In the Land of the Lawn Weenies

by David Lubar

  I shook my head. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

  “It’s a wonderful idea,” he said.

  Then I saw the name of the show and a chill ran across my scalp. “I really don’t think it’s a good idea at all.”

  “What’s wrong, afraid of the dark?” Mr. Peggler asked.

  “Hardly,” I said.

  Before I could argue any further, he was leading everyone into the planetarium. We took our seats. The room grew dark. Mr. Peggler was sitting right next to me. “See,” he said as the stars appeared projected on the ceiling. “This is wonderful. You should just relax and enjoy the show.”

  “Welcome to the planetarium,” the taped voice of the announcer said over the loudspeaker.

  “I really think we should leave,” I told Mr. Peggler.

  He shushed me. Okay, I thought. That’s it. I’d tried. There was nothing more I could do except sit and listen to the announcer.

  “Our show is called Phases of the Moon. If you look toward the eastern horizon, you’ll see a spectacular full moon rising.”

  It was a fake, of course. I wasn’t really sure if it would work. But it certainly did the trick. By the time the whole moon was visible over the horizon, we’d all changed. I’d tried to tell Mr. Peggler it was a bad idea taking us to the planetarium. Maybe I should have told him our secret. But what use is a secret if it gets out? And even if I’d told him we were all werewolves, he’d never have believed me. But it’s true. When the full moon rises, we turn into wolves. All of us. I don’t mean those pretty wolves you see in nature shows on TV—I mean snarling, raging, howling monsters.

  The school should have known better than to hire him. I guess good substitutes are hard to find. Of course, by the time we get through with Mr. Peggler, he’s going to be pretty hard to find, too.

  COLLARED

  Jay was always getting me into trouble. I mean, I got myself into trouble, but I got there by following Jay. Still, the fact that he would hang around with a younger kid like me was enough to make up for the occasional problem with parents, teachers, or other adults. It’s not that we ever did anything really bad, it’s just that whatever we did seemed to end up causing some kind of problem.

  So, on Friday night when I met him in town, I figured nothing he suggested would surprise me.

  I was wrong.

  “Hey, Marty,” he said when I walked up to him. He was leaning against the office building on the corner of Stoker and Main, looking tough and cool in his black leather jacket. No matter what the weather, hot or cold, Jay wore that jacket. Most of the time, he slicked back his hair, too. It looked kind of strange, sort of like in those old movies where the kids spend all their time dancing or racing their cars. But the last kid who laughed at Jay’s hair ended up unable to laugh at anything for a few weeks after that. Jay didn’t take disrespect from anyone. That was another nice part of hanging around with him. Nobody gave me any trouble when we were together.

  “Jay,” I said, giving him a handslap. “What’s up?”

  “We are,” he said. “Up the hill.”

  “What? You don’t mean up there, do you?” I pointed past Jay’s shoulder.

  He gave me a look that said “You heard right” and started walking toward Varny Street.

  I almost didn’t follow. Up the hill. There was only one meaning for that in our town. And none of us went up the hill. Not up there. Not at night.

  But Jay was going.

  I was torn. I’d follow Jay almost anywhere. But up the hill? I wasn’t sure I could do that. The heels of his boots made a tap-tap that started talking to me. Instead of “tap-tap, tap-tap,” I found myself hearing “go back, go back.” The sound grew fainter; the voice became a murmur and then a memory as Jay left me behind. I waited for him to look at me. He kept walking.

  While my head struggled with the decision, my legs made a choice. I jogged to catch up with him. As we climbed the long hill, I didn’t speak, fearing that my voice might reveal my feelings. Varny Street starts out fine. It’s lined with houses like any normal street. Then the houses give way to a few empty lots. Then the lots give way to trees. Nobody wants to build a house too close to the top.

  Halfway up the hill to there, I finally had to say something. “Why?”

  Jay turned his head toward me but didn’t stop walking. “No reason,” he said. Then he laughed. I thought he was done, but a moment later he said, “Maybe because no one else will.”

