Phantom of the Auditorium (3 page)

I gave him a playful shove and started to reply. But I suddenly felt one of my sneezing attacks coming on. The dusty auditorium curtain must have triggered my allergies.

I have the worst allergies in creation. I am allergic to absolutely everything. You name it. Dust, pollen, cats, dogs — even some sweaters.

When I have an allergy attack, sometimes I sneeze thirteen or fourteen times in a row. My all-time record is seventeen.

Zeke likes to count my sneezes. He thinks he’s a riot. He slaps the floor and yells, “Seven! Eight! Nine!”

Ha-ha. After ten sneezes in a row, I’m in no mood for jokes. I’m usually a pitiful, dripping mess with foggy glasses.

We tiptoed over to the trapdoor. “Check the floor around there,” Zeke said quietly. “Find that peg that makes it work.”

Zeke stood on the trapdoor while I searched for the peg in the darkness. I desperately tried to hold in my sneezes, but it wasn’t easy.

Then the small peg on the stage floor caught my eye. “Hey — I found it!” I shouted happily.

Zeke glanced nervously around the auditorium.
“Ssshhh!
Someone will hear you!”

“Sorry,” I whispered. Then I realized I couldn’t hold out any longer. My eyes were watering like crazy, and I just had to sneeze.

I grabbed a handful of tissues from my pocket and put the whole wad up to my nose. Then I started sneezing. I tried to keep them as silent as possible.

“Four! Five!” Zeke counted.

Luckily, it wasn’t a record-breaking attack. I only made it to seven. I wiped my nose and shoved the dirty tissues in my pocket. It was gross, but I had nowhere else to throw them.

“Okay, Zeke, here goes!” I cried.

I stepped on the peg and jumped beside Zeke on the trapdoor.

We heard a clanking sound. Then a rumbling. Then a grinding.

The square section of floor began to lower itself.

Zeke grabbed my arm. “Hey — this thing is kind of shaky!” he cried.

“You’re not scared — are you?” I challenged him.

“No way!” he insisted.

The clanking grew louder. The square platform shook beneath us as we slid down. Down, down — until the stage disappeared, and we were surrounded by darkness.

I expected the platform to come to a stop just beneath the stage. That’s where it stopped for Ms. Walker.

But, to my surprise, the platform kept dropping.

And it picked up speed as it slid farther and farther down.

“Hey — what’s happening?” Zeke cried, holding on to my arm.

“How far down does this thing go?” I wondered out loud.

“Ohh!” Zeke and I both cried out as the platform finally hit the bottom with a hard
thud!

We were both thrown to the floor.

I scrambled to my feet quickly. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I guess.” Zeke definitely sounded scared.

We seemed to be in a long black tunnel.

Dark. And silent.

I don’t like to admit it. But I was very close to being scared, too.

Suddenly, the silence was broken by a soft, raspy noise.

I felt panic choke my throat. That sound. What was it?

The sound repeated softly, steadily.

Like breathing.

My heart pounded in my chest. Yes! Breathing. The raspy breathing of a strange creature. So close to me.

Right next to me.

Zeke!

“Zeke — why are you breathing like that?” I demanded, feeling my heartbeat slow to normal.

“Breathing like what?” he whispered.

“Oh. Never mind,” I muttered. He was breathing that way because he was scared. We were both scared. But there was no way we would ever admit it to each other.

We both raised our eyes to the auditorium ceiling. It was a small square glow in the far distance. It seemed to be miles and miles above us.

Zeke turned to me. “Where do you think we are?”

“We’re about a mile beneath the stage,” I replied, feeling a chill.

“No kidding, Sherlock,” Zeke replied nastily.

“If you’re so smart, you tell me!” I challenged him.

“I don’t think it’s the basement,” he said thoughtfully. “I think we’re way below the basement.”

“It feels like it’s a big tunnel or something,” I said, trying to keep my voice from shaking. “Want to explore?”

He didn’t answer for a long moment. “Too dark to explore,” he replied finally.

I didn’t really want to explore. I was just pretending to be brave. Usually, I liked having the creeps. But being way down here was
too
creepy, even for me.

“We’ll come back with flashlights,” Zeke said softly.

“Yeah. Flashlights,” I repeated. I didn’t plan to
ever
come back!

