Jack froze with terror. Thankfully, another blast from the truck stopped Sheila short.
“All right, all right, I’m coming!”
She stepped outside, then poked her head back in.
“Forgot to mention I’m having a Tupperware party this Wednesday, and you’re invited.”
“Why, thank you,” Julia smiled.
Then Sheila was gone again.
They all breathed a sigh of relief when the truck pulled out of the driveway. Julia turned to Ron and Dana.
“What a character!” she laughed. “Living with her must be exhausting.”
Dana, however, was not in the laughing mood. “Aunt Julia, what kind of weird people lived here?”
She shrugged. “I don’t really know, but I wouldn’t worry about it. People like Mrs. O’Reilly sometimes exaggerate their stories. How are you getting along upstairs?”
“We’re all done,” Ron said proudly.
She looked shocked. “Already? Good grief, you must have been moving fast! Well, that’s awesome – now I can get to work on sanding and priming right away.”
“I can help,” Ron offered.
“I’d better do the sanding myself, but you can help with the priming if you want. In the meantime, you guys can watch Jack and start cleaning up the living room again. Later, we can go pick up the primer and the rest of the paint. Oh, have you decided what colors you want your rooms to be?”
Ron looked at Dana, who was examining her toes, so he stepped forward and pulled the brochure from his back pocket. He opened it to a white-walled room with the brown trim.
“Yes, Aunt Julia,” he said. “We both want this one.”
“You both agreed?”
She seemed impressed until she saw the picture. She looked puzzled as she raised her head.
“This is what you want?” she asked.
Ron nodded vigorously, forcing a smile. It was one of the most boring ideas for a room he had ever seen, but they were going home in a few weeks anyway. “Yes, it’s great, right, Dana?”
“It’s really pretty,” she said weakly.
Julia still looked hesitant.
Ron steeled himself for questions, but Julia only said, “All right, then, if that’s what you like best. Let’s get to work.”
The two siblings charged up the stairs. While they were collecting their tools, Dana asked, “Can I have my brochure back?”
Ron looked at her sternly. “You aren’t going to change your mind, are you?”
She shook her head, miserable, and he reached into his back pocket, but the brochure was no longer there.
9
Ron and Dana worked up a sweat as they moved everything into the crammed dining room. They dusted again, cleaned the windows, then swept and washed the floor, taking much longer than they did upstairs. By the time they were done, the floor was damp but sparkling clean and the entire house smelled of Pine-Sol.
When Aunt Julia came down, they made lunch and ate it outside on the front porch.
“I want to play,” Jack said when he’d finished.
Ron shook his head. “We have to get back to work.”
“Actually,” Julia countered, “why don’t you guys take a break and play for a bit. I have to finish sanding the walls upstairs and prime them, and it would be good to let the living room dry out.”
“Yes!” Dana said, quickly. “Let’s go, Jack!”
“Yay!” Jack shouted, while Ron sighed.
Julia called after them, “Watch out for Jack, don’t play in the front lawn at all, and don’t get hurt.”
“We won’t,” Dana answered.
“I’m gonna ride my bike!” Jack exclaimed, scampering after her through the front door.
Julia cocked her head at Ron. “Aren’t you going with them?”
Ron knew that Aunt Julia was trying to do the parental thing by letting them play, but she didn’t understand that he was no longer a child. He had to find some way of letting her know. After all, raising the two kids was their job together, and it was more his burden than hers. But it wouldn’t do to insult her by stating it openly. It was better done subtly.
He selected his words carefully. “I was really hoping to do the priming with you,” he said. “I’ve never painted a room before and I want to learn how. I mean, I used to watch all those make-over shows with… Mom… but they don’t always show you step by step and anyway, it’s not as good as doing it yourself.”
He gave his best blue-eyed gaze.
Julia looked surprised and impressed. “Absolutely! It’s always more fun to do it with someone else. But first, go and run the two younger kids ragged, so they’ll be too tired to do anything other than watch TV while we’re working, okay?”
Ron beamed. “They’ll be ready to sleep in a half-hour, you can count on me.”
“I know I can,” she said.
Now that he’d squared things up with Aunt Julia, Ron was eager to get moving. He hurried over to the bicycles, strapped on his helmet, and hoisted himself onto the pedals, swinging his leg over the seat as he rolled off. It was a method he’d copied from movie cowboys, and a habit he’d never gotten out of. As soon as he was rolling down the sidewalk, feeling the breeze in his face, he felt the urge to race. He bent over the handlebars and began to pedal furiously.
He passed Jack, who was playing with his cars in the driveway, and Dana, who was still searching for her helmet among their toys in the plastic tub.
“Wait up, Ron!” Dana shouted. “I’m not ready yet!”
Ron pretended that he couldn’t hear her over the wind blowing in his ears. He kept up a furious pace, passing house after house without noticing them, until he came to the end of Whipple Lane. He slammed on the breaks and dragged the back wheels around in a semi-circle. To his immense satisfaction, they left a thin layer of rubber on the white sidewalk.
He grinned and looked up. That’s when he first noticed the house.
