“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
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
Willy said, “Let’s go home, Max.”
Max pretended he didn’t hear. “What’s it like in there, Buckeye?”
“Just an old house.”
“Is the witch in there?”
“I didn’t see her.”
“This isn’t even fun,” said Lanny, who was now standing where, a short time ago, Buckeye had been thinking about going home. “Come on, Sean. Get out of there and let’s go.”
“But my key!” said Buckeye.
“Is it that important?” asked Willy.
“They’ll kill me!” he said.
“You guys are a bunch of queers,” said Max.
“Okay,” said Lanny. “We’ll wait for you.”
“Hurry,” said Willy. “I don’t like it here.”
“I don’t like your face,” said Max.
And Buckeye slid his shoulders and head back through the window. He looked one more time through the glass, then turned back into the hall, wondering why this stuff always happened to him.
This time he turned the other way, moving deeper into the house, passing a dark second-floor stairway. There was a room at the end of the hall. The weak ceiling light spilled into it, and he could see a table, some cabinets, and—dimly at first—hear water running. He thought of turning back, forgetting the key, taking his chances at home…
The water stopped running. Footsteps moved toward the hall. A little face peeked around the door.
For a brief, gut-stabbing moment, Buckeye was sure he was going to pee his pants. Then the initial fear vanished, and, as the after-shocks echoed through him, he realized it was a little girl.
They looked at each other for a long time. Buckeye expected her to call the old woman. But she didn’t. She only stood there, and finally she asked, “Are you new?”
