40 - Night of the Living Dummy III (4 page)

But he didn’t move.

Zane and I crept closer. Up to the bed. We both stood over my brother,
staring hard at him, studying him in the silvery light.

He was breathing softly, in a steady rhythm. His mouth was open a little. He
made short whistling sounds. Mouse sounds. With his pointy chin and upturned nose, he really did look like a little mouse.

I leaned over him. “Da-an, get ready to be tickled!” I whispered.

I leaned back, expecting him to leap out at me, to shout “Boo!” or something.

But he continued sleeping, whistling softly with each breath.

I turned to Zane, who hung back in the center of the room. “He’s really
asleep,” I reported.

“Let’s go back to our rooms,” Zane replied in a soft whisper. He yawned.

I followed him to the bedroom door. “What about your cereal?” I asked.

“Forget it. I’m too sleepy now.”

We were nearly to the door when I heard someone move in the hall.

“Ohhh.” I let out a low moan as a face appeared in the doorway.

Rocky’s face.

He had followed us upstairs!

I grabbed Zane’s arm. We both shouted cries of surprise.

The dummy moved quickly into the room.

I cut my cry short as I saw that he wasn’t walking on his own. He was being
carried.

Dad had the dummy by the back of the neck.

“Hey—what’s going on?” Dan called sleepily from behind us. He raised his
head from the pillow and squinted at us. “Huh? What’s everybody doing in my
room?”

“That’s what
I’d
like to know,” Dad said sharply. He gazed
suspiciously from Zane to me.

“You—you woke me up,” Dan murmured. He cleared his throat. Then he propped
himself up on one elbow. “Why are you carrying that dummy, Dad?”

“Perhaps one of you would like to answer that question,” Dad growled. He had
pulled a robe over his pajamas. His hair was matted to his forehead.

He wasn’t wearing his glasses, so he squinted at us.

“What’s going on? I don’t understand,” Dan said sleepily. He rubbed his eyes.

Was he putting on an act? I wondered. His innocent-little-boy act?

“I heard noises downstairs,” Dad said, shifting Rocky to his other hand. “I
went down to see what was going on. I found this dummy sitting at the kitchen
table.”

“I didn’t put him there!” Dan cried, suddenly wide awake. “Really. I didn’t!”

“Neither did Zane or me!” I chimed in.

Dad turned to me. He sighed. “I’m really sleepy. I don’t like these jokes in
the middle of the night.”

“But I didn’t do it!” I cried.

Dad squinted hard at me. He really couldn’t see at all without his glasses.
“Do I have to punish you and your brother?” he demanded. “Do I have to ground
you? Or keep you from going away to camp this summer?”

“No!”
Dan and I both cried at once. Dan and I were both going to summer
camp for the first time this year. It’s all we’ve talked about since Christmas.

“Dad, I was asleep. Really,” Dan insisted.

“No more stories,” Dad replied wearily. “The next time one of my dummies is
somewhere he shouldn’t be, you’re both in major trouble.”

“But, Dad—” I started.

“One last chance,” Dad said. “I mean it. If I see Rocky out of the attic
again, you’ve both
had
it!” He waved Zane and me to the door. “Get to
your rooms. Now. Not another word.”

“Do you believe me or not?” Dan demanded.

“I don’t believe that Rocky has been moving around the house on his own,” Dad
replied. “Now lie down and get back to sleep, Dan. I’m giving you one last
chance. Don’t blow it.”

Dad followed Zane and me into the hall. “See you in the morning,” he
murmured. He made his way to the attic stairs to take Rocky back up to the Dummy
Museum. I heard him muttering to himself all the way up the stairs.

I said good night to Zane and headed to my room. I felt sleepy and upset and
worried and confused—all at once.

I knew that Dan
had
to be the one who kept springing Rocky on Zane.
But why was he doing it? And would he quit now—before Dad grounded us or
totally ruined our summer?

I fell asleep, still asking myself question after question.

The next morning, I woke up early. I pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt and
hurried downstairs for breakfast.

And there sat Rocky at the kitchen table.

I peered around the kitchen. No one else around.

How lucky that I was the first one downstairs!

