My Dog's a Scaredy-Cat (7 page)

“Come on, Zip,” Frankie said, pulling on my sleeve. “We don't have much time.”

“Right. Bye, Mrs. Fink.”

She waved and continued to load her cart with candy. What a nice lady, that Mrs. Fink.

At the checkout counter, the bill came to seventeen dollars and ninety-two cents. I pulled out a crisp twenty-dollar bill from my pocket. It was the one Papa Pete had given me the last time we went to a Mets game. I had been planning to use it to buy a new Mets hat. But if that twenty-dollar bill could help me get even with McKelty for being such a mean, big-mouthed jerk, I'd sacrifice a Mets hat any day. Sure, my old one had some pretty major sweat stains on it. But I ask you, who cares about a few sweat stains when crushing McKelty was so close at hand?

TIME WASN'T EXACTLY on our side. By the time we got back to my apartment, it was seventeen minutes after five, according to Frankie's digital watch, which he'd gotten for his birthday in August. We were going to have to work fast. That was okay with me, though, because my mind was bursting with scary ideas for the haunted house.

“The first thing we have to do,” I said, when we had plopped all our supplies down in the entry hall of my apartment, “is figure out where to build it.”

“I think it should go right in the middle of the living room,” Ashley said.

“No good, Ashweena,” I answered. “It needs to be in the corner. That way, we already have two walls built.”

“Good thinking, dude,” Frankie said. “I always knew you could use your head for other things than to hold up your Mets hat, which as I've said many times, I don't approve of anyway.”

In case I haven't told you before, Frankie is a major Yankees fan and I'm a Mets guy, but in spite of that, we've stayed best friends. That should tell you something about how much we get along in every other area, because I love the Mets and he loves the Yankees. I mean
love
love, as in how we feel about pizza and monster movies and silver Lamborghinis.

“I say we put it in the corner by the fireplace,” I suggested. “We'll use blankets to cover up the two windows there and sheets to make walls. It's got to be pitch-black inside.”

“So now we go ahead and put up a haunted house?” Frankie asked. “Just like that?”

“Why not?” I said, rolling up my sleeves to get to work.

“Uh, Zip, there's a little word called parents.”

“And another little word called grounded,” Ashley added.

I looked over at the green desk. The note Papa Pete had left for my dad was gone. To me, that meant that my dad had seen it. And he hadn't left a note saying no. These were both very good signs.

“You guys wait here,” I told Frankie and Ashley. “I'll get permission.”

I tiptoed into my parents' bedroom, where my dad was taking a nap in his green chair. He loves afternoon naps. He calls them power naps. They power him right into
Jeopardy
, so he can answer every question on history, geography, sports, science, and anything else involving a number or a fact. He is really smart. One thing is for sure, I certainly didn't get my brain from him.

I stood there for a minute, wondering if I should wake him to ask permission to build the haunted house. What if he said no? That was totally unacceptable. Besides, I told myself, he looked so peaceful, asleep in his chair. And it would really be a shame to wake him up. Never wake a sleeping parent unless there's blood or fire or a broken television involved. That's what I say.

I went back into the living room.

“Let's build!” I said.

“Did your dad say okay?” Ashley asked.

“Let me put it this way: He didn't say
not
okay. And that's good enough for me.”

First, I grabbed the coatrack that we keep in the entry hall by the front door and dragged it into the living room. Then I unplugged the pole lamp that's next to the couch and pulled it into the middle of the floor.

“These will be great tent poles for the walls,” I announced. “We'll drape sheets over them and attach the other end of the sheets to the walls with thumbtacks.”

“Problem Number One,” Ashley said. “Something tells me your parents won't be thrilled with us leaving holes in the wall.”

“Problem solved. I'll patch up the holes afterward.”

“Right. You'll do that when I change my name to Bernice,” Frankie said with a laugh. “Face it, Zip. No way you're ever going to patch up these walls and not leave a complete mess.”

“I'll go get some duct tape,” Ashley offered. “My dad has tons of it in the bottom drawer where he keeps hammers and rope. He calls it his tool drawer, but I call it his throw-everything-inhere-when-you-don't-know-where-else-it-goes drawer.”

“Bring his fishing pole, too,” I hollered after her. “And some rope.” I wasn't sure exactly what we would use rope for, but I knew we'd need it.

“Let's record the scary sounds while Ashley's gone,” Frankie suggested.

“I like the way you're thinking,” I said. “Here, Cheerio!”

There was no answer, no pitter-patter of little dog feet on the carpet.

“That's strange,” I told Frankie. “Cheerio always comes when I call him.”

“He probably can't hear you over your dad's snoring,” Frankie said. “Hey, Zip, I was going to ask you anyway. Would it be okay if I recorded the sounds instead of Cheerio?”

“Can you howl?”

“Check this out.”

Frankie let loose with what has to be the strangest sound I've ever heard come out of a human mouth. It started out like a creaking door blowing in the wind, then turned into a creepy ghostly moan, and ended in a truly scary wolflike howl.

“Where have you been keeping that?” I asked him. I mean, you know a guy your whole life, you think you know all the sound effects he can do. Car engines, helicopters, sirens, explosions, the usual. Then he pulls out something amazing like that crazed wolf howl, and you have to wonder what else you don't know about him.

“What was that?” said a voice that sounded very much like my sister Emily's. That's because it was Emily's.

