Moving Day (3 page)

Mark said, “You know what, Allie?
You’re
ugly. Hey—I’m telling! Then you’re not going to get your kitten!”

I didn’t care, though. I didn’t care if he told on me for punching him. Because I didn’t punch him that hard, for one thing, and it was only on the foot, anyway, the only part of him I could reach with him in the tree.

It doesn’t count if it doesn’t hurt.
That’s a rule.

Or it would be when I got home and wrote it down, anyway.

So I turned my back on them—even though I guess technically I was sort of supposed to be keeping an eye on them—and walked down the alley (there’s an alley between our new house and the house next door) to the front yard and was standing there feeling ugly—as ugly as Mark had accused me of looking—when I heard voices and looked over to the house next door and noticed something I hadn’t noticed before.

And that was that there was a girl about my own age doing back handsprings in the front yard of her own house.

Not only was there a girl my age doing back handsprings in her front yard, but there was an older girl there as well, tossing a baton—a real one, like the kind majorettes in parades on TV use—in the air, and actually
catching it as it came down.

At first, I kind of just stood there staring at them because they were the only forms of life I’d seen in our new neighborhood the whole time we’d been there. All the houses on our new street were just like ours—big and scary-looking with lots of turrets and windows and yards surrounded by tall hedges and old trees with creepy branches—and so I just assumed old people lived in all of them.

But now I saw that some actual young people lived in one of them.

And not just young people but girls who could do back handsprings and toss—
and actually catch
—a baton.

The girl who was doing back handsprings was really good at them. She had obviously been doing gymnastics for a very long time because she was quite sproingy. She was sproinging all over the yard.

I have never been able to do gymnastics. I have been taking ballet for two years. I kept on with it even after Mary Kay quit because Madame Linda never chose her to wear the tiara during cooldown. Before ballet, Mary Kay made me try tap lessons (hideous) with her and then gymnastics (even more hideous). My dad says quitters never win, but I say quitters
always
win, because when you quit things you end up making more time for finding out the things you love, such as rock collecting.

But I didn’t quit ballet. There is only one thing I like better than ballet, and that’s baseball, which is a good sport because you get to hit a ball with a bat. The harder you hit it, the better.

But unfortunately, you don’t get to hit the ball all the time. There is also the boring wait-until-it’s-your-turn-to-hit-the-ball part.

This is like ballet. The best part of ballet is the grand jeté. This is when you run and leap—as high as you can go with your legs spread far apart, like you’re flying, almost—into the air.

The worst part of ballet is anything to do with the barre, which is this thing they make you hold on to while you do pliés and stuff, which are a warm-up to the grand jeté.

I don’t mind when I swing my bat and I don’t hit the ball.

And I don’t mind when Madame Linda doesn’t think my grand jetés are the best in the class, and so she lets someone else wear her tiara during cooldown.

What I do mind is when people try to make me do things I don’t want to do. Such as move when I don’t feel like moving. Or not quit gymnastics when my body just isn’t very sproingy.

Not like the girl who was doing the back handsprings in her front yard. Her body was very, very sproingy.

Then I noticed that the girl who’d been doing the back handsprings had stopped doing them. Instead, she was standing up and staring at me over the hedge that surrounded her front yard and separated her yard from the alley between our houses.

“Hey,” the girl said, looking right at me. She had a big smile on her face. “Hi. Are you the new girl?”

I almost looked over my shoulder to see who she was talking to. Because, the new girl? That sure wasn’t me. I’m Allie Finkle. I’m not the new girl.

Then I remembered where I was.

And I remembered that, here, I
am
the new girl.

“Oh,” I said. “Hi. Yes. I’m Allie Finkle.”

“I’m Erica Harrington,” the girl said. She was smiling like crazy. It was hard to imagine her crying just because someone said she wanted to be the girl lion for a change. “And this is my sister, Missy.”

“Melissa,” the older girl with the baton corrected her, not in a very friendly way. She hadn’t stopped throwing the baton in the air and catching it. She was really very good at it. As good as Erica was at gymnastics.

“I’m in fourth grade at Pine Heights Elementary,” Erica went on, not even stopping to admire how good her sister was at baton throwing and catching. Which I guess would be natural, if you saw that kind of thing every day. “Missy is in sixth grade over at the middle school. What about you?”

