Second Star to the Fright

by Vera Strange

  I could stay a kid forever.

  And better yet, he could keep his best friends.

  Barrie spotted Michael and John together, tramping down Michael’s driveway. They grinned when they saw him and executed their secret handshake.

  Barrie couldn’t wait to talk to them about everything that was happening to him. Even without a party, this was already the best day ever.

  * * *

  “Get lost, Goobers!” Rita said, dropping them off in front of their school.

  “Love you, too,” Barrie called back, knowing it would embarrass her. “See you after school.”

  She shot him a glare. “Don’t remind me.”

  Then she sped out of the parking lot toward the high school across town. His friends cracked up.

  “Your sis is nutso,” John said, twirling his finger in the air near his temple. “But I think all girls are. It’s probably the hormones. And all the hair products. There are major toxins in that stuff.”

  “Yeah, they don’t make any sense,” Michael agreed. “My three older sisters are the same way. It’s like trying to understand an alien species that’s addicted to dry shampoo.”

  Barrie cracked up, starting to feel almost normal. Kids streamed toward the old brick school building, a relic from the 1970s. The familiar sign read NEW LONDON ELEMENTARY SCHOOL. Barrie and his friends followed the crowd toward the front entrance, roving as their typical threesome. John was almost a head taller than Barrie and Michael now, and Barrie often wondered if he’d one day hit a growth spurt like that, too. He could still remember when the three of them had all been about the same height.

  “Can’t wait for summer break,” Michael said. “Four more days until graduation.”

  “And then we’re officially in junior high!” John added. He glanced at the first graders, who were half their height. “But until then, we can rule elementary school.”

  “Lost Boys forever!” they chanted together and executed their handshake.

  Barrie took a deep breath, then asked the question he’d been meaning to blurt out since he and Rita had picked them up that morning.

  “Uh, is there anything special about today?” he asked.

  He wanted to make sure that his theory applied outside his home, and it wasn’t just his family who had been brainwashed by aliens or something. His friends hadn’t mentioned anything about his birthday yet, which was a sign for sure, but he had to be totally sure.

  Michael frowned, thinking it over. Barrie waited, holding his breath.

  “Are they dropping a new trailer?” Michael said, finally. “For the second season?”

  He ran his hand through his choppy red hair. His backpack with the adorable baby alien from their favorite sci-fi show bounced on his shoulders as he walked.

  “Oh, that’s dope!” John said. “I can’t wait. I’m gonna watch it like four hundred million times. Then I’m gonna read the heck out of Reddit threads for all the fan theories.”

  “No, it’s not a trailer,” Barrie prodded. “Anything else?”

  When they didn’t respond, he added, “Maybe something about…my twelfth birthday?”

  John and Michael both shot him confused looks. They stopped in their tracks.

  “Your birthday?” John said. “What are you even talking about?”

  “You’re still only eleven like us,” Michael said. “Kids forever!”

  “Yeah,” John agreed. “We’re your best friends. I’m pretty sure we’d know if it was your birthday.”

  “So you don’t remember about my skate park party after school today?” Barrie asked.

  “Uh, what kind of friends would we be if we forgot your birthday party?” John replied.

  “Yeah, we’re the Lost Boys,” Michael added. “That’s like the next level of friendship. Friendship version 2.0.”

  An awkward silence fell over their group. Michael and John both looked worried.

  “Right, I’m just messing with you,” Barrie said, backtracking and covering it up with a laugh.

  “Ha, good one,” Michael said with a chuckle. “You almost had me going there for a second.”

  “Yeah, I thought maybe aliens sucked out your brains through your nose and scrambled them up,” John said with a giggle. “Like that freaky old horror movie.” He pressed his nose flat and made a sucking noise like his brains were being extracted through his nostrils.

  All three of them laughed.

  Barrie really did have the two best friends in the whole wide world. And he wasn’t going to let anything change that—even if it meant keeping the hook. He could feel it weighing down his backpack with each step.

