After school, I waited with Atticus at his bus line. He said he could walk me home, but I knew his mother wouldn’t like that because she would be getting ready for Halloween and would want him to help. We always trick-or-treated in Atticus’s neighborhood on Bunker Hill because it was the best Halloween street in our town. All the houses got really decorated. It would take Mrs. Brightwell almost a whole month to get ready. She complained about it sometimes but I think deep down inside she loved putting gravestones in her front lawn and flying a ghost on a zip line down her driveway.
After we saw Elena get on her bus, I felt okay about Atticus getting on his bus, too. I thought it would be safe for me to walk home alone after that.
I watched all the big yellow buses pull away from the school then walked to my crosswalk.
Barney the dinosaur stopped traffic so I could cross the street. It was really our crossing guard in a big purple costume. I passed the mailbox where I always mailed my dad’s letters and headed down my street toward home.
I looked up at the clouds as I walked down the sidewalk. They were the big fluffy kind, like the ones we watched on the day Pop-pop told us about our Infinity Year.
Atticus always thought everything would work out—even with people like Elena. He really still believed that something magical would happen to make things okay. It was scary that I had begun to believe it, too. I guess it was that Infinity Year magic building up inside me. It felt good, but what if—
Suddenly, I heard a loud yell coming from behind me. There were thumping feet, gaining on me fast.
I froze.
“I’m gonna get you!” the voice called out.
I couldn’t move. I was so scared that I couldn’t even turn around. Whatever Elena had planned was happening now and Atticus wasn’t with me. I was completely alone.
Princess Leia would do something. She wouldn’t just stand there. She would whirl around in her flowing white gown and face her enemies. She would not be afraid.
I was no Princess Leia.
The thumping feet got closer. The yelling grew louder.
I closed my eyes and expected the worst.
And then …
… they passed me by.
I opened my eyes and saw a group of teen ghosts and goblins running down my street in front of me. They had rushed past without noticing me at all.
* * *
Two hours later, I was in the backseat of our car with a little brown paper bag in my lap. There was a perfect caramel apple inside. After re-pinning my side-buns (they’d gotten kind of droopy during the day), Mom was taking me to the Brightwells’ house.
The caramel apple came from Mrs. White. She makes caramel apples every Halloween, and I’ve gotten one every year since I was little. Mrs. White is always my first stop on Halloween night. It’s a tradition.
I had already eaten my apple. The one in the bag was for Atticus.
Mom looked at me in the rearview mirror while she was driving. “You okay? You’ve acted strange ever since you got home from school.”
I guess I was a little jumpy. It had been that kind of day. Plus, Chloe lived in Atticus’s neighborhood, so a little part of me was afraid I would run into the witches while trick-or-treating. But since Atticus, Kevin, and Adam would be with me, what could they really do?
“I’m okay,” I said, nodding.
“M and I will miss you tonight,” she said. “We always have to give out the candy by ourselves.”
“I bet M’s a big help,” I said, and smiled at her in the mirror.
“Yes, she is,” Mom said, and smiled back.
After she dropped me off at the Brightwells’, I watched the ghost fly after her down the driveway as she drove away.
Mrs. Brightwell was dressed up like a black cat with drawn-on whiskers and a long tail. Caroline and her boyfriend, Will, were dressed like a cheerleader and a football player. That would have seemed normal except for the fact that Will was dressed as the cheerleader and Caroline was dressed as the football player.
Caroline and Will were officially taking us trick-or-treating. “Ten-year-olds need supervision,” Mrs. Brightwell had said. So all four of us walked down the driveway and waved good-bye to Mrs. Brightwell. As soon as she couldn’t see us anymore, Caroline turned to Atticus and handed him her cell phone.
“Call Will’s cell if anything happens,” she said.
“All right, but you sure you don’t want to go to the haunted house with us?” Atticus asked. Our first stop every year was at the Coopers’ haunted house. I could tell he wanted Caroline to come, too.
She put her arm around him and pulled him aside. I heard some whispering and by the time they turned around it was determined that Caroline and Will were going to the park at the end of the street to see some of their friends and we would meet them there at the end of trick-or-treating. So much for supervision.
It was getting dark when we separated, and the street was starting to get crowded with zombies and other monsters. We met Adam and Kevin in the line outside the Coopers’ garage/haunted house. They let only a few people into the haunted house at a time. It’s scary in there and this was the first year we were going inside on our own. Atticus’s dad, the spy, came with us last year, but he was off on some secret foreign mission tonight.
My dad took us the year before.
Luke Cooper, who wore a rainbow Afro, opened the side door to the garage (the one that’s like a regular door) and the four of us walked in. It was very dark. There was a loud growl beside us and I felt myself grabbing for Atticus’s hand.
Someone dressed in a monster mask came up behind us and told us to move forward. We started walking and a flashing light came on making everything look like it was moving in slow motion. A zombie jumped out in front of us and I screamed. The flashing light stopped.
A smaller light came on and shone on a boy who was dressed up like a mad scientist.
“You are now entering the sensory chamber,” he said in a spooky voice. “You will feel the intestines of a three-hundred-year-old yak and the brain of Albert Einstein. Blindfolds, please.”