Sitting at the base of Whipple Lane, where Old Kobold Street crossed it, was an eerie Victorian house - large enough, in Ron’s estimation, to be called a mansion. A short, weedy gravel path led to sagging steps up to a darkened front door.
The house was three stories tall, with peeling, dark gray paint and white trim. Two windows jutted up from the roof on the third story, the panes so dirty that they appeared brown in the summer sunlight. Trees, bushes, and shrubs had grown wild, making it almost impossible to see the lower-story windows. The whole thing had a look of neglect and darkness – even the “No Trespassing” sign was stained from months of exposure, and the mailbox listed to one side.
Through one window Ron could make out tired-looking white drapery. A crow cawed from somewhere close by and an invisible branch scratched against glass pane.
An icy sensation crawled up and down his back. Ron stared at the house, unable to take his eyes away from it. It seemed to loom up over him, an evil specter on an otherwise harmless street.
In the distance, Ron heard Dana’s plaintive shout, and he was glad to turn his bike around. As he pedaled back up the slight incline to their house, he sensed the cold stare of the Victorian on his back.
Dana sat astride her pink and white bike, waiting for him with her arms folded, pouting.
“You went too far!” she scolded, in a high pitched tone. “Aunt Julia said to stay at the front of the house.”
“No she didn’t,” he sighed. Arguing with Dana was like arguing with a terrier – she just didn’t know when to give up.
“Did too.”
“No, she said to stay on the sidewalk. And I did.”
She tried a different approach. “Well, it’s dangerous to just be riding off on the road like that and I think…”
“Dana, look. There’s the cop car.”
Dana’s mouth snapped shut. They studied the black and white cru
iser in the driveway next door. It was parked in front of a garage next to a one-story, tan house with a porch. Although it was probably the same size as the Budds’ cottage, it seemed more spacious, and it was certainly kept up much better. It was a nice, friendly house, and a far cry from the Victorian at the bottom of the street.
“Think there’s anyone there?” Dana asked, quietly.
Ron shook his head.
“Maybe they’re at church,” she said.
“Maybe,” Ron said. “Come on. We don’t want to stand here all day.”
Ron and Dana raced up and down the street, sticking to the sidewalks and without leaving Jack too far behind, although he seemed so happy with his cars that he wouldn’t have noticed. Only one or two cars passed during that time and, except for the occasional dog barking at them through a window or from behind a fence, they saw and heard no one.
They raced until they were breathless and sweat poured off of them, then they called a truce, and walked their bikes back up to their house.
Ron had a stitch in his side, and the start of a headache from their time in the hot sun, but the exercise had done him good. He was feeling better than he had in months.
Beside him, Dana was pink and wheezy, but glowing.
“Pretty good riding there,” Ron said, with a grin.
“I beat you that time,” she said, her voice triumphant.
Ron had let her, but she didn’t need to know that. “I know. You’re fast.”
“I like biking. We can go a lot further here.”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
“And we haven’t heard one siren the whole day.”
Ron had to admit that it was remarkable. They often heard sirens back in Springfield. Ron’s school was shut down a couple of times because of bomb threats, but no bombs were ever found. He thought that the real pain in the neck about the bomb scares was the reaction the teachers always had: they got nervous and cracked down hard on the students, which put everyone in a bad mood. Ron wondered if the schools in Franklin ever had bomb threats.
They were approaching the cop’s house when Dana said, “I wonder if they ever have bank robberies or anything here. It seems so quiet.”
“They probably don’t,” Ron answered. “That’s why people come on vacation here.”
“Probably...”
“Hi!”
It came from their right. They turned to see a girl about Dana’s age, standing on the bottom rail of the fencing in front of the cop’s house. She was small, with enormous hazel eyes and extremely curly brown hair. She wore flip-flops, shorts, and a sparkly top, and she seemed at the same time both friendly and shy. She kept lowering her face to hide it behind the top rail on the fence, then looking up, like she was playing peek-a-boo.
Dana and Ron exchanged puzzled looks.
“Hello,” Dana said. “Who are you?”
“I’m Amelia,” the girl said.
“I’m Dana Budd and this is my brother, Ron. We’re staying next door.”
“I know,” Amelia said, still hiding her face.
“Do you live here?” Ron asked.
She nodded. “I live here with my dad and my cat.” She looked up then. “Do you want to see her?”
Dana pounced on the invitation. “Sure!”
“Wait right here.”
Amelia turned and ran to her house, banging the front door closed after she raced through it.
Ron wiped the sweat from his forehead, squinting through the bright sunlight to where Jack was playing cars. Jack’s face was flushed, but he was very absorbed in his playing and hadn’t noticed the stranger. Ron didn’t dare look down the other end of the street. Even from where he was, he could feel the Victorian, and it made him uncomfortable.
Then Jack came running over to them. He grinned brightly and hopped up onto to the bottom slat of the fence.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“We’re going to see a cat,” Dana said.
“If she ever comes back,” Ron mumbled. “Let’s go.”
“But…” Dana protested.
“Come on,” he insisted.
No sooner had they turned their backs than the front door banged open again, and Amelia came running across the lawn. She clutched a squirming, meowing, fluffy white cat against her chest. She was breathless, and her arms were freshly scratched, but she was triumphant.
