40 - Night of the Living Dummy III (6 page)

“Well, we’re even now,” Dan chimed in.

“Right,” I agreed quickly. “We’re all even now—right, Zane?”

He nodded. “Yeah. I guess.” A grin spread slowly over his face. “I had you
guys going, didn’t I? With that stupid dummy popping up everywhere you looked.”

Dan and I didn’t grin back.

“You fooled us,” I murmured.

“You fooled everyone,” my brother added.

Zane grinned. A gleeful grin. I could see how pleased he was with himself. “I
guess Dan and I deserved it,” I confessed.

“Guess you did,” Zane shot back. Would he ever stop grinning?

“So now that we’re even, do we have a truce?” I demanded. “No more joking
around with the dummies? No more trying to scare each other or get anyone in
trouble?”

Zane bit his lower lip. He thought about it a long, long time. “Okay. Truce,”
he said finally.

We all shook hands solemnly. Then we slapped each other high fives. Then the
three of us started laughing. I’m not sure why. The laughter just burst out of
us.

Crazy giggling.

I guess because it was so late and we were so sleepy. And we were so glad we
could be friends now. We didn’t have to play tricks on each other anymore.

As we made our way down the stairs, I felt really happy.

I thought all the scary stuff with the dummies was over.

I had no way of knowing that it was just beginning.

The next morning, Dan, Zane, and I went for a long bike ride. The strong
winds had faded away during the night. A soft breeze, warm and fresh-smelling,
followed us as we pedaled along the path.

The trees were still winter bare. The ground glistened with a silvery morning
frost. But the sweet, warm air told me that spring was on its way.

We biked slowly, following a dirt path that curved into the woods. The sun,
still low in the sky, warmed our faces. I stopped to unzip my jacket. And
pointed to a patch of green daffodil leaves just beginning to poke up from the
ground.

“Only three more months of school!” Dan cried. He raised both fists in the
air and let out a cheer.

“We’re going to camp this summer for the first time,” I told Zane. “Up in
Massachusetts.”

“For eight weeks!” Dan added happily.

Zane brushed back his blond hair. He leaned over the handlebars of my dad’s bike and began pedaling harder. “I don’t know
what I’m doing this summer,” he said. “Probably just hanging out.”

“What do you
want
to do this summer?” I asked him.

He grinned at me. “Just hang out.”

We all laughed. I was in a great mood and so were the guys.

Dan kept pulling wheelies, leaning way back and raising his front tire off
the ground. Zane tried to do it—and crashed into a tree.

He went sailing to the ground, and the bike fell on top of him. I expected
him to whine and complain. That’s his usual style. But he picked himself up,
muttering, “Smooth move, Zane.”

“I want to see that one again!” Dan joked.

Zane laughed. “You try it!”

He brushed the dirt off his jeans and climbed back onto the bike. We pedaled
on down the path, joking and laughing.

I think we were in such great moods because of the truce. We could finally
relax and not worry about who was trying to terrify who.

The dirt path ended at a small, round pond. The pond gleamed in the sunlight,
still half-frozen from the long winter.

Zane climbed off his bike and rested it on the tall grass. Then he stepped up
to the edge of the pond to take photos.

“Look at the weeds poking up from the melting ice!” he exclaimed, clicking
away. “Awesome. Awesome!” He knelt down low and snapped a bunch of weed photos.

Dan and I exchanged glances. I couldn’t see what was so special about the
weeds. But I guess that’s why I’m not a photographer.

As Zane stood up, a tiny brown-and-black chipmunk scampered along the edge of
the pond. Zane swung his camera and clicked off a couple of shots.

“Hey! I think I got him!” he declared happily.

“Great!” I cried. Everything seemed great this morning.

We hung out at the pond for a while. We took a short walk through the woods.
Then we started to get hungry for lunch. So we rode back to the house.

We were about to return the bikes to the garage when Zane spotted the old
well at the back of our yard. “Cool!” he cried, his blue eyes lighting up.
“Let’s check it out!”

Holding his camera in one hand, he hopped off his bike and went running
across the grass to the well.

