Monsters and Mischief (10 page)

“Without solid proof that Tall Ted exists,” said Woodrow, “we have to assume that he doesn’t.”

“Well that’s a relief,” said Rosie.

“I think our next step should be to find proof that he’s a fake,” said Viola. “Not just a lack of proof that he’s real.”

“How do we do that?” asked Sylvester. “Where do we look?”

“We all know what else has been going on at the school lately,” said Viola.

“The thefts?” said Woodrow. “But people are blaming those on Tall Ted too.”

“So let’s forget the rumors, and talk to the victims to get the facts,” said Viola. “Because if Tall Ted isn’t stealing people’s stuff, someone else is.”

A few members of the
Villain
cast headed through the auditorium doors. Rosie glanced at the clock on the wall nearby. “Viola and I have to go. But we’ll catch up with you guys later this evening.”

“Sylvester and I will see who we can chat with about the thefts,” said Woodrow. “Have fun at rehearsal!”

That night, it was Rosie’s turn to host the Question Marks. After the Smithers family dinner, the group of four gathered at the big table in the dining room.

Woodrow took a scrap of paper from his coat pocket and spread it on the table. “Sylvester and
I made some progress this afternoon,” he said. “The list of names I have here are all the people who claim that Tall Ted has stolen something from them. As I understand it, only the four members of the ‘Question Troop’ had their homes burglarized, giving them a reason to form their group. Plus, Paul Gomez’s wallet was taken from his bag in the dressing rooms under the stage, right after Evan Gleeson claimed to have seen the monster. The rest of the listed victims had their things stolen out of their lockers at school. Some of those targets had the big dents in the doors that everyone is talking about, but most of the lockers seemed to have been opened by someone with the locker combinations.”

“That’s bizarre,” said Rosie. “How exactly would the thief get access to everyone’s locker combinations?”

“Suppose Tall Ted isn’t fake after all,” said Sylvester, excitedly. “What if he has some sort of secret-psychic-locker-combo power?”

Woodrow nodded and smiled. “How about we keep that theory in your pocket and come back to it later?”

Sylvester scowled.

“Viola and I heard something during rehearsal this afternoon that might provide some insight into the thefts,” said Rosie. “Actually, I think
this
story is scarier than anything I’ve heard about Tall Ted. Everyone was talking about a man who
supposedly escaped from a prison upstate and has recently been seen lurking about in the Moon Hollow Hills.”

“No way,” said Woodrow. “My mom would have said something to me about that. She works up in those woods every day!”

“Maybe she didn’t want to scare you,” said Sylvester.

“It’s possible that this convict is the one who’s been burglarizing people’s homes,” said Rosie. “Could he have come into the school too?”

“That’s a creepy thought,” said Viola. “I’ll ask my mom to look into other crime reports in the area to see if they have anything in common. Maybe we’ve got our culprit.”

“Gosh,” said Woodrow. “Now, not only do we have to deal with monsters, but we might have a dangerous criminal on our hands as well? Maybe we should just give up now. Let Clea’s Troop claim the crown.”

“Clea isn’t any closer to an answer than we are,” said Viola. “I gathered that much at rehearsal today. Anyway, the point of our contest isn’t to catch a criminal … it’s to solve the mystery. We’ll leave the bounty-hunting to the proper authorities, thank you very much.”

“Besides,” said Rosie, “if we let Clea win, that means Viola and I have to drop out of the play. Mrs. Glick would never let us audition again.”

“Then I guess it’s settled,” said Sylvester. “This shall be a battle to the finish.”

On Friday afternoon, after Mrs. Glick assigned the
Villain
cast to their official dressing rooms, Viola and Rosie took some time to clean up and organize their spaces. The two girls even taped magazine cutouts of their favorite actresses onto their mirrors. They were happy that Clea had been placed a couple doors down from them.

They were practicing their lines, waiting for Mrs. Glick to call “places,” when from down the hallway, they heard a familiar sound — one that still sent chills through their bones. It was the same growl that they’d heard a couple weeks earlier, and it was once again coming from the boiler room.

Quickly, the two peeked out the dressing room door and into the empty hallway. The sound came again, this time louder. “What do we do?” asked Rosie. All color had drained from her face.

“Investigate?” said Viola.

