The Secret Bedroom (2 page)

“Where do you live?”

“On Fear Street,” Lea told him. “A few blocks from the old cemetery.”

“Fear Street?”

Lea was already used to this startled reaction from people when they heard where she lived. “My parents just
love
to fix up old houses,” she explained. “When my dad was transferred here to Shadyside, they bought the shabbiest place they could find. They'll spend years making it beautiful, and then he'll be transferred again.”

Lea sighed and glanced at a table by the wall, where
Deena Martinson, her lunch spread out in front of her, gave Lea a little wave. She followed it up with a wide-eyed look of surprise as she noticed who Lea was with. So far, Deena was the only friend Lea had made at Shadyside.

“My friend is waving at me,” she told Don awkwardly. “It's getting late. I'd better get a new lunch and join her.”

“I hear the chili's real good,” he said with a straight face.

“Thanks for helping me,” Lea said.

She started to move toward the food line, but he reached out and held her arm. “Since you're new here and everything,” he said, his eyes darting toward the doorway, “I mean, would you like to go to a movie or something Saturday night?” He scratched his curly, brown hair and gave her his most winning, boyish grin.

Lea was practically startled speechless, but she managed to utter a yes. She stood awkwardly grinning at him, trying to think of something else to say.

“Good,” he said, but then his expression quickly changed. Lea followed his gaze to the doorway, where Marci stood, arms crossed over her chest, glaring at the two of them.

“Later,” Don said, and hurried off to join Marci.

Lea hurried to the food line. Maybe my lonely days here are over, she thought happily, her hands unsteady as she dropped the soiled tray onto the pile and took a clean one. Thinking about Don, about how funny he looked scrounging around on the floor to help retrieve her lunch, she picked up a tuna-fish
sandwich and a box of apple juice and hurried to join Deena.

“What were you and Don Jacobs talking about?” Deena asked, wiping crumbs off her chin with a paper napkin.

“Oh, mainly about how I spilled my lunch all over that girl standing there in the doorway with him,” Lea told her, plopping down across the table from her.

“You spilled your lunch on Marci Hendryx, and I missed it?” Deena cried with an expression of exaggerated disappointment.

Deena had a fragile-looking, heart-shaped face framed by very fine blond hair that she wore down to her collar. She was always complaining about how pale she was and how she couldn't do anything with her hair because it was so fine, but she was actually very pretty.

Deena had probably always played an angel in the elementary school Christmas pageants, Lea thought on first meeting her.

“Don seems nice,” Lea said, taking a tentative bite of her sandwich, trying to decide whether or not to tell Deena that he'd asked her out for Saturday night. Finally she decided there was
no way
she could keep from telling her!

“He's very nice,” Deena said, watching over Lea's shoulder as Marci and Don talked heatedly in the lunchroom doorway. “Everyone likes Don. He's just one of those guys when you meet him, you like him. He has a million friends.”

“And girlfriends?” Lea asked.

“Just Marci.” Deena turned her glance on Lea.
“Don and Marci,” she said, making a face. “Man, does she keep him on a tight leash.”

“Huh?” Lea practically choked on her sandwich.

“They've been going together since we were in preschool, I think,” Deena said, her eyes back to the doorway in time to see Marci storm off, Don scurrying after her.

“He asked me out,” Lea revealed in a low voice, even though no one else was nearby.

“Who? Don?”

Lea nodded, her bangs flying up, then dropping back in place on her forehead.

“Just now?” Deena's delicate mouth formed an O of surprise.

“Yes. Just now. He asked me out just now.” Lea had to laugh at her new friend's astonished expression.

Deena reached across the table and tapped the back of Lea's hand with one finger. “Watch out for Marci,” she warned.

“Deena, come on, I'm sure Don—”

“Just watch out for her,” Deena repeated seriously.

Lea twisted around to check out the lunchroom doorway. Several kids were leaving. The lunchroom was clearing out. It was just about time for the bell for fifth period to ring.

“What did you spill on her?” Deena asked, sliding her chair back and standing up.

“Chili,” Lea said, starting to feel embarrassed all over again.

“On that white cashmere sweater she was wearing?”

“It was
cashmere?”
Lea cried, horrified.

To Lea's surprise, Deena was laughing.

“It's not funny,” Lea said. “I was mortified!”

“It is funny—if you know Marci” was Deena's explanation.

They walked to their lockers, Deena still chuckling and shaking her head, Lea thinking about Don, wondering why he had asked her out if he and Marci had been a couple for so long.

“See you later,” Deena said, heading down the hall to her class.

But Lea didn't hear her. She was thinking about Marci and Deena's warning to watch out for her, and she was wondering if she hadn't already made an enemy, on this, her second week in school.

L
ea's house loomed in front of her like some dark monster in a horror movie. It's just as old and creepy in the afternoon as it is at night, Lea realized, shifting her backpack from one shoulder to the other and starting up the broken flagstone walk to the front door.

Above her, two windows on the second floor, her bedroom windows, caught the glow of the late-afternoon sun and seemed to light up. Like two evil eyes, she thought.

The house sees me coming home to it after school and opens its eyes. And now I'm about to step into its gaping, dark mouth.

Chill out, Lea, she scolded herself. Let's not be overly dramatic.

So the house is big and ramshackle and a wreck. That doesn't make it evil.

Even if it is on Fear Street.

She unlocked the front door, struggling with the still-unfamiliar lock, and stepped into the dark front hallway. It was warm in the house despite the cool autumn air outside, warm and damp, with that sour, musty smell some old houses have.

Why on earth do Mom and Dad have to like these old places? she asked herself, the floorboards creaking under her feet as she tossed her backpack down and made her way through the empty house to the kitchen to get a snack.

