In the Land of the Lawn Weenies Read online

  “Would you like another waffle?” her mom asked again.

  Laura nodded. This can’t be happening, she thought. She touched the plate and waited for the tingle. Nothing. She touched the table. Nothing. She thought about Mister Hoppy. Had he vanished like the waffle? Did it only happen to important things? Laura had to find out. She needed to touch something she cared about. She jumped from her seat. The chair crashed over as she ran to the living room.

  “Laura!” her mom called after her.

  What can I try? Laura wondered. There, on the table—the book she was reading. It was her favorite series. She touched it. Nothing—no tingle. She ran to the playroom. She started grabbing, touching, feeling—new toys, old toys. Nothing.

  “Laura!” Her mom gripped her shoulder and spun her around. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  Laura clutched her mother’s hand, wondering how she could possibly explain. “Mom—” She stopped. There was a tingle.

  “What is it?”

  Laura was afraid to look away. She knew what would happen the second she took her eyes off her mother.

  The phone rang.

  “Stay there. I’ll be right back.” Her mother pulled free of Laura’s grip and dashed from the room.

  “Wait!” Laura shouted as she rushed after her. She stumbled over one of the toys she’d dropped. She caught her balance and raced toward the doorway.

  “Mom!” Laura called.

  The phone kept ringing in the kitchen. It rang and rang, unanswered. The ringing filled the room ahead of her.

  Laura burst into the kitchen. There was no one there. She was alone.

  Laura curled into a ball and grabbed her head in both hands and screamed. And through her screams, through the pounding fear that seized her mind and the shaking tremors that tore through every muscle of her body, she felt a tingle in her fingers where they touched her face.

  The ringing stopped.

  AT THE WRIST

  It wasn’t my fault that Dad cut his hand off. I can’t take any of the blame for that. Okay, I was in the room at the time, but I didn’t do anything to startle him. He cut his hand off all by himself. As he would have said if I had done it, that was one bonehead move, one really stupid stunt.

  He sort of messed up the workshop, too. But Dad probably won’t be doing much woodworking in the future, and I certainly don’t have any urge to tangle with power tools. I think some of them try to get you.

  Okay, I guess I’ve made the point that none of it was my fault. At least, not Dad’s accident. But then I had an accident of my own. When the guys from the ambulance came, they rushed away with Dad as fast as they could. Right after they left, I noticed that they’d forgotten to take his hand. I knew that the doctors could put it back on. Doctors do that kind of stuff on television all the time. It’s called microsurgery. It’s no big deal.

  So I got some ice from the freezer and put it in the little cooler—the one Dad fills with soda when he’s going out to a ball game. I got a bag from the drawer and grabbed the hand through the plastic. It felt kind of weird, like taking a steak out of the refrigerator, except it wasn’t cold. Trying not to think about what I was doing, I picked up the hand and put it in the cooler. Then I put in more ice. As I was shutting the lid, the phone rang. I ran to the living room and answered the call. It was my friend Carl. I told him I didn’t have time to talk. I hung up the phone and went back to the kitchen. The cooler had popped open, so I shut the lid again. Then I jumped on my bike and pedaled to the hospital.

  But somewhere along the way, between the time I picked up the hand and the time I got to the hospital, I must have messed up. When the nurse opened the cooler, there was nothing in it except for the ice.

  I’d lost Dad’s hand.

  This was not good. I went back to the house. On the way, I looked over the whole route I’d taken, hoping to spot the hand. No sign of it. I searched the house. Not a trace. Mom came back from the hospital and started looking. Even the cat sort of helped to look. At least, he sniffed around a lot. None of it did any good. We all came up empty handed.

  “Well, where did you have it last?” Mom asked.

  If I knew that, it wouldn’t be lost, I thought, but I didn’t say anything. I figured I was in enough trouble already. That wasn’t really fair since I’d been trying to do a good deed.

  As hard as we looked, we couldn’t find the hand. After a few hours, it became a dead issue, to use a rather sick phrase. They can only sew stuff back if it’s still in good condition. A hand doesn’t keep very well if it isn’t cold.