I grabbed Rocky up by the back of the neck. Then I tucked him under one arm
and dragged him up to the attic as fast as I could.

When I returned to the kitchen a few moments later, Mom had already started
breakfast.

Whew! A close call.

“Trina—you’re up early,” Mom said, filling the coffee maker with water.
“Are you okay?”

I glanced at the table. I had the sick feeling that Rocky would be sitting
there sneering at me.

But of course he was upstairs in the attic. I had just carried him up there.

The table stood empty.

“I’m fine,” I told her. “Just fine.”

It was definitely Be Kind to Zane Day. After breakfast, Dad hurried off to
the camera store. A short while later, Mom and Uncle Cal left for the mall to do some
shopping.

It was a bright morning. Yellow sunlight streamed in through the windows. The
sky stretched clear and cloudless.

Zane brought down his camera. He decided it was a perfect day to take some
photographs.

Dan and I expected him to go outside. But our cousin wanted to stay indoors
and shoot.

“I’m very interested in moldings,” he told us.

We followed him around the house. Dan and I had made a solemn vow to be nice
to Zane and not to scare him.

After breakfast, when Zane was upstairs getting his camera, I grabbed my
brother. I pinned him against the wall. “No tricks,” I told him.

Dan tried to wriggle away. But I’m stronger than he is. I kept him pinned
against the wall. “Raise your right hand and swear,” I instructed him.

“Okay, okay.” He gave in easily. He raised his right hand, and he repeated
the vow I recited. “No tricks against Zane. No making fun of Zane. No dummies—
anywhere!”

I let him go as Zane returned with his camera. “You have some awesome
moldings,” Zane said, gazing up at the living room ceiling.

“Really?” I replied, trying to sound interested.

What could be interesting about a molding?

Zane tilted up his camera. He focused for what seemed like hours. Then he clicked a photo of the molding above the living
room curtains.

“Do you have a ladder?” he asked Dan. “I’d really like to get a closer shot.
I’m afraid my zoom lens will distort it.”

And so Dan hurried off to the basement to get Zane a ladder.

I was proud of my brother. He didn’t complain about having to go get the
ladder. And he’d lasted a whole ten minutes without cracking any molding jokes
or making fun of Zane.

Which wasn’t easy.

I mean, what kind of a nerd thinks it’s cool to take photos of ceilings and
walls?

Meanwhile, we had no school, and it was the sunniest, warmest, most beautiful
day of March outside. Almost like spring. And Dan and I were stuck holding the
ladder for Zane so he could use his macro lens and get a really tight molding
shot.

“Awesome!” Zane declared, snapping a few more. “Awesome!”

He climbed down the ladder. He adjusted the lens. Fiddled with some other
dials on the camera.

“Want to go outside or something?” I suggested.

He didn’t seem to hear me. “I’d like to get a few more banister shots,” he
announced. “See the way the sunlight is pouring through the wooden bars? It
makes a really interesting pattern on the wall.”

I started to say something rude. But Dan caught my eye. He shook a finger at
me. A warning.

I bit my lip and didn’t say anything.

This is sooooo boring, I thought. But at least we’re keeping out of trouble.

We stood beside Zane as he photographed the banister from all angles. After
about the tenth shot, his camera began to hum and whir.

“End of the roll,” he announced. His eyes lit up. “Know what would be really
cool? To go down into the basement to the darkroom and develop these right now.”

“Cool,” I replied. I tried to sound sincere. Dan and I were both trying so
hard to be nice to this kid!

“Uncle Danny said I could use his darkroom downstairs,” Zane said, watching
the camera as it rewound the film roll. “That would be awesome.”

“Awesome,” I repeated.

Dan and I exchanged glances. The most beautiful day of the
century
—and we were heading down to a dark closet in the basement.

“I’ve never watched pictures get developed,” Dan told our cousin. “Can you
show me how to do it?”

“It’s pretty easy,” Zane replied, following us down the basement stairs.
“Once you get the timing down.”

We made our way through the laundry room, past the furnace, to the darkroom
against the far wall. We slipped inside, and I clicked on the special red light.

