Creep Street (9 page)

t's not hard to suck up to her because you really are scared. Who knows what powers this Esmerelda woman might have? ‘I'm sorry,' you whisper. ‘We didn't know this was your house. We thought it was empty.'

‘Empty!' she hisses. ‘Empty! I've been living here for a hundred and fifty years. Isn't that long enough? Why, I even died here, in the room below this one. I think that gives me some rights.'

‘Oh yes,' you agree. ‘Definitely.'

‘But,' she goes on, ‘it does get lonely. I could use some company.'

She takes a step towards you.

‘Oh well,' you say, ‘I can understand that. Of course. Well, it's been nice talking to you but I'd better be going. Catch you later. You have a good day, now.'

‘You talk a lot,' she says. ‘You like to talk. And I'm sick of the silence up here. I think I'll put you somewhere where you can talk as much as you want.'

She points a finger at you and makes a strange noise. There's a tremendous flash, like a nuclear blast, and you can't see or hear anything for a while. When it clears you find things have changed for you a little. You're sitting in a bird cage. You're wearing yellow feathers and you have a rather cute beak. There's a bowl of birdseed that looks tasty. And you're just chattering and singing nonstop. You can't help yourself. Esmerelda is sitting in an armchair opposite you and you sing to her all day long. You sing about the weather, about your plumage, about your mirror, about the shape and colour of your bowl, about the hay fever you get from the dust in the attic.

After only an hour, Esmerelda has her hands to her ears. After two hours she's begging you to shut up. After two-and-a-half hours she leaps to her feet, points her finger at you again, and makes that strange noise. When the flash has finished, you find you're back to normal and Esmerelda has gone.

You rush over to the trapdoor and this time you find to your relief that it's open. You go belting down the stairs, vowing you'll never go in the attic again.

By teatime though you've just about convinced yourself that the whole thing is impossible and you must have imagined it. But then a funny thing happens. You sit down to tea. It's your dad's turn to cook and he serves up your favourite meal, chicken nuggets. But for once it makes you feel kind of sick. You sit there staring at it. ‘Dad,' you say, ‘couldn't I have something different . . . like, for instance, cuttlefish?'

ou throw yourself on the ground at her feet. ‘I'm sorry! I'm sorry!' you cry. ‘I don't know what came over me. Please forgive me. Here, let me lick this bit of dust off your shoe.'

You hear a choking sound and you look up, worried that she's having a fit. Then you realise she's actually laughing.

‘You're an idiot,' she says.

‘I know,' you agree. ‘But please tell me what the graves are. Who's buried here?'

‘I still don't think I should,' she worries.

‘You owe it to me,' you say.

‘I don't owe you anything.'

‘But if we're going to live here, we're entitled to know about our own house. Especially if it's something bad.'

Suddenly she makes up her mind. ‘All right,' she says, ‘but don't tell anyone I told you.'

You think of making another joke but for once you get smart and keep your mouth shut. Stacey looks around, as if to check that no-one's watching. Then she leans a little closer and whispers: ‘These are the last three owners of this house.'

The last three owners of the house! So the last three owners have all died here! The more you think about it, the worse you realise it is.

‘I . . . I wish you hadn't told me that,' you stammer.

Stacey just shrugs. Then she says: ‘You asked for it.'

‘How . . . how did they die?'

‘No-one knows. The last one was Mr Blenkinsop, and he was found last Christmas Eve, dead in the cellar.'

‘Well, gee, maybe he fell down the stairs. Or he had a heart attack. Or he died of old age. It could have been anything. It could have been all those things. Maybe he was old, fell down the stairs and had a heart attack.'

‘The cellar door was locked!' Stacey hisses.

‘Locked?' You think it's your own voice you're hearing still, but it's coming from so far away!

‘From the outside,' Stacey says.

You faint. When you come round you're still lying on the ground and Stacey's wiping your face with a wet handkerchief. You sit up, with a bit of a struggle.

‘I'm OK now,' you say. ‘Thanks for bringing me round like that. Where'd you get the wet handkerchief so quickly?'

‘No problem,' she says. ‘I've got a cold.'

Suddenly you don't feel so good after all.

Before you can ask Stacey for more information you see someone coming down the drive. It's your mum, and it seems like she's looking for you.

‘There's my mum,' you say to Stacey. ‘You want to meet her? You can tell her all about the graves.'

But Stacey seems to be getting bashful. She looks nervous. She hesitates.

‘Um . . . well, I don't know . . .'

‘Come on,' you urge. ‘She's nice. Well, most of the time. She won't bite your head off . . . I don't think so, anyway.'

s you stand there you feel a slight draught on the back of the neck. You nearly jump out of your skin when you hear a voice.

‘I came back,' it whispers.

‘From . . . from the grave?' you stammer.

‘No, you idiot, I came back to help you,' the voice says. And laughs. You realise that it's Stacey.

‘There's . . . there's a skeleton,' you gasp, barely able to get the words out.

‘Oh yes,' Stacey says. ‘That's Mr Brennan's. He was the last owner of this house. He had a lot of stuff like that.'

‘But why?' you ask.

‘He was a Science teacher,' Stacey explains.

‘Oh,' you say, feeling a bit silly. You start to relax a bit. But then you remember something else.

‘What did you mean before about something you should tell me about this house?' you ask. ‘Just what is wrong with it?'

‘Oh, all right,' Stacey says. ‘I will tell you then. The place is falling down. It's the biggest dump in the neighbourhood. Mr Brennan was a real crook. He just did the place up to look good, then sold it to the first suckers, I mean the first people, to come along. I think you should tell your parents to sell it, as fast as they can.'

‘Oh no,' you think. ‘My parents have done it again.' You know all too well that they're not great business people. You've known that ever since they invested their life savings in a range of cold-water bottles, for people to take to bed on hot summer nights. They didn't sell very many.

‘Gee,' you say to Stacey, ‘I don't know what we can do about it. The contracts have been signed and my parents have paid over the money.'

Just then you hear a loud crash. You look out the window of the shed. To your horror you see that the house is collapsing like a pack of cards. The roof just slid off, and the walls are falling outwards, one by one. Water is shooting up in the air from broken pipes. You and Stacey rush outside and run up to the house. To your relief you see that your parents are all right, standing there looking at the house. To your amazement you see that they're actually smiling.

‘What's the big joke?' you demand, as the dust and rubble swirl around you.

‘The big joke?' your mother asks, as she laughs almost uncontrollably. ‘The big joke? That's easy. Yesterday we insured this old dump for a million dollars.'

ell,' you think, ‘here goes.' You go to break the window but then you realise there's a problem. You need the axe to break the window, and the axe is behind the glass. ‘Who designed this thing?' you ask yourself. ‘They must be complete idiots. I've got a good mind to sit right down and write them a letter about it.'