  I couldn’t believe I was following him up to the old Morgan house. Even if I ignored the stories kids told, there had to be enough real dangers to make anyone with half a brain stay away. I’d bet the place was filled with rats, and the floors were rotting to pieces. I could see myself crashing through the floor, landing in the cellar. I shuddered as I saw my legs snap like toothpicks against the hard concrete. Nobody went near the Morgan house. Even the adults didn’t like to walk past it. Most of them sort of whispered the name when they mentioned it at all. It was like a rule in our town—don’t talk about the Morgan house.

  I don’t know the story. It’s hard to know the story when nobody will tell it. But I knew it was a bad place. Ahead, I watched Jay. The leather of his jacket flexed as he walked, a deep black patch in the dim light from the streetlamps at the bottom of the hill.

  We were almost at the top. The wind gained force, stealing the heat from my body and making me shiver. I tried to tell myself that it was only the cold that made me tremble. Jay pulled up his collar. “Leather,” he said. “Nothing like it.”

  I hoped he wouldn’t start on that. There was one area where Jay drove me crazy. He’d talk about leather and how great it was and how wonderful it felt. “It breathes,” he’d say, stroking his sleeve. “Keeps you warm without getting too hot. Feels great. There’s nothing like it.” I just couldn’t get excited about it, but I certainly wasn’t going to point that out to Jay.

  I looked up. We were there. The house, dark, silent, and shut tight, towered above us. Loose shingles jutted from the roof. Most of the windows were broken. All the ones I could see were covered with boards from the inside. I wished the house would collapse before we went in. I hoped it wouldn’t collapse after we went in.

  Jay hopped the low fence, then looked back at me and grinned. “Coming?”

  I crawled over the fence, but I felt like I’d left my stomach on the sidewalk behind me. It almost felt like I’d left my spine there, too, but I managed to follow Jay up the steps to the porch.

  “Locked,” Jay said as he rattled the knob.

  “Guess we can’t get in,” I said, turning back toward the street. I hadn’t even reached the edge of the porch when the sound of a crash ripped through the night, hitting me like a jolt of electricity. I spun back toward Jay.

  He was standing half inside the doorway. He’d rammed the old wood of the door with his shoulder. Jay bowed and swept his hand forward. “Shall we?”

  “Sure.” That word didn’t seem to want to leave my throat. I walked into a world that reeked of dust and mildew. I had to fight to keep from coughing.

  There was a click. A beam of light splashed through the dark. Jay had brought a flashlight. “Let’s explore,” he said, walking deeper into the place I didn’t want to be.

  I followed him into a large room directly beyond the front door. Not wanting to stare into the blind darkness at our sides, I tried to keep my eyes focused on the wedge of floor that was carved by Jay’s light. There wasn’t as much dust on the floor as I expected. At the edges of the light, I could see heavier layers of dust on the furniture.

  We went deeper—through another room and along a short hall that led to a stairway. But Jay didn’t go up. Instead, he walked to a door in the wall beneath the stairs. Jay opened the door and leaned inside.

  “Boo!”

  I jumped a mile. Jay laughed. “Down we go,” he said. He headed into the cellar.

  I really wanted to leave. I wanted to breathe air that wasn’t heavy with dust. I wanted to stand be
neath an open sky. But the rooms behind me were dark and Jay had the light.

  The steps groaned beneath my feet. I knew we’d end up in a dusty rat-filled basement—a damp hole that would swallow the two of us.

  “Whoa, look at this,” Jay said, swinging the beam slowly across from wall to wall.

  I froze on the steps.

  The place was neat and clean. But that wasn’t what stopped me. There was a low block of stone in the middle of the floor. A box lay on the block. I knew right away what it was.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I said, grabbing Jay’s arm. The leather of his jacket felt almost alive beneath my fingers.

  Jay pulled away from me and moved to the coffin. He walked all the way around it, shining the light over every inch of the polished wooden box. “I’d heard stories,” he said.

  “Let’s go,” I said again.

