Sunny Sweet Is So Not Scary

by Jennifer Ann Mann

  The wheelbarrow was under the eaves of the house, and it didn’t look too wet. I reached for the handles . . . but then I remembered the millions of daddy longlegs that liked to hang out against the back of the house, and I turned and ran back to the porch.

  “What’s wrong?” Alice asked.

  “I need the flashlight.”

  I wasn’t going to mention the daddy longlegs to poor Alice. I might have to touch the wheelbarrow, but she had to sit in it.

  Sunny handed me the flashlight, and I ran back to the wheelbarrow and shined it all around. I didn’t see any spiders. I put the flashlight down in the grass so its beam shot up into the sky, and then I grabbed the handles of the wheelbarrow and pulled it from the house. Something ran up my bare arm.

  I dropped the wheelbarrow and jumped back from the house, tripping over the flashlight and falling right on my butt in the cold, wet grass. The wheelbarrow clanged against the house while it fell. It was loud enough to wake the dead, but then I remembered the dead were already awake. But it was also loud enough to wake Mrs. Song as a metal ring echoed through the silent neighborhood.

  Sunny, Junchao, and Alice all crouched together in a heap on the porch with their hands covering their ears.

  We waited.

  A dog barked from down the street. Then a far-off beep of a car horn. And then nothing but the breeze blowing through the tops of the trees in the little woods in the back of our yard and the sound of plopping raindrops hitting the leaves on the ground.

  “The ghost is going to die of old age before we get it out of here,” complained Junchao.

  “How can something die if it’s already dead?” I grumbled.

  I picked up my hanger hat and put it on, and then I wiped at my arms and legs to be sure there was nothing crawling on me. My pajama bottoms sagged a bit in the butt from getting wet when I fell. Then I set the wheelbarrow straight, put the flashlight in it, and wheeled it over to the porch. “Your chariot, my princess.”

  Alice stood up but didn’t let go of her crutches.

  “I think you should leave your crutches here,” Junchao said.

  Alice didn’t look like she was into this idea.

  “We’ll be with you the whole time,” I told her.

  She leaned her crutches against the door and gave me a smile. And this time, the curling shape of her lips didn’t hide any sadness; it was all happy.

  Sunny jumped down from the porch and plucked the flashlight from the wheelbarrow and then put all the kitchen towels down in the bottom of it. Then Junchao and I first helped Alice into a sitting position onto the porch, and then up and into the wheelbarrow.

  “Sunny,” I said, “give Alice the flashlight. And you and Junchao get on either side of the wheelbarrow so I don’t tip it. I’ll push.”

  Sunny handed Alice the flashlight. The two of them took their positions on either side of the wheelbarrow. “Ready?” I asked.

  Alice turned around and looked at me. “I’m pretty sure that this is one of the things that my mom and dad were afraid of when they said they didn’t want me sleeping over.” She laughed.

  Junchao joined in with her loud, “Ho-ho-ho.” Even Sunny couldn’t keep herself from laughing. We did look pretty funny . . . the four of us in our pajamas, wearing hangers and pencils on our heads and covered in baby powder and sparkly jewels, with Alice riding in a wheelbarrow out into the wet woods in the middle of the night.

  We started out. I pushed the wheelbarrow toward the shed, hoping that the hangers and the pencils and the powder and the jewelry worked on shed monsters as well as ghosts.

  When we got close to it, I picked up speed. Alice clung to the sides of the wheelbarrow. Because I was pretty scared, I was having trouble keeping the wheelbarrow steady. We hit a big stick, and the wheelbarrow leaned toward Junchao. Junchao caught the side of it in her hands and kept it from tipping over.

  “Be careful, Masha!” she said in a whisper.

  But we were past the monster in the shed. My heart stopped pounding, and I calmed down enough to grab the handles of the wheelbarrow tighter. We were almost at the edge of the woods.

  I pushed Alice toward the line of forsythia bushes. “Close your eyes, everyone,” I said. I closed mine too, which maybe was not the best idea.

  We went under.

