The Curse of the Campfire Weenies Page 5

  Across the playground, Debbie hummed as she dug in the dirt.

  THROWAWAYS

  It’s a good thing the garbagemen didn’t have one of those trucks that crush everything. Of course, I never figured things would go that far. When Dad tossed me into the can and carried me out to the curb, I thought he’d just let me stay there for a little while. It’s not like I’d done anything really bad. All I did was play with his autographed Yankee baseball. I hardly got it a tiny bit smudged.

  So I figured he’d be out sooner or later. I couldn’t go back in. He’d said, “Stay there,” and I didn’t want to end up in more trouble by disobeying. Then it got dark.

  At least it didn’t get too chilly that night.

  The garbage truck showed up just before sunrise. The noise woke me. I guess I was sleeping pretty soundly. I’m glad I woke, though. The sky was turning from black to red and purple. It was really pretty.

  The garbagemen didn’t even look at me twice. They just lifted the can and chucked me in the back of the truck. They’ve probably seen all sorts of things waiting for them on the curb.

  I watched out for Dad as we drove away. I was sort of hoping he’d come after the truck and explain that it was all a mistake.

  He didn’t.

  The dump turned out to be a lot nicer than I’d expected. It hardly smelled at all. Of course, I just might have been used to the smell by the time I got there, since the truck picked up a lot of garbage. There weren’t any other kids, but I saw a couple of old televisions and an accordion.

  The truck dumped everything at the edge of this huge mountain of garbage. I had to push my way out, but there was nothing heavy on top of me, mostly just food and paper and that kind of stuff, so it wasn’t too hard to dig myself free. People sure threw out a lot of food.

  I figured this was going to be it for me—I’d have to stay in the dump. But two or three minutes after the garbage truck left, the scavengers came by. They were driving an old, banged-up pickup truck. They stopped right next to me and one of them said, “Hey, look. Somebody threw out a perfectly good kid.”

  “Well,” the other said, “don’t just stand there. Grab him.”

  So I found myself in another truck. They took me to a building and hosed me off. Then they tossed me back in the truck, along with other stuff they’d rescued from the dump, and drove to this big outdoor market.

  They put me between a gas grill and a rocking chair. The grill had some rust on it, but it looked like it still worked. The chair was scratched up and the paint was chipped in several places, but the wood seemed solid. I felt pretty good. They could have stuck me with the old dishes and other cheap junk. Being with the grill and the chair helped raise my self-esteem.

  A little later, a man and woman came along.

  “Oh look, Horace,” the woman said, pointing at me.

  “We have a rocking chair, Emily,” the man said.

  “No, not the chair, next to it,” the woman said.

  “Oh yeah. The boy. Hmmmm.” The man walked over and stooped down. He looked at me for a while, then nodded at the woman. He talked to the guy about the price, and they argued a bit, but not too much. Then Horace pulled out his wallet and handed over some money.

  Horace and Emily took me home.

  I like it here. I pretty much behave myself. Horace doesn’t own any autographed Yankee baseballs. But if he did, I’d try really hard not to play with them. I might not be so lucky next time.

  TOUCH THE BOTTOM

  They say Greenhill Lake doesn’t have a bottom. They say the deepest spot, straight below dead center, goes down forever. As long as I can remember, we’ve been coming to the lake for vacation. We rented a cabin there every summer. It’s always pretty much the same. Dad and his buddies sat at a table under a tree and played poker. Mom and the other women talked or read. My friends and I spent the days swimming or hiking through the woods.

  The lake wasn’t very big. I could swim across it the long way without getting tired. And the middle was easy to find. Joey Devon taught me how to do it. You swam out until you could see the white birch along the south bank. You had to line the birch up with the radio tower on the mountain. That got you in the middle, as far as east and west. Then you had to look west and line up the chimney of the third cabin with the sign on the highway. When all of that was lined up, you were right smack in the middle of the lake.

