They would watch her driving away, spotted hand perched on the steering wheel of her ’47 Buick, and they would scare themselves silly with made-up stories about where she was going—about things she was going to do. They filled their stories with monsters, and ghouls, and werewolves, and bloodsuckers…
But they didn’t start getting close to the real horror until one day when Mrs. Halfbooger didn’t go out. That had been Tuesday.
They didn’t see her Wednesday either.
They saw her Thursday evening. She came out dressed in neat old-lady clothes and stood by the Buick. She looked sick. Lanny had the telescope, but the other three could tell just as well without it. She put her hand on the hood and stared down the hill, out toward the road that led to Kiddy Mart, out at the setting sun and the hazy glow that was Philadelphia. She stood that way a long time. Then she wiped her eyes and went back inside.
She didn’t come out Friday.
Saturday it rained. The tree fort didn’t have a roof, so they got together at Willy’s and told stories about her.
When she didn’t come out Sunday, Max said they ought to see if she was dead. But they didn’t.
Nor did they go when she didn’t come out Monday.
But when it was Tuesday again—when the long boring afternoon began fading to dusk, they decided to have a look. And a look was all it was supposed to have been until Max got the window open.
Buckeye stared at the window and wondered if being part of this was such a good idea.
“I don’t think I’ll fit, Max.”
“Don’t be a creep. You haven’t even tried.”
“What am I supposed to do if I get in there?”
Max jumped down from the 7-Up case. He was fat—probably the fattest kid Buckeye had ever seen. There were a few older kids at Edison who could get away with calling him Maximum Swanson or even Tiny Tuba. But the only nine-year-old who’d ever tried it had ended up having to eat a green fly before Max would get off him. That kid had been Buckeye. And the green fly had been worth it.
“When you get in there,” said Max, “you open the front door and let us in.”
“What if it won’t open?” said Buckeye.
“Don’t be stupid. It’s a door, isn’t it? It’s just locked—that’s all. All you have to do is slide inside and unlock it.”
“Maybe he doesn’t want to,” said Willy, who’d been looking at the house and thinking there might be Dangerous Things inside. Dangerous Things to Willy usually meant animals. It didn’t matter what kind. If it was larger than a squirrel it was a Dangerous Thing.
But Max wasn’t taking arguments. His arms were already wrapping around Buckeye. “Naw, he wants to go in there. Don’t you, Buckeye?” Max heaved him up and set him on the 7-Up case. Buckeye looked down and saw the red-lettered slogan between his summer-torn sneakers: YOU LIKE IT, IT LIKES YOU.
He looked through the open space below the window, “It smells funny in there.”
“C’mon, Buckeye. Try it!”
Buckeye stuck his head through the crack. The room smelled old.
“What do you see?” asked Willy.
Buckeye looked through the dimness. The room was full of old furniture. A table. Chairs. A sofa with its insides starting to come through. The wallpaper was water-stained—in some places it had crumbled away. Flaking paint hung from the ceiling. The floor was bare, and in it, below the window, was a grill-covered hole that went through to what looked to be the basement.
“Looks spooky,” said Buckeye.
“Can you get through?” said Max.
“I don’t know. It’s awful tight.”
“Like fun!” said Max, and Buckeye felt the fat boy’s hands close on his ankles, lifting him off the pop case.
“Hey!”
Buckeye slid forward until he dangled from the waist, looking down at the floor. Something slipped from his shirt pocket. It fell, landed on the floor, stood on edge… It teetered, a one-legged dancer going off balance. And then it fell—sideways, right through the grill-covered hole in the floor.
“My key!”
“What’d he say?” asked Max.
“Monkey!” shrieked Willy, thinking of Dangerous Things.
Max climbed up beside Buckeye, looking through the dirty glass. “There ain’t no monkey in there.”
Buckeye knew there was no way out of it now. He was going inside. The key was his mother’s only one to the front door. She’d given it to him earlier that day so he could let himself in while she was up the street having tea with Mrs. Gruber. It was a silly thing, always having to lock the door. His mother was a lot like Willy. Everything scared her—especially things she read in the newspaper. Lately she’d been worrying about Buckeye not being home by eight-thirty each night. It had something to do with the Philadelphia Missing Persons Bureau not being able to locate some missing kids. Usually Buckeye got in the house at a quarter to nine, and usually he got strapped for it. He wished his mom would stop reading the paper.
And he wished he’d remembered to return the key when she’d gotten back from Mrs. Gruber’s.
“I said, my key. It fell through the floor.”
She was going to kill him this time. She was going to take the television and pitch his comic books. She was going to put a lock on his bike and make him be an altar boy like wimpy Stevie Steedle. She was going to come down on him the same way she had the morning after he and Tommy Baker broke into the Catholic school looking for vampires—only this time it was going to be worse…
He didn’t realize he was all the way inside the house until he turned around and saw Max staring at him through the dirty window.
“He got through,” Max was saying. “You see that? The little creep went right through.”
Buckeye looked around. The room looked creepier from all the way in. There was a closed-up smell, like the room was full of last year’s air.
He got on his knees and looked through the grill on the floor—nothing there. Nothing but darkness. He was going to have to look in the basement.
Max banged on the window. “Hey, Buckeye! How about the door?”
He looked up. All three boys were standing on the pop case now—their faces pressed against the dirty glass. Willy was on one side, his uncombed hair sticking out everywhere. He looked scared. Lanny was on the other side, looking more sure of himself. Max was in the middle. Buckeye thought they looked like Moe, Larry, and Curly.
“C’mon, creepo! The door!”
He stepped out of the room and moved into a wide hall. There was a light switch on the wall. He snapped it. A bulb came on in the high ceiling. Weak forty-watt light oozed down the faded walls, spreading out over the floor. He could see the wallpaper design dimly now. It was a flower design, flowers and children dancing in floor-to-ceiling helices—all but scrubbed away from too many washings. This ceiling was the same as the other room’s, cracked and peeling. The floor was the same too, bare and wooden.
He came to the front door, wrapped his hands around the knob and tried turning. It wouldn’t turn. He tried pulling. Pulling didn’t work either. He kicked it with his foot and hit it with his hand. No good. It was locked on both sides.
He kicked it again. It was like kicking a tree.
Buckeye went back to the window.
“It won’t open,” he said.
Max looked mad. Lanny and Willy looked ready to leave.
Max said, “Maybe we should smash in the window.”
“Isn’t that against the law?” said Willy. And, when Max didn’t answer: “I’m going home.”
“Hey, wait a minute!” Buckeye leaned out the window. “We gotta find my key.”
“How’re we gonna do that if you won’t let us in?” said Max.