02 - Stay Out of the Basement (2 page)

“Yeah. It’s neat,” Casey said, not taking his eyes off the glowing TV screen.

“I’ve got so much homework. I don’t know why I’m sitting here,” Diane said,
reaching her hand into the potato chip bag.

“Me, too,” Margaret sighed. “I guess I’ll do it after dinner. Do you have the
math assignment? I think I left my math book at school.”

“Sshhh!” Casey hissed, kicking a sneakered foot in Margaret’s direction.
“This is a good part.”

“You’ve seen this tape before?” Diane shrieked.

“Twice,” Casey admitted. He ducked, and the sofa pillow Diane threw sailed over his head.

“It’s a pretty afternoon,” Margaret said, stretching her arms above her head.
“Maybe we should go outside. You know. Ride bikes or something.”

“You think you’re still back in Michigan? It’s
always
a pretty
afternoon here,” Diane said, chewing loudly. “I don’t even notice it anymore.”

“Maybe we should do the math assignment together,” Margaret suggested
hopefully. Diane was much better in math than she was.

Diane shrugged. “Yeah. Maybe.” She crinkled up the bag and set it on the
floor. “Your dad looked kind of nervous, you know?”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“Just nervous,” Diane said. “How’s he doing?”

“Sshhh,” Casey insisted, picking up the potato chip bag and tossing it at
Diane.

“You know. Being laid off and all.”

“I guess he’s okay,” Margaret said wistfully. “I don’t know, really. He
spends all his time down in the basement with his experiments.”

“Experiments? Hey—let’s go take a look.” Tossing her hair back behind her
shoulders, Diane jumped up from the chrome and white leather couch.

Diane was a science freak. Math and science. The two subjects Margaret hated.

She
should have been in the Brewer family, Margaret thought with a trace of bitterness. Maybe Dad would pay some
attention to her since she’s into the same things he is.

“Come on—” Diane urged, bending over to pull Margaret up from the floor.
“He’s a botanist, right? What’s he doing down there?”

“It’s complicated,” Margaret said, shouting over the explosions and gunfire
on the TV. “He tried to explain it to me once. But—” Margaret allowed Diane to
pull her to her feet.

“Shut up!” Casey yelled, staring at the movie, the colors from the TV screen
reflecting over his clothes.

“Is he building a Frankenstein monster or something?” Diane demanded. “Or
some kind of RoboCop? Wouldn’t that be cool?”

“Shut up!” Casey repeated shrilly as Arnold Schwarzenegger bounded across the
screen.

“He’s got all these machines and plants down there,” Margaret said
uncomfortably. “But he doesn’t want us to go down there.”

“Huh? It’s like top secret?” Diane’s emerald green eyes lit up with
excitement. “Come on. We’ll just take a peek.”

“No, I don’t think so,” Margaret told her. She couldn’t forget the angry look
on her father’s face two weeks before when she and Casey had tried to pay a
visit. Or the way he had screamed at them never to come down to the basement.

“Come on. I dare you,” Diane challenged. “Are you chicken?”

“I’m not afraid,” Margaret insisted shrilly. Diane was always daring her to
do things she didn’t want to do. Why is it so important for Diane to think she’s
so much braver than everyone else? Margaret wondered.

“Chicken,” Diane repeated. Tossing her mane of red hair behind her shoulder,
she strode quickly toward the basement door.

“Diane—stop!” Margaret cried, following after her.

“Hey, wait!” Casey cried, clicking off the movie. “Are we going downstairs?
Wait for me!” He climbed quickly to his feet and enthusiastically hurried to
join them at the basement door.

“We can’t—” Margaret started, but Diane clamped a hand over her mouth.

“We’ll take a quick peek,” Diane insisted. “We’ll just look. We won’t touch
anything. And then we’ll come right back upstairs.”

“Okay. I’ll go first,” Casey said, grabbing for the doorknob.

“Why do you want to do this?” Margaret asked her friend. “Why are you so
eager to go down there?”

Diane shrugged. “It beats doing our math,” she replied, grinning.

Margaret sighed, defeated. “Okay, let’s go. But remember—just looking, no touching.”

