by JL Bryan
“School didn’t stop you from working at the car wash,” his dad said. “Might as well find something useful to do with yourself, now that you quit your job.”
“Dad, I told you, I only got that job so I could save up for my guitar. Now I don’t need to work anymore.”
“Must be nice,” his dad said, returning his attention to the paper.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into you with that guitar,” his mom said. “You hardly ever practice your clarinet anymore. You’ll have to work a lot harder if you want to be first chair in the school band next year.”
“I’m not too worried about that,” Jason said.
“You’d better worry about it. That Laura Wu is going to be serious competition for you,” his mom said. “I want to see you working hard.”
“I don’t really like the clarinet. I like the guitar.”
“What’s not to like about the clarinet?” His mom looked scandalized. “You used to love your clarinet.”
“I wouldn’t say I loved it.”
“Well, I was first chair clarinet in my high school band,” his mom said. “If I can manage it, you can, too. And your father’s right, we can’t just let you loaf around with your friends all summer.”
“We’re not loafing, we’re rehearsing.”
“What you’re not doing is working,” his dad said. “You know, at a job? If you want to come to Bill’s House of Tractor with me, Bill might be able to find work for you.” Jason’s dad sold farm equipment at Bill’s, a large retailer in Eau Claire.
“Um…” Jason said. The idea of having his dad for his boss wasn’t quite as terrifying as the thought of going to Mrs. Dullahan’s house, but it was up there.
“Why don’t you drop by Mrs. Dullahan’s tomorrow afternoon?” his mom said. “Introduce yourself and volunteer to help out? That would be so nice.”
“She’ll probably think I’m trying to scam her.”
“A nice young man like you?” his mom asked. “Besides, you’ll be bringing one of Dotty Schuler’s famous muffin baskets. That should settle any of her concerns.”
“I can’t tomorrow,” Jason said. “We have rehearsal. There’s an audition at The Patch in Minneapolis next week.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” his mother said. “I don’t like the idea of you going into the Cities with you friends. That’s a rough area. You could get into trouble.”
“There aren’t any rough areas in Minneapolis,” Jason said. “You make it sound like Las Vegas.”
“Don’t smartmouth your mother,” his dad said.
“I’m not, Dad!”
“Don’t yell at your father,” his mom said. “I don’t want to hear any more nonsense about this. You’re going to Mrs. Dullahan’s tomorrow, and you’re going to be pleasant and useful.”
Jason sighed and stirred his mashed potatoes.
Chapter Three
After school on Friday, Jason picked up a cellophane-wrapped, ribbon-topped muffin basket from Mrs. Schuler, who ran a small gift shop in town. He pedaled over to Mrs. Dullahan’s, whose house was several streets away from his own, at the dead end of a road just outside town. It was atop a small hill, surrounded by huge old trees whose limbs gnarled together to form a dark canopy. The weeds under the trees were thick as cornstalks.
Jason rode his bike up the short length of driveway and stopped at the gate. A high brick wall, thick with moss and mold, blocked most of Mrs. Dullahan’s lawn from view. He could see one wooden turret of her house beyond it, with its single narrow window shuttered tight.
The gate itself was a massive pair of wooden doors, inscribed with strange floral and geometric designs, and these were full of moss, too. The whole area around her house felt chilly, though the rest of the town was warmed nicely by the May sunlight. It was nearly summer.
A rusty metal box, with little speaker holes and a single unmarked button, was built into the brick wall by the gate. Jason felt uneasy as he pushed the button.
He stood there for a minute, waiting. Apparently, she wasn’t going to answer, and that was a relief. He turned his bike around.
“Who’s there?” a raspy voice clicked out from the rusty box.
“Oh!” Jason said. “Um, hi, Mrs. Dullahan. My name is Jason Becker. My mom and the Lutheran Ladies sent me over here.” The lady didn’t say anything, so he added, “Yeah…They said I should help you with yard work or something.”
“Go away,” the lady’s voice replied.
