Hellhole (23 page)

He cast a glance around the room for help. A couple of kids made thrusting motions with their hands, flicking their wrists as if they were fencing.

“Lots of danger of sword fights,” Max continued, “which Hamlet is really scared of, what with his hemophilia and all.”

Mrs. Rizzo frowned. “Hemophilia?”

“It's a clotting disorder.”

She straightened up and folded her arms. “Hamlet's soliloquy,” she said, “is about suicide. Not clotting disorders.”

“Yeah, but, like, couldn't it be up for interpretation?” Max said. “Isn't that what you're always telling us, that Shakespeare was a master of puns and double-entendres? That the magic of literature lies in the way it can mean something different to everyone? That maybe what
you
think is a speech about suicide is what
I
interpret as a speech about the fear of uncontrollable bleeding?”

The room was silent. Someone dropped a pencil.

Wordlessly, Mrs. Rizzo spun on her heel and walked back to the front of the classroom. “I have one final question, Mr. Kilgore,” she said, taking her place behind the podium and placing her hands on its edge with all the conviction and pomposity of a cross-examiner. “How,” she said, “does the play end?”

Max felt his victory slipping away. He had no idea how the damned play ended. His pores had sweated out every ounce of moisture in his body; his nerves had sizzled and burned out like the filament of an old light bulb. She'd won. He'd lost. She'd give him detention, he wouldn't be able to go house hunting, he'd fail to provide Burg with a satisfactory medley of microwavable snacks, and Burg would finally kill his mom, all because some emo Danish hemophiliac prince forgot to lock up the ear poison in ye olde medicine cabinete.

Max let out a miserable sigh. “I don't know,” he said, thoroughly defeated. “Everyone dies?”

Mrs. Rizzo's face went slack.

No one moved.

The bell rang.

The room exploded in a flurry of movement and cheers. Someone gave Max a triumphant pat on the back. “Unreal!” said Krissy Swanson, leading the charge into the hallway and blocking any attempt by Mrs. Rizzo to punish him. Not that she could have caught him; he had already burst out the door, boldly snatching the pad of detention slips off her desk as he left.

MAX CHUCKED THE DETENTION SLIPS
into a garbage bin, grabbed his stuff from his locker, and bolted down the stairs, but he couldn't outrun his own reputation. Nor could he manage to avoid Audie's better half, who took up the better half of the hall.

“Hey, hoss!” Wall boomed as Max ran into him, bouncing off his massive chest like a pinball.

“Sorry, Mister—um, Wall,” Max stammered.

“Mr. Wall?” He gave Max a staredown. “You all right? Heard you just trapped the almighty Rat.”

“Oh, no, not really.” Max shot a sheepish look at the students streaming by, some of whom were not-so-sheepishly staring back and giggling. “Just took a little pop quiz.”

“That you knew every answer to.”

Max paused in his escape attempts. “Wait, that last one was
right?
Everyone really dies?”

“Duh, hoss. It's
Hamlet.
‘To thine own self be true.'”

Max simply didn't know what to do with this previously unknown Shakespeare-quoting version of Wall. So he patted his arm—an arm that was easily as wide around as Max's torso—and said, “Indeed! Forsooth!” as he tottered away.

Mercifully, Lore was waiting for him outside at the bike rack. “Hey!” she said, holding up a small, milky sphere. “Look, I got the frog's eye. It's hard and bounces like a marble!”

“Burg can talk to me,” he told her, breathless.

She put the eye into her skirt pocket. “Beings with mouths tend to be able to do that.”

“In my
head,
” he said as they walked their bikes out of the parking lot. “He can communicate telepathically.”

“Trippy.”

“Don't you get it? This is bad. He can hear what I'm doing. He can hear who I'm talking to. He's a lot smarter than we thought he was! He knows Shakespeare!”

“Shakespeare?” At this, Lore raised her eyebrows. “Wait. Was that
you
who burped in Rizzo's face last period?”

“How did you hear about that already?”

“About two seconds after the bell, Josh Clark announced to the hallway that ‘something is belchy in the state of Denmark.'”

“Inspired. Listen, this means we need to be a lot more careful about what we say to each other now. If he's listening in, he can hear our plans—”

“Our plans to what, find him a house? Do exactly what he's asking you to do? There's no harm in him hearing any of that.”

“Yeah, but what about—
OH!
” He smacked himself in the head. “
That's
how he knew you were talking about slipping him a Mickey!”

“You were the one who said that. I would never say something so lame.” She reached out and rapped a fist against his head. “Is he listening in right now?”

Max tried to remain still. “I don't know. I still hear a humming noise, but I can't tell whether that's him or just my lingering panic attack.”

“Well, just look, then.”

She held up a printout from the local newspaper's website. An obituary, dated two days earlier, accompanied by an outdated photo of an old, bloated man.

Edwin O'Connell.

“Survived only by his son,” Lore said mischievously. “I called the funeral home director and found out that the house has been willed to him, but you were right, he and his father had a big falling-out. The son lives in New York City and doesn't even want the thing! He's just going to let it sit there and rot!”

Max felt a curious stirring of emotions. “It can't be that easy,” he said slowly. “What if he comes back? What if he sends someone to check on it? What if—” He tensed up. “What if you-know-who
killed
him in order to get it?”

“Oh, don't drag Voldemort into this.”

“I mean Burg!”

“I know who you mean. And so what if he did? The guy was old. And now we have a house.” With that, she took off on her bike, leaving Max with no choice but to chase her.

“Wait!” he shouted, pedaling furiously to catch up. “What if he had a butler? What if—”

“Sorry, can't hear you!” Lore cut him off, speeding ahead of him. “Ear poison!”

