My Dog's a Scaredy-Cat (10 page)

“It didn't seem to scare Heather Payne,” Frankie pointed out.

“Heather Payne wouldn't know a scary thing if it landed right on her. And speaking of things landing on her—Frankie, you have to work on your aim. The spiders have got to land bull's-eye on top of the victim's head.”

“Cut me a break, Zip. I'm new to this fishing thing.”

“And, Ash,” I called in to her. “You've got to scream like you mean it. Really let it rip.”

“Like this?” Ashley asked, and let out a bloodcurdling scream that was so loud, I thought her tonsils were going to blow out of her throat and land on the fireplace mantel. She let out so much air, it fogged up her glasses.

“Shhhh,”
I whispered. “I hear footsteps. “Places, everyone. I want everything to work perfectly this time.”

I opened the door a crack and saw Luke Whitman. Actually, I smelled him first, then saw him. He was all wrapped up like an Egyptian mummy, except instead of using ancient cloth, he had used toilet paper. His arms and legs and body were completely wrapped up. Wow, he had probably used ten rolls of toilet paper. I hoped no one in his house had to go to the bathroom real bad that night.

“Enter our chamber of fear, if you dare,” I said, clicking the tape recorder on as Luke entered. I expected the living room to fill with Frankie's horrible moans. Mistake Number One. After Heather had left, I must have forgotten to rewind the tape back to the beginning, so instead of moans, the living room echoed with an even more hideous sound. It was Emily, singing one of her made-up lullabies to Katherine. It must have been on the tape before we recorded over it.

I won't make you sick by repeating the whole song. Let me just tell you that it started like this, and got even worse as it went along.

 

 

And if the words weren't bad enough, Emily's voice sounded like an amped-up police siren with a bad cold.

“Those are scary sounds, dude,” Luke Whitman said. “Sends chills down my spine big-time.”

Then he started to wail in a voice that sounded even worse than Emily's. I could hear Katherine hissing from the bedroom, which only added to the hair-raising sound track that was going on in our living room.

Oh, it got even better from there. Luke was the perfect test for our haunted house. He was born to be grossed out.

First of all, he loved it when the skeleton's arm bone detached in his hand.

“Wow, decay,” Luke said. “I love decay. I don't brush for that very reason.”

And when it came to the eyeball grapes in egg whites, not only did he stick both hands in and feel them, he ate a couple, too.

“Excellent eyeball goo, dude,” he said.

After he touched the brains, he licked the goopy crud off his fingers and then pretended to barf. At least I think he was pretending. Not to gross you out, but the sound effects were pretty realistic. So I pushed the record button on the tape recorder to get them on tape. They would come in handy later.

The best was when Luke pulled the napkin off of Ashley's head and saw her ketchupsplattered face.

“She's been attacked by zombies!” he shouted, like he had just seen a herd of killer zombies himself. “The living dead!”

Ashley let out a bloodcurdling scream. Then Luke screamed. Then Ashley screamed. Then Luke. Then Ashley. Then Luke. I thought they were both going to pass out.

“This is the most fun I've ever had,” Luke said.

I was amazed that he could even talk. You'd think that he would have been really weak after that screamfest. He must have been really pumped up, because when Frankie lowered the spiders onto his head, he jumped five feet in the air.

“Man-eating giant tarantulas!” he yelled. “I'm poisoned.”

Frankie dangled the spiders over Luke's head, and Luke batted at them in the dark room. He battled with the spiders so much that his mummy wrapping started to unravel. Pretty soon, he was dragging a giant tail of toilet paper behind him.

“My mummy skin!” he shrieked. “I'm coming apart! Help! I'm turning to dust.”

Luke continued to shriek as he ran out of the haunted house, out of our living room, and out the door of our apartment.

“So long, dudes,” he screamed. “Great event!”

As he rode down in the elevator, we could hear his voice in the shaft yelling, “Help! I'm dissolving.”

That guy just couldn't turn it off.

When he was gone, Frankie and Ashley came flying out of the haunted house.

We couldn't stop laughing and high-fiving one another.

Wow. Had we ever pulled it off! We were a giant hit. A complete success. We had passed the Luke Whitman test. We had made a totally cool, totally scary, totally terrifying, totally fun haunted house.

The trap was ready.

We were set to go.

Now all we needed was a victim.

WE TOOK OUR PLACES AND WAITED. It was so quiet in the living room, you could hear the
blip blip blip
of my dad's laptop computer from his bedroom
.

Those guys are such crossword fanatics, they actually send each other clues over the Internet.

M-c-K-E-L-T-Y.

“Hank,” my mom called out from the kitchen. “Come in here.”

“Not now, Mom,” I hollered back. “We're waiting for Nick McKelty.”

“It's important, Hank. Come here now.”

That wasn't her usual tone of voice. That was her I-mean-business voice. I told Frankie and Ashley not to move a muscle, and hurried into the kitchen.

