Read It and Weep! (13 page)

“That's pretty much true,” said Lucy. “Pottery workshops, plant hunts in the park, Meet the Owls—you name it. I
love
this museum. I totally wish I
lived
here.”

Jane smiled shyly at Lucy. At this moment, she wasn't exactly feeling the same way, but she could already tell that Lucy was really nice.

Mrs. Crawford handed each girl a name tag. “Lucy, this is Jane's first time at the museum. Why don't you take her to the Great Hall? The group leaders are already there. And help her get a foam mattress, okay?”

“Of course I will,” said Lucy, shouldering her backpack.

“And Lucy—none of your practical jokes tonight, okay?” Mrs. Crawford turned to Jane and said, “Lucy can be kind of a prankster. Don't let her play any tricks.”

Lucy rolled her eyes in mock exasperation. “I'll try to be good. Let's go, Jane. I know
everything
about this museum,” she added with a laugh as they began walking. “The Great Hall's where we're going to be sleeping. It's down at the far end of the building. I think the museum people put it there because they like you to walk past some of their greatest hits on the way.”

“Greatest hits?”

“Oh, you know, like some of the most famous stuff. There's a pearl the size of a baseball, for instance. And what some people think might have been King Arthur's crown. And in there is the Hall of Mythology,” said Lucy. “It's super popular.”

In the center of that gallery, a marble boy was struggling to free himself from the tentacles of a massive marble sea serpent. Behind the sea serpent, Jane could see a wall mosaic of a ten-foot-tall woman who seemed to have snakes for hair. And next to the snake-haired woman, even taller, was a battered wooden statue of some kind of monster with not one but three ferocious dog heads.

“Those myths can get pretty weird,” Lucy said cheerfully. “But I guess people like the exhibit—it's always crowded.”

The crowd was thinning out now that the museum was about to close. People were hurrying past the girls on their way toward the lobby, and as Jane and Lucy passed the next exhibit hall, the lights blinked off. Glancing back, Jane realized that the mythology gallery was also dark now. For some reason, she didn't like the thought of that sea serpent and the snake-haired woman standing silent and motionless in a darkened room.

“Ta-da! Here's the Great Hall!” Lucy exclaimed.

The Great Hall was a huge round chamber with a vaulted ceiling so high above the girls' heads that Jane wasn't sure she could actually see the top. As they walked in, Jane noticed that the hall had four identical entryways spaced at equal intervals, like the directions on a compass. She and Lucy were passing through the south entrance. It had an old-looking map of the south pole over the door, but that was the only thing that distinguished it from the other three entrances.

“I always go in through this door,” said Lucy. “I love Antarctica.”

But Jane wasn't paying attention. She was staring into the Great Hall, which was now full of excited girls. Some were laying out their sleeping bags and arranging pillows on top of them. Some were studying the murals lining the curved walls. Some were standing around chatting in groups of three or four. And all of them were shouting at the top of their lungs—or that's how it seemed to Jane.

“There's Lucy!
Loooocy!
LOOOOCEEEEEYYY!” someone screamed, and a girl with curly red hair and round blue eyes raced up to them.

“I was beginning to wonder when you were going to get here,” the girl panted. She looked over at Jane. “Hey, who's this?”

“This is Jane. It's her first time here,” Lucy answered. “Jane, this is Cailyn. She goes to school with me.”

Cailyn tossed Jane a quick smile and instantly launched into a long description of her summer. “And then we went to the Silver Islands and I learned how to water ski and almost broke my leg, but it turned out to be a sprain, but I think a sprain hurts even more, and then I went to camp for two weeks and I got
the
most horrible sunburn you ever saw, and then my brother and I went to my aunt's farm in Danville . . .”

“
Lucy!
I've missed you so much!” Another girl had just rushed up, and two others followed her.
Is everyone here a friend of Lucy's?
Jane wondered. Within a couple of minutes, she and Jane were surrounded by a cluster of excited girls.

About twenty conversations seemed to be going on at once. Jane did her best to keep up. All these girls seemed pretty nice, she realized. Probably kids who
wanted
to spend a night in a museum were interesting and fun.

There was one girl in the group, Megan, who seemed to be even more nervous than Jane. “These floors are awfully slippery,” she told Jane earnestly right after they'd been introduced. “We're going to have to walk
very
carefully. I made sure to wear shoes that have a lot of traction.”

So yes, it was probably safe to say that Megan was scared too. Also, Jane reminded herself, she
couldn't
be the only shy person in a group of fifty girls. What about that girl hanging back at the outer edge of the group, for instance? The one with the straight black hair and the sour expression? She looked sort of scared, sort of stuck up, and sort of, well, angry, Jane decided. But what was there to be mad about?

Abruptly the girl seemed to realize that Jane was looking at her. She glared back at Jane, her eyes narrowed.

Jane felt bad for being rude. She gave the girl an embarrassed smile.

But the girl didn't smile back. If anything, she seemed to get even angrier.

I dare you to speak to me,
her look was conveying.
I dare you.

What Scares You?

In this story, Charlotte and Lauren come face-to-face with some of their biggest fears because of the mysteriously cursed tarot card. What are your biggest fears? Feel free to ask your friends to contribute their biggest fears!

Bonus Activity: How many times does P. J. Night use the word “thirteen” in this story? How many can you find?

You're invited to . . .

Create Your Own Scary Story!

Do you want to turn your sleepover into a creepover? Telling a spooky story is a great way to set the mood. P. J. Night has written a few sentences to get you started. Fill in the rest of the story and have fun scaring your friends.

You can also collaborate with your friends on this story by taking turns. Have everyone at your sleepover sit in a circle. Pick one person to start. She will add a sentence or two to the story, cover what she wrote with a piece of paper leaving only the last word or phrase visible, and then pass the story to the next girl. Once everyone has taken a turn, read the scary story you created together aloud!

At first I didn't think much of the e-mail my best friend sent me. After all, it was only a chain letter, and those things don't mean anything, right? And even though the letter claimed that if I didn't forward it to thirteen people, thirteen horrible things would happen to me within thirteen days, I pressed delete and went to bed. But the bad luck started the very next day when I fell asleep on the school bus and missed my stop. The day after that was worse. I tripped in the cafeteria and broke my leg—in front of my entire school. And then things went from bad to horrifying. On day three  . . .

A lifelong night owl,
P.J. Night
often works furiously into the wee hours of the morning, writing down spooky tales and dreaming up new stories of the supernatural and otherworldly. Although P. J.'s whereabouts are unknown at this time, we suspect the author lives in a drafty, old mansion where the floorboards creak when no one is there and the flickering candlelight creates shadows that creep along the walls. We truly wish we could tell you more, but we've been sworn to keep P. J.'s identity a secret . . . and it's a secret we will take to our graves!

Simon & Schuster, New York

Cover art by Aly Turner

© 2013 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Cover designed by Nick Sciacca

Ages 8–12

CREEPOVERBOOKS.COM

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.