“This is Dorita,” she said. “My dad gave her to me.”
“Dorito?” Jack giggled. “That’s a funny name for a cat!”
“It’s not ‘Dorito’,” she said, struggling to hold the increasingly annoyed cat. “It’s ‘Dorita’. It means ‘gift’. Ouch!”
With a swipe of her claws, Dorita won her freedom.
Dana was aghast. “Are you all right?”
Amelia lowered her head with a barely visible nod. The scratch wasn’t very deep, but it was starting to bleed. The little girl held her arm, fighting back tears, obviously embarrassed.
Ron wanted to ease the moment.
“Dorita’s a nice name,” he said. “It’s Spanish, isn’t it?”
Amelia nodded, sniffling.
“I really like your cat, Amelia,” Dana said. “I’ve always wanted a cat or a dog, but my Dad is – was allergic to them. So we couldn’t.”
Dana had touched on the subject nearest and dearest to Amelia’s heart. Her face brightened, and she began to talk rapidly.
“Oh wow, then you are going to love Mrs. Jurta!”
Dana blinked. “Mrs. Jurta?”
Amelia nodded and hopped back onto the fence. “Uh huh, she lives across the street right there,” she pointed, “in the green house and she has so many dogs that you wouldn’t believe it. She gets them from the pound and helps them to learn to live with people and other dogs and stuff so that the new owners won’t have any trouble. This week, she’s actually gotten two puppies – a Great Dane and a mutt.”
She stopped and took a breath, grasping the fence.
“Do you get to play with the dogs a lot?” Dana asked eagerly.
Amelia nodded. “Oh, yes, all the time. When my dad isn’t home, I stay with Mrs. Jurta and she lets me take the little ones for a walk. It’s a lot of fun. Would you like to do it sometime, too?”
“Sure!” Dana was delighted. “That would be cool!”
The girl’s face lit up with excitement and she kept her eyes locked on Dana, seeming to forget that the boys were there. In fact, when Ron spoke, she jumped at the sound.
“Do you know everyone on this street?” he asked.
Amelia nodded, then reconsidered. “Well, not everyone. But most everyone. The Willis family lives next door, in the white house. They’re old, and they’ve lived here forever. Mr. Willis is a nice man, but Mrs. Willis has a dog that likes to bite, and she’s pretty grouchy. And then there are the Durkins…”
Ron interrupted. “Do you know who lives in the house at the end of the street?”
“Which end?”
“The spooky, old one at the end of the road down there,” Dana said, thrusting her arm in the general direction and missing Ron’s face by a half an inch. “The one that looks haunted.”
Ron hadn’t realized that she’d noticed it, but the description was accurate.
Amelia leaned over the rail and squinted. “Oh, that place? No one lives there. It’s empty.”
“Who used to live there?” Ron asked.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s been empty as long as I can remember. I heard Mr. Willis tell Daddy that someone wanted to buy the house and tear it down to build new homes, but they couldn’t get enough money or something. I’m glad it didn’t work. I kind of like it. It must have been pretty when it was new. If I had enough money, I would buy it and fix it up and put a pool in the back.”
“But it’s so spooky l
ooking!” Dana objected. “It’s like those houses in haunted movies. You couldn’t pay me a million dollars to live in there.”
Ron saw how Jack and Amelia were looking at his imaginative sister. “Let’s talk about something else.”
“I wish we had a pool,” Dana said. “I love swimming.”
“We’ve got one,” Amelia said. “It’s kind of small, but maybe you could come swim in it some time?”
“That would be awesome, wouldn’t it, Ron?”
He rolled his eyes. “Dana…”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Of course, we’d have to get Aunt Julia’s permission,” Dana said, assuming this was the cause of Ron’s reluctance.
“You came with your aunt?” Amelia asked.
Dana nodded. “Yep. We’re spending the summer here and fixing up the house so we can sell it.”
“My dad says that paint is the cheapest way to redo a house,” Amelia said authoritatively. “When we moved here, he let me paint my room whatever color I wanted.”
“Aww, man,” Dana said, enviously.
“Speaking of which,” Ron said, not liking where the conversation was going, “I think it’s time that we went home. Aunt Julia might need our help now.”
Dana gave her customary pout. “But she said she wouldn’t need us until tomorrow.”
“I think we ought to check anyway.”
“Oh, whatever! I’ll see you later, Amelia.” She took off with Jack on her bicycle, leaving Ron alone with their new neighbor.
She looked admiringly at his bike. It was a camouflage off-road bike with sixteen gears and a matching water bottle - the coolest bike that Ron had ever owned. He had gotten it the Christmas before, so it was still new and didn’t have any scratches on it yet. That was something he hoped to change.
He put a foot on the pedal and smiled. “It was nice meeting you,” he said.
“You, too,” she said. “I have a bike, too.”
“Oh? Why don’t you ride it?”
“Dad doesn’t like me riding on the sidewalk.” She brightened. “But maybe he wouldn’t mind if I did it with you guys.”
Summer Shadows Page 10