  Dad came home two days later, but he didn’t speak to me very much. I guess he was angry about his hand getting lost, but I don’t see how it could have been my fault.

  Another week passed. That’s when it started. I was falling asleep, just drifting, not really asleep yet but definitely close. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, WHACK! Something smacked me on the butt so hard I thought my head would pop off.

  I sat up fast, one hand reaching down to rub my stinging flesh. There was nobody in the room.

  I thought I heard a faint scurrying, like someone scratching at a rug. But I wasn’t listening very carefully. I was too busy trying to ignore the pain in my rear. It felt like I’d been hit by the world’s champion of butt-smacking.

  I looked around the table at breakfast the next morning, suspecting everyone but knowing that nobody there could have done it. Dad was still pretty weak. Mom was no powerhouse. My brother Ed was a runt, and my sister Darlene was only three. She could have hit me with all her strength and I might not have noticed.

  “Something wrong?” Mom asked when she caught me staring.

  “Nope,” I lied. “Everything is fine.”

  “Fine for you,” Dad muttered as he tried to butter a piece of toast. He’d been making a lot of comments like that the last few days. I half expected him to take me to the woods any time now and leave me stranded, or drown me in a sack in the lake like an unwanted kitten.

  Nope, I decided it wasn’t any of them. I was beginning to think that I’d imagined the whole thing. I’d been almost asleep. And there was no bruise or anything. I hadn’t checked until morning, and it’s not all that easy looking at your own butt in a mirror, but there certainly was no sign that anything had actually smacked me.

  Real or not, it happened again the next night. This time, I was asleep. At least, I was asleep until I felt the smack. It was quickly followed by a second whack. I rolled over and sat up fast.

  There was no one in the room.

  I held my breath and listened for the scurrying sound. There was definitely something crawling across the room and scrabbling out the door. It was fast. In a moment, it had reached the hallway. Then the sound changed as the thing moved over the wooden floorboards.

  I think, when I heard the sound of fingernails on wood, I began to suspect what I was dealing with. But I didn’t want to face that possibility. I just didn’t want to believe that Dad’s hand had come back to punish me.

  Nothing happened that night. But, two days later, after taking a couple of hard swipes on the rump, I almost managed to catch hold of it. For an instant, our fingers met. There was no doubt. It was a hand. I couldn’t identify it for sure as Dad’s hand, though it was definitely big and kind of hairy. I doubted there were other hands out there itching with an urge to smack me.

  Two thoughts crossed my mind. First, I had to do something to stop this or I’d end up spending the rest of my life avoiding hard chairs. But second, I wondered if the hand could still be reattached. If it could move and spank and everything, maybe it could work normally if it was sewn back on Dad’s wrist. I didn’t know for sure. Hey, I’m not a doctor. But it certainly seemed worth a try.

  So I started waiting for the hand at night. I’d lie there, pretending to sleep, making my breathing do that slow pattern that sounds like someone off in slumberland. It took a week, but finally, as I waited, I heard the click of nails on the wood in the hall followed by a creak as my d
oor swung open. The scratching sound on the rug moved closer and closer to my bed.

  I dove to the floor and made a grab, but the hand just managed to dodge from my clutches. I saw it dash through the doorway. I followed, running down the hall.

  “What’s all the noise about?” Dad asked, looking out from his bedroom.

  “Your hand!” I shouted, pointing toward the steps.

  Dad must have caught sight of it, because he joined in the chase. We ran down the steps. I nearly fell, but I managed to stay on my feet. The hand was just ahead of us. It went straight for the front hall. We had this cat door at the bottom of the regular door. The hand went right through it.

  Dad and I followed the hand out to the yard.

  “Got to catch it,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Dad said.

  The hand went around the side of the house and headed for the dock. We lived right next to a lake. We’d moved there because Dad liked to fish. He hadn’t fished much in the last few weeks. We nearly caught up with the hand as it scampered toward the end of the dock.