  All the long branches scraped across my face and body, catching on my necklaces and just about knocking off my hanger hat. One long branch wrapped around my ankle as I shoved at the wheelbarrow. It wouldn’t let me go, and I tripped out of the bushes on the other side, landing on the cool dirt that surrounded the bushes. The wheelbarrow slid to its side, dumping Alice on top of Sunny.

  “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,” I howled.

  Junchao scrambled to help Alice and Sunny. I got up and righted the wheelbarrow. And then picked up the flashlight. We were all okay, at least mostly anyway. Although we had lost a few pencils from our hanger hats and gained a few wet leaves.

  Alice looked pretty shaken up. Junchao squeaked that she wanted to go home. And Sunny stared at me, waiting for me to say something. I knew what I had to say. I just didn’t want to say it. But I did.

  “You guys,” I started. But they didn’t stop grumbling. “YOU GUYS!” I said louder. They stopped and looked up at me. “We need to head back to the house. You three are going to sit on the porch, and I’m going to run over to Mrs. Song’s to get the grass by myself.”

  Junchao gasped.

  “No!” Alice said.

  Sunny didn’t say anything.

  “We have to do it this way. I’m not strong enough to push the wheelbarrow over the leaves and sticks in the woods. I’m so sorry, Alice.” I felt like such a failure. “And I don’t like the idea of leaving the three of you out here without Alice’s crutches. We need to go back.”

  It was quiet as we each thought about things in the dark. We all knew that I was right.

  I turned the wheelbarrow around, and Junchao and I helped Alice back into it. She shined the flashlight ahead of us, and this time I kept control of myself. I wasn’t going to dump Alice back onto the wet ground, even if a zombie came out of that shed and started chomping on my leg. We slowly made our way back through the forsythia bushes and past the shed. A zombie did not come out. Although I’m almost sure I heard one moaning in there.

  In about five minutes, we were back to the house. Sunny held onto the wheelbarrow, and Junchao and I helped Alice out and then up the two stairs of the porch. I could almost hear Alice’s parents sigh in their sleep all the way across town. Junchao climbed onto the porch and took a seat next to Alice. Sunny stood by the wheelbarrow.

  I blinked at my friends and my little sister in the dark.

  After all the hours we’d battled this ghost together . . . this was good-bye.

  Being a Hero Is Lonely

  I’ll be fine,” I told them. Even though I was pretty sure that within a few minutes, I’d be a late-night snack for the monster in the shed. No one mentioned how we were not supposed to separate, or any of the bad things that happened when you did. Maybe this was why it always happened in the movies . . . because there was some big reason why they couldn’t stay together.

  Maybe.

  Or maybe not.

  But for us, I didn’t see any other way.

  I took the flashlight from Sunny. “See ya,” I said. But the “ya” got stuck in my throat so it sounded like I just said “see.”

  Alice grabbed me in a big hug. Junchao joined in. And then Sunny did too. I was being smothered by love and poked by a few pencils at the same time. It felt good. Even the pencil pokes. Their hugs made me feel strong. I could do this.

  I turned and walked off as soon as they let me go so they didn’t see the tears in my eyes. Heroes didn’t cry, did they?

  It was amazing how fast I got past the scary shed without a big wheelbarrow to push. Then I held my hanger hat on with one hand and ducked under the forsythia bushes. I stood at the edge of the woods and shined the flashlight through
the trees.

  “You have to go in there,” I whispered to myself.

  But I didn’t. I didn’t have to go. Just like Junchao, I wanted to go home. I turned around and started back into the forsythia.

  I couldn’t do this. I didn’t want to do this. The branches scraped at my face. I got down on my hands and knees and crawled in the dirt. The light of the flashlight bobbed about wildly next to me, making the world unsteady. I lost track of what was up and what was down. I rolled out of the bushes and into something small and soft. Sunny Sweet.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “What are you doing?” I asked back.

  “Coming with you,” she said.

  “No,” I said. But I didn’t mean it. I wanted her to come. I didn’t want to be alone.

