I Live in Your Basement (4 page)

“Has she been eating eggs?” Mom asked the father. “Too many eggs can give you
the hiccups.”

The man stared at Mom.

“It’s the egg whites,” Mom continued. “They’re too slippery. You can’t digest
them.”

The man stared at Mom some more. Finally he murmured, “I don’t think it was
eggs.”

The girl hiccupped and shook.

The fish tank bubbled.

I felt as if I were swimming with the fish. Floating through thick blue
water.

But I can’t breathe underwater! I told myself.

The girl hiccupped again.

The sound was starting to drive me crazy. I wanted to go home. I turned to
Mom, who had picked up a magazine and was thumbing through it. “Can we go?” I
pleaded. “I’m okay.”

She shook her head. “Dr. Bailey just wants to look at you,” she replied,
keeping her eyes on the magazine. “A hit on the head is serious. You only have
one head, you know.”

The girl hiccupped.

“Try holding your breath,” her father instructed her.

“I’ve been holding it for ten days!” she grumbled.

Several hundred hiccups later, the nurse led Mom and me into Dr. Bailey’s office. As I stepped inside, I saw that his
office was blue and green too.

The doctor was a cheerful, chubby man. He had a round face, a shiny, bald
head, and he wore a bow tie under his green lab coat. The bow tie bobbed up and
down on his Adam’s apple when he talked.

He came around the desk to shake hands with me. Then he used his thumbs to
pull up my eyelids so that he could examine my eyes.

“Hmmm… looks okay,” he murmured.

He ran his thumb gently over the bump on my head. “Does that hurt, Marco?”

“A little,” I confessed.

“It’s healing nicely,” he told Mom. “Very nicely indeed. Now what seems to be
the problem, Marco?”

I hesitated. Should I tell him about Keith? If I do, will he think I’m crazy
too? Will he send me back to the hospital or something?

Should I tell him I don’t remember anything about being in the hospital?

Dr. Bailey gazed at me patiently, waiting for me to begin.

Finally, I decided, okay, I’ll tell him everything. He’s a doctor, after all.
He will understand.

So I told him I couldn’t remember the hospital. And then I told him about the
boy who said he lived in our basement. And I told him about actually seeing
Keith. And locking him in my room. And finding Tyler.

The whole story. I told him everything. It felt good to tell it.

Dr. Bailey sat behind his desk and kept his eyes locked on me the whole time.
His bow tie twitched on his Adam’s apple. But he didn’t say a word until I
finished.

Then he leaned forward and sighed. “It doesn’t sound too bad,” he said.

“Oh, thank goodness!” Mom exclaimed.

Dr. Bailey scratched his bald head. “But do you know what I would like to do
just to make sure everything is okay?” he asked.

“What?” Mom and I said together.

“I’d like to remove your brain and examine it under a microscope,” Dr. Bailey
said.

“Huh?” I gasped. I nearly fell out of my chair.

“It isn’t a difficult operation,” Dr. Bailey said, flashing me a calm,
reassuring smile.

“But—but—” I sputtered.

“Once I crack the skull open, the brain slides out easily,” the doctor
explained.

“I—I don’t think so,” I protested.

He shrugged. His bow tie hopped up and down on his throat. “I can’t really
see the brain clearly unless I remove it.”

My heart was pounding. My hands were suddenly icy cold. I studied Dr.
Bailey’s round face. “You’re joking—right?” I demanded. “This is some kind of
a sick joke?”

Mom nudged me in the side. “Listen to the doctor,” she said. “The doctor
knows what he’s talking about. If he says the brain comes out, it comes out.”

Dr. Bailey leaned farther across the desk. His face loomed so close, I could
see tiny beads of sweat on his forehead. “It won’t hurt much,” he said.

I turned to Mom. “You’re not going to let him do it—are you?” I demanded.

She patted my hand. “Whatever the doctor thinks is best. Dr. Bailey is a very
good doctor, Marco. Very experienced.”

The doctor nodded. “I’ve removed a lot of brains,” he told me. “I don’t mean
to brag, but—”

“Can Mom and I talk about this?” I asked, stalling for time. “Can we come
back tomorrow or something? I feel fine. Really, I do. In fact, I feel
excellent
!”