 

Lore's prediction that the house was a “rustic dealy” was correct; Max thought there had to be a lonesome Alp over in Switzerland that was missing its ski lodge. The exterior was made of a deep auburn wood, and the roof soared up in a series of triangular gables with wide eaves. Exposed logs jutted from the corners, though it was impossible to tell whether they were functional or strictly for decoration, and a matching garage sat at the end of the gravel driveway. A dusty old wreath made of twigs and dried berries hung on the front door, the frame of which was now being industriously chipped away by the talented Mr. Russell Crowebar.

“This is a bad idea,” Max said, wringing his hands and scoping out what had once been the front yard. The forest had long since conquered and seized the land for itself, covering the overgrown grass with fallen trees and pine needles. There were no signs of people—Max and Lore had knocked, peeked in the window, and made sure they hadn't been followed—but Max still felt jumpy, cringing at the deafening screeches of the overhead birds, bristling at every small noise the woodland creatures seemed intent on making.

“Would you please stop it?” Lore hissed. “You're breaking my concentration.”

“How much concentration do you need to pry a door open?”

“Burgling is an art. It takes finesse, it takes skill—” She threw the weight of her pelvis into the exposed part of Russell Crowebar, forcing the door open. She made a sweeping gesture at the house. “And it takes a hefty set of birthing hips. Now get in.”

The ski lodge theme continued through the foyer and into the living room, which was so massive Max was sure it could comfortably accommodate his entire house. Thick, exposed wood beams soared up to the two-story-high ceiling, forming a latticework of trellises. Taxidermied animal heads were everywhere—several bucks, birds, a couple of moose, even a bear—all of them dwarfed by the one above the fireplace: a giant buck to rule them all, its antlers almost comically gigantic.

The cobblestone fireplace took up one wall, while another featured a sliding glass door set into a floor-to-ceiling window, providing a stunning view of the lake. A large liquor cabinet sat in the corner. Intricate Oriental rugs covered the hardwood floors, and handsome furniture upholstered with plaid fabric—

“Ahhh!” Max freaked out. “Furniture!”

Lore remained calm. “Yeah, sofas can be really terrifying. Don't get too close to that rocking chair, it'll tear your face off.”

“It's just—all the other houses were empty. It feels like someone still lives here.”

“With all your bloodcurdling screams about the furniture? They'd already be trying to shoot us with their obviously extensive collection of firearms.” She nodded at a walled gun rack.

“True,” Max said, looking up into the glass eyes of the bear.

Lore poked at one of the stuffed owls. “This one looks a little like you.”

“Could you please focus?” Max was feeling queasy, and not because he'd just been compared to a bird for the billionth time in his life. “What do we do now?”

“We pay our respects to Deerzilla,” she said, saluting the big-antlered deer, “then make sure the stove works.” She headed through a doorway. “Whoa, this kitchen is bigger than the Food Network! The whole network!”

“Great,” Max said weakly.

“It has two ovens!” she shouted back. “Wait, no—three!”

“Great.”

“There might be more. I'm investigating.”

Max crossed to the massive window and rested his forehead against the glass door. Just outside, overlooking the lake from about fifty feet above it, was a gorgeous, sprawling deck. Stained a cherrywood color, it stretched out in both directions, farther than Max could see.

Though he could see one thing, something flapping against the wood out to the right. He opened the door and stepped out onto the porch. It was a green tarp that had come unfastened. Crouching down, he lifted the corner and peered beneath it.

He gasped.

He spun around and bolted back inside the house, finding Lore doing jumping jacks inside the pantry.

“I'm doing jumping jacks inside the pantry,” she said. “It's so big I can do jumping—”

“Lore!”

She stopped and took in his sweating, splotchy, heaving face. “What?”

A grin replaced the splotches. “This place has a hot tub.”

Lore grinned back at him. “You're shitting me.”

Max shook his head in awe. “This is the one, Lore,” he said, the wonder in his voice growing until he was shouting. “This is the house! We did it!” He punched a fist into the air. “Now Burg'll cure my mom!”

Lore's smile disappeared.

“What?” she said.

Max faltered. “Uh—that was the deal I made with Burg,” he said. “I find him a house, he cures my mom.”

Her eyes went wide. “Wait—the house wasn't part of his initial demand? It was part of a
deal?
”

Max was confused. “Well, yeah,” he said. “Sort of an upgrade-type situation.”

Lore stomped over to Max, grabbed him by the ear, and dragged him into the kitchen. “Explain. Explain
exactly
what transpired between you, the
exact
wording. Why you glossed over it in the first place is beyond me—”

“You were enjoying your quiche,” Max said, cringing in pain. “I didn't want to bother you with tiny details.”

“MAX. SPILL IT.”

She let him go, and he put his hands out. “Okay,
technically,
when Burg first arrived, what he demanded was ‘shelter.' I offered him a tent, which
technically
qualified. But then he kept whining about it, and I got the idea that if maybe I offered to find him a real house, I could ask for something in exchange.”

“Let me get this straight.” Lore was starting to pace. “This whole house-hunting deal, the torture you've put yourself through over the past couple of days, was
optional?
”

“Hey,” Max said, getting mad, “in my book, a chance to make my mom better isn't optional. It's mandatory.”

She stopped pacing and looked up at the ceiling, bouncing on the balls of her feet, as if she were full of some unknown burst of energy but trying desperately to hold it in.

Max didn't know what to do. He stood uselessly in front of her, his large hands floundering at his side, helpless. “Lore, what's the big deal?” he asked. “Okay, maybe I made a reckless bargain, but what was the harm in it? If I didn't find the house, he'd have to be happy with the tent. The deal would be null and void, he wouldn't cure my mom, and I'd be no better off than I was before.”