I turned around and there she was, standing with her hands on her hips and her pet iguana, Katherine, on her shoulder. “Whoever made that awful screech should know that you scared poor Katherine. Look. She's shaking.”

I looked at Katherine. She was giving me the big stink eye as she flicked her lizardy tongue from side to side. She didn't look scared to me. Just ugly.

“That sound reached quite a high decibel level,” Robert chimed in. He had followed Emily out into the living room. I noticed that his voice sounded especially nasal. Maybe he was allergic to his pus costume. Without grossing you out entirely, let's just say Robert has a major, no really, a
major
sinus problem. It's like he's got a nasal flood going on all the time. I bet the guy who invented Kleenex could buy his own baseball team just from the money he's made off Robert's nose river.

“The iguana is extremely sensitive to sudden changes in the audio environment,” Robert went on, as if anyone besides Emily cared.

“Thanks for the science lesson, little man,” I said, nudging him aside. “But unfortunately we don't have time right now for an in-depth discussion of iguana feelings. We're on a deadline.”

Before I could stop her, Miss Know-It-All and her shoulder lizard were poking around in our construction site.

“What's going on here?” Emily asked.

“Stuff that wouldn't interest you.”

“Mom and Dad are going to kill you,” Emily said. “Do you want to explain what the coatrack and the lamp are doing in the middle of the living room?”

“No.”

“Hank, you're making a horrible mess.”

“Emily, I don't need criticism right now,” I said. “If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.”

Papa Pete always says that to me, and it felt great to have the chance to say it myself.

“We're building a haunted house,” Frankie told Emily and Robert. “It was all Hank's idea. Cool, huh?”

“You're going to be grounded until next Halloween,” Emily said in her usual positive, helpful, creative tone of voice. “You never learn, do you?”

Katherine hissed at me. She copies everything that Emily does, and when Emily gets mad, Katherine does, too.

“Calm yourself, Kathy,” I hissed back at her. “You're prettier when you smile.”

“Please don't make fun of Katherine's looks,” Emily whispered. “Her feelings get hurt very easily.”

In case you hadn't noticed, my sister is extremely tuned in to the psychology of the female iguana. I believe that because she's half iguana herself. Don't ask me which half.

“For your information, Lizard Girl,” I said to Emily, “I am doing this for you, too.”

Emily pointed her index finger at me, just the way my dad does when he gets mad.

“You're making a total mess of our house, and you claim it's for me? Explain please.”

“We're building this whole haunted house to scare only one special guest. And that would be his bullyness, Nick the Tick McKelty.”

“He's coming here?” Emily's mouth flew open. Katherine's did, too.

“At seven-thirty on the dot.”

“Well, let's get going,” Emily said, grabbing the coatrack. “Where do you want this baby?”

“Boy, you changed your tune awful quick. I thought you just said I was going to get grounded for this.”

“That was before I realized how important your plan is for the benefit of all mankind,” Emily said. “Getting even with Nick McKelty should be the number-one priority of the human race.”

“Emily,” Robert said, “much as we'd like to help, we don't have time. We have to meet your grandfather at Mrs. Fink's in ten minutes.”

“Oh, you're right, Robert. Our costumes aren't even ready yet.”

“Sure they are, dudes,” Frankie said. “I saw you in the parade. Your costumes are all done.”

“We're not wearing those costumes,” Emily said.

“You're telling me you're giving up on the flu-germ concept?” Frankie said. “What's Halloween without a pus pocket?”

“That Nick McKelty was so mean that we don't want to take a chance of being made fun of again,” Robert said. “So we've made new costumes. I'm going as a knight.”

“No way,” I said.

“Yes, way,” Robert answered. “I used two-and-a-half rolls of tinfoil to make my armor and shield.”

“And I'm going as a princess,” Emily said.

“You can't!” I protested. “There are millions of princesses on the streets. But only one flu germ—and that's you, Emily.”

“Besides, you should be yourself,” Frankie added.

“Trust me, Emily, deep inside you're much more of a pus pocket than a princess,” I chimed in, just to be annoying.

“Do you really think so, Hank?” Emily asked. She sounded really happy with my observation. Even Katherine seemed to be flashing me the old iguana grin.

“Absolutely. Now you march yourself right back in your room and put on the right costume. You too, Robert. Get in there and think pus.”

“I don't know, Hank. Let me ask Katherine what she thinks. What do you think I should wear?” Emily whispered to Old Kath.

My sister is undoubtedly the only person in the world strange enough to ask a lizard for fashion advice. And what's even stranger is that we all stood there waiting for the answer.

“What'd she say?” I finally blurted out.

“Katherine's still thinking about it,” Emily said. “We'll let you know what we decide.”

“You do that, Em,” I said. “Now if you three will excuse us, we have a house to haunt.”

Just then, Ashley came running into the apartment, carrying an armful of supplies—duct tape, rope, a hammer, a fishing pole, and a big white plastic skeleton.

“Whoa, where'd that dude come from?” Frankie said. “He looks like he could use a meal.”

“My dad used him in medical school to study bones and stuff,” Ashley told us. “He lives in the hall closet behind a box of plastic body organs. There's a heart in there, a couple of lungs, a liver, and something that's yellow.”

“Well, are we going to stand here discussing body parts, or are we going to build a haunted house?” I said.

That needed no answer. There was work to be done, and I, for one, couldn't wait to start.