“I’m in fourth grade, too,” I said. I was beginning to feel less sad than I’d felt before, when I’d been in the backyard and inside our terrible new house. In fact, I was beginning to feel a little—just a little—excited. I was beginning to feel excited because I was figuring something out. I was figuring out that Erica was the same age as me, and might—just might—end up being my new best friend.

I know it was too early to tell and everything. But, I mean, she lived next door to me and was in my same grade.

The thing was, she looked like she’d be so much better a best friend than Mary Kay, at least so far. She could do flawless back handsprings, had a sister in middle school
who could toss
and
catch a baton, and she had shown no sign of crying during a nearly two-minute conversation.

Which was practically a world record as far as I was concerned.

But I really didn’t want to get my hopes up, because the whole day had already been such a big disappointment, what with the house and my room and everything. I mean, chances were a girl like Erica already had a best friend, anyway. I knew I shouldn’t let myself get too excited.

“I go to Walnut Knolls Elementary,” I said, trying to stay calm but already tripping over my words a little in my haste to get them out. “Only, I’ll be starting at Pine Heights Elementary next month, after we move in.”

Erica let out a polite scream to show she was excited, too.

“Maybe we’ll be in the same class,” she yelled. “Do you know who your teacher is going to be? Because there are two fourth-grade classes at Pine Heights. There’s Mrs. Danielson. She’s nice. But there’s also my teacher, Mrs. Hunter. She’s
really
nice. I hope you’re in my class!”

“I hope I’m in your class, too!” I yelled back. I yelled because Erica yelled.
If someone is yelling from excitement, the polite thing to do is to yell back.
That’s a rule. Or it would be when I got home.

“Stop all that yelling,” Melissa said. “You’re giving me a headache.”

“Oh,” I said, careful not to yell anymore. “Sorry.” To Erica, I said, “Do you like kittens? Because I’m getting one.”

“I LOVE KITTENS!” Erica yelled. “What kind are you getting?”

“Well,” I said, because I had been doing a lot of research on this ever since my parents said I could have one. “The breed really doesn’t matter to me, although I love Persians because they’re really fluffy, and I love fluffy cats. The important thing to me, though, is that I get a rescued kitten, because there are so many strays that need homes. So I’ll probably get whatever they have at the ASPCA when we go to look.”

“Our cat, Polly, is from the ASPCA,” Erica shouted. “Do you want to come inside and meet her? And see my dollhouse?”

“I’d love to meet your cat and see your dollhouse,” I shouted back.

“I said stop that yelling,” Melissa said. “And don’t you need to tell your parents where you’re going first?”

“Oh, no,” I said. “They don’t care. Sorry about the yelling.”

And that’s how I got to be friends with Erica from next door at the new house.

I’m not saying we were
best
friends, of course. Nothing like that! I mean, nobody mentioned anything about being
best
friends. I’m sure a girl like Erica has tons of friends, and maybe even three or four best friends. Who knows? It was fun just to be with her. Her house was almost exactly like our new house, only instead of being gloomy and depressing, Erica’s house was extremely cheerful and welcoming. That was because her parents had already done a really great job fixing their house up, so instead of gray paint on the walls there was pretty cream-colored wallpaper with tiny rosebuds on it.

And instead of the floors being dark brown, they were light brown and shiny, and they didn’t creak—or at least
not in a bad way. And the chandeliers were sparkly and actually lit up when you turned them on, as opposed to the chandeliers in our house, which did nothing when you turned them on.

Erica introduced me to her cat, Polly, who is a beautiful calico who only hissed at me once. Then she showed me a funny button that you can press under the carpet in the dining room that rings a bell in one of the secret passageways by the kitchen. In olden times, that was to alert the cook that the family was ready for the next course to be served, like the salad course or whatever.

Erica and I had fun pressing the button until her mom came out and said if we went to play with Erica’s dollhouse she’d make us some hot chocolate.

So we went up to Erica’s room, which was just like my room in the new house, but fixed up all nice and pretty, with pink carpeting and a canopy bed like in my room back home.

Only Erica’s room wasn’t scary or depressing at all!

And in the turret part of Erica’s room sat this huge dollhouse—as tall as me—that Erica said had been in her
family since her grandma’s days and that had lights you could really turn on and even actual running water so the dollhouse people could take a bath (except they couldn’t really because they were made of felt, and they’d melt if you put them in the water).

It was the nicest, fanciest dollhouse I’d ever seen. Kevin would have died of joy.