  That morning, I’d paddled out there on my blow-up raft. I was drifting around with my eyes closed when I got flipped. Once a raft is half flipped over, it’s all over. There’s no way to stop it, no matter how hard you fight.

  So I gave up and tumbled into the water.

  Joey’s laugh greeted me when I came back up. I dunked him. Then we splashed each other until my arms got tired. I guess that wore him out as much as me, because we hung on to my raft and floated for a while, letting the sun bake us into contented lumps of warm laziness. On the shore by the cabin I saw my father chase off a couple geese with a handful of gravel.

  “Enough of this lazy stuff,” Joey said. “I’m going to do it. Right now. I’m going for the bottom.”

  “You’re crazy,” I told him.

  “Watch me.” Joey took a deep breath, let go of the raft, then jackknifed down. I watched until the murk swallowed his legs from view.

  Just for fun, I held my breath, too. I knew I could go longer than Joey. It was easier for me because I didn’t have to waste any energy forcing myself through the water. Sure enough, well before I felt the urge to breathe, Joey burst back through the surface, gasping.

  “Told you,” I said.

  “Told me nothing,” he said. “Look what I have.” He held out his fist, clenched shut. Then, slowly, like a magician performing a coin trick, he unfolded his fingers. Dark, gritty globs dripped from his palm and plopped into the water.

  Mud.

  Bottom mud.

  “No way,” I said, not believing what I saw.

  Joey just grinned.

  That’s when I noticed something floating next to him. “You faker,” I said, grabbing the plastic bag. Sure enough, there was a trace of mud left in the bottom. Joey must have tucked it inside his swimsuit before he swam out.

  “Got ya, sucker.”

  I shook my head. “You didn’t fool me for a minute.”

  “Yes, I did. I thought your eyes would pop out when I showed you that mud.”

  “Maybe you had me for a second or two.” I figured I could give him that much. He’d worked hard to pull off the trick. I had to admit it was pretty clever. I wished it weren’t a trick. It would be great to touch the bottom for real. Too bad we didn’t have some kind of air tank. I looked at the plastic bag. Maybe there was a way. I opened up the bag, then closed it, trapping air inside.

  “I’m going to do it,” I said.

  “What?” Joey asked.

  “Make it to the bottom.” I took a couple of deep breaths, then swam under the water.

  As I suspected, the bag was tough to bring down, but I hadn’t filled it too much. I swam as hard as I could, pulling myself deeper and deeper. When I thought my lungs would explode, I exhaled as much as I could; then I put the bag to my lips, pinched my nose, and breathed in the air I’d brought with me.

  The bag gave me barely enough for a short gasp. It was a lot less than I’d expected. I sucked out all the air, then let the bag go and stroked hard.

  I knew I’d never been this far before. It was totally dark. I pushed deeper, hoping my fingers would meet mud or sand or even rock. I thought about the time last year we’d found a bluegill at the edge of the lake, gasping weakly as it drowned in the air. While the adults had stood around watching, Joey had stepped forward and put the fish back in the water.

  My lungs burned. I knew I’d have to turn away at any instant—the farther down I went, the longer it would take me to get back up. I’d reached my limit. Maybe next time, or next year, I’d make it.

  That’s when I saw the glow.

  Dim, weak, bare
ly there. I blinked, wondering whether my air-starved brain was playing tricks on me. I’d read that divers start to see stuff if they go too deep or stay down too long. But tricks don’t get this real.

  The glow grew stronger, became a light.

  The light surrounded a moving form, maybe ten feet below me.

  I nearly screamed. That scream would have filled my lungs with water and cost me my life. I clamped my jaw so hard I thought my molars would crack.

  The creature had arms and legs. But no hands or feet. The limbs ended in tentacles. It struggled upward, whipping at the water, slowly pulling itself higher, like someone climbing a steep hill. As it got closer, I realized it was huge—at least three or four times as big as a person. Our eyes locked. It stared at me with large, round orbs of white, each speckled with a thousand pupils that dilated at the sight of me. Intelligent eyes. I couldn’t pretend this was a dumb sea creature—not when its waist was wrapped in fabric that was fastened with a wide belt. Not when it wore an intricately braided band of metal around one tentacle.

