Night of the Giant Everything

Before you enter, please wipe your shoes on the KEEP OUT mat. We try to keep the floors clean. The housecreeper hasn’t cleaned for a while. You’ll have to forgive the BLOODSTAINS.

Yes, you’ve found my old castle, a place for very special visitors only. This is a place for kids who have stories to tell.

Come sit by the fire. Don’t you like the way the flames leap to the ceiling? Too bad we don’t have a fireplace.

I am the Story-Keeper. Here in the darkest, most hidden part of HorrorLand, I keep the doors to the Hall of Horrors open.

Frightened kids find their way here. Haunted kids. They are eager to tell me their stories. I am the Listener. And I am the Keeper of their tales.

Those shadowy faces on the wall? The faces with bulging eyes and mouths open in screams of
horror? Those are paintings of the kids who brought their stories to me.

We have a visitor today. That boy sitting in the armchair by the fire. He’s nervously juggling three red balls in the air.

His name is Steven Sweeney. Steven is twelve, and he’s into magic and illusions. But what happened to him was no illusion.

“What is your story about, Steven?”

“It’s about … dangerous magic.”

“You enjoy performing tricks, don’t you?”

“Tricks can be fun. What happened to me was horrifying!”

“Well, go ahead, Steven. I am the Story-Keeper. Start at the beginning. Tell me your story.”

Steven lets the three red balls fall to his lap. His dark eyes burn into mine. “Are you sure? It’s a very weird story,” he says.

Go ahead, Steven. Don’t be afraid. There’s Always Room for One More Scream in the HALL OF HORRORS.…

“Pick a card. Any card.”

I held the deck up to Ava and Courtney. They’re in my class. Ava Munroe and Courtney Jackson.

They both laughed. “Steven, we know this trick,” Ava said.

Ava is the tallest girl in the sixth grade at Everest Middle School. She’s very pretty, with wavy blond hair and blue eyes. But I think being so tall gives her an attitude.

She likes to look down on me. And I’m only two or three inches shorter than she is.

I waved the deck of cards in their faces. “Maybe this trick is different. Go ahead. Pick one and don’t tell me what it is.”

Courtney crossed her arms in front of her blue hoodie. “It’s the ace of hearts,” she said without picking a card.

Courtney is African American, with short hair and big dark brown eyes. She wears long,
dangling earrings and lots of beads. She has a great laugh.

I hear her laugh a lot. Because she likes to laugh at me and my magic tricks.

“How do you know your card will be the ace of hearts?” I asked.

“Because every card in the deck is the ace of hearts,” Courtney replied.

She and Ava bumped knuckles and laughed again.

“Okay, okay,” I said. “You guessed that one.” I tucked the trick deck of cards into my jacket pocket. “But here’s a trick you don’t know. Can you spare any change?”

I reached up and pulled a quarter from Ava’s nose.

Ava groaned. “Steven, that’s totally obnoxious. Why are you always doing that?”

Obnoxious
is one of her favorite words. Her brother is obnoxious. Her dog is obnoxious. Today she said her
lunch
was obnoxious. I’m not kidding.

“I just feel a change in the air,” I said. I pulled a quarter from Courtney’s ear. I spun it in my fingers and made it disappear.

“Know where the quarter went?” I asked. “Ava, open your mouth.”

“No way,” she said, spinning away from me.

“Steven, give us a break,” Courtney said. “We’ve seen all your tricks—remember?”

It was a cool fall day. A gust of wind blew my hair over my eyes. I have long, straight black hair. My mom calls it a
mop
of hair. She likes to wait till I brush it just right and then mess it up with both hands.

Everyone in my family is funny.

Most of the guys in my class have very short hair. But I like it long. It’s more dramatic when I’m doing my comedy magic act onstage.

Ava, Courtney, and I were standing at the curb on Everest Street. School had just let out. Kids were still hurrying out of the building. The wind swirled, sending brown leaves dancing down the street.

Courtney tucked her hands into her hoodie. “So tomorrow is the talent assembly?”