“Okay,” Jason said. “Should I just leave the muffin basket by the gate, or….?”
“Go away!”
“All right, sorry!” Jason started to put the muffin basket down, but then reconsidered. If the old lady didn’t want it, he could bring it to band practice for everybody to eat. Maybe Erin would like that.
He pedaled to Mitch’s house with the muffin basket dangling from his handlebar. Dred’s van was in the driveway, and the garage door was wide open, but no music was roaring out.
“What’s wrong?” Jason asked as he parked his bike just outside the garage. He set the muffin basket on the workbench. “Can’t play without me?”
Mitch, Dred and Erin were in the garage, but they weren’t touching their instruments. Instead, they were moving boxes aside and looking carefully at the floor, searching for something.
“I lost my necklace,” Erin said. “The gold one with the little emeralds on the pendant? Have you seen it anywhere, Jason?”
“No, sorry. You lost it here?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been looking everywhere.” Erin’s eyes were glistening like she was wanted to cry, but she was holding it back. “I’ve searched at home, at school, at The Creamery…”
“We’ll find it,” Mitch said. He looked around the base of the drum kit.
“I already checked there,” Dred said.
“I’ll help.” Jason knelt and peered under the workbench on one side of the garage. He knew the necklace Erin was talking about. She wore it almost every day. It matched her green eyes. “When was the last time you saw it?”
“A couple days ago. I don’t really remember.”
“We’ve been looking for fifteen minutes. I’m pretty sure it’s not here,” Dred said.
Erin frowned and turned her face away from everyone. She crossed her arms. “Never mind. I’m sorry for wasting everybody’s time. Thanks for trying.”
“I’ll check out in the yard.” Jason walked outside to look over the driveway and the grass.
In the garage, Dred tapped impatiently on her drums.
“Thanks, anyway, Jason,” Erin said. “Let’s just play.”
“You sure?” Jason asked. “I can keep looking.”
“Nah, it’s cool.” Erin shook her head and tucked a lock of green hair behind her ear. “Forget I said anything, okay? We have to practice for the audition.”
Jason took his guitar out of the case, which he’d left in Mitch’s garage the previous night. “I meant to tell you guys, I can’t come tomorrow night, either. I have to babysit Katie.”
“That’s two days in a row,” Mitch said. “The audition is next week, Jason. I told you when you joined, you have to take the band seriously.”
“I do take it seriously! My parents don’t. I can’t help it.”
“You miss practice today, you miss it again tomorrow—” Mitch said.
“I didn’t miss it today, though. Mrs. Dullahan didn’t want me at her house any more than I wanted to be there.” Jason held up the muffin basket. “Who wants a muffin? Erin, chocolate chip?”
“Thanks! I could use some chocolate.” Erin smiled at him, and he suddenly felt soft and warm inside.
Jason punched through the cellophane and handed the muffins out. Mitch took both raspberry muffins and stuffed them in his mouth, puffing out his cheeks like a chipmunk.
“So, no more missing practice,” Mitch said to Jason, spraying wet muffin bits as he spoke. “Got it?”
“I have to stay home tomorrow,” Jason said. “I’ll
be lucky if my parents even let me go to the audition. My mom’s still not sure. It’s a school night.”
“Dude, you’re seventeen already,” Dred said. “You should be able to go anywhere you want.”
“Okay, just call my mom and tell her that,” Jason said.
“You’re not going to make the audition?” Mitch asked, looking alarmed.
“I’ll make it. I can handle my parents. But that means staying home tomorrow.”
“Work it out,” Mitch said. “Don’t miss another practice after tomorrow. And don’t mess up this audition!”
“I won’t,” Jason said. He looked at Erin. “Are you feeling better?”
“Yep, don’t worry about me. I’m the happiest girl in the world.” Erin said. She blew cheerful notes on the harmonica. “Let’s play.”
Chapter Four
Saturday night, Jason sat at home in his living room, his guitar in his lap, trying to pick out the music for “Angel Sky,” the song he’d written for Erin. He was having trouble getting the music and lyrics to flow together.