  “Don’t forget to get a later curfew for tomorrow night,” Michael said as they reached the entrance. “For the Lost Boys concert. No way I’m bailing before the encore.”

  “Oh, the concert!” Barrie said, feeling a rush of excitement. He couldn’t wait to see his favorite band live with his friends. “I’m so excited. I’ll make sure my parents remember about the curfew.”

  “Dude, I already got permission,” John said, bopping his head. “My parents are all about me being in junior high. Freedom, baby!”

  “I can’t believe graduation is Friday,” Michael said, shaking his head. “Next year is going to be so different. Changing classrooms all day. And we get different teachers for different subjects.”

  Barrie nodded, unsure how it would work with his wish. “Just as long as we don’t have…algebra.”

  “Uh…what’s that?” John asked.

  “Exactly,” Barrie said. “Trust me, you don’t want to know.”

  Inside the school, the hallway was rowdy and filled with jovial chatter, even this early in the morning. All around them, kids bobbed and weaved through the packed corridor, heading for their classrooms, lest they miss the bell and get marked tardy. A gaggle of kindergartners bumped into them, acting silly and immature. Their shrill screams echoed through the hallway.

  “Hey, watch it, Littles,” Michael said, rolling his eyes. “Stupid goobers.”

  “Remember when that was us?” Barrie said, feeling a rush of nostalgia. He watched the five-year-olds cracking each other up with fart noises. That had been them once. So much had changed since then. Though, his friends still thought farts were funny. Who didn’t?

  “Yeah, much better to rule the school!” John added, scowling at the kindergartners and their silly antics. “At least for four more days.”

  They busted out their secret Lost Boys handshake as they reached their class. “Lost Boys forever!” they chanted together as they slid their hands apart and marched into the classroom.

  Inside, Mr. Bates was trying to calm the raucous students and get them to settle down, but Barrie lingered back. He needed to examine the hook and letter. It was really happening—he didn’t have a birthday today. Talking to his friends had confirmed that. They had never forgotten his birthday before. It could only mean one thing—his wish really was coming true.

  “Hey, I gotta hit the bathroom,” Barrie said, backing away. “I’ll see you in a sec.”

  “Just don’t be late,” John warned. “Mr. Bates is kind of unhappy with you after last week and that whole not-doing-your-homework situation.”

  “Yeah, if you get marked tardy, there’s no way your parents will let you go to the concert tomorrow night,” Michael added. “You’ll get grounded. Like for real.”

  * * *

  Barrie knew it was risky—the bell would sound soon, and Michael was right about him needing to avoid getting in trouble if he wanted to go to the concert. But his heart raced with excitement over the thought that he had gotten his wish. That it had actually come true.

  Now I can keep my friends, he thought, and we can stay Lost Boys forever.

  His heart still pounding, Barrie closed the door behind him. Across the hall, he spotted an empty classroom. The lights were off. It was a science lab. It was closer than the bathroom, which was all the way down the hall. He ducked inside the shadowy room. The
overhead fluorescents were switched off. Stainless steel tables spanned the room. Metal shelves with beakers, microscopes, goggles, and other lab equipment lined the walls, along with slop sinks. EMERGENCY EYEWASH STATION read a green sign over the sinks.

  Barrie checked to make sure the room was deserted. Outside, the halls had quieted down. He didn’t have much time. Quickly, he pulled out the hook and letter from his backpack, ensuring that he still had them. As he ran his fingers over the hook and reread the letter, he felt elated.

  “I’ll never grow up because I don’t have a birthday anymore,” he whispered to the hook. “I’m going to stay the same age forever.”

  All his fears about getting older. The stuff Rita told him about. Losing her childhood best friends. The social pressure. And…algebra. His parents and their constant stress over their jobs and money and bills. Now he would never have to go through all of that.

  He was always going to be a kid. No responsibilities. Just fun.

  “Heck, I don’t even have to pay attention in class anymore,” Barrie whispered excitedly to the hook. He fished his math homework out of his backpack, balled it up, and tossed it in the trash by the eyewash station. “Good riddance.” He already knew everything that he needed to be a kid. He didn’t need to learn all that boring adult stuff. He’d never have to do algebra.