  She smiled down at me. I got up off the ground. Even before I was done standing up and wiping the dirt off my pajamas and pushing my stupid hanger hat back on my head for the millionth time tonight, I knew that I needed to take Sunny back to the house.

  “Sunny,” I said.

  She cut me off. “I know, Masha. You’re sending me back to Alice and Junchao.” She sighed as she leaned down and picked up my flashlight and handed it to me. And then she handed me something else. It was small and soft.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “It’s a rabbit’s foot,” she said.

  “A good-luck charm? Whose is it?” I asked.

  “It’s mine,” she said.

  “What?”

  “I know.” She hung her little head. “It’s crazy superstitious to have one. But”—she looked up at me—“it’s actually Daddy’s. I took it from him when we moved. Don’t you remember that he used it as a key chain for his car keys?”

  Now I remembered. I nodded my head. Every time my father went to start the car, Sunny would lecture him about the stupid foot and how unscientific superstitions were. It made my heart hurt to think of Sunny taking it with her to New Jersey. The whole divorce had seemed so crazy, and so my little sister had done a crazy thing to make herself feel better.

  “Take it. It will keep you safe,” she said.

  I squeezed the foot in my hand. And then I tied it to my pajamas using the strings from my pants.

  “If you go back into the woods a little farther in,” Sunny said, “the leaves won’t be as deep and it will be easier to walk. That way, you will also meet up with that little path that Mrs. Song made into the woods. It goes straight to her illegal goldfish pond.”

  Mrs. Song hated rules. Especially when it got in the way of her garden. She had learned that because of some laws, she wasn’t allowed to build a pond for her goldfish. But she’d built it anyway; she just built it farther into the woods so it wouldn’t get noticed.

  “Most of Mrs. Song’s Pennisetum ruppelii is growing around the pond.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll take that way.” I smiled at her and turned to go.

  “Masha,” Sunny said, reaching for my arm.

  “Yeah, Sunny?”

  “I love you,” she said.

  “Are you telling me this because you don’t think I’m going to make it?” I asked, afraid that she might say yes.

  “You are totally going to make it,” she said. “Remember, Masha, I know everything.”

  I gave my little sister a hug and then watched her run back past the shed and over to the two dark figures of Alice and Junchao sitting on the porch. When she got there, she threw her hand up in a big wave. I waved back. And then I turned around and started under the forsythia bushes for the third time tonight.

  Sunny was right. She was always right. I could do this thing. I yawned. That is, if I could stay awake long enough to get the grass and get back to the house.

  I did what Sunny said and made my way deeper into the woods to get past all the leaves and sticks at the edge of our yards. I wished I’d brought a jacket because all the branches scraping at my arms made me think of daddy longlegs, which kept freaking me out. The world in front of my cold, wet feet was lit up by the flashlight, but all around me was darkness.

  When I got in far enough, I turned to my right and started toward where the little path should be. After a minute or two of walking, I shined the flashlight up ahead of me to see if I could spot the path. Before I could see anything up ahead of me, my toe hit something hard and I fell into a bunch of leaves and old branches. It was like the tenth time I’d been in the wet dirt tonight. But this time, I wasn’t alone. Something long and skinny wiggled underneath me.

  I leaped up so fast and so high that I hit my hanger hat on a tree branch. Which was good for two reasons. One, because being stunned by pain from a hanger digging into my skull kept me from screaming loud enough to wake up everyone in the entire neighborhood. And two, it gave me something to hang on to so my feet weren’t anywhere near the ground and the slithery thing down there in the leaves.

  I hung in the tree, breathing . . . and waiting for whatever that thing was to get to its home. I was hoping that it had one and that it was far away from this tree. But then I remembered the flashlight. Where was it? It must have been knocked off when I fell.

  I let go of the branch and dropped onto the ground. I didn’t move my feet for a minute or two, giving the squirmy thing time to realize that I was back. Then I began searching the dark ground for the flashlight. It couldn’t have gone too far. But it was hard to see anything. The moon was up there, but so were the tree branches, blocking it.