  “Stop,” I shouted.

  For an instant, the hand paused, as if listening to me. Then it dove into the water. Dad and I ran to the edge of the dock. We could see the hand swimming away.

  “Come on,” Dad said. He jumped into our little boat. I joined him. The motor had a pull cord. I guess Dad couldn’t handle it too well. He just pointed at it. I stepped past him and yanked the cord. The engine roared to life. I cranked it up to full speed and raced after the hand.

  I guess it would have been better if I had waited for Dad to sit down. As I gunned the engine and turned the boat, Dad fell into the water. Then, when I tried to go back to help, the boat sort of went over him.

  It’s a good thing I’d taken that lifesaving course last year. By the time I got Dad onto the dock, Mom had called an ambulance. It could have been worse. He didn’t get hit on the head or anything. But the blade from the propeller had cut him pretty badly. Actually, it had cut his foot right off. There was no chance of finding the foot in the water. But I had a pretty strong suspicion I’d be seeing it again. And feeling it.

  CRIZZLES

  “Never let yourself get caught alone with a crizzle,” Danny’s grandpa told us that evening. It was the first thing he’d said to me since I’d arrived at Danny’s place two hours earlier. Up until then, he’d just sat in his chair and stared out the window.

  I looked at Danny, puzzled. He looked back at me and shrugged, then asked his grandpa, “What’s a crizzle?”

  “It’s an awful thing,” his grandpa said. “Looks just like a person. On the outside, that is. Looks just like you or me.” He pointed at Danny, then at himself. “But inside, it’s all dark and hungry. A crizzle lives for just one thing. A crizzle lives to get you alone and chomp your bones.”

  “How interesting,” I said. “But we’re a little old for fairy stories.” I was hoping that he’d go back to ignoring us. I was in no mood to listen to him or any other adult. It was bad enough that I’d gotten into a fight with my folks. They’re always bossing me around, and they’re always trying to make me eat things I don’t like. I can’t believe the disgusting foods adults gobble up.

  Well, I was sick of it, and I told them how I felt. Then Mom said if I didn’t like it, I could find someone else to feed me. I was so angry I walked right out of the house with no idea where I was going. I’m not stupid, though—I grabbed a bag of cookies on the way through the kitchen. No way I was planning to go hungry.

  I’d kept walking for a long time—long enough to eat all the cookies. I was almost at the edge of town when I realized how tired I was. But there was Danny’s house, sitting at the end of the last side street before the woods. I barely knew him well enough to stop by, but he seemed happy to let me come in. Maybe he didn’t have a lot of friends. The only problem was that Danny’s parents were out, and that left us with Danny’s grandpa. And once he’d gotten started, Grandpa didn’t seem to want to stop talking.

  “They get you alone,” he said, “where no one can see. They don’t even want another crizzle around when that special time comes. It’s the way they are—very private. And then they change, like a candle dripping. The skin melts off and there’s the crizzle, all mean and hungry. There’s nothing nastier in the whole wide world. It’s not a pretty thing. And if you see a crizzle, that’s the last thing you’ll see, let me tell ya, the last thing you’ll see.” He stretched forward in his chair and shouted, “Chomp!”

  I jumped.

  He started laughing.

  “Very funny,” I said, trying not to act embarrassed. I hadn’t been scared, just startled. “Thanks for the fascinating story.”

  “Anyone want to go for a walk in the woods?” Grandpa asked.

  “No thanks,” I said.

  He got up and shuffled to the window. “Beautiful night,” he said. “Lovely night for a walk.” He turned and stared at me. “Come on, young man. How about a little stroll?”

  “No, thank you,” I said. “It sounds absolutely wonderful, but I’m not sure I could handle the excitement.” There was something hungry in the old man’s eyes. I’d never admit that his silly story had spooked me, but there was no way I was going to go anywhere alone with him right now.

  He took his hat and coat from a hook on the wall, then spoke to Danny. “Beautiful night, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, Grandpa,” Danny said.