  “Look what I have.” Jay reached into his pocket. He pulled out an object and held it up for me to see. It was a cross on a chain. Jay laughed. “Just in case. But wait, there’s more.” He reached inside his coat and pulled out a long wooden stake.

  “Jay, you’ve been watching too many vampire movies.”

  The rest happened very fast.

  There was a muffled thump. The lid of the coffin flew open.

  I felt every muscle in my body try to leap up the stairs. But I couldn’t move.

  A dark shape burst from the coffin, snarling. It hit Jay from the side with such force he was knocked off his feet. The flashlight flew from Jay’s hand and bounced along the floor, spinning crazily.

  The light swept across them—Jay and the vampire.

  They were on the ground, struggling. Jay was pinned facedown. The vampire had his arms around Jay and his head buried in Jay’s neck. Jay was screaming.

  I took a step back.

  The flashlight spun slower. Near my feet, something reflected the passing beam.

  The cross.

  Jay was trying to hit the vampire. He’d managed to hold onto the stake, but all he could do was stab at the air.

  I stepped forward, grabbed the cross, and ran to the struggling figures. I held the cross out, my hands shaking so badly I thought my bones would tear loose from their joints.

  I pressed the cross against the side of the vampire’s head. The skin that touched my fingers felt old and dry and dead.

  There was a hiss of scorched flesh, and the room filled with a dreadful stench. The vampire sprang up, its hands clutched over its face. It stumbled against the open coffin and let out a cry unlike anything I had ever heard. Whether hunger or sorrow or anger, I couldn’t tell.

  Screaming his own howl, Jay struggled to his knees, the stake still gripped in his hand. He staggered to his feet, then rushed at the vampire and plunged the point into the monster’s chest.

  I turned my head away, but I heard the sound of the stake, like a shovel slicing into mud. When I looked again, the vampire had fallen back into the box. I ran forward and slammed down the lid, then placed the cross on top. The instant it touched the wood, it was as if a lock had snapped shut on the coffin.

  I reached over to help Jay. I was afraid to take my eyes from the lid of the coffin, afraid it would fly open again. I felt leather. I grabbed and pulled and backed off, guiding Jay, leading him away. I found the flashlight with my other hand and we stumbled up the stairs.

  Jay was almost all deadweight at first. By the time we reached the front room, he had recovered enough to walk without my help. We made it out of the house.

  I never realized how much I loved the smell of the outdoors.

  Down the street, the flashlight died. I guess something had been damaged when it fell. But we didn’t need it anymore.

  “Are you … ?” I started to ask. “Did it … ?”

  Jay felt his neck. Then he swore.

  “Did it bite you bad?” I asked. There was no doubt the creature in the basement had been a vampire. The cross, the stake, the coffin—there was no question what we had faced. And I knew that anyone bitten by a vampire would turn into one. I moved a step away from Jay, afraid he might change before my eyes.

  “Relax.” Jay turned and showed me the damage. His collar, in a flipped up position covering his neck, was ripped and torn. There were two holes in the leather. But I didn’t see any blood.

  “Just the coat?” I asked.

  He nodded. “I love this coat,” he said, running his fingers along the wounded section.

  “Better it than you,” I said.

  He didn’t reply.

  We walked back toward town, pausing to rest on a bench at a bus stop. We were just at the edge of the wooded area. “You know what would have happened if he’d bitten you,” I said.

  Jay nodded.

  “But we made it.” I looked back up the hill at the house, still not completely believing what we’d been through, or that we had actually escaped.

  “I owe you one,” Jay said, touching the tears in his collar.

  I didn’t answer. I wasn’t sure whether he was speaking to me or the coat.

  We sat in silence. This was not the time to discuss the things that had happened.

  I glanced at Jay. He was running his fingers inside his jacket collar. Suddenly he made a choking sound like he had swallowed something just a bit too big to get down in one piece.

  The collar of his jacket rippled for an instant.

  Jay must have known. He reached for the zipper. He tried. He really tried to escape. The collar snapped around his neck. The ends of the collar stabbed at his flesh. The zipper pulled tighter. Jay grabbed at his throat and gasped.