  I felt around with my hands. I didn’t want to, but I didn’t see that I had any choice. The damp cold of the leaves made them feel slick and icky. Where was that dumb flashlight? I got down onto my knees so I could swipe my hands in a bigger circle.

  It was just gone.

  I’d have to go on without it.

  I stood up and looked around. Which way was Mrs. Song’s? Which way was my house? My heart stopped. Oh no. How had I done this? How could I have gotten myself lost?

  I took a bunch of steps forward. But then I stopped. It was so dark up ahead. Maybe this was just going deeper into the woods.

  I turned and started the other way.

  This way was also dark.

  “I’m lost. I’m lost,” I repeated, hopping in a circle. It felt like the darkness was getting closer to me and the night air was hot and sticky and wouldn’t let me breathe. I blinked and blinked, trying to stop the world from squishing into me. I looked up. And then I jumped up . . . and started to climb.

  At first my hands and feet didn’t even feel the tree, but as I climbed higher and higher, I started to feel better.

  I would be able to see up there. I would be able to find my way.

  I couldn’t tell exactly how high I was, but the branches were getting thinner and the leaves thicker. I stopped and looked around me.

  There it was! My house. And Mrs. Song’s.

  I couldn’t see Alice, Junchao, and Sunny on the porch, but I could see Mrs. Song’s goldfish pond. It was in a clearing in the trees about a hundred feet away. I could even see the little path that led out of the woods to it. I held onto my hanger hat and looked up at the sky. It was filled with stars. I bet if Sunny were here, she would be able to tell the right way to go just by looking up at these guys. I wanted to feel angry at her for being able to do this, or maybe at myself for not being able to do it. But all I felt was awe for all of the things that my little sister knew how to do.

  I couldn’t use the stars, so I used my chin instead. I pointed it in the right direction, and then I started down the tree, keeping my chin pointed in the direction of Mrs. Song’s pond.

  When I dropped out of the tree, I didn’t even care if I stepped right on that slimy thing from before. All I cared about was following my chin.

  I took off through the dark woods, heading straight in the direction of my chin. I didn’t even want to move to pass by a tree, but I obviously had to. My heart pounded so loudly that it just about drowned out the sound of my clanging chains. I kept walking and clanging, wa
lking and clanging. And then I stepped right out onto the path!

  It was the most beautiful sight I’d ever seen in my whole life. I laughed out loud and then got down on my hands and knees and kissed the black mulch, which was pretty stupid because it could totally have given my lip a splinter. And then I hopped up and ran for the pond.

  The path was dark, but it was still so much easier than walking through the woods. It had lots of little twists and turns in it. Mrs. Song loved things that twisted and turned. Even the walk up to her front door was twisty. She said that all the curves that a twisty path made were just more places she could plant flowers. I knew that there were a bunch of big clumps of tall grass growing right on the side of the pond. I began skipping when I knew I was close. I turned the corner and there she was. Trudy Day!

  Trudy with a Fishing Net?

  I crouched down on the path.

  Her back was to me.

  I could tell that she didn’t know I was here.

  She was small and glowed a bit in the moonlight. And she was bent over the pond and seemed to be studying something in the water.

  Maybe she was going to drown me!

  I shook inside my pajamas.

  Should I run back?

  Should I call out to Junchao and Alice?

  I held tightly to all the necklaces so my shaking didn’t make any jingling sounds. The jewels jabbed into my palms.

  She turned.

  My heart skipped about ten beats.

  She was holding something. A fork? A knife? A little fishing net?

  She held a little fishing net.

  And it looked familiar. Not the net, but the ghost. It had skinny little arms and legs and wore pajamas.

  It was Sunny Sweet!

  “Sunny,” I called.

  The little glowing spirit looked up at me, and then it waved its net and smiled.

  I trotted over. “What are you doing here?”

  “You were gone so long,” she said. “I told Junchao and Alice that I was going inside to use the bathroom, but I really ran out the front door and over here to look for you.”