Casey pulled open the door and led the way onto the stairway. Stepping onto
the landing, they were immediately engulfed in hot, steamy air. They could hear
the buzz and hum of electronic machinery. And off to the right, they could see
the glare of the bright white lights from Dr. Brewer’s workroom.

This is kind of fun, Margaret thought as the three of them made their way
down the linoleum-covered stairway.

It’s an adventure.

There’s no harm in taking a peek.

So why was her heart pounding? Why did she have this sudden tingle of fear?

“Yuck! It’s so hot in here!”

As they stepped away from the stairs, the air became unbearably hot and
thick.

Margaret gasped. The sudden change in temperature was suffocating.

“It’s so moist,” Diane said. “Good for your hair and skin.”

“We studied the rain forest in school,” Casey said. “Maybe Dad’s building a
rain forest.”

“Maybe,” Margaret said uncertainly.

Why did she feel so strange? Was it just because they were invading their
father’s domain? Doing something he had told them not to do?

She held back, gazing in both directions. The basement was divided into two
large, rectangular rooms. To the left, an unfinished rec room stood in darkness.
She could barely make out the outlines of the Ping-Pong table in the center of
the room.

The workroom to the right was brightly lit, so bright they had to blink and wait for their eyes to adjust. Beams of white
light poured down from large halogen lamps on tracks in the ceiling.

“Wow! Look!” Casey cried, his eyes wide as he stepped excitedly toward the
light.

Reaching up toward the lights were shiny, tall plants, dozens of them,
thick-stalked and broad-leafed, planted close together in an enormous, low
trough of dark soil.

“It’s like a jungle!” Margaret exclaimed, following Casey into the white
glare.

The plants, in fact, resembled jungle plants—leafy vines and tall, treelike
plants with long, slender tendrils, fragile-looking ferns, plants with gnarled,
cream-colored roots poking up like bony knees from the soil.

“It’s like a swamp or something,” Diane said. “Did your father really grow
these things in just five or six weeks?”

“Yeah. I’m pretty sure,” Margaret replied, staring at the enormous red
tomatoes on a slender, yellow stalk.

“Ooh. Feel this one,” Diane said.

Margaret glanced over to find her friend rubbing her hand over a large, flat
leaf the shape of a teardrop. “Diane—we shouldn’t touch—”

“I know, I know,” Diane said, not letting go of the leaf. “But just rub your
hand on it.”

Margaret reluctantly obeyed. “It doesn’t feel like a leaf,” she said as Diane
moved over to examine a large fern. “It’s so smooth. Like glass.”

The three of them stood under the bright, white lights, examining the plants
for several minutes, touching the thick stalks, running their hands over the
smooth, warm leaves, surprised by the enormous size of the fruits some of the
plants had produced.

“It’s too hot down here,” Casey complained. He pulled his T-shirt off over
his head and dropped it onto the floor.

“What a bod!” Diane teased him.

He stuck out his tongue at her. Then his pale blue eyes grew wide and he
seemed to freeze in surprise. “Hey!”

“Casey—what’s the matter?” Margaret asked, hurrying over to him.

“This one—” He pointed to a tall, treelike plant. “It’s
breathing
!”

Diane laughed.

But Margaret heard it, too. She grabbed Casey’s bare shoulder and listened.
Yes. She could hear breathing sounds, and they seemed to be coming from the
tall, leafy tree.

“What’s your problem?” Diane asked, seeing the amazed expressions on Casey’s
and Margaret’s faces.

“Casey’s right,” Margaret said softly, listening to the steady, rhythmic
sound. “You can hear it breathing.”

Diane rolled her eyes. “Maybe it has a cold. Maybe its vine is stuffed up.”
She laughed at her own joke, but her two companions didn’t join in. “I don’t
hear it.” She moved closer.

All three of them listened.

Silence.

“It—stopped,” Margaret said.

“Stop it, you two,” Diane scolded. “You’re not going to scare me.”

“No. Really,” Margaret protested.

“Hey—look at this!” Casey had already moved on to something else. He was
standing in front of a tall glass case that stood on the other side of the
plants. It looked a little like a phone booth, with a shelf inside about
shoulder-high, and dozens of wires attached to the back and sides.

Margaret’s eyes followed the wires to a similar glass booth a few feet away.
Some kind of electrical generator stood between the two booths and appeared to
be connected to both of them.

“What could that be?” Diane asked, hurrying over to Casey.