I nodded. “Yeah. My act is going to
kill.”

“Not if Courtney and I kill you first!” Ava said.

Ha-ha. LOL. They’re both crazy about me. Otherwise, they wouldn’t say things like that—right?

“You’re my assistants tomorrow. Remember?” I said. “We have to rehearse the act. Practice your moves.”

Courtney squinted at me. “You’re not going to pull quarters out of our noses in front of the whole school, are you?”

“Do you have any tricks that aren’t obnoxious?” Ava asked.

“For sure,” I said. “Here. Check out this new trick.”

They didn’t see the spray can of Silly String hidden at my side.

I leaned forward. Then I pretended to sneeze on Ava. A biiig sneeze.

And as I sneezed, I squirted a stream of white Silly String all over the front of her sweater.

She gasped and staggered back in surprise.

It was a riot.

But then Courtney tried to grab the Silly String can from my hand.

And that’s when things went out of control.

Courtney swiped at the can. My finger pushed down on the button. And squirted the stuff all over her face and in her hair.

“Yuck!” She let out a cry and tried to wipe the Silly String gunk from her eyes.

Then Ava grabbed the can and sprayed it on me. I couldn’t squirm away. She kept her finger down on the top and covered me in a ton of the sticky stuff. Then she tossed the can to the curb.

I started slapping at the stuff. Trying to pull it off my jacket. Courtney was still rubbing her eyes, smearing it off her cheeks. A big gob was stuck to her hair.

“Steven, do you know how to spell
revenge
?” she asked through gritted teeth.

“Do you know how to spell
joke
?” I shot back.

Kids were laughing and cheering. One kid from the third grade picked up the can from the
ground and tried to squirt his friend. But the can was empty.

“Steven, you creep. You ruined my sweater!” Ava cried.

“It comes out,” I said. “The can says it’s washable. It was just a joke, Ava.”

“You’re
a joke!” she cried angrily. She tried to punch me in the gut, but I danced away. I’m smaller and faster.

I glanced at my phone and saw the time. “I’m late for my piano lesson,” I said.

I started across the street. But then I turned back and called to Ava. “I’ll come to your house after my lesson, and the three of us can rehearse the magic act.”

“Not if I see you first!” she shouted.

Courtney waved both fists at me.

I told you. They’re crazy about me.

Mr. Pinker is my new piano teacher. He gives lessons from his house, which is just two blocks from the school.

He has a big redbrick house that sits on top of a wide grassy yard that tilts sharply downhill. In the winter, he lets the neighborhood kids use the hill for sledding.

The house is old, with ivy crawling up one wall. It has two chimneys and a long screened-in porch.

I climbed the hill to his house. Rang the bell and let myself in the front door.

The front hall was brightly lit, cluttered with coats and caps and umbrellas hanging on hooks. I could hear piano music from the front room. Someone was finishing a lesson. The house smelled of fresh-baked cookies.

I set down my backpack and tossed my jacket onto one of the hooks. A short red-haired girl gave me a smile as she headed out the front door.

“Hello, Steven. Come in,” Mr. Pinker greeted me. “That was Lisa. She got the piano keys all warmed up for you.”

He seems like a nice guy. I guess he’s about forty or so. He’s tall and thin. Mostly bald, with a fringe of red-brown hair around his head. He wears glasses low on his nose.

He always wears a gray suit and a red necktie. This was only my third lesson with him. He’s worn the same outfit each time.

I followed him into the front room. It was kind of old-fashioned. Lots of old chairs and a big brown leather couch with the leather peeling off in places. A tall grandfather clock on the far wall had the minute hand missing. It didn’t work.

Four black-and-white photographs of sailboats hung on one wall. A painting of a symphony
conductor with his baton raised stood over the mantel.

A low desk in one corner had stacks and stacks of sheet music on it. The piano stood against the other wall, facing the front window. A window seat also held tall stacks of piano sheet music.

Outside, the gusting wind sent a tree branch tapping the front window. It sounded like drumbeats.