I played nervously with the denim scrunchie on my wrist and stared out into the darkness. Something bothered me. Something didn’t make sense.

“Zeke,” I said thoughtfully, “why would the stage trapdoor come all the way down here?”

“I don’t know. Maybe so the Phantom can get home quicker after he haunts the auditorium!” Zeke joked.

I punched him in the arm. “No jokes about the Phantom — okay?”

If there really is a phantom,
I told myself,
this is where he would live.

“Let’s get out of here!” Zeke said, staring up at the square of light so far above our heads. “I’m going to be late for dinner.”

“Yeah, sure,” I replied, folding my arms across my chest. “Just one question, Mr. Know-It-All.”

“What question?” Zeke asked uncertainly.

“How do we get back up?”

We both thought about that one for a while.

After a minute or so, I saw Zeke drop to his knees and begin running his hand along the platform floor. “There’s got to be a peg to push down here,” he said.

“No. The peg is up there,” I replied, pointing way up to the stage floor.

“Then there’s got to be a switch or a lever or a button to push!” Zeke cried. His voice grew high and shrill.

“Where? Where could it be?” My voice sounded just as shrill, just as frightened.

We both started feeling around in the darkness, feeling for something we could push, or pull, or turn. Something to make the little square platform rise up again and carry us back up to the auditorium.

But after a few minutes of desperate searching, I gave up.

“We’re trapped down here, Zeke,” I murmured. “We’re trapped.”

“This is all your fault,” I muttered.

I don’t know why I said that. I guess I was so frightened, I didn’t know
what
I was saying.

Zeke forced a laugh. “Hey, I
like
it down here!” he boasted. “I may just stay down here for a while. You know. Do some exploring.” He was trying to sound brave. But his voice came out tiny and trembling.

He wasn’t fooling me. No way.

“How could you bring us down here?” I cried. “You wanted to come, too!” he shot back.

“I did not!” I screamed. “Ms. Walker
told
us this thing isn’t safe! And now we’ll be down here all night! Maybe forever!”

“Unless we’re eaten by rats!” Zeke joked.

“I’m
sick
of your stupid jokes!” I shouted. I totally lost it. I gave him a hard shove with both hands. He went sprawling off the platform.

It was so dark, I couldn’t see him for a moment.

“Ow!” I cried out as he shoved me back.

Then I shoved him harder.

Then he shoved me harder than that.

I stumbled back — onto some kind of a switch. My back hit the switch.

A loud clanking sound made me nearly jump out of my skin.

“Brooke — jump back on! Quick!” Zeke screamed.

I leaped back onto the platform just as it started to move.

Up, up. Sliding slowly but steadily.

The square of light above our heads grew larger and brighter as we rose back up to the auditorium.

“Hey!” I cried out as the platform stopped with a jolt.

“Way to go, Brookie!” Zeke yelled happily. He slapped me on the back.

“Don’t celebrate yet,” I told him. We still weren’t back on the stage. The platform had stopped about five feet down from the top. Just where it had been for Ms. Walker.

I guessed that the only way to raise it all the way up was to step on the peg onstage.

“Give me a boost up,” Zeke urged eagerly.

I cupped my hands together. He lowered his sneaker into my hands.

“Wait!” he cried, stepping back down. “Whoa! What if the Phantom is up there waiting for us? Maybe
you
should go first!”

“Ha-ha. Very funny,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Remind me to laugh later.”

“Okay, okay. I’ll go first,” he muttered.

He put his sneaker into my cupped hands, reached up to the stage floor, and I gave him a boost.

I watched him scramble onto the stage. He disappeared from view.

I waited for him to reach down for me.

A whole minute went by.

“Zeke?” The word came out tiny and weak.

I waited some more. Listening hard.

I couldn’t hear him up there. Where was he?

“Zeke? Where are you?” I called up. “Come on. Raise the platform. Or give me a hand,” I called up. “I can’t make it by myself.

Another minute passed. It seemed like an hour.

I suddenly realized what Zeke was trying to do.

That big jerk! He was trying to scare me!

“Hey! Enough!” I shouted.

I’d had more than enough of Zeke Matthews for one day.

“Zeke!” I yelled. “Give me a break! Get me up!”

Finally, his hands lowered down over the side.

“It’s about time!” I shouted angrily.

