I lost my balance and tumbled headfirst into the trunk.
The lid slammed shut! The darkness was total. The space was so small I couldn’t move, couldn’t even shift around to push the lid with my feet.
As I thrashed weakly against the sides, I heard soft cackling laughter. Bony fingers scratched teasingly against the sides and lid of the trunk, sending shivers through my body.
I opened my mouth to scream but my chest was so tight nothing came out. In horror, I realized that there wasn’t enough air. I was going to suffocate in here!
Then there really would be a body to find. Mine.
Frantically I rocked back and forth. Maybe I could knock the trunk over, crack it open on the floor.
After what seemed an eternity of struggling, I felt the trunk slowly tilt, then fall with a thud. The lid popped open on impact, spilling me out onto the dirt floor.
I was on my feet in a flash.
But what about the letters? I had to get them. They could be the key to the whole thing.
I grabbed my flashlight and searched inside the trunk, trying to ignore the tingle of fear between my shoulder blades.
No letters. But they had to be here. I searched again, every inch, then forced myself to look under the trunk and all around the area. Nothing.
They were gone. They couldn’t be, but they were. Whatever shut me inside must have gotten them.
My blood froze as I heard a slithering noise behind me. Then a cackle of laughter.
I bolted for the stairs. Nothing stopped me.
At the top I slammed the basement door and shot the bolt.
If there was a body down there, it could stay where it was!
23
Mom was in her office, making notes on some broad sheets of blue paper. As I went in she put down her ruler and looked at me, pencil in hand. She started to smile and then said, “Is that dirt all over your face? You look like a coal miner. What have you boys been up to?”
I shrugged. She’d never believe me about the trunk. I wasn’t sure I believed it myself. “Oh, just exploring. There’s a lot of neat old magazines down there.”
“That’s nice,” said Mom, picking up her ruler and bending over her papers. “Go wash up, we’ll be having dinner soon.”
“Where’s Sally?” I asked, turning to go.
“Napping,” said Mom. She looked at her watch. “I’d better get her up or she’ll never sleep tonight.”
“I’ll do it,” I said, heading for the stairs.
“Wash up first,” Mom called after me.
As soon as I reached the bottom of the staircase, I started feeling anxious about Sally. Some kind of intuition told me something was wrong.
I took the stairs two at a time. The upstairs hall was completely silent. As if the house was holding its breath, just waiting for something to happen.
Sally’s door was closed. She never had her door closed—she liked it open just the right number of inches.
I flung open the door. Sally—or something—was curled up under the bedclothes. “Sally?” I called quietly, tiptoeing over to the bed.
No answer. Slowly I pulled the blanket back. My stomach shuddered. No Sally. Someone had stuffed a pillow under the covers to make it look as if Sally was sleeping there. But Sally was gone.
As I raised my head, wondering what to do next, a gust of wind hit me full in the face. The window! It was open, with the screen removed and propped on the floor.
I ran to the window and stuck my head out.
“Hi, Jason!” Sally waved at me from the cherry tree below her window.
She was perched on a high branch. High enough so a fall might be fatal.
For a couple of heartbeats I couldn’t think what to do. “Hold on tight,” I said in a strangled voice, seeing that Sally was wobbling on her narrow branch, her other arm wrapped around her bunny. “I’ll be right there to get you down.”
But how? I swung my leg over the windowsill. But the uppermost branches of the tree looked too slender to take my weight. I stretched my leg out as far as it would go and my foot barely touched the end of a branch.
There was only one way. I’d have to climb up from below and grab her. But that meant leaving Sally alone while I ran back through the house.
“Hold on tight,” I called down. “Don’t move!”
Sally smiled at me and swung her feet.
I shuddered. She was so high up. If she fell she’d break her neck. “Don’t move, Sally, please,” I called again.
Then I ducked back inside and ran for the stairs. As I flew by the office I heard my mom ask what was going on.
“It’s Sally,” I shouted without stopping. “She’s in the cherry tree.”
Reaching the base of the tree, I looked up. Sally was impossibly high. She looked down at me and waved.
That threw off her balance.
My heart went into my throat. She was going to fall! She teetered, eyes going wide, mouth forming a little round “O” of fright. Then she managed to grab the trunk of the tree.
For the first time Sally seemed to realize she was in danger. She began to whimper.
“I’ll get you down,” I promised, hoisting myself up the tree trunk. “Just hold on.”
The first few feet up were easy. Then the branches became thinner and grew so close together there was hardly room to move. My foot skidded on the smooth bark, and twigs whipped my face. I started slipping back.
Finally I managed to get a grip and pull myself up.
“Jason, what if I fall? Will you catch me?”
“Sally, don’t fall. Just don’t, OK?”
A branch, hardly more than a twig, snapped off under my foot. I had to hug the tree trunk to keep from falling. Slowly I managed to get back up.
Sally was still out of reach. I found another narrow wedge for my foot and got up a little higher. I was almost there. The branches bent and