“Don’t touch it,” Margaret warned, giving the breathing plant one final
glance, then joining the others.

But Casey reached out to the glass door on the front of the booth. “I just want to see if this opens,” he said.

He grabbed the glass—and his eyes went wide with shock.

His entire body began to shake and vibrate. His head jerked wildly from side
to side. His eyes rolled up in his head.

“Oh, help!” he managed to cry, his body vibrating and shaking harder and
faster. “Help me! I—can’t stop!”

“Help me!”

Casey’s whole body shook as if an electrical current were charging through
him. His head jerked on his shoulders, and his eyes looked wild and dazed.

“Please!”

Margaret and Diane stared in open-mouthed horror. Margaret was the first to
move. She lunged at Casey, and reached out to try to pull him away from the
glass.

“Margaret—don’t!” Diane screamed. “Don’t touch him!”

“But we have to do something!” Margaret cried.

It took both girls a while to realize that Casey had stopped shaking. And was
laughing.

“Casey?” Margaret asked, staring at him, her terrified expression fading to
astonishment.

He was leaning against the glass, his body still now, his mouth wrapped in a
broad, mischievous grin.

“Gotcha!” he declared. And then began to laugh even harder, pointing at them
and repeating the phrase through his triumphant laughter. “Gotcha! Gotcha!”

“That wasn’t funny!” Margaret screamed.

“You were faking it?! I don’t believe it!” Diane cried, her face as pale as
the white lights above them, her lower lip trembling.

Both girls leapt onto Casey and pushed him to the floor. Margaret sat on top
of him while Diane held his shoulders down.

“Gotcha! Gotcha!” he continued, stopping only when Margaret tickled his
stomach so hard he couldn’t talk.

“You rat!” Diane cried. “You little rat!”

The free-for-all was brought to a sudden halt by a low moan from across the
room. All three kids raised their heads and stared in the direction of the
sound.

The large basement was silent now except for their heavy breathing.

“What was that?” Diane whispered.

They listened.

Another low moan, a mournful sound, muffled, like air through a saxophone.

The tendrils of a treelike plant suddenly drooped, like snakes lowering
themselves to the ground.

Another low, sad moan.

“It’s—the plants!” Casey said, his expression frightened now. He pushed his
sister off him and climbed to his feet, brushing back his disheveled blond hair
as he stood up.

“Plants don’t cry and moan,” Diane said, her eyes on the vast trough of
plants that filled the room.

“These do,” Margaret said.

Tendrils moved, like human arms shifting their position. They could hear
breathing again, slow, steady breathing. Then a sigh, like air escaping.

“Let’s get out of here,” Casey said, edging toward the stairs.

“It’s definitely creepy down here,” Diane said, following him, her eyes
remaining on the shifting, moaning plants.

“I’m sure Dad could explain it,” Margaret said. Her words were calm, but her
voice trembled, and she was backing out of the room, following Diane and Casey.

“Your dad is weird,” Diane said, reaching the doorway.

“No, he isn’t,” Casey quickly insisted. “He’s doing important work here.”

A tall treelike plant sighed and appeared to bend toward them, raising its
tendrils as if beckoning to them, calling them back.

“Let’s just get out of here!” Margaret exclaimed.

All three of them were out of breath by the time they ran up the stairs.
Casey closed the door tightly, making sure it clicked shut.

“Weird,” Diane repeated, playing nervously with a strand of her long red
hair. “Definitely weird.” It was her word of the day. But Margaret had to admit
it was appropriate.

“Well, Dad warned us not to go down there,” Margaret said, struggling to
catch her breath. “I guess he knew it would look scary to us, and we wouldn’t
understand.”

“I’m getting out of here,” Diane said, only half-kidding. She stepped out of
the screen door and turned back toward them. “Want to go over the math later?”

“Yeah. Sure,” Margaret said, still thinking about the moaning, shifting
plants. Some of them had seemed to be reaching out to them, crying out to them.
But of course that was impossible.

“Later,” Diane said, and headed at a trot down the drive.

Just as she disappeared, their father’s dark blue station wagon turned the
corner and started up the drive. “Back from the airport,” Margaret said. She
turned from the door back to Casey a few yards behind her in the hallway. “Is
the basement door closed?”