He handed us blindfolds and we put them on. We had done this last year. Someone guides you through a little room behind the curtain. In there, you are told to put your hands in weird things that feel like brains and intestines (which are really just spaghetti and rubbery eggs and stuff like that).
I looked at Atticus and he gave me his best you-can-do-it face. I put on my blindfold and someone from behind the curtain guided me inside.
I walked several steps without touching a single brain or body part. I heard a door open in front of me. Someone guided me through. Then I heard a door close behind me.
The ground was soft under my sneakers and the air was fresh on my face. I deduced that I had been taken into the Coopers’ backyard. This was different. Last year, the haunted house was only held in the garage.
When I tried to walk forward, a hand on my shoulder held me back.
“You have been brought here tonight to pay for your crimes.” The voice came from in front of me. Not too close, but not too far. It sounded weird, kind of like Mr. Peterson’s voice had sounded as Darth Vader earlier in the morning.
“For too long you have gotten away with far too much and not paid the price,” the voice continued. “Tonight we are here to teach you a lesson. It’s time you learned your place, Avalon James.”
Okay, that was too weird. I reached up to pull off my blindfold.
“Do not take off the blindfold,” the voice called out.
I pulled off the blindfold anyway. I was right. I was outside the back of the Coopers’ garage looking into the Coopers’ backyard. I was standing right underneath their big tree house.
A flashlight beam suddenly shot into my eyes.
I squinted, trying to see. As my eyes adjusted, I made out two ghosts at the other end of the blinding light. They looked like regular Halloween ghosts wearing cutout sheets that went down to their ankles. But their shoes were sho
wing.
I recognized the shoes on one ghost. I had seen those little black boots on Chloe Martin a hundred times.
This wasn’t part of the haunted house. And those weren’t ghosts. They were witches.
The dots started connecting in my head. Chloe Martin was good friends with Samantha Cooper, who was a sixth grader, and her brothers were running the haunted house. It was Chloe and Samantha who Adam overheard on the bus. It must have been Samantha who led me out here.
The little black boots told me that Chloe was the silent ghost. So that meant Elena must have been the speaking one.
Which led to a frightening question: Where was Sissy?
I had to get out of there. It was a trap. I started to run but my sneaker got caught in my Princess Leia gown and I fell down. I tried to get up but stepped on my dress again. My gown had turned against me and trapped me right there in the Coopers’ backyard.
Then I felt it. All at once. Something was suddenly pouring all over me.
It was coming from above. From the tree house.
It was gallons and gallons. The liquid rained down on me. It was like those witches had a cauldron up there.
There was nothing I could do except wait for it to end.
When it did, I was completely soaked and sitting in a puddle on the ground. I couldn’t help but taste it.
Milk.
I was covered in milk. The witches had made a real Milk Monster of me.
That’s when the flashlight went out.
And that’s when I screamed.
EIGHT
I was so mad at Elena, Chloe, and Sissy. I was so mad. After I screamed, Atticus found me covered in milk in the Coopers’ backyard. The girls were long gone and my Princess Leia hair and gown were completely ruined.
Note to self: Infinity Year power DOES NOT help with spilled milk, PERIOD! I should have known when I’d seen Mrs. Brightwell dressed like a black cat that things were going to go bad.
Atticus walked me back to his house and I tried not to cry. It was a low point. I was still soaked when we got back to the Brightwells’ house. Atticus brought me inside and I dripped milk all over Mrs. Brightwell’s hardwood kitchen floor. While Mrs. Brightwell was trying to call Caroline (and her phone kept ringing in Atticus’s pocket), I caught her looking at me. I could see it in her eyes. Mrs. Brightwell was adding another item to her list of Reasons Not to Like Avalon.
When my mom picked me up, I told her everything that happened. She called Elena’s mom right when we got home. Of course, Elena’s mom couldn’t believe her angel, Elena, could ever do such a thing. But she would ask her about it when she came home from trick-or-treating.
I knew what would happen next. Elena would deny it. Her mom would believe her. And I couldn’t prove anything. So Elena would get away with it.
Arggggggh!
I had been willing to end it with Elena. I really had. But this was too much. She had gone too far, and I just couldn’t let it go. I had been planning how to get back at her all night, and by recess the next day, I was bursting with ways to get my revenge.
“I’m going to find the biggest spider in the whole town and put it in Elena’s backpack,” I said venomously. Atticus and I were sitting at the top of the jungle gym (now our regular spot), looking at Elena, Sissy, and Chloe, who were jumping rope by the basketball court. They were acting like nothing had happened the night before.
They were the only ones.
Somehow the whole grade knew. As soon as Mae saw me that morning, she’d asked if it was true. Did I really get a bucketful of milk dumped on me? Later, Augustus Sawyer meowed at me in the lunch line.
“Or maybe I’ll do a Jasper Hightower,” I continued, glaring at Elena, “and dunk her head in the toilet.”
“Avalon,” Atticus said.
“What?” I snapped back.
“You can’t do any of that,” he said. “You have to promise me.”
I looked at him. “It’s not fair, Atticus! You saw what she did to me!”