It’s a round, stone well with green moss covering the smooth gray stones. It
used to have a pointed red roof over it. But the roof blew off during a bad
storm, and Dad hauled it away.

When we were little, Dan and I used to scare each other by pretending that
monsters and trolls lived down inside it. But we hadn’t paid much attention to the old well in
years. Dad kept saying he was going to tear it down and cover it up. But he
never got around to it.

Zane clicked a bunch of photos. “Is there still water down there?” he asked.

I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Dan grabbed Zane around the waist. “We could toss you down and see if you
make a splash!” he declared.

Zane wrestled himself out of my brother’s grasp. “I’ve got a better idea.” He
picked up a stone and dropped it down the well.

After a long wait, we heard a splash far down below.

“Cool!” Zane exclaimed. He took several more pictures until he had finished
the roll.

Then we made our way inside the house for lunch. We hurried upstairs to clean
up.

Zane stopped at the doorway to his room.

I saw his eyes bulge and his mouth drop open. I saw his face go white.

Dan and I ran up next to him.

We stared into the bedroom—and cried out in horror.

“The r-room—it’s been
trashed!”
Dan stammered.

The three of us huddled in the doorway, staring into the bedroom. Staring at
an unbelievable mess.

At first I thought maybe Zane had left the windows open all night, and the
strong winds had blown everything around.

But that didn’t make any sense.

All of the clothes had been pulled out of the closet and tossed over the
floor. The dresser drawers had all been pulled out and dumped over the carpet.

The bookshelves had been emptied. Books littered the floor, the bed—they
were tossed everywhere. One bed table was turned on its side. The other stood
upside down on top of the bed. A lamp lay on the floor in front of the closet.
Its shade was ripped and broken.

“Look—!” Zane pointed into the center of the room.

Sitting on a tangled hill of clothes was Rocky. The dummy sat straight up,
his legs crossed casually in front of him. He sneered at us as if daring us to
enter.

“I-I really don’t believe this!” I cried, tugging at the sides of my hair.

“
What
don’t you believe?”

Mom’s voice made me jump.

I turned to see her coming out of her bedroom. She tucked her blue sweater
into her jeans as she walked toward us.

“Mom—!” I cried. “Something terrible has happened!”

Her smile faded. “What on earth—?” she started.

I stepped aside so she could see into Zane’s room.

“Oh, no!” Mom cried out and raised both hands to her cheeks. She swallowed
hard. “Did someone break in?” Her voice sounded tiny and frightened.

I peered quickly into my room across the hall. “No. I don’t think so,” I
reported. “This is the only room that’s messed up.”

“But—but—” Mom sputtered. Then her eyes stopped on Rocky on top of the
pile of clothes. “What is
he
doing down here?” Mom demanded.

“We don’t know,” I told her.

“But who
did
this?” Mom cried, still pressing her hands against her
cheeks.

“We didn’t!” Dan declared.

“We’ve been outside all morning,” Zane added breathlessly. “It wasn’t Trina,
or Dan, or me. We weren’t home. We were riding bikes.”

“But—someone had to do this!” Mom declared. “Someone deliberately tore this
room apart.”

But who was it? I wondered. My eyes darted around the mess, landing on the
sneering dummy.

Who was it?

We all pitched in and helped get the room back together. It took the rest of
the afternoon.

The lamp in front of the closet was broken. Everything else just had to be
picked up and put back where it belonged.

We worked in silence. None of us knew what to say.

At first, Mom wanted to call the police. But there was no sign that someone
had broken into the house. All the other rooms were perfectly okay.

Dad returned home from the camera shop while we were still cleaning up. He,
of course, was furious. “What do I have to do? Bolt the attic door?” he shouted
at Dan and me.

He grabbed up Rocky and slung the dummy over his shoulder. “This isn’t a joke
anymore,” Dad said, narrowing his eyes at both of us. “This isn’t funny. This is
serious.”

“But we didn’t do it!” I protested for the hundredth time.

“Well, the dummy didn’t do it,” Dad shot back. “That’s one thing I know for
sure.”