And best of all, Erica didn’t cry when I asked if I could be the girl doll. She didn’t even sniffle. She went, in a perfectly cheerful manner, “Okay. I’ll be the mother doll.”

And then, later, when I suggested that the baby doll get kidnapped and a ransom note, including the baby doll’s cutoff ear, get sent to the house by the glass dolphin family, Erica didn’t get mad at all for my making the game too scary. Instead, she made the mother doll faint before she called the Counterterrorist Unit for help.

It was completely perfect.

We were making the glass cats solve the crime when all of a sudden Erica’s bedroom door burst open and this boy came in, going, “What’s with all the screaming in here?”

“Allie,” Erica said, all calmly, like boys burst into her
room all the time, “this is my brother, John. He’s in eighth grade. John, this is Allie. Her family is moving in next door. We weren’t screaming, we’re just playing. These dolphins kidnapped the dollhouse baby. It’s a real tragedy. But it’s okay, because CTU is on the case.”

“You’re moving in next door?” John looked concerned. “Then I suppose you’ve heard.”

“Heard about what?” I wanted to know.

“About the reason the last family had to move out,” John said.

“No,” I said. “We never met them. They were all moved out when we got the keys.”

“Oh,” John said. He shook his head. “Then I probably shouldn’t say anything.”

“John,” Erica said, “what do you mean? The Ellises moved out because they retired and bought a condo in Miami.”

“Yes,” John said. “That’s what they want everyone to think. Just take my advice, Allie. Don’t go in the attic.”

“The attic?” I widened my eyes, thinking about that long pull cord in the middle of the hallway on the third
floor and that movie I saw where the zombie hand came out of the attic and killed those people. “Why? What’s in there?”

John made out like he was shuddering. “Just don’t go up there. Okay?”

“John,” Erica said. “What are you talking about? There’s nothing—”

But then Mrs. Harrington came rushing in, going on about how come I hadn’t let my parents know where I was, and how they were looking all over for me and frantic with worry.

The whole time Mrs. Harrington was steering me down her cream-colored, rosebudded hallways, I kept thinking,
How had this happened? How had I gone from happily playing kidnapped dollhouse baby with my new maybe best friend to there’s something evil living in the attic of my new house?

And what could that evil thing be? What could the Ellises have left behind that was so horrible an eighth-grader—who was as tall as my dad, practically—would drop his voice to a whisper when he mentioned it? As
Mrs. Harrington guided me down the stairs and toward the front door, I went over in my mind all the things I’d heard of that lived in people’s attics.

Rats? No, that’s not scary enough to bother an eighth-grader.

Bats? Gross, but again, not scary enough.

Witch? Come on. They aren’t scary to eighth-graders. And they don’t live in attics.

Ghost? Well, it could be a ghost. But ghosts don’t really hurt people, do they? They just pop out and scare them.

And then, just as Mrs. Harrington was pushing me out the door, I remembered.

The disembodied hand. The disembodied hand had lived in the attic in that movie I had seen!

And I almost ran back inside Erica’s big comfy house and begged her mom to let me come live there with them.

Because that hand had been scary! Green, glowing, and so scary!

I didn’t have much time to think about it, though, because Mom and Dad were waiting for me in the
Harringtons’ front yard, and they were
really
mad at me for going next door without telling them where I was going (even though back in Walnut Knolls I can go over to Mary Kay’s house without asking whenever I want. Well, pretty much).

But that apparently didn’t matter. I was in Big Trouble.

I tried to tell Mom and Dad what Erica’s brother had said. I tried to tell them all the way back to our house, and into the car, and all the way home.

But they both looked at me blankly. Mom kept saying, “Allie, we met the Ellises. They’re lovely people.”

Dad kept saying, “And we’ve been in the attic. There’s nothing there except a few old boxes.”

“Have you looked
inside
them?” I asked. “Because that’s probably where it is.”

“Where what is, Allie?” Dad wanted to know.

“The thing,” I said. I didn’t want to say it in front of Mark and Kevin, who were in the backseat with me, enjoying their vanilla twist cherry dip and vanilla twist butterscotch dip, respectively (my punishment for going off without telling my parents where I was going was
that everyone else got ice cream at Dairy Queen on our way home. Everyone else but me).

“You know,”
I said meaningfully to Mom and Dad. I didn’t want to scare Mark and Kevin by talking about what John had said in front of them.