“I know it’s not fair,” he said. “But if you get back at her, she’s going to get back at you worse, and it’s never going to stop. You’ve got to be the bigger person and let it go.”
I dropped my head and groaned. Didn’t he know by now that I was not a bigger person kind of person?
“Plus, you have more important things to do,” he went on. “Like winning spelling bees. Like going to the nationals.”
“I’ve got to win the regionals first,” I said. I’m always surprised how Atticus can dream bigger for me than I can for myself. “And I haven’t actually won a spelling bee yet.”
“But you will,” Atticus said matter-of-factly. “And who knows what’s going to happen with our Infinity Year—”
“Stop it with the Infinity Year, Atticus!” I said, cutting him off. “If there was ever a time when I needed my Infinity power, it was in the Coopers’ backyard!”
“Shhhh.” Atticus put his fingers up to his lips.
“Why should I be quiet? If I didn’t get my power then, there’s no such thing as an Infinity Year.”
Atticus looked around like he was more concerned about people overhearing us than about what I had actually said. He was strict about the rule that we could only talk about our Infinity Year with each other. “You have to have faith, Avie,” he said quietly. “And who would want to waste their magical power on Elena Maxwell anyway? She isn’t worth it. Besides, Pop-pop says people like Elena get what they deserve in the end. That’s just how life works.”
Maybe he was right. But I wasn’t sure I wanted to believe anything Pop-pop had to say right now. I just knew one thing. I would have used up all of my Infinity Year magic on Halloween night if I could have turned Elena into a green slimy slug.
* * *
I walked around in a grump for the next three weeks. I didn’t do anything bad to Elena. But I really wanted to.
Before I knew it, it was almost time for our family tree presentation. During my grump, I decided that getting random old pictures off the Internet would have to do for my father’s side of the family. I found some real good ones, too. The older and crankier the people looked, the better.
Mae and I prepared our posters and came up with links between our families. The most bizarre link of all was that we each had a great-great-grandfather with a glass eye.
Mae has a little brother named Noah who is four. When we worked at her house on the presentation, Noah would get into all our pictures and try to draw on our poster board. This would get Mae really upset and she’d yell for her mom to come and get him. But I can tell Mae really likes her brother. I kind of like Noah, too.
I also kind of like Mae. It’s weird to have a girl who’s a friend. Because Atticus has always been my best friend, I’ve never really had a girl friend.
Mae and I never talked about my dad, though—not once since Elena embarrassed me about him in the art room that day. I wondered what Mae thought about my dad being in prison. She was always nice to me, but was she secretly ashamed to have me as a project partner?
The night before our presentation we were at Mae’s house rehearsing. When we got to the part about my dad and I had to talk about him, I just looked at her.
I could tell she knew what I meant. “I don’t know what to say,” I finally said. “Everybody knows about my dad. And Elena…” My voice trailed off.
I watched her glue my dad’s picture to the bottom space on my family tree chart. “Don’t worry,” she said. “We’ll figure out something.”
“Yeah,” I said quietly.
She looked at me. “What do you want to say?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. I really didn’t know. How do you explain a thing like that to a bunch of kids who already know the terrible thing you’re trying to hide from them?
She pressed her hand across his picture to be sure it was glued on good. “Okay,” she said. “When you decide, just let me know.”
* * *
I finally decided
the next day, right before our presentation. While everybody was getting ready, I told Mae my plan. When we got to my father’s picture, I would say: My father was from California. He met my mom at college and then they moved here after graduation and had me. Then Mae would talk about her dad right away so nobody would have a chance to really think about what I had said.
It was a simple plan but I thought it might work.
After everybody was ready, Mrs. Jackson called up the first team to the front of the class. The order had been established a week earlier by pulling numbers out of a hat. Me and Mae were going third.
We watched Eva Chang and Marcus Johnson go first. Eva’s part of the presentation was perfect. She explained everything and everybody while Marcus stood by with—you guessed it—a finger up his nose.
Augustus Sawyer and Elena were next. Augustus talked about his relatives, who were originally from Georgia, and Elena talked about her great-grandparents, who were from Naples, Italy. She also told us how her father was a big lawyer and how her family was so great. Elena’s and Augustus’s families didn’t have much in common. But who would really know? Augustus didn’t get to talk much.
Then it was our turn. We propped our posters up against the blackboard and began. We started with our great-great-grandparents and went from there. We had rehearsed everything, so after Mae spoke about one of her ancestors, I spoke about one of mine. It was all going great until I got to my dad.
I looked at the picture of him on the poster board and remembered the last time we were together before everything changed. It was a Saturday afternoon and we walked up to the Jiffy Freeze together. I held his hand as we passed yard after yard covered in orange, red, and yellow leaves. I remember thinking it was too cold a day for ice cream. The next Monday, my father didn’t go to work and two policemen showed up at the front door. He never told me what happened. He just went away.
“Avalon,” Mae whispered, and nudged me with her arm.
I had almost forgotten where I was. I had such a deep yearning to be eating a double chocolate fudge ice cream cone with my dad that I almost wasn’t there.
The Infinity Year of Avalon James Page 7