They held hands as they made their way toward the boiler room door. The last time they’d walked this way, they’d been surrounded by their classmates. Now, however, everyone else had apparently gone upstairs to the stage. Being alone was much creepier. When they reached the door, Viola paused, then with a deep sigh, she reached
out and turned the knob. The door swung inward, and the girls peered into the darkness.

The sound came at them again, bouncing off the cinder-block walls in long echoes. Whatever was growling at them sounded as though it was just a few feet away. The girls clutched at each other, but managed not to run. “Tall Ted isn’t real,” Viola whispered. “So this sound can’t be him.”

“Then what is it?” Rosie asked.

“I have an idea. Come on. Let’s see.”

Rosie nearly dragged her heels as Viola pulled her through the dark doorway. This time, Viola had her key chain light in her pocket. She flicked it on. The growl rumbled again, and now that they were inside the boiler room, the girls had a better sense of where it was coming from: the great big metal furnace near the far wall.

“Is it the boiler itself making the sound?” asked Rosie. “Maybe the pipes are expanding or something?”

Viola answered by shining her light into the space between the wall and the boiler. “Aha!” she said, reaching forward to grasp the object that was lying there. “I think we’ve found our culprit.”

“A walkie-talkie?” said Sylvester, feeling the weight of the device as Woodrow handed it to him. The group sat at the Harts’ small kitchen table, passing the walkie-talkie around.

It had been two hours since the girls had left the boiler room. Mrs. Hart had made some lemonade earlier in the day, and Viola poured everyone a glass.

“But who was on the other end?” Woodrow asked.

“That’s the big question,” said Rosie.

“As soon as we found it,” said Viola, “I picked it up and pressed the talk button. I growled back. Grrr.”

“You did not!” said Woodrow, laughing.

“She did too!” said Rosie. “But we got no answer. In fact, the static sound that had been coming from the speaker went silent. Whoever had the other walkie-talkie must have turned it off.”

“So they know they’ve been found out,” said Sylvester. “The walkie-talkie is our proof that Tall Ted actually
is
fake. You guys, we won the contest!”

“Not quite,” said Viola, taking the device back from him. “We may have proof that someone wants the students at Moon Hollow Middle School to believe we’re being tormented by a monster, but we still don’t know who it is.
That’s
the mystery we need to solve.”

Sylvester took a large swig of his lemonade. After wiping his mouth, he said, “Maybe we can have the walkie-talkie dusted for prints. If that escaped convict is the one pretending to be the
monster, his fingerprints are probably on file in some sort of police database. Woodrow, doesn’t your dad have connections?”

“He does,” said Woodrow. “But I doubt the police will be able to pull a print off of this thing. I mean, we’ve been passing it around, so
our
fingerprints are all over it. Plus, Sylvester, you just wiped it on your sleeve.”

“I did?” said Sylvester. “Oops.”

“We’re closer than ever,” said Viola. “More important, we’re closer than Clea. We only have a little bit further to go. We just need to figure out the next step. Speaking of which, my mom hasn’t had time to look into a list of local crimes. As soon as she does that, we can look for connections between them.”

“I have an idea,” said Woodrow. “Kyle Krupnik mentioned that a bunch of kids from our class are meeting at the school tomorrow morning and riding their bikes up to Purgatory Chasm. They think that if they return the stones they took, all of this monster nonsense will stop. Maybe we should tag along with them and see if we come across any more clues.”

“But didn’t you tell Kyle what we’re up to?” Viola asked. “Our classmates don’t need to ride up to Purgatory with their supposedly ‘stolen’ stones if all they’re trying to do is remove a curse that doesn’t even exist.”

“I did tell Kyle that he has nothing to be
scared of,” said Woodrow. “But I think it’s all gone too far at this point. Nobody knows what to believe anymore.”

“Well, I’m in,” said Rosie.

“Me too,” said Sylvester.

“And me,” said Viola, “of course.”

“Great,” said Woodrow. “We can ride to the school together.”

“I’ll need help pumping up my bike tires,” Rosie added. “I haven’t gone that far since last fall.”

It was a lovely spring morning — the dreamy kind of Saturday that tells a story of changing seasons. Birds were chattering loudly outside bedroom windows, waking and annoying late sleepers. The smell of cut grass lingered in the air. You could almost hear the Hudson River down the hill flowing along its ancient channel toward the Atlantic Ocean. The day was perfect for solving mysteries.