  Drip. Drip. Drip.

  Barrie tensed at the sound of rhythmic dripping. He glanced over at the eyewash station. The eyeholes were slowly releasing droplets of water. Somebody must have left the taps on. He turned them off, and they stopped dripping. He turned away, but then he heard it again.

  Drip. Drip. Drip.

  His breath caught in his throat. He was sure he’d turned the taps off. The dripping morphed into gushing. Slowly, he turned around. Water rushed out of the eyeholes. He leaned over the sink. The tap water smelled…like the ocean.

  “That’s weird,” he whispered.

  He tasted the droplets on his fingers. They tasted salty.

  Quickly, he shut off the faucet again with an uneasy shudder.

  Maybe they were having plumbing problems at the school? After all, it was an older building and run-down. Stuff always seemed to be breaking. He shrugged, zipped up his backpack with the hook, and headed for the door. He needed to get back to class before the bell.

  Thump. Thump.

  Barrie’s heart all but stopped. It couldn’t be. He froze in his tracks and listened harder.

  Thump. Thump.

  That sound. It was the same sound he’d heard on the pirate ship, but it was coming from the closet in the back of the science lab. Behind the glass of the door, he saw a shadow move.

  Thump. Thump.

  Heavy footsteps. They were unmistakable. Then he heard something else. It sounded like waves sloshing against a boat. He could even hear the creaking of wood.

  Slowly, he turned around. The noises all seemed to be coming from the eyewash station. The taps had turned back on again. Water gushed out and started filling up the sink. It overflowed onto the floor. Something was clogging the drain.

  “H-hello?” he called out.

  The water pooled around his sneakers and flooded the floor. He could hear and smell the ocean, even the faint cries of seagulls. How was that possible?

  Slowly, he leaned over the basin, trying to see what was clogging the drain and causing the sink to back up like that. The water was murky and impossible to see through, just like the ocean. Pulse pounding, Barrie reached down into the sink, feeling around for the drain. The water swallowed his arm all the way up to the shoulder. It felt cold and smelled like the sea—brackish and alive.

  His fingers snagged on something.

  It was stuck to the drain, blocking it. It felt long and scraggly, like seaweed.

  He retracted his arm, pulling it out of the sink. It was…hair. Long, curly, black. He kept pulling and pulling and pulling, and it kept coming out of the sink. Finally, he reached the end.

  He held the matted clump of black hair in his trembling hands, staring at it in shock. How did the hair get into the sink? He was sure it hadn’t been there before.

  There must be a perfectly logical explanation, he decided. Just like the kid detectives in his books, he would find it. He just needed to investigate it. He turned back to the sink, which was still full of murky water, when suddenly—

  A sword slashed out at his face.

  The sword whizzed past his ear.

  It just missed his neck.

  But not by much.

  Barrie didn’t wait for the sword to stab at him again. He flung the gross, wet hair back into the sink, turned, grabbed his backpack, and bolted from the science lab, slamming the door behind him. The image of the sword slashing out of the sink kept replaying in his mind as he dashed down the hall, just trying to get away. His heart jackhammered in his chest. “It’s not real,” he whispered to himself. “It can’t be real.”

  He sprinted with his backpack bouncing on his shoulders. The fluorescent lights beat down on him. The halls were deserted, and everything felt eerie and unsettling. Where was everyone?

  And then he remembered—the final bell was about to ring. And he was running away from his classroom.

  A new wave of panic crashed through him. He couldn’t afford to be marked tardy. He turned around, his sneakers squeaking on the linoleum, and slammed right into somebody.

  Actually, two somebodies.

  “Whoa, watch where you’re going!” Michael yelped when Barrie barreled into him, knocking him back into John. His two friends bumped heads.

  “What’s wrong?” John said, rubbing his forehead and grimacing in pain. “Uh, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “Dude, yeah,” Michael added, eyes wide. “You haven’t looked this freaked out since we made you watch that scary clown movie.”

