He was standing out there with a bat over his shoulder. “Game time,” he said. “I know you can catch, let’s see if you can hit.”
Excellent! That would get my mind off this crazy house. I ran upstairs to get my ball and glove. I was heading for the stairs, thinking about maybe sliding down the banister, when I froze. It was like sparkles of ice suddenly forming in my veins.
Strange laughter.
I listened and there it was again. Echoing in the hallway. And it seemed to be coming from Sally’s room.
Very quietly I tiptoed down the hall and stopped outside her door. Inside, Sally giggled—and there was another, answering laugh. A child’s laughter. But not Sally. Definitely not Sally.
I put my hand on the doorknob. It was icy to the touch, so cold my fingers almost stuck, frozen in place. I got a grip on the baseball, ready to throw it with all my might, and leaned my shoulder into the door.
It popped open and suddenly I was inside.
Sally was sitting on the floor, playing by herself. She didn’t seem the slightest bit afraid, and she was smiling at the space across from her, as if someone was there. But she was alone, completely alone.
And then I saw her pick up Winky, her favorite stuffed bunny, and hold it out, almost as if she was giving it to someone, someone just her size. Of course, there was no one there. Nobody but me, watching.
Sally let go of the bunny.
It hung there, suspended in midair.
“NO!” I shouted.
The flop-eared animal fell to the floor.
Sally glared at me, her lower lip stuck out. “You scared him away,” she complained.
“Who?”
Sally turned away, blond curls bouncing.
I went into the room and knelt beside her. “Who, Sally?” I asked gently. “Who did I scare away?”
“My new friend,” she answered sulkily, refusing to look at me.
“What new friend?” I put an arm around her and gave her a squeeze. “Come on, Sally, you can tell me.”
She squirmed away. “Go away. You’re mean.”
I couldn’t get another word out of her. Sally can be very stubborn, and when she gets in one of her moods she won’t talk. I kept asking her questions about this invisible friend of hers and she kept shaking her head.
Finally I gave up and went downstairs. Steve was sitting in my chair, eating pancakes. He looked at me and grinned.
“Mom, I just saw something weird in Sally’s room,” I said, knowing it sounded lame. But I had to tell her, no matter how crazy it sounded. Sally might be in danger.
I described what happened with the bunny and what Sally had said about her new friend.
Steve looked at me bug-eyed but Mom just laughed. “Lots of kids Sally’s age make up invisible playmates. It’s perfectly healthy. She must have been holding that bunny somehow, Jay, and you just couldn’t see it.”
I wasn’t exactly surprised when no one believed me about the bunny floating in midair. I could hardly believe it myself. So I decided to change the subject. “Did you come in and open my window last night?” I asked Mom. Maybe there was a rational explanation for that, too.
“No, of course not. We haven’t got the screens up yet. Which reminds me. I’ll have to get your father to look for them in the basement. She added a note to the list she was making.
“Well, someone opened it,” I said. “And it sure wasn’t me. And then it slammed down and almost took my head off. I was going to tell you about it at breakfast but then the bathroom decided to blow up and try to boil me alive.”
Mom frowned with concern. “What you need is some fresh air, young man. Blow the cobwebs away.” Her tone softened. “You had a frightening experience this morning, Jason. I don’t blame you for feeling shaken up. You need to get it off your mind.”
“I’ll keep his mind off it, Mrs. Winter,” Steve said. “He gets a load of my fastball, he won’t be able to think of anything else.”
My mother nodded happily. “Great. Go ahead, Jay. Go out and play with your new friend.” She winked at Steve. “He’s not imaginary, is he?”
12
We fooled around in the backyard for a while, with Steve pitching and me hitting, but with nobody else around to field the ball we got tired of chasing it down.
“Let’s check out the lake,” Steve suggested.
There was a boat landing and a recreation area on the lake, but there wasn’t much of anybody around yet, so we ended up skipping stones.
Steve made it look easy. He’d take this small rock and cock it in his fingers and then flick his wrist and the stone would skip across the water like something alive.
When I tried it, the stones kept going plop! and sinking right away.
“Like this,” said Steve, showing me how to flick my wrist.
I tried again and was amazed to get three skips.
But Steve shook his head. “Your stones are too round,” he said. “You need flat ones and you have to hold them like this.”
“Yeah, okay,” I said, and started searching around the shore for flat rocks.
“I’ve been skipping stones since I was about three years old,” Steve said, showing me how to position my thumb and forefinger. “I’m surprised the lake’s not filled in by now.”
Once I got into the rhythm of it, I learned pretty quickly. And concentrating almost made me forget about the old house and the evil laughter and the bursting pipes and the invisible playmates.
I reared back and skipped a stone that seemed to bounce clear across the lake.
“Oh, no,” Steve cried. “What have I done? I’ve created a monster!”
“Dr. Frankenstein!” I said, making a monster face.
We fooled around some more and I was surprised at how fast the time flew by.
On the way back up Cherry Street we looked up and saw the house, or