In the school parking lot, the sun provided warmth against the crisp breeze. Viola, Rosie, Sylvester, and Woodrow stood beside their bikes and watched as more and more of their classmates rode up the long drive to the school’s entrance.

Kyle Krupnik approached them, patting his jacket pocket. “I can’t wait to get rid of this thing,” he said.

The four knew he was referring to his Purgatory stone. They’d agreed to let their friends believe what they needed to in order to feel safe again. “Us too,” said Woodrow, pointing at his backpack.

“Oh my gosh,” said Rosie, looking over Kyle’s shoulder. “What are
they
doing here?”

Clea Keene was pedaling up the school’s driveway on a shiny pink bike. Rainbow streamers fluttered from her handlebars. Paul Gomez, Thomas Kenyon, and Shanti Lane followed close behind her on their own bikes.

“They must have had the same idea as us,” said Viola. “I guess I should stop underestimating them.”

A few minutes later, nearly twenty bikers set off together into the Moon Hollow Hills, winding their way up the road toward Purgatory Chasm, growing winded with each sharp turn. The Question Marks kept clear of Clea’s Troop. They wanted to stay on task and decided that to invite conversation might only provide distraction. Strangely, the Troop must have had the same idea, because Clea and her crew barely even glanced at the original mysterious four. It made Viola wary. What did Clea have up her sleeve?

When they finally reached the park and chained their bicycles to a wobbly wooden fence, everyone headed down the path toward the chasm’s steep cliffs. To Viola’s surprise, Clea
rushed forward and held up her hands, stopping the group just before the two large boulders that marked Purgatory’s entrance.

“My older brother told me that the best way to keep Tall Ted from returning,” she announced, “is to place your stolen stone back in the location from which you took it.” A collective groan rose from the group, and Clea raised her hands even higher. “It doesn’t have to be perfect. The stones just have to be close. In other words, if you all just drop your stones
right here
, it won’t do any good.” Clea turned toward the shadowy ravine. “That’s where you’ll want to go. Down. Deep.” She took the first step. Everyone followed.

Since Viola, Rosie, Sylvester, and Woodrow were near the back of the group, they were the last to cross the chasm’s threshold. Once they did, they could sense the tension of their classmates, who were trying to remember the spots they’d picked up their stones. While trudging along, the four all tried to ask their friends about their recent experiences. Had anything else been stolen? Had they noticed any suspicious people since the Tall Ted rumors had begun? But no one was interested in talking. Viola began to worry that this trip wasn’t going to help the case at all.

When they finally made their way to the bottom of the ravine, the Question Marks regrouped. “What do we do now?” asked Rosie. “We’ve come to a dead end.” Already, their classmates had
begun the ascent back up the wooded path beside the chasm. Even though the sky above was crystal clear, the bare branches cast spidery shadows upon everything, creating an odd twilight effect in the deep woods. It made sense that Tall Ted’s story was connected to this place. This would have been a perfect home for a hideous creature trying to hide from society. Or for an escaped prisoner on the run. But would either one leave the safety of the hills to torment a bunch of middle-schoolers?

There must have been more to the story. But what kind of story was it: a hard-boiled true-crime tale or a monstrous chiller-thriller?

“Whatever we do,” said Woodrow, “we should do it quickly. I don’t really want to be left behind.”

“Me neither,” said Sylvester.

“We’re not the last ones,” said Viola, heading toward a dark space at the base of one of the cliffs. A wooden post had been stuck in the dirt nearby. It read:
The Devil’s Armpit
. “Look.” Bending down, she pulled a backpack out from behind a small rock. “Someone else is still down here with us.”

“Hello?” Woodrow called out. His voice echoed all around them, hanging in the air for what seemed like an extremely long time. But no one and nothing answered.

“Let’s go,” said Sylvester. “I’ve got a bad feeling.”

“If this bag belongs to one of our friends,” said Viola, “we can’t leave them here.” The other three looked troubled as the shadows and cliffs started to work at their imaginations too. Viola shook her head, then opened the backpack. Inside, she found an apple, a pastel-colored teenromance novel, and a small spiral notebook. She pulled out the notebook and opened the cover. It was blank. When she examined the novel, she noticed a name written on the first page — Shanti Lane. “It’s the Troop,” said Viola. “They’re still here.”