  Danny’s grandpa opened the door and gazed outside. “Ah, smell that night air. Nothing like a good long walk. Really helps build up an appetite.” Again, he stared at me. “Are you sure you don’t want to go for a walk?”

  “Maybe some other time.”

  “Suit yourself, but you don’t know what you’re missing.” He stepped outside and closed the door. It shut with a clunk that shot through the room.

  “Wow,” I said, turning to Danny. “No offense, but your grandpa is kind of spooky. I could swear he was trying to get me alone.”

  Danny shook his head. “Nah, he wouldn’t do that.”

  “How do you know?” I asked.

  “He was just teasing,” Danny told me. “He knew you wouldn’t go with him.”

  I nodded. “You got that right.”

  “Besides, we take turns,” Danny said. “Grandpa’s real fair about that. And tonight, it’s my turn.” He grinned and winked at me.

  “What?” I still didn’t understand.

  “Alone at last,” Danny said. He started laughing. The grin spread wider as it dripped down his chin like stretched taffy.

  I moved away until I felt the wall press against my back.

  “Alone,” he repeated. “Alone with a crizzle. Only one way that can turn out.” Danny kept laughing as the flesh melted from his face like wax on a candle. And his eyes, even as they slid away to reveal what lay beneath, looked hungry. Very, hungry.

  LIGHT AS A FEATHER, STIFF AS A BOARD

  They’d been playing the game all summer, and it had sort of worked, but Sharon suspected they hadn’t really done it right. Each evening kids from around the neighborhood would gather on one of the lawns, and they’d select a victim. Sharon believed it had to be someone heavy. With a light kid like Ray or Julie, it wasn’t much of a trick. But with a heavier kid, they’d know if the game was real.

  The group wasn’t exactly the same each night, but there were certain kids who usually came. And there were certain kids who usually messed everything up. Billy, for instance, would do almost anything to get a laugh, even if it meant ruining the game.

  Sharon had spent most of the day playing with Julie. Now she noticed that several kids had gathered half a block away on Kate’s front yard. “Come on,” she said to Julie.

  “I don’t know,” Julie said. “I don’t think I want to play.”

  “Why not?” Sharon took a step away from her friend. She had to join the others before the game started. Once they formed the circle, it would be too late.

  Julie wrapped her arms around herself as if
trying to hold onto her decision. “Kate’s so bossy. I hate that.”

  “I know how you feel,” Sharon said. She looked down the street anxiously. The game would start any minute. “Just don’t pay any attention to her. It’ll be fun. And it’s the last day of vacation. You can’t miss it.”

  Julie shook her head. “I really don’t want to go.”

  “Please,” Sharon said. “It won’t be as much fun without you.”

  “Oh, all right,” Julie said. “If it means that much to you.” They walked down the street and gathered with the rest of the kids. Behind them the last of the sunlight melted away in puddles of red and purple against the sky. It would be dark soon.

  Up ahead, Sharon saw that Kate had already taken charge of the group.

  “Let’s do it,” Kate said.

  Anne stretched out on the ground and crossed her arms over her chest. She closed her eyes.

  “No,” Kate said, poking Anne’s arm. “You’re too light. Get up.”

  Anne stood without arguing, but Sharon could tell that the girl was disappointed.

  Kate scanned the group like a shopper looking for the nicest piece of meat in the display case. “Hmmm, what about Todd?”

  “Sure,” Todd said, grinning at the honor. He took Anne’s place on the ground.

  “I knew your weight would come in handy someday,” Billy said.

  Everyone gathered around Todd. Sharon knelt by his left leg. She could feel a change in the air as the kids grew serious.

  Kate, kneeling by Todd’s head, started the game.

  “Light as a feather, stiff as a board,” Kate said.

  In a circle, starting at Kate’s left, each of the others repeated the phrase: “Light as a feather, stiff as a board.”

  Sharon spoke when her turn came, making sure she sounded properly serious and somber. Each of the remaining kids took a turn, ending with Ray.