  The last tiny bubble of air spilled from my mouth.

  Below me, a stream of something drifted from a slit beneath the creature’s eyes. Mud, silt, some form of earth.

  I’d come as far as I could, as deep as possible.

  As I turned and stroked for the surface, I saw the creature do the same, heading back to whatever world it dwelled in beneath the bottom, its dense body dropping just as my buoyant body rose.

  We shared a common failed effort.

  I’d failed to reach the bottom.

  It had failed to reach the surface.

  The pale body reminded me of the time I’d been hiking with my uncle Ron. When we’d stopped to rest, I’d reached down and lifted a fallen log. Dozens of larvae wriggled on the exposed ground, blind and helpless. Before I could put the log back, Uncle Ron picked up a rock and smashed the life out of them.

  I broke through to the surface and let the clean, sweet air above the lake fill my lungs.

  “Make it?” Joey asked.

  I shook my head, too winded to speak.

  “That’s what I thought,” he said. “We’re never going to get to the bottom.”

  I grabbed onto the edge of the raft and drank deep gulps of air. On the bank near the shore, our parents talked and played their adult games. I watched Dad throw a rock at another goose. Somewhere below us, creatures breathed mud and made their own light. They looked so different from us, but I was afraid we had a lot in common.

  “Never reach it,” Joey said again.

  “Maybe not.” But I knew we’d keep trying. And so would they. All I hoped was that the creature who finally reached us would be a kid like me.

  THE GENIE OF THE NECKLACE

  Karen fought with Stacy over the necklace. She knew she’d seen it first, even though she was halfway across the shop when she spotted it. Stacy had no right to try to grab it before she could get there.

  They’d ended up tugging at the necklace, pulling hard, yanking, until Karen was afraid the chain would break. But it held. It was a strong chain, made of hundreds of tiny links. It was a long, beautiful chain, from which hung the most lovely green stone Karen had ever seen.

  “It’s mine,” Karen said. “I want it. I saw it first. You know I love silver.”

  “Oh, all right.” Stacy released her end. She turned away from Karen and picked up a tie-dyed scarf from another table. “This is a lot nicer, anyhow.”

  Karen ran her fingers over the chain, then stroked the polished surface of the wonderful green stone that hung from it. The gem was the size of a robin’s egg. She was sure the color perfectly matched her eyes. Karen smiled as she realized she’d won the battle. She usually won her battles with Stacy.

  But could she afford it?

  She checked the price tag. This can’t be right, Karen thought as her delight wrestled with suspicion. She approached the owner of the shop, who sat behind the counter working on a crossword puzzle.

  “Excuse me,” Karen said, her voice sounding strangely empty in this dusty place of ancient objects.

  “Yes?”

  “This is twelve dollars, right?”

  The man nodded.

  Karen couldn’t believe her luck. Quickly, before anything could change, she paid for the necklace.

  “Would you like a bag?” the man asked as he placed her change on the counter.

  “I’ll wear it,” she said, fastening the necklace around her neck.

  As she put it on, she glanced into a grimy, cracked mirror on an old dresser. She couldn’t help smiling. The necklace looked beautiful. And so did she.

  “You have to admit, I was born to wear this,” she told Stacy as they left the shop.

  “Yeah,” Stacy mumbled as she tied the scarf on her head.

  “Hey, you still angry?” Karen asked.

  Stacy shook her head. “Not really.”

  “Good.” Karen couldn’t wait to get to her room so she could admire the necklace in a clean mirror.

  She said good-bye to Stacy and hurried home.

  Later, Karen was pretty sure it had been a combination of things that had released the creature. The mirror might have played a part. And perhaps the perfume she’d dribbled on her neck. Stroking the gem must have done something—like stroking Aladdin’s lamp. Maybe the tune she’d been humming even played a role.