I don’t know
anything
for sure, I thought. I stared at Rocky’s
sneering face as Dad started down the hall to the attic stairs. Then I bent down
to pick up the broken lamp from the floor.

That night I dreamed once again about ventriloquist’s dummies.

I saw them dancing. A dozen of them. All of Dad’s dummies from upstairs.

I saw them dancing in Zane’s room. Dancing over the tangled piles of clothes
and books. Dancing over the bed. Over the toppled bed table.

I saw Rocky dancing with Miss Lucy. I saw Wilbur doing a frantic, crazy dance
on top of the dresser. And I saw Smiley, the new dummy, clapping his wooden
hands, bobbing his head, grinning, grinning from the middle of the room as the
other dummies danced around him.

They waved their big hands over their heads. Their skinny legs twisted and
bent.

They danced in silence. No music. No sound at all.

And as their bodies twisted and swayed, their faces remained frozen. They
grinned at one another with blank, unblinking eyes. Grinned their frightening,
red-lipped grins.

Bobbed and bent, tilted and swayed, grinning, grinning, grinning the whole
time in the eerie silence.

And then the grins faded as I pulled myself out of the dream.

I opened my eyes. Slowly woke up.

Felt the heavy hands on my neck.

Stared up into Rocky’s ugly face.

Rocky on top of me. The dummy on top of my blanket. Over me.

Reaching. Reaching his heavy wooden hands for my throat!

I opened my mouth in a shrill scream of horror.

My hands shot out. I grabbed the dummy’s hands.

I thrashed my legs. Kicked off the blanket. Kicked at the dummy.

The big eyes stared at me as if startled.

I grabbed his head. Shoved him down.

I sat up, my entire body trembling. Then I grabbed the dummy’s waist.

And flung him to the floor.

The ceiling light flashed on. Mom and Dad burst into my room together.

“What’s happening?”

“Trina—what’s wrong?”

They both stopped short when they saw the dummy sprawled on the floor beside
my bed.

“He—he—” I gasped, pointing down at Rocky. I struggled to catch my
breath. “Rocky—he jumped on me. He tried to choke me. I-I woke up and—”

Dad let out a loud growl and tore at his hair. “This has got to stop!” he
bellowed.

Mom dropped down beside me on the bed and wrapped me in a hug. I couldn’t
stop my shoulders from trembling.

“It was so scary!” I choked out. “I woke up—and there he was!”

“This is out of control!” Dad screamed, shaking his fist in the air. “Out of
control!”

Mom calmed me down. Then she and I both had to calm Dad down.

Finally, after everyone was calm, they turned out the light and made their
way out of the room. They closed the door. I heard Dad carrying Rocky back up to
the attic.

Maybe Dad
should
get a lock for the attic door, I thought.

I shut my eyes and tried not to think about Rocky, or Zane, or the dummies—or anything at all.

After a while, I must have drifted back to sleep.

I don’t know how much time passed.

I was awakened by a knock on the door. Two sharp knocks and then two more.

I sat straight up with a gasp.

I knew that Rocky had come back.

The bedroom door creaked open slowly.

I took a deep breath and held it, staring through the dark.

“Trina—?” a voice whispered. “Trina—are you awake?”

As the door opened, a rectangle of gray light spilled into the room from the
hallway. Dan poked his head in, then took a few steps across the floor.

“Trina? It’s me.”

I let out my breath in a long
whoosh.
“Dan—what do you want?” My
voice was hoarse from sleep.

“I heard everything,” Dan said, stepping up beside the bed. He pulled down
one pajama sleeve. Then he raised his eyes to me. “Zane put Rocky on your bed.
Zane did it!” Dan whispered.

“Huh? Why do you say that? We all have a truce—remember? Zane agreed the
tricks were all over.”

“Right,” Dan whispered. “And now Zane thinks he can
really
scare us. Because we don’t suspect him any longer. Zane
hasn’t given up, Trina. I’m sure of it.”

I bit my lower lip. I tried to think about what Dan was saying. But I was so
sleepy!

Dan leaned close and whispered excitedly. “This morning before we went
biking, Zane went up to his room—remember? He said he forgot his camera. So… he had time to mess up his room. Before he left the house.”