“That’s mine!”
“I had the red one!”
“You wish!”
“Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! GIMME!”
And then the first balloon popped.
Dina squealed, “Eeek!” but that only made everybody else laugh. So, in one fateful moment, everybody went from wanting to hold a balloon to wanting to kill one.
Within minutes, my guests were bouncing up and down on the sofa and stabbing at balloons with plastic cake forks.
Pop! Blam! POW! It sounded like a gunfight had erupted in my house.
Dina turned on the stereo, found a radio station blaring rock music, and cranked it way up. Then, as Leo was hopping around on his cast and bobbing his head in tempo to the blaring stereo, Donna and Dana started dancing on the furniture.
Scottie was entertaining himself in the kitchen by dropping pennies into the disposal and listening to them tumble and crunch, while Cougar was running around the room, flicking the lights on off on off on off, like he was creating his own strobe light show.
When they saw me in the doorway, Cougar yelled, “What happened to your House of Horrors, Jerkface?” and Scottie barked, “Boo!”
Darryl had locked himself in the bathroom (the ghost-sheet-on-a-string hadn’t bothered him one bit), and Jennifer was pouting in the corner chair, still fuming because Cougar and Scottie had shown up.
I was running around yelling, “Cut that out! Put that down! Don’t walk on the couch! At least take your shoes off!” when suddenly the doorbell rang.
I quickly counted heads. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. All my guests had arrived. Mom was at work. So who was at the door?
Rain was pouring down in sheets, and even though it was mid-afternoon, the sky was midnight dark when I ripped the front door open.
“What do you want?” I snapped. Then I stopped. And I looked up . . . up . . . up.
Because there was a giant on my front porch.
The wide brim of the hat on his head cast a shadow over his features, but there was no mistaking this creature’s size: he was HUGE. Then a lightning bolt zapped across the heavens, and for one awful moment, I saw his face.
And I clutched at my throat in terror!
For I was looking into the face of the ugliest creature I had ever seen; a face full of pain and malice, a face without mercy, covered with scars and stitches and warts. In a voice that seemed to rise from the deepest pits of hell, he spoke:
“Helloooo . . . Charley.”
33
I opened my mouth to scream, but this monster . . . this MANIAC clapped his hand over my mouth. He leaned down, his red, runny eyes just inches away from mine. Then he snarled:
“Make one sound, and I will rip your head from your body.”
And if it’s possible to pass out while standing up, that’s just what I did.
I offered no resistance when the Monster lifted his hand from my mouth and steered me across the entry until we were just around the corner from the living room.
He leaned down to my ear and hissed, “You know what I don’t want you to do?”
I shook my head frantically, which started my teeth chattering.
He twisted my head around the door frame so that I was just peeking into the chaos raging in the living room. “I don’t want you to look away.”
I gulped. I held my breath.
And this is what I saw.
Darryl had come out of the bathroom and was sulking on the sofa; Jennifer was reading a copy of Monsters & Maniacs; and Donna, Dina, Dana and Leo were still dancing when Cougar and Scottie raced into the room, dripping wet from their fight over the kitchen sink sprayer.
“This party suuuuuuucks!” Cougar shouted.
“YEAH!” almost everyone agreed.
“What happened to the House of Horrors, huh?” someone shouted.
“Ooh, I’m soooo scared!” said another voice.
And people laughed.
Cougar thrust a hand into the air. “Who wants to go slip and slide on the lawn?”
I was amazed to see that—except for Darryl and Jennifer—no one hesitated to wave their hands overhead and squeal, “Me! Yay! Slip and slide!” They all turned to rush for the door.
But then they skidded to a stop.
Because the Monster was now standing in the living room. He’d pulled his hat low, so they couldn’t see the hideous face I’d just seen.
Outside, lightning bolts zapped and threw quick, spooky shadows on the walls. Thunder rattled our windows. And for a long time, nobody spoke. My guests giggled, nervous and embarrassed. They looked around, their eyes asking each other, Who is this guy?
Cougar finally broke the silence with a snicker: “Who’re you?”
In low, horrid tones, the Monster rumbled, “The Birthday Boy asked me to drop by and eat some of his . . .” He stopped and cleared his throat. “I mean, meet some of his classmates.”
And, saying that, he tossed the hat off his head and lifted his face into the light just as a thunderclap exploded outside.
Dina, Dana and Donna squealed all together, and everybody stopped breathing.
Yes! I thought; Behold the face of evil!
Since Cougar was in front of the pack, I could see his face the clearest. And it went white.
“Uh. Charley’s here. Somewhere,” he stammered. Then he tried to leave the room, but the Monster stopped him with a finger to his chest.
“Charley? Ah,” said the Monster. “I’ve already seen him.”
By now, Darryl was cowering on the couch, but Jennifer was leaning forward, her eyes alive with fear and excitement.
“Charley didn’t look so good,” the Monster continued. “But that’s only one man’s opinion.” He slipped a hand into his enormous black overcoat. “I’d like to know WHAT YOU THINK!”
And as he said that, from out of his overcoat he pulled . . .
. . . my head!!!