I grabbed both hands and let him pull me up to the stage.

I shook my hair back. My eyes were slowly adjusting to the brighter light. “You know, you’re
not funny!” I snapped. “Keeping me waiting down there was really —”

I stopped and swallowed hard. It wasn’t Zeke who had pulled me from the trapdoor.

A strange pair of dark, angry eyes stared into mine.

I swallowed hard. A strange little man stared back at me, an angry scowl on his face. He wore baggy gray pants and a loose-fitting gray sweatshirt, torn at the collar.

His thick white hair fell wild and unbrushed over his forehead like a floor mop. He had a deep purple scar down the side of his face, nearly as long as the scar on Zeke’s creature mask.

I could see that he was old. But he was tiny, no bigger than a kid. He stood only an inch or two taller than Zeke.

As he squinted at me with his strange gray eyes, his face twisted into an ugly frown.

He looks like a phantom!
The frightening thought flashed through my mind.

“Wh-who are you?” I stammered.

“I’m Emile. The night janitor,” the man rasped.

“Where’s my friend Zeke?” I demanded in a shrill, frightened voice.

“Brooke, I’m over here,” Zeke called out from behind me.

I whirled around. Zeke stood on the other side of the trapdoor. He had his hands shoved deep into his jeans pockets. He was biting his lower lip.

“Zeke!” I cried. “What’s going on? Why —”

“The school is closed!” The janitor growled. He had a hoarse voice, like sandpaper. “What are you two doing in here?”

Zeke and I exchanged glances. Zeke took a step forward. “We … uh … stayed for play rehearsal,” he told the man.

“That’s right,” I chimed in. “We had a late rehearsal.”

The janitor continued to squint suspiciously at me. “Play rehearsal?” he repeated. “Then where is everybody else?”

I hesitated. This guy was scaring me so much, my legs wobbled. “We left,” I blurted out. “But we had to come back to get my jacket.”

Behind Emile, I saw Zeke nodding, approving my lie.

“How do you know about the trapdoor?” the janitor demanded in his sandpaper voice.

I hesitated.
It’s strange that I’ve never seen him in the school building before,
I thought.

“Ms. Walker, our teacher, showed it to us,” Zeke said softly. I could see that he was as scared as I was.

The man leaned closer to me, squinting so that one side of his face was completely twisted up. “Don’t you know how
dangerous
it is?” he whispered.

He leaned even closer, so close that I could feel his hot breath on my face. His pale gray eyes stared into mine.
“Don’t you know how dangerous it is?”

Zeke and I talked on the phone that night. “That man wasn’t trying to
warn
us,” I told Zeke. “He was trying to
scare
us.”

“Well, he didn’t scare
me
at all,” Zeke boasted. “I’m sorry if he got
you
upset, Brookie.”

Oh, wow,
I thought.
Sometimes Zeke is such a phoney.

“If you weren’t scared, how come you were shaking all the way home?” I demanded.

“I wasn’t shaking. I was just exercising,” Zeke joked. “You know. Working out the calf muscles.”

“Give me a break,” I moaned. “How come we’ve never seen that janitor before?”

“Because he’s
not
a janitor. He is …
the PHANTOM!”
Zeke cried in a deep, scary voice.

I didn’t laugh. “Get serious,” I told him. “It wasn’t a joke. He was really trying to frighten us.”

“Hope you don’t have nightmares, Brookie,” Zeke replied, laughing.

I hung up on him.

On Tuesday morning, I walked to school with my little brother, Jeremy. As we walked, I talked about the play.

I told Jeremy the whole story. But I left out the part about the trapdoor. Ms. Walker said it would be better if we kept it a secret until the performance.

“Is it really scary?” Jeremy asked me. Jeremy is seven, and he gets scared if you say “boo” to him. Once, I made him watch the movie
Poltergeist
with me, and he woke up screaming every night for three weeks.

“Yeah, it’s pretty scary,” I told him. “But not scary like
Friday the 13th
scary.”

Jeremy seemed relieved. He really hated scary things. On Halloween, he hid in his room! I would never make him watch
Friday the 13th.
He would probably have nightmares till he was fifty!

“The play has a surprise,” I added. “And it’s a pretty awesome surprise.”

“What is it?” Jeremy demanded.