Dr. Bailey scratched his bald head again. “That’s a good idea,” he replied to
my mom. “Why don’t you call me tomorrow? We can schedule the de-braining then.”

The
what?

The
de-braining?

I jumped up from my chair and darted for the door. I didn’t wait for Mom. I
didn’t say good-bye. I just ran.

Mom followed me into the waiting room. “Marco, that was really rude of you!”
she scolded.

“I’d like to keep my brain,” I replied angrily, and kept walking to the
office door. As we passed, I said good-bye to the girl with hiccups.

“Hic Hic Hic,” she said. I think her problem was getting worse!

“Doctors know what’s best,” Mom said, hurrying across the parking lot after
me.

I climbed into the car and crossed my arms over my chest. “I’m perfectly
okay, Mom,” I told her through gritted teeth. “My brain is totally normal. I’ll
never see that boy Keith again. He’s gone forever. I know he is. I’ll never see
or hear him again.”

But of course I was wrong.

Mom said not to worry about losing my brain. She said we’d wait a few days
before deciding what to do.

That made me feel a lot better.

That night, I was writing a homework assignment on my computer. Miss Mosely
had given us a creative writing assignment. We had to write a story from someone
else’s point of view.

I decided to write about a typical day from Tyler’s point of view. It was fun
to try to get inside the mind of a dog.

A dog has an IQ of ten. That’s what I learned on one of those science shows on
TV. A ten IQ isn’t very smart. You can’t figure too many things out with an IQ
of ten. That’s why Tyler always looks confused and surprised.

That’s why he can spend ten minutes barking at a plastic trash bag.

I leaned over my keyboard, typing away. I was enjoying myself. I don’t usually like to write papers, but this was a fun
assignment.

When the phone rang, I groaned and kept typing. I waited for Mom to pick it
up downstairs. But she didn’t.

I stood up and walked over to the phone on my bed table. A chill froze the
back of my neck.

Was it him? Was it Keith?

I remembered the first time he had called. The day I’d been hit on the head.

My hand grabbed the phone, but I didn’t pick it up. I couldn’t decide what to
do. I didn’t want to talk to him again. I wanted him to disappear.

On the sixth ring, I lifted the phone to my ear. “Hello?”

“Hi, Marco. It’s me.”

Another chill ran down the back of my neck. Then I recognized the voice.
“Jeremy?”

“Yeah. Hi. What’s up?”

“Jeremy?” I repeated.

“Yeah. You okay, Marco? I just wondered how you were doing.”

“Oh. I’m okay,” I told him. I sat down on the edge of my bed. “I’m feeling
all right. I’m working on the creative writing assignment.”

“Yeah. Me too,” Jeremy replied. “Whose point of view did you choose?”

“My dog’s,” I replied.

He laughed. “I’m writing about my cat!”

“You think everyone in class chose an animal?” I asked. “That would be
funny.”

We talked and laughed about stuff for a while. Talking to Jeremy cheered me
up. I was starting to feel really normal again.

“I’d better get back to work,” I said after a few more minutes. I set down
the phone and crossed the room to my computer.

I started to sit down—but stopped when I saw the monitor screen.

My writing—my words—had all disappeared.

A face stared out at me from the screen.

Keith’s face!

“No—!” I let out a cry.

And a powerful arm slid around my neck from behind. And began to tighten
around my throat.

“Unnnnh.”

I struggled to breathe.

The arm tightened around me.

I tossed up my hands. Spun around hard.

And gaped at Gwynnie.

She stepped back, grinning.

“Huh?” I choked out. “What’s the big idea?”

Her grin grew wider. “Did I scare you?”

“No,” I replied, still breathing hard. “I’m used to people sneaking in and
strangling me from behind.”

She laughed. “I wanted to surprise you. Guess I don’t know my own strength.”

“Sure you do,” I muttered, rubbing my neck. “What are you doing here,
Gwynnie?”

She dropped down heavily onto my desk chair. “Actually, I came to apologize.”

“Huh?” My mouth dropped open.

“Really,” she insisted. She used both hands to brush her thick black hair
back over her broad shoulders. “I felt bad about my joke in class today. You know. About hitting
you on the head again.”

“Yes. I remember,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“It was really stupid,” Gwynnie continued. “I don’t know why I said it. So I
wanted to say I’m sorry.”