His mother had dragged his father to a collectible ceramics convention in Minneapolis, an hour away, and they still weren’t back.
“Jason?” Katie asked. She stood in the doorway of the living room in her Bert and Ernie pajamas.
“What is it, Katie?”
“Um…” She fidgeted, looking nervous.
“What’s wrong? You should be sleeping.”
“I know, but…there’s a monster.”
Jason sighed and put his guitar down. “Did you have a bad dream?”
“It’s not a dream! I saw it go into Mom and Dad’s room.”
“If it’s not in your room, you don’t have anything to worry about.”
“But I could be next!” Katie looked terrified.
“You’re completely safe, Katie. There’s no monster.”
“Is too!”
“Okay.” Jason stood up and stretched. “Let’s go check it out. I’ll show you there’s nothing to be scared of.”
“Thanks, Jason.” She took his hand as he walked toward the steps, something she hadn’t done in a couple of years. She really was frightened.
They walked upstairs and to the end of the short hall in their split-level house. Katie stayed back, clinging to the frame of her bedroom door, while Jason approached the master bedroom.
“See, Katie?” he said. “Mom and Dad’s door is still closed. How could a monster get into their room?”
“He just went puff,” Katie said.
“He went puff, huh?” Jason said. He had no idea what that meant, but Katie had a very busy imagination.
Jason pushed open the door to his parents’ room and glanced inside. “See, Katie, there’s no….”
But Jason had seen something. He looked again.
There it was—a small creature, about two feet high, standing on his parents’ dresser. It looked like a tiny person, dressed in a ratty, dirty wool overcoat, with a woolen cap pulled low over its eyes. Its pudgy green hands pawed through his mother’s jewelry box. Jason watched the creature drop a pair of ruby earrings into a pocket of its coat.
“Hey!” Jason said.
The little creature jumped and spun around to face him. Its face was green and ugly, with an underbite, its eyes big and yellow under the low bill of the cap.
“What are you?” Jason asked.
The thing growled a little, then disappeared in a puff of green smoke. It reappeared in the space in front of the dresser, near the bottom drawer, and landed on its feet, which were clad in small, badly cracked leather shoes. It ran across the carpet to the window. It disappeared in another green puff, then reappeared standing on the windowsill.
“Stop!” Jason yelled. “Give that back!”
The little creature stuck out its dark green tongue at Jason, then disappeared with another puff of smoke. It reappeared on the little ledge outside the window, waved at Jason with a smile full of yellow, crooked teeth, and then hopped out of sight.
“Hey!” Jason ran to the window and opened it. He saw the creature blink in and out of visibility as it tumbled to the back yard, leaving a trail of green smoke fading in the air.
Jason hurried out of his parents’ room, past Katie, who was crouching behind her door, poking out her head.
“Did you see the monster?” she whispered.
“Don’t worry, I chased it away.” Jason started down the steps. “But it stole some jewelry from Mom. I’ll go get it back.”
Katie stepped out of her room and walked to the top stair.
“Can I come?” she asked.
“No, Katie! Wait here. I’ll be right back.”
“But I want to come with!” Katie crossed her arms and pouted.
“No! I’m serious, Katie.”
Jason ran through the living room and out onto their concrete slab of a patio. He saw the little green man trampling through a flower bed at the edge of the yard. The creature reached the neighbor’s split-rail fence and puffed through it.
Jason raced to the fence and leaped over. When his shoes hit the ground, the creature turned its green face to look back at him, snarled, and put on speed. It puffed in and out of sight, jumping forward about a foot each time.
Jason hurried to keep up as the creature shot forward across his neighbor’s lawns. The little thing could move fast, but Jason had much longer legs than it did, and he gained on the creature.
He was determined to catch it, and not just to recover his mother’s stolen earrings. If this little monster was the one who’d been stealing jewelry all over town, then it might have Erin’s necklace, too. Jason could already imagine how happy Erin would be when Jason returned it to her.