  Whatever the cause, the result happened quickly. One instant, Karen was alone in her room, admiring her purchase. The next, a jet of green steam shot from the gem and splashed against the mirror. A thick and clotted liquid formed on the glass, oozing down onto her dresser, covering most of the surface and then rising, taking shape, growing into a creature perhaps two feet high and almost as wide.

  Karen was too shocked to scream. She stood, silently trembling, watching as the creature took final form, solidifying, becoming almost more real than she could bear. He had a large head, as wide as his shoulders, and massive hands that drooped all the way down to his feet. He opened his mouth and hissed. He reached out with one hand, tipped with jagged nails, and started to swipe at her as if he wanted to rip her face off.

  Then he stopped.

  Karen could tell he was staring at the gem.

  And that was when she knew she was at a crossroad. The necklace, and this creature, could be either the greatest thing that ever happened to her or the worst. This was deep, secret magic that could help her or hurt her. If she was smart and brave, the world could be hers. If she was foolish, she was sure she would suffer.

  “The gem,” she said. “You can’t hurt me when I wear the gem. Is that right?”

  “Yes,” the creature said in a voice that sounded like acid eating through metal.

  “You must obey my orders. Right?” She was sure of it.

  “Yes.”

  “What can you do for me?” Karen asked.

  “Anything you desire, I can get. Anywhere you wish to be, I can take you,” the creature said. “I can do anything except change the past or break a bargain.”

  “Then I would like—” Karen stopped. There had to be a catch. There had to be a cost. She’d read too many fairy tales to believe otherwise. “What must I give in return?” she asked, proud of her cleverness. She knew most people would never have thought to ask this crucial question.

  The creature reached to his side and touched a small gold candlestick that stood on the edge of the dresser. He scraped his nail along the base, shaving off a gleaming sliver.

  “Hey, you’re scratching it,” Karen said.

  The creature ignored her protest and held his hand out. “A small payment,” he said. “A tiny piece of gold.” He stared down at his hand, as if weighing the metal. “Just this much. Each day.”

  Karen looked at the candlestick. The shaving was very small. It was nothing. What harm could there be? Karen smiled as she realized how stupid this creature was. He could scratch that candlestick as much as he wanted. It wouldn’t matter. All she had to do was ask for anothe
r one. But she was also proud of her ability to strike a bargain. There was no way she’d let him have what he wanted.

  “Not gold,” she said. She pointed to another candlestick. “Silver.”

  The creature glared at her without speaking. Karen realized she was in control. The feeling of power made her shiver. I’ve won, she thought. She waited, knowing the creature would accept.

  Still glaring, he said, “Very well. A tiny piece of silver. Do we have a bargain?”

  Karen nodded, then said, “Bring me a perfect strawberry.”

  It was winter. There was no good fresh fruit at the local market.

  The creature nodded. “As you wish.”

  He melted into the floor. An instant later, he returned, holding one perfect red strawberry in his claws.

  Karen took the berry carefully, avoiding any contact with the creature’s skin. As she placed the fruit in her mouth, she felt as if the act of eating the strawberry was sealing her forever in a bargain with this creature. She quickly forgot such thoughts as she bit into the fruit. It tasted wonderful.

  “What shall I call you?” she asked.

  “Izma,” the creature replied.

  “Fetch me another strawberry, Izma,” Karen said.

  Fruit by fruit, she ate her fill, then grew tired of the game. She gazed out the window at the cold land. “Take me somewhere lovely and warm.”

  Izma performed a series of motions with his claws. The world flew past Karen and she found herself on a beach. She stood for a moment, blinking against the brightness and enjoying the wonderful warmth of the tropical sun and the soft crunch of pure white sand beneath her feet.

  “Bathing suit,” she said, and Izma caused her to be dressed in clothing more suited to the beach.

  “Chair.” Karen stretched, drank in the sun, and thought about all the marvelous things she could do from this day forward. And she thought how her friends would be rewarded and how her enemies would finally suffer.