“What’s that white stuff in your hair?” Mr. Pinker asked. “Are you getting dandruff?”

I reached up. My hair was sticky. “It’s Silly String,” I said. “I had a little Silly String battle.”

He nodded. “Make sure your fingers aren’t sticky.” Then he disappeared from the room.

A few seconds later, he returned with a big home-baked chocolate chip cookie on a plate and a glass of milk. “I know sixth-graders are hungry after school,” he said. “That’s why I bake my special cookies for my students every day.”

He handed me the plate and set the glass of milk down on a coaster on the piano. I wasn’t really hungry, but I didn’t want to be rude. I took a big bite of the cookie.

It was very chewy and a gob of it stuck to the roof of my mouth. I tried to wash it down with a sip of milk.

Mr. Pinker pushed the plate under my nose. “Go ahead. Finish it, Steven. All the kids enjoy them.”

I forced the cookie down, sipping milk after every bite.

As Mr. Pinker watched me eat, he got this big smile on his face. His eyes lit up and he kept grinning. He watched till I finished every last crumb.

But there was nothing
strange
about that — right?

“This is one of Chopin’s early pieces,” Mr. Pinker said. He set the sheet music down on the piano. “I think you will find it easy to play, once you get used to the rhythm.”

“I practiced the other piece you gave me last week,” I told him. “But I only have a small keyboard at home, so it’s hard to do it right.”

Mr. Pinker patted my shoulder. “Once your parents hear how good you are, they will want to buy you a real piano,” he said.

I guess I am pretty good at it. I’m not bragging. Music comes pretty easily for me. Same with magic and doing stand-up comedy and other stuff onstage. I just like to perform.

Dad says my uncle David sang and played piano with a very popular dance band. He died before I was born. But maybe I get my talent from him.

I pulled the piano bench up closer and leaned over the music. I tried to figure out the fingering of the first few bars.

Mr. Pinker was wrong. This piece was hard. Very fast and complicated. I knew it would take hours of practice to get my fingers moving fast enough.

Mr. Pinker slid next to me on the piano bench. “Let’s try a few measures,” he said. “I’ll show you.”

I still had the chocolate taste in my mouth. Mr. Pinker’s cookie was so rich, my stomach was already churning.

I watched his hands as he started to play. I kept moving my eyes from his hands up to the music. Then I tried the first few bars … very slowly.

We worked on the piece together for about twenty minutes. It was pretty intense. But I was starting to get it right.

The phone interrupted us. Mr. Pinker jumped to his feet and started for the kitchen. “I have to answer that,” he said. “Keep practicing the first few pages.”

I leaned forward and moved my fingers over the keys. My hands were sweaty. I dried them off on the towel Mr. Pinker keeps on the piano.

My back ached. I hadn’t moved in nearly half an hour. I decided to stand up and stretch.

Where was the bathroom? This would be a good time to go. But I’d never seen the rest of the house.

The kitchen was to the left. To the right, I saw a long hallway. I decided there must be a bathroom down there.

I stepped into the hall. There were no lights on. But I could see doors on both sides. The floor was wood and creaked under my shoes. The air smelled like pine, like bathroom cleaner or something.

My eyes adjusted to the dim light. I could see that the doors along the hall were all closed.

I pulled open the first door and peered inside. It was a closet with sheets and towels piled on the shelves.

I closed that door and walked to the next door. It was partway open. I peeked inside and saw a twin bed and a dresser. Probably a guest bedroom.

Maybe I should have waited and asked Mr. Pinker where the bathroom was. But there
had
to be one in this long hall, I figured.

My shoes made the floor creak and squeak. I stepped up to the next door and pulled it open. Gazing inside, I blinked several times—and let out a startled gasp.

Gray afternoon light poured in from two windows on the far wall. I gripped the doorknob and stared down at the floor.

What was I seeing? A tiny town? A tiny town of wooden dollhouses?

Before my eyes could focus, Mr. Pinker’s angry scream rang through the hall. “Get OUT of there! SHUT that door! GET AWAY! Right NOW!”