the ceiling light. Sophie’s cheeks were flushed. Her normally perfect black hair was matted to one side on her head. “I didn’t know if you’d come home or not,” she said softly, her eyes studying me.

  “I was worried about you. You sounded so weird,” I said.

  “You weren’t at Rachel Martin’s,” Sophie said, frowning. “I tried her house first.”

  “You what?” I returned her stare. “Why didn’t you just call my cell? You knew I wasn’t at Rachel’s. So you were checking up on me? Why?”

  She stuck her chin out. “Mom and Dad think you’re so perfect, and I know you’re not.”

  I groaned. “Sophie, please don’t start this. It’s been a long night—”

  “Look at your sneakers,” she said, ignoring me. “They’re caked with mud. Where were you, Emmy? Where were you really?”

  “I’m sick of you being jealous all the time,” I snapped. I didn’t mean to say it. It just burst out. Now that I’d started, I couldn’t stop. “Sick of you checking up on me, watching me, commenting on everything, always criticizing me, always being angry. Poor Sophie. Poor Sophie. She’s not as popular … not as much fun as Emmy. I’m sick of it! I’ve got my own problems, you know?”

  Sophie’s eyes went wide. She wasn’t expecting such an explosion. She raised a finger to her lips.”You’re going to wake up Mom and Dad,” she said.

  “I don’t care,” I said.

  “You just don’t want to be honest with me,” she said, her chin trembling, like she was getting ready to cry. “You don’t think you can confide in me. Because you think I’m some kind of lower life form. I’m just some kind of larvae, or … no … a leech … some annoying creature you have to pull off your leg.”

  Huh? That made me burst out laughing.

  After a few seconds, Sophie began to laugh, too. It was such an insane, dopey thing to say. We hadn’t laughed together like that in a long time. We both laughed till we had tears
in our eyes.

  I dropped down on the edge of her bed and took her hand. “Okay,” I said. “Okay, leech. How about a truce? What do you say?”

  She wiped her eyes with her fingers. “Truce?”

  “I’ll tell you the truth,” I said, “if you swear not to tell anyone. Can you keep a secret?”

  I could see she was thinking about it. “Okay,” she said finally. “Truce.” We bumped knuckles.

  So I told her the truth. Actually, it felt good to tell her. “I was with Eddie and a bunch of friends,” I said. “We had this plan to camp out all night in the Fear Street Woods.”

  “Oh, wow,” Sophie said. I could see the surprise on her face. “You and Eddie? You haven’t even been going with him that long. I hope you were careful.”

  “It wasn’t like that,” I told her. “Eddie has this thing about camping … being outdoors. He says we spend too much time cramped up indoors. He says he can’t breathe indoors. So he came up with the idea. And … we all thought it would be an adventure.”

  No way I planned to tell Sophie about the briefcase of money or burying it in the pet cemetery. I wasn’t used to confiding in her. I decided I’d better go slow. See if she could be trusted. This was a good test. If she went running to my parents with this info, I’d know for sure that I couldn’t trust her with any secrets.

  “So … what happened?” Sophie asked, settling her back against the wall, straightening the hem of her nightshirt. “Why’d you come home?”

  “Because of your call,” I said. It wasn’t a total lie. “You sounded so frightened and…” My voice trailed off. I suddenly remembered what happened to me after Sophie called. The whole world fading away … becoming a blur … and the overwhelming animal urge to howl.

  Sophie’s blue eyes locked on mine. “So I spoiled your night?”

  “No. No way,” I said. “It wasn’t a good plan. The others weren’t in the mood and … and I came home. We all went home.” I stood up. I started to pace back and forth between our two beds. “So you’ll keep my secret?”

  “Of course,” she said.

  “Change of subject,” I said. I had to ask her. I had to learn more. I couldn’t stop thinking about my strange wolf dreams … the weird feelings I kept having. I wondered if Sophie could help me.