“What's up, Mom? I'm kind of busy right now.”

“Have you seen Cheerio?” she asked.

“Maybe he's sleeping in my room,” I said.

Cheerio likes sleeping in my room best. He never sleeps in Emily's room because he's not a big fan of Katherine flicking her nasty gray tongue out at him. It's one of the many things he and I have in common, along with a love of juicy steaks, large ears, and a fear of the squirrels in Central Park. Maybe all these things we have in common are what make us close. Anyway, I think he likes sleeping in my room best because everything smells like me—not that I smell so great, but that the smell reminds him of me. Like sometimes, if I toss my shirt on the floor when I go to take a shower, when I come back he's all curled up on it, fast asleep. A boy and his dog. You can't beat that.

“I looked in your room,” my mom said. “And in our room. And under the beds and in the bathroom and in the closets, too. He's not here, Hank.”

Come to think of it, I hadn't seen Cheerio since we started to build the haunted house. I remembered that he hadn't come when I called him. That wasn't like him. My heart started to pound in my chest.

“I'll look outside in the hall,” I said, and bolted for the front door.

“Is McKelty here yet?” Ashley called as I dashed past the haunted house. I didn't even stop to answer.

I ran out into our hallway and looked around. Mrs. Fink's door was locked up tight, which made sense because she was at the bowling alley with Papa Pete. A big bowl of candy bars sat on a TV tray that she had left outside her door. I knocked on apartment 10C, Mrs. King's door. When she opened it, she was holding a bowl of candy. I'm sure she thought I was going to be a trick-or-treater.

“Mrs. King, have you seen Cheerio?” I asked. “He's missing.”

“Why no, Hank,” she answered. “Tyler and I just came back from trick-or-treating in the building. I didn't see him anywhere.”

“Thanks, Mrs. King,” I said. “I have to go now.”

I looked frantically around every inch of the hall, including the dark corners near the elevator. Cheerio definitely wasn't there.

I practically flew back into the apartment. By that time, Ashley and Frankie had come out of the haunted house, and my parents were in the living room.

“Cheerio's gone,” I said. I could hardly believe my own words.

“When did you see him last?” my mom asked.

“When I came home from school with Papa Pete,” I said. “I gave him a big tummy scratch.”

“And since then, did you leave the front door open?” my dad asked.

“Of course not, Dad. Well, I don't know. We were just so busy putting everything together. Maybe I did forget to close the door. Oh man, how stupid can I be?”

“When was the last time you heard him in the house?” My dad's forehead was all crinkled up. My mom calls those his worry lines.

“I'm not sure, Dad. I didn't notice. I just don't know.”

“I'll go look for him on the street,” my dad said, throwing on his overcoat.

“And I'll call the animal shelter,” my mom said, going into the kitchen.

I felt terrible, like someone had punched me in the stomach.

“I'm sorry, dude,” Frankie said, laying aside the fishing pole and putting his hand on my shoulder.

“He'll turn up, Hank,” Ashley said. “Cheerio wouldn't run away. He loves it here.”

“He loves it here on normal days,” I said. “But imagine what today must have been like for him. Dark rooms, black lights, scary sounds, skeleton bones, people screaming. Poor little guy must have been scared out of his mind.”

I remembered that Papa Pete had said how much Halloween scared dogs. Why hadn't I listened to what he was telling me?

“I'll go look on the other floors,” I said. I had a lump in my throat as big as one of those prune-taffy globs.

“We'll help,” Ashley offered.

“What should we do about the haunted house, Zip?” Frankie asked. “And McKelty? He's supposed to be here in fifteen minutes.”

“I don't care about McKelty anymore,” I said. “If I hadn't been so focused on getting even with him, I would have paid more attention to what was going on. I would have looked out for Cheerio.”

“You can't blame yourself,” Ashley said, giving me a hug.

But I did blame myself—and my stupid brain that can't do two things at once. I should have been able to build the haunted house
and
watch out for my dog, don't you think?

I left the apartment and headed for the stairway.

FRANKIE, ASHLEY, AND I searched up and down every single floor of our apartment building. Kids swarmed all over the halls, dressed as pirates and princesses and skeletons and fairy godmothers. There were jack-o'-lanterns near the doors that glowed with candlelight and smelled like pumpkin pie. All of the children were knocking on doors and grabbing handfuls of candy, and all the grown-ups were smiling and saying, “And what are you supposed to be?”

They were happy. Not me. I was miserable.

We split up and went to each apartment. We asked everyone if they had seen Cheerio. No one had.

My dad came back in from the street. He had asked people up and down the block if they had seen a brown dachshund with a red collar.

No one had.

My mom came in from the kitchen. She had talked to the West Side Animal Shelter and asked if they had a dachshund of any kind.

They didn't.

We gathered back in our apartment. Frankie and Ashley didn't know what to say. I mean, what can you say to someone whose dog has disappeared?