I’m serious! He was holding my head by my hair, and it had been cut off at the neck! I gagged in horror! My own head—the one still on my shoulders—was unable to make any sense of my head in the living room!
Everybody’s jaw dropped down so far that I could see who still had their tonsils and who didn’t. Then, in one big tidal wave of noise, they all screamed together.
The Monster took one step toward my classmates and they lost it.
Shrieking and wailing, they scattered. They dove under tables, squeezed behind the couch and crawled into cabinets.
The Monster tipped over the chairs that Dina and Dana had found to hide under; they fled like cockroaches, but like cockroaches who could screech like car alarms. They ran into the dining room, where they collided with Donna, who was running the other way. They all agreed to run in the same direction while the Monster chased them around and around my pathetic birthday cake. Finally, he cut off any possible exit, and he cornered them.
Then when he opened his mouth and revealed that he had two long, glistening fangs, their shrieking was so supersonic that it shattered a window above the side table.
Leo and Darryl were fighting over who’d get to hide in the hall closet when the Monster suddenly appeared behind them, grabbed each one by a shoulder and spun them around. They flattened themselves against the wall, whimpering, “No no no, please, no no no!” Then the Monster opened the palm of his right hand and held it up for them to see that—there! embedded in the flesh of his palm!—was a set of gnashing teeth!
Darryl’s hair shot straight up.
But—and this surprised me—it was Leo who fainted. Right into Darryl’s arms.
I hope you won’t think I’m being cruel when I tell you that I had to clap my hand over my mouth to keep from laughing. It’s not always fun to get scared yourself, but, boy oh boy, it can be really hilarious to watch other people losing their minds!
As I was coming back to my senses, I looked down to find that Boing Boing had joined me in the entryway, watching all the hysteria with a bored look. Unlike his response to
the Balloon Man earlier, Boing Boing wasn’t barking at the Monster.
And I thought, That’s strange. He usually barks at strangers.
And then my brain, which only minutes before had been shocked into blubbering stupidity, began to send me a message: Maybe this Monster wasn’t a stranger.
Maybe he was somebody who knew me.
Somebody who knew it was my birthday.
Somebody who just happened to have a copy of my head lying around.
Do I need to go on?
Cougar and Scottie had been dashing from room to room, trying to outrun the Monster. After they swung the kitchen door in his face, they gained a few precious seconds, and, in that time, they both had the bright idea to hide under the living room sofa. They dropped to the floor at opposite ends of the couch and squeezed underneath until they boinked heads in the middle.
“Ow!” Scottie whined.
“Shh!” Cougar shushed hysterically, hoping that they could escape the Monster’s detection.
But, in addition to worrying about death-by-Monster, Scottie had another problem.
What very few people know is that when Scottie gets upset, he throws up easily. Since he’s embarrassed to talk about it, Scottie had never told Cougar.
But Cougar was about to find out.
Cougar twisted his head the moment he recognized the sound that Scottie was making—the sound a dog makes after eating grass.
“Oh, no! Scottie, no!” hissed Cougar. “You’re not really gonna . . .”
“Merp!” Scottie belched in warning. And then, just as Scottie lost his lunch—SPEW!!—into Cougar’s face, the Monster seized Cougar’s ankles. “NOOOOOOooooo!” Cougar wailed, his nails scratching at the floorboards as he was dragged out from under the sofa.
Wearing Scottie’s lunchtime burrito all over his head, Cougar now cowered at the feet of the Monster. He was squirming and shrieking, “DON’T EAT ME! PLEASE DON’T EAT ME!” over and over.
Everyone stopped hiding or screaming, and they all turned to watch our class bully begging for his life, writhing around on the living room rug. The Monster, towering over Cougar, threw back his head and laughed a horrible laugh, and when he was done, everything went strangely quiet.
Because now everyone was staring at Jennifer.
She was standing in the middle of the living room, holding my severed head by the hair.
“This . . . is . . . so . . . COOL,” she marveled. Then she tapped my skull and watched my smile swing back and forth.
Donna and Dina and Dana, whose faces were drenched with tears and snot and runny makeup, recoiled with a collective, “Gag!”
Scottie, peeking out from under the sofa, winced as he continued to wipe spit-up from the sides of his mouth.
Darryl, who had finally gotten Leo to his feet, shook his head and moaned: “Oh. That’s not right.”
And Leo, who was just coming around, fainted again.
But Jennifer wagged a finger at the Monster and said, “You almost had me.” And when she pinched my head’s “nose” between two fingers, I got so giddy with excitement that I jumped out of my hiding place.
“BOO!” I shouted.
Which only made everybody scream again.
After they got over the initial shock and Leo regained consciousness, everybody decided that they were furious with me.
Dana said, “Charley, you’re a creep!”
Darryl muttered: “Thanks a lot, Charley. Now I’ll need double sessions with my therapist.”
And Donna walked right up and yelled in my face (my real one), “Charley Maplewood, you scared us half to death!”
Then Jennifer topped them all by crying out: “And wasn’t it awesome?!”
Everybody stopped. And nobody said, “No.”