“Close the door tightly,” Zane instructed. “We can’t let in any light at
all.”

I double-checked the darkroom door. Then Zane set to work. He arranged the
developing pans. He poured bottles of chemicals into the pans. He unspooled the
film roll and began to develop.

I’d watched Dad do it a hundred times before. It really was kind of
interesting. And it was cool when the image began to appear and then darken on
the developing paper.

Dan and I stood close to Zane, watching him work.

“I think I got some very good angles on the living room moldings,” Zane said.
He dipped the large sheet of paper in one pan. Then he pulled it up, let it drip
for a few seconds, and lowered it into the pan beside it.

A grin spread over his face. “Let’s take a look.”

He leaned over the table. Raised the sheet of paper. Held it up to the red
light.

His grin faded quickly. “Hey—who shot this?” he demanded angrily.

Dan and I moved closer to see the photo.

“Who shot this?” Zane repeated. He furiously picked up another sheet from the
developing pan. Another one. Another one.

“How did these get on the roll?” he cried. He shoved them all toward Dan and
me.

Photos of Rocky.

Close-up portraits.

Photo after photo of the sneering dummy.

“Who shot them? Who?” Zane demanded angrily, shoving the wet photos in our
faces.

“I didn’t!” Dan declared, pulling back.

“I didn’t either!” I protested.

But then, who did? I asked myself, staring hard at the ugly, sneering face on
each sheet.

Who did?

“What’s going on up here, guys?”

The dummies stared back at me blankly. None of them replied.

“What’s the story?” I demanded. My eyes moved from one dummy to the next.
“Come on, guys. Speak up or I’ll come back here with a buzz saw and give you all
haircuts!”

Silence.

I paced back and forth in front of them, gazing at them sternly, my arms
crossed in front of my chest.

It was late in the afternoon. The sun had begun to lower itself behind the
trees. Orange light washed in through the dusty attic windows.

I had crept up to the attic to search for clues. Something weird was going
on.

How did all those photos of Rocky get onto Zane’s roll of film? Who took
those photos?

The same person who kept carrying Rocky downstairs and sitting him where he would frighten Zane.

“It was Dan—right, guys?” I asked the wide-eyed dummies. “Dan came up here—right?”

I searched the floor. The couch. Under all the chairs.

I didn’t find a single clue.

Now I was questioning the dummies. But of course they weren’t being very
helpful.

Stop wasting time and get back downstairs, I told myself.

I turned and started to the stairs—when I heard soft laughter.

“Huh?” I uttered a startled cry and spun around.

Another quiet laugh. A snicker.

And then a hoarse voice:
“Is your hair red? Or are you starting to rust?”

“Excuse me?” I cried, raising a hand to my mouth. My eyes swept quickly from
dummy to dummy.

Who said that?

“Hey, Trina… you’re pretty. Pretty ugly!”
That was followed by
another soft snicker. Evil laughter.

“I like your perfume. What is it… flea and tick spray?”

My eyes stopped on the new dummy, the one Dad called Smiley. He sat straight
up in the center of the couch. The voice seemed to be coming from him.

“Pinch me. I’m having a nightmare. Or is that really your face?”

I froze. A cold shiver ran down my back.

The hoarse voice
did
come from the new dummy!

He stared blankly at me. His mouth hung open in a stiff, unpleasant grin.

But the voice came from Smiley. The rude insults came from Smiley.

But that’s impossible! I told myself.

Impossible!

Ventriloquist’s dummies can’t talk without a ventriloquist.

“Th-this is crazy!” I stammered out loud.

And then the dummy started to move.

I let out a scream.

Dan popped up from behind the couch.

The dummy toppled onto its side.

“You-you-you—!” I sputtered, pointing furiously at my brother.

My heart was pounding. I felt cold all over. “That’s not funny! You—you
scared me to death!” I shrieked.

To my surprise, Dan didn’t laugh. His eyes were narrowed. His mouth hung
open. “Who was making those jokes?” he demanded. His eyes darted from dummy to
dummy.

“Give me a break!” I shot back. “Are you going to tell me it wasn’t you?”

He scratched his short brown hair. “I didn’t say a word.”