Sitting at the table in the small breakfast alcove, the flowered wallpaper stained and peeling, Lea spooned blueberry yogurt from the container into a bowl and thought about the first time she had seen the house, less than a month earlier.

It had been an afternoon much like this one, cool, breezy, the feel of autumn in the air despite the bright yellow sun high in the sky. The light, it had seemed to Lea, was cut off as soon as the real estate agent led them into the house, closing the front door behind her. It was as if someone had turned off a bright flashlight, Lea remembered, as if the house was turning away the sunlight, shutting it out, covering them in its warm darkness.

She had immediately been appalled by the age-stained walls, the dust-blanketed windows, the warped moldings, the threadbare, old carpets covering the creaking floors. The smell of it. The feel of it.

Her parents, of course, had immediately fallen in love with it.

“It's charming,” Mr. Carson had said.

“Think of all we can do here,” Mrs. Carson had replied.

Mrs. Thomas, the real estate agent, a pleasant-looking woman wearing a very smart tweed suit and a permanent smile, caught the unhappy expression on Lea's face.

“Let me show you the bedrooms upstairs,” she said, turning her smile on Lea. “They need work, of course. But they're very large. The second bedroom—I suppose that will be your room, Lea—is the brightest room in the house. The two windows face the front, and sunlight streams in all day long.”

“It's so dark in the living room,” Lea said gloomily. She wanted to beg her parents not to take this house, but she knew it was hopeless. They had lived in three different houses in the past seven years, all of them as run-down and creepy looking as this one.

“It won't be dark after I install track lighting,” Mr. Carson said, eyeing the living-room ceiling, then checking out the electrical outlets along the molding by the floor.

“Come on upstairs,” Mrs. Thomas said to Lea. “Be careful. The banister may be loose.”

Lea followed her up the stairs, which swayed under their weight and seemed to groan in protest with each stair they stepped on. “The banister is easy to fix,” Mr. Carson said cheerily.

“I'd like to carpet the stairway,” Lea's mother said. “And continue the carpeting down the landing here. Something light. It'll brighten up everything, make it look new.”

“Yeah, sure,” Lea muttered under her breath, knowing they would hear her, hoping they realized how unhappy she was.

She was unhappy about moving to Shadyside in the first place. It had taken her so long to make friends back in Daly City, to feel comfortable and happy there. And just when she was starting to have a good time, her dad got transferred again and she'd have to start a new school four weeks after the term began.

“Wow, Lea, look how big your room is,” her mother exclaimed as they stepped into the big, square room. The two windows on the far wall glowed with yellow sunlight. Squares of warm light stretched across the worn blue carpeting.

“See? I was right about the light,” Mrs. Thomas said, her hands in her jacket pockets, her smile solidly in place. “And take a look at the closet, Lea.”

Lea obediently walked over to the closet.

“We'll pull up your carpeting first thing,” Lea's father said. “And we'll sand the floors.”

Lea pulled open the closet door and stared into the vast, black cavern behind it. She had a sudden chill. It's like a cave, an animal's den, she thought. What kind of creature is lurking in this dark cave?

“Did you ever see such a big walk-in closet?” Mrs. Thomas asked triumphantly, coming up behind Lea and gently resting a hand on her shoulder. Mrs. Thomas smelled of peppermint. Lea inhaled deeply, It was such a sweet fragrance in the sour, old house.

“It's really big,” Lea said, peering in, her eyes adjusting to the darkness. “It's as big as a room.”

Mrs. Thomas seemed very pleased by Lea's reaction.
“Lots of closet space,” she said. “Are you a senior this year, Lea?”

“No. A junior.”

“My daughter, Suki, goes to Shadyside. She's a senior. I'll tell her to come over and say hi to you.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Thomas,” Lea said awkwardly.

“Now, let me show you the rest of the second floor,” Mrs. Thomas said, turning her attention back to Lea's parents. “There's a charming extra room that could be a guest bedroom or a study.”

Taking a last look at what would soon become her room, Lea followed them out into the hallway. Mrs. Thomas and her parents were nearly to the end of the dark corridor. She could hear Mrs. Thomas chattering enthusiastically about the possibilities for the master bedroom.

“Hey—what's this?” Lea had stopped at a metal ladder bolted into the wall just outside her bedroom door. Peering up, she saw that it led to a wooden trapdoor in the ceiling. “Where does this go?” Lea asked.

The three adults came back to where Lea was standing. Mr. Carson tested the metal ladder for sturdiness. “Must lead up to the attic,” he said, staring up at the ceiling trapdoor.

“Yes, there's an attic up there,” Mrs. Thomas said, checking the notes on her clipboard, “Quite a sizable one, actually. Want to see it?”

“No, thanks,” Lea said immediately.

“Of course,” Mrs. Carson said. “I love attics. When I was a little girl, I spent all my time up in our attic, playing with all the treasures up there.”

“Yeah. Treasures,” Lea said sarcastically. “Like spiders and dirt and bats.”

Mrs. Carson gave Lea an unhappy look. “I really wish you'd make an effort.”

“To do what?” Lea snapped.

“To get into this more,” her mother said. “To be more cheerful. At least a little bit. It's hard for
all
of us, you know. Not just you.”

Lea felt embarrassed. Mrs. Thomas was staring at her. She hated to be scolded in front of strangers. Why couldn't her mother ever learn?

“Okay. Wow! Let's check out the attic,” she said with false enthusiasm. She moved in front of her dad, bumping him out of the way, grabbed the sides of the gray metal ladder, and began to climb.

“I think you just push the door away,” Mrs. Thomas called up to her. “Just slide it off the opening.”

Lea reached up to the ceiling and pushed against the trapdoor with both hands. It lifted easily. She slid it off the opening and climbed a few more rungs on the ladder until her head poked into the attic.