“Gwynnie, you chased me after school—” I protested. “You came after me with a
baseball bat and—”

“No!” she cried, jumping up from the chair. “I was running after you to
apologize.”

“Then why were you carrying the bat?” I demanded.

“I was up next,” she explained. “That’s all.” Her expression changed. “Did
you really think I was going to hit you on the head again?”

“Well…” I didn’t want to tell her that was
exactly
what I thought.
She’d tell everyone in school that I was afraid of her. Everyone would have a
really good laugh about what a ’fraidy cat Marco is. How I ran away from someone
who only wanted to apologize.

Gwynnie locked her green eyes on me. “You know, I feel bad about everything,
Marco,” she said softly. “I keep picturing you the other afternoon when I swung
the bat and hit you. I keep picturing the way you dropped to your knees,
screaming.”

She sighed. “I—I was so scared. You just lay there on the grass. You didn’t move. I—I thought…” She glanced away.

“I’m okay,” I told her. “I’m fine now. Really.”

“Well, I never got a chance to say I’m sorry,” Gwynnie replied. “So here I
am.” She raised her eyes to me. “You’re really okay?”

I nodded. Then I remembered Keith.

“I have one big problem,” I told Gwynnie. “This boy. He keeps following me.
Calling me. Showing up in my room.”

Her green eyes grew wide with surprise. “A boy? In your room?”

I nodded. “Look. His face—it’s on the computer screen!” I pointed. “I was
working on the writing assignment. I answered the phone. And when I came back,
my writing was gone. And his face stared out at me on the screen. Look!”

Gwynnie gazed at the monitor. When she turned back to me, her expression was
confused.

“Marco,” she said, staring hard at me. “Your computer isn’t turned on!”

“No way!” I cried.

I turned to the monitor. Black. The screen was black.

No face. No words.

Gwynnie walked across the room and leaned against the window ledge. She
crossed her arms in front of her. “That was a joke—right?” she demanded.

I couldn’t take my eyes from the screen. Had I imagined the face? No! I
saw
it there.

I’m not crazy!
I told myself.

“He did it!” I told Gwynnie, my voice shaking. “Keith. His name is Keith. He—he’s playing tricks on me. He’s
haunting
me!”

Gwynnie eyed me suspiciously. “Marco, when did you see him for the first
time?
After
the hit on the head—right?”

“I don’t care!” I cried. “He’s here, Gwynnie. I saw him. He sat right there.
Right on my bed. He says he lives in my basement.”

Gwynnie shook her head. Her dark hair tumbled over her face again. “Calm
down, Marco. Stop and think about it.”

“I can describe him,” I insisted breathlessly. “He has black hair. Same color
as yours. And dark circles around his eyes. And a real serious expression.”

Gwynnie
tsk-tsked.
“Just think about it,” she repeated. “Why would he
be here? Why would he be in your basement?”

“He told me I have to take care of him,” I replied heatedly. “He said I have
to take care of him for the rest of my life!”

Gwynnie narrowed her eyes at me. She didn’t say anything. I could see her
studying me.

And I could almost read her thoughts:

Poor Marco.

He’s totally lost it.

An idea flashed into my mind.

“Gwynnie, he’s down there,” I said softly. “Keith is down in the basement. I
know he is.”

She still didn’t reply.

“Come down with me?” I asked. “Please?”

She bit her bottom lip.

Gwynnie is a lot braver than I am, I told myself. She’s bigger than I am. And
she’s meaner and stronger.

If we find Keith down in the basement, I’ll feel a lot safer if Gwynnie is
around.

“This is dumb,” she said finally. “I should get home. I haven’t even started the creative writing assignment.” She headed for
the door.

“No. Wait!” I pleaded, hurrying after her. “I’m not crazy, Gwynnie. Come down
to the basement with me so I can prove it.”

She stopped at the doorway. “Well…”

“Please!” I begged again. “He’s down there. We’ll find him. I know we will.”
And then I added, “You’re not afraid—are you?”

“Of course not!” Gwynnie snapped. She groaned and tossed up her hands. “Okay.
Okay. Let’s go down to your basement.”

I
knew
that would get her.

“Come on. Hurry,” Gwynnie urged. “Show me your little friend. Then I’ve got
to get home.”