  “And we all know the circus is your worst nightmare,” John added with a snort. “Oh, and giant killer sharks. But that’s Rita’s fault. We do not accept the blame for that phobia.”

  Barrie stared at his friends in confusion. Their usual banter felt out of place in the midst of his panic. He couldn’t tell them the truth—that it was possible he had, in fact, seen a ghost. Of course, he knew ghosts weren’t real. Even in his books, the brothers always ended up discovering the real explanation for the haunting. But he also couldn’t explain what had happened in the lab.

  At least, not yet.

  “W-what’re you doing out here?” he stammered. He still felt adrenaline coursing through his veins.

  “Uh, looking for you, obvi,” Michael said with a worried frown. “Don’t want you to miss the bell. Or you won’t be able to go to the concert. Your parents will ground you faster than you can say…Never Land.” That was the hit single from the Lost Boys’ first album.

  “Yeah, we’ve gotta hurry,” John said, tugging his arm. “It’s about to ring any second.”

  Barrie followed his friends back to class. They dashed through the door right as the final bell rang. Mr. Bates shot them a chastising look from the front of the room. He’d scribbled a bunch of horrible-looking fraction problems on the board. They looked like a foreign language.

  “Glad you could join us,” Mr. Bates said with a scowl.

  All the other students were already seated at their desks, ready for class. Barrie and his friends made a beeline for their three empty desks at the back. He could tell Mr. Bates was itching to mark them tardy. But they’d beat the bell and made it just in time.

  “Uh, sorry,” Barrie mumbled, taking his usual seat between Michael and John. He slumped lower in his seat, hoping to avoid further trouble. That had been close.

  Too close.

  As Mr. Bates launched into their first lesson—fractions—Barrie couldn’t stop replaying what had happened in the science lab: the taps turning on by themselves; how the water smelled and sounded exactly like the ocean; the thumping noises coming from the closet; the long curly black hair clogging the drain; the sword stabbing at him fr
om the sink.

  He couldn’t shake one terrifying thought, even though he knew it was impossible—Captain Hook is haunting me. It shot through his head, making his heart pound even harder.

  But ghosts weren’t real.

  There has to be a logical explanation for all of this. I just need to search for more clues, he reassured himself.

  The cases in his books all started the same way, with a haunted house or boat or island where it seemed like there was a real ghost terrorizing the inhabitants. But the kid sleuths always found a perfectly run-of-the-mill explanation that proved there wasn’t actually a ghost or anything supernatural.

  “Students, time to turn in your math homework,” Mr. Bates said, pacing the aisles to collect it. Groans echoed out, accompanied by the rustling of paper as everyone pulled out their worksheets.

  Math homework…oops.

  Perhaps throwing away his assignment had been…premature.

  Mr. Bates reached Barrie’s desk and held out his hand. His shadow fell over Barrie.

  “Uh…I don’t have it,” Barrie said, searching for an excuse, even a wild one, to explain. But his mind went completely blank. I threw it away simply wouldn’t cut it.

  Mr. Bates frowned. “Come see me at my desk, young man. We need to discuss this.”

  Michael and John shot him concerned looks. They’d both turned in their assignments.

  That was it—Barrie was in big trouble. Now he’d never get to go to the concert tomorrow night. Mr. Bates was sure to call his parents and tell them. This was the second school day in a row that he didn’t turn in his homework. He would get grounded for sure.

  Uh-oh, John mouthed, dragging his finger across his neck. Michael just lowered his head. They both knew what this meant.

  Feeling sick to his stomach, Barrie rose from his seat and followed Mr. Bates toward his desk. The class got started on the math problems that Mr. Bates had scrawled across the whiteboard. Fractions. They were awful. Though apparently algebra was worse.

  “Look, I’m really sorry,” Barrie said before Mr. Bates could say anything. He lowered his head in shame. “I don’t have an excuse for why I didn’t do it. Just go ahead and punish me. Call my parents. Send me to the principal’s office. Do whatever you have to do.”