“He had to deliver some blueprints to the job site. He’ll be back soon.”
“I could eat a horse,” I said. “But I’ll settle for about six pancakes.”
“I expect this country air has given you an appetite,” said Mom, turning to smile at me. “Were you the one who had the midnight munchies?”
“Huh?” I blinked at her stupidly.
“The corn muffins your father picked up yesterday,” said Mom, cocking her head. “You must have been hungry to eat all four of them.”
“I didn’t eat any of them,” I said. “I didn’t even know we had corn muffins.”
Mom frowned slightly, then shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. They’ll turn up probably. Do you think you can manage six pancakes?”
“Absolutely,” I declared, pulling out a chair. “No problemo.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “I didn’t hear you washing up before you came down.”
“Ah, Mom.”
She rolled her eyes. “You know the rules. Just because you’re on vacation doesn’t mean you don’t have to wash up before meals.”
It was no use arguing. With my stomach rumbling from near starvation, I dragged myself off to the downstairs bathroom.
This was the first time I’d really checked out the place. It was a small bathroom with very high ceilings and a lot of pipes running outside the walls, like they used to do in the old days. Instead of regular faucets there were these two bronze levers you pushed. I gave them a shove and stuck my hands under the spout. Barely a trickle of cold water came out. I frowned and gave the levers another hard push. The water sputtered and burped. Somewhere deep in the bowels of the house the pipes clanged loudly, making me jump.
Suddenly water gushed out, scalding hot. I jerked my hands away and jumped back from the sink as splashing droplets stung my legs.
“Darn!” The faucet was so hot to the touch I couldn’t turn it off. I looked for a towel to use to protect my hands.
Just as I turned my head, the pipes along the wall burst, shooting hot water and steam right where my face had been a second before.
I let out a yell and leaped for the door, trying to get away. The scalding water was spraying everywhere now and the room was filling with steam.
I grasped the doorknob. It wouldn’t budge.
A stream of hot water hit me behind the ear and I screamed. My shoulders and back felt half-boiled. My bare legs burned.
And then I heard it. Someone laughing. A mean, cruel laugh that echoed through the steam-filled bathroom.
I had to think quick. Cover yourself, I thought. So I grabbed the shower curtain, tore it off the hooks, and wrapped it around myself.
That helped, but the hot water was still jetting from everywhere and the plastic shower curtain felt like it was going to melt on my back.
I dodged the worst streams but wherever I moved in the tiny bathroom a forceful jet of water seemed to seek me out, piercing me with hot needles.
I pulled again on the door. The doorknob came off in my hands. I stood staring at it like a total moron, feeling the metal grow hot in my numb fingers.
Meanwhile the water was getting hotter and hotter. As hot as boiling water. Hot enough to steam me alive.
11
I tried to get a grip on the door with my slipping fingernails, squirming to avoid the worst of the water’s fury.
In another few seconds I’d be boiled like a lobster.
A sudden rush of cool air seemed like a dream.
“Jason!”
No dream. My mother’s hand closed on my arm, pulling me out into the hall, away from the scalding water. I was saved.
“The house wants to get me, Mom!” I blurted out. “It wants to kill me!”
“Hush now, let me help,” Mom said. “Let’s see how bad it is.”
She helped me take off my hot, wet T-shirt and checked my back for burns. Luckily the shower curtain had done a pretty good job protecting me.
“That was a close call,” she said, and kissed me on the forehead like she did when I was little. Usually I hate that, but I didn’t this time.
Just then Dad came in the front door. His whistle died on his lips when he saw the steam boiling from the bathroom.
“Dave!” Mom said. “Jason almost got badly burned!”
“It’s that old plumbing,” Dad said, rolling up his sleeves. “I’ll check it out.”
My skin felt tender, especially on the back of my neck, but once I was cooled off and in dry clothes I was hungrier than ever.
I was just mopping up the last of the maple syrup when Dad came into the kitchen, drying his hands and looking pleased, like he always did when tackling a new project.
“Those pipes were about rusted through,” he said to me. “Just your bad luck to be there when they decided to blow.”
Dad turned to Mom, who still looked a little pale from the incident. “We’ll have to watch out for things like that,” he said cheerfully. “This is an old house. I expect there’s lots of things ready to give way as soon as we lay hands on them. But we knew that when we rented the place, right?”
Mom looked at me. “Jay seems to think the house is out to get him.”
Dad said, “It was just an accident, Jay. It could have happened to any one of us.”
“Forget it,” I said.
Maybe the crazy laughter had really been the steaming, rattling pipes. I didn’t really think so, but there was no way my parents were going to believe me, and I wasn’t in the mood for a lecture on my overactive imagination.
Still, it did seem like something was out to get me. How come all the “accidents” in the house seemed to be happening to me? And how come my mother could open the bathroom door so easily when I’d pulled and tugged with all my might, just to have the doorknob come off?
A guy could get paranoid around here, that was for sure! But before