Instead, they looked around, trying to figure out what everyone else thought. And when they began to nod and snicker, it seemed that what everyone else thought was, “Yeah. I guess it was.”
Leo started to laugh . . . Leo, who had spent most of the time unconscious.
And Dina joined him. (I think Dina likes Leo and was trying to score points with him; but, still—she laughed.)
Dana was next. Then Donna. And even Darryl, who was fighting it with all his might, began his funny snorty-laugh.
Scottie, who was so relieved not to be smacked for having hurled on Cougar, laughed. And so did Jennifer.
This is what everybody came for! I thought as I looked around. Fun!
“So who’s your Monster, Charley?” Leo shouted.
“Oh!” I took charge of my birthday party, the way I always imagined that hosts are supposed to. “Meet Garry Quarky.”
I suddenly had a momentary doubt, so I spun around.
“It is you, isn’t it?”
Garry reached up and ripped off his ugly face in one swift move, and everyone gasped: “Whoa!”
“It’s me,” Garry smiled, freed from all that latex.
And, as Garry peeled the warts and hairs and scars from his head and his hands, everybody pushed closer, wanting to see what made a man into a monster.
Cougar, however, didn’t join them. Instead, he snuck up alongside me.
“Hey, man,” he whispered. “You got any clean underwear?”
I looked at him and crinkled up my nose. “You don’t mean . . . ?”
He nodded.
Finally, my guests began to enjoy themselves. We laughed about the stupid birthday cake I had made. We laughed about Scottie throwing up and Leo passing out. And we laughed about how we had all behaved when Garry first appeared.
“You should’ve seen your face!”
“My face? What about your face?!”
“And the way you screamed!”
“The way I screamed!”
We went on like that until Garry reached into the pocket of the Monster’s overcoat and pulled out a perfectly painted hand.
“Coooool,” everyone agreed.
“Remember this?” Garry asked me.
And I did. I excitedly explained to everybody how, even before he cast my face, Garry had cast my hand.
“Hey,” Cougar piped up. “Is your sister still upstairs?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Why?”
I yelled up to Lorena to come down.
“I’m in the shower!” she yelled back.
“It’s an emergency!” I insisted. “You have to come now!”
We were all gathered around the kitchen chopping block when Lorena burst into the kitchen. She was wrapped in her bathrobe, dripping wet and hopping mad.
“What?! What is going on down here, Charley?! Even in the shower, I can hear screaming and furniture crashing and . . .”
She slowed down, because she saw that I had my hand laid out on the cutting board. And that Jennifer had a meat cleaver raised up over it.
“NOW what are you doing?!” Lorena squeaked.
“You’re just in time,” I snickered. “Check this out!”
And that’s when Jennifer swung the cleaver down on my “hand”—THUNK!—chopping it off at the wrist. It dropped to the floor and rolled to a stop at Lorena’s feet.
I’m willing to bet that Lorena’s scream interrupted television reception in six states.
My guests and I were in the middle of the longest, loudest laugh that any of us had ever laughed, when suddenly—in the next split second—the laughter turned to shrieks of horror!
Because that’s when our front door BLASTED!! wide open.
I thought it was a bomb. I really did.
Instead, a whole army of policemen and policewomen poured into the house, waving guns and shouting: “DOWN ON THE FLOOR!! EVERYBODY DOWN!!”
They were holding the leashes of snarling police dogs who barked and snapped ferociously at us.
And then, as if that weren’t horrible enough, the back door exploded in, and even more police swarmed in, surrounding us and shouting even louder! By now there were about a dozen cops and a wild pack of dogs, and, between all their yelling and barking and
our screaming, there was a terrible racket.
We held our trembling hands over our heads, knelt on the floor and tried not to cry.
Why? I wanted to yell. What did we do wrong?
But as I lifted my head to speak, Mom—my real mom, not the phony Lorena mom—walked in the front door, drenched by the rain that was falling outside. She was shaking her head with disappointment and fury.
Did Mom call the cops? I wondered. Wow. She must be mad.
And that made it official: my Big One-Oh House of Horrors Birthday Party had come to an end.
THE PARTY’S OVER
34
That’s my story; I told it just like that.
When I finished, I looked around at the faces of all the people and animals squeezed into my living room.
There were Mom and Garry and Lorena and Boing Boing. There was Mrs. Cleveland, her arms folded in judgement.
There were my party guests and their parents, who had come to pick up their kids, only to find them surrounded by most of the Fresno Police Department, who had also listened to my saga.
So had seven ambulance drivers who had been waiting outside, ready to transport any casualties to the nearest hospital. I had even shared my story with our neighbors from way down the block who we hardly even know but who come running whenever fire trucks or police cars arrive.
See, what I hadn’t known was that—while I was in the middle of my party—Mrs. Cleveland was in the middle of a meltdown.
Ever since I had burned our garage, I guess Mrs. Cleveland had decided there was no evil deed that I was not capable of. So when she heard popping noises coming from our house, she didn’t stop to think that they might be balloons exploding.
Oh, no.
She assumed that I had somehow gotten my hands on a gun. And that I was using it.
The Big One-Oh Page 12