He chased the creature into Mrs. Gottfried’s yard, which was full of toy windmills and fake plastic birds. Jason caught up with it and reached one hand down to grab the creature by the scruff of its neck. Then the creature disappeared in another green puff, and Jason realized too late that the little monster had led him directly toward a low stone bench. Jason was running too fast to stop.
His shins cracked into the bench, and Jason spilled forward, falling among a family of plastic ducks.
Ahead of him, the little creature turned and laughed, revealing its crooked yellow teeth again. Its laughter sounded like a hyena.
By the time Jason scrambled to his feet, the green creature was across Mrs. Gottfried’s lawn and puffing its way across the main road outside Jason’s neighborhood.
Jason chased him through three more neighborhoods, activating motion-detector lights here and there when he came too close to a house. The little green guy seemed to have no effect on the motion detectors—they only clicked to life when Jason passed.
Then Jason chased him down an overgrown trail through the woods. The green creature reached a brick wall ahead, stuck its tongue out at Jason while waving the stolen earrings, then vanished in a puff of smoke.
Jason reached the wall and slapped his hands uselessly against it. The wall was ten feet high, covered in moss and mold. Jason realized it was the wall around Mrs. Dullahan’s yard.
“Come back here!” Jason yelled. He thought he heard a hyena-ish giggle on the other side.
Jason picked one of the tall old trees next to the wall and climbed it as quickly as he could. He scrambled out on a thick limb over the wall, struggling to catch his breath. He’d been running nonstop.
Below him, the deep black shadows of Mrs. Dullahan’s yard were scarcely pierced by the thin moonlight. It was inhabited by big old oak trees, almost as dense as a forest. The few patches of ground he could see were overgrown with tall weeds as thick as bamboo, and for a moment he was just glad he didn’t have to mow her yard for her.
Then Jason saw a streak of weeds ripple, as if a rabbit were dashing between them.
He didn’t have time to find a safe way down. Jason held his breath and dropped from the limb into the darkness below.
Something hard and wooden, the size of a shoebox, crunch
ed under his ribs as he slammed into the ground.
Jason rolled up to his feet and looked at his aching side. He’d landed on what looked like a carved wooden squirrel, its mouth and eyes wide with fright. The fearful expression was heightened by that face that Jason had just broken its head from its body.
Looking around, his eyes adjusting to the shadows and moonlight, he saw more little wooden creatures—toads and rabbits and even a full-size deer. A wooden owl perched on a limb overhead.
All around him, little paths paved with moss twisted through the high weeds.
The paths snaked across the yard, curving across each other at little intersections. Each path ended at one of the giant old trees, at ornate little doors no more than a foot or two high, which appeared to be built into the tree trunks. He saw the little green creature scurry through an arched green door in a dark elm tree. It pulled the door most of the way shut.
Jason jumped after him, grabbing the tiny knob just before the door closed. The brass doorknob was the size of a child’s marble in his fingers.
“Hey, come back!” Jason yelled. He pulled the door open, but the little green creature was nowhere in sight.
The interior of the tree was hollow. A series of roots formed a kind of staircase that spiraled down below the tree, out of sight.
“You’re kidding,” Jason said. He looked up at the dark shape of Mrs. Dullahan’s house against the night sky. Maybe she wasn’t a witch, but there was definitely something strange going on at her place.
Jason stuck his head into the open door. He looked up, into the hollow shaft of the tree, but it was completely dark.
Below, around the bend of the root-steps, he saw the slight glow of distant light. He could hear the faintest hint of music, and smell traces of wet, blossoming flowers and baking bread in the air.
He put his hands inside the tree and crept forward as far as he could. He scrunched his shoulders and squeezed deeper inside, looking a little further around the curve.
Somehow, he was able to fit even more of himself through the door, as if it expanded slightly for him. He crawled further down and around the root-and-dirt staircase, worried that the little green creature might pop out and hit him, or maybe bite him in the nose, but he was too curious to stop now.