  I reached out to help him. The flap of his pocket slashed at me, almost cutting my hand.

  Courage goes only so deep. I ran.

  But there was still some courage in me. I didn’t race to the bottom of the hill. I ran for the house and the cross. I hurried through the rooms and down the steps, feeling my way through the basement in total darkness, waiting each instant for the vampire to grab me and hurl me to the floor. My hands met warm softness instead of the hard wood of the coffin. For a moment, I didn’t understand. Then, thinking back to the fireplace at home, I knew what I was feeling. It had all become ashes. The vampire and his coffin—everything on the slab of stone had turned to ashes. All but the cross. My hand met the metal buried among the remains. I grabbed the cross and I ran back down the hill.

  I was too late.

  Jay lay on the ground, unmoving, his face pale and drained. There was a hole on each side of his neck. That tore a hole in my heart. But there was one other part much worse. There was one thing that made me clutch the cold, small cross with all my strength.

  Jay’s jacket was gone.

  Out in the trees, in the woods beyond the bench, something rustled and fluttered.

  THE SUBSTITUTE

  Jane scurried through the classroom door-way and slipped into her seat just before the late bell rang. She felt her face flush as she listened to the voices of the other students and wondered how much of the chatter and laughter was aimed at her. She sank deeper into her chair and glanced toward the front of the room to see if Mr. Muller had noticed her arrival.

  But Mr. Muller wasn’t there.

  “I’m Mr. Pringe,” the man standing by the blackboard said. He paused to run a hand through his uncombed hair. “Mr. Muller couldn’t be here today. I’m your substitute. I’m sure we’ll all have a mar-velous time.”

  An instant wave of excitement flowed through the class. Jane could sense the kids around her trying to figure out what they could get away with. She knew that some substitutes were like iron rods with legs, not letting the kids have any slack. Others were as easy to manipulate as wet clay. It was almost as if they wore signs saying: “Play tricks on me.” That was fine with Jane. If the kids were busy torturing a substitute, they might leave her alone.

  But this substitute didn’t take attendance, or do anything else that gave the class an easy chance to play a trick on him. He got right to work. />
  “I know how much you kids like science,” Mr. Pringe said, “so I’ve set up a little demonstration.”

  He reached behind the desk and hauled up a mess of wires connected to an assortment of shiny metal parts. “Now, I need a volunteer.”

  There was dead silence. Then, behind her, Tommy Lindstrom said, “How about Jane?”

  She felt a thunk as he kicked the back of her chair. She wanted to turn and shout for him to stop. But she knew that if she shouted, the whole class would laugh at her—just the way kids had laughed when someone had hidden her notebook last week, or when they’d put that rubber worm in her lunch.

  “Yeah, Jane,” Linda Russo said, dragging out the a so it sounded like “Jaaaaaaaaane.”

  Stop it, Jane thought. Leave me alone. She felt her face grow red and wished she could fade into the air. She squeezed her notebook against her chest and shook her head.

  Mr. Pringe was looking right at her. He extended his hand. “Come on, Jane, this will be fun.”

  Jane shook her head again. She flinched as something bounced off the back of her neck. It felt like a crumpled ball of paper.

  “Well,” Mr. Pringe said, tilting his head down and peering over his glasses, “I see Jane isn’t interested in science.” He opened a notebook, pulled a pen from his shirt pocket, and started writing. As he wrote, he spoke the words, each word isolated by a small cushion of silence. “Not … interested … in … science.” Then he snapped the book shut and said, “Well, who would like to volunteer?”

  All around Jane, hands shot up like rockets. She almost raised her own. I could ask for another chance, she thought. It might not be too late.

  She dropped the idea. It would just give them another reason to laugh at her. Every time she spoke, someone found something to mock. When she walked down the halls, when she took out her lunch, when she moved or breathed or sat still, someone made fun of her.

  “That’s the spirit,” Mr. Pringe told the class. “It’s science. You’ll love it.”

  Kids were hopping up like sprung mousetraps, waving their arms for attention. Several students rushed toward the front of the room. Everyone except Jane flowed forward.