Will You Be My Friend? (13 page)

The middle school bus came so early in the morning, and took so long getting to school, that one of Cora Nicolaides's parents usually drove her and picked her up. Her dad was working from home today, so it would be his turn for pickup that afternoon. Cora took her time as she walked to the carpool section of the parking lot after school. Her dad was usually a little late, and besides, she was deep in thought. It wasn't the dance that was on her mind this time—or at least not the actual dance. It was a problem from her math class. Her math teacher, Mr. Ferris, always made a big deal about how helpful math could be in real life. That afternoon he had come up with a problem that was obviously meant to be “timely.”

The Dance Committee is setting up square tables for the eighth-grade dance. Each table seats four, and the committee may use as many tables as it needs. Tables may be pushed together, but no table arrangement may seat more than twelve. (Why? Because Mr. Ferris says so.) Show three different ways that sixteen couples could be seated for the dance.

Cora wished Mr. Ferris had written “thirty-two people” instead of “sixteen couples,” but this was the kind of math question she liked. She was walking slowly along, staring at the ground and imagining different table arrangements, when someone suddenly crashed into her.

“Whoa! Sorry! I didn't see you.”

Startled, Cora looked up at the boy who had just bumped into her. He was a little older than she was and incredibly handsome. He had dark, wavy hair, an olive complexion, and eyes that were almost black. He was several inches taller than Cora, and he was smiling down at her. His smile was pretty incredible too.

“I—I'm the one who should be sorry,” Cora stammered. “I was thinking about a math problem.”

“And
I
was going too fast,” said the boy. “Tell you what. We can both be sorry. How does that sound?”

Cora smiled shyly back at him. “Sounds good.”

“I guess I just proved that haste really does make waste,” said the boy. “Wait—that didn't come out right. It's never a waste to bump into a cute girl.”

Cora could feel herself blushing.

“But,” he continued, “I did drop all these postcards I'm supposed to be rushing to the post office.”

Now Cora saw that a pile of cards was scattered all over the ground. “Let me help!” she said. “Seeing as I'm so sorry and all.”

“Thanks—that'd be great. By the way, my name is Evan.”

“I'm Cora. Do you go to school here?”

Evan was down on his knees scrambling to pick up the postcards. He stopped for a second to gesture toward the high school across the parking lot and the football field beyond it. “Yup, right over there. I'm a freshman. I'm on my way to work.”

“Work?”

Evan laughed. “Well, ‘work' sounds better than ‘after-school job,' don't you think?”

He was already on his feet and reaching out for the few postcards Cora picked up. She handed them over reluctantly. If only there had been a lot more postcards so that Evan could have stayed longer! But it wasn't going to happen. He'd gotten all the cards back in order much too quickly.

“Gotta run—I'm already late,” he said. “See you around.” In a few seconds he had turned the corner and disappeared from sight.

Wistfully Cora watched him go. She had just had an actual conversation with a high school boy! Unfortunately, she would probably never see him again. . . .

“
Who
was
that
? He's
cute
.” Hailey had come up from behind without Cora even noticing.

“He's definitely cute,” Cora agreed. “His name is Evan. He's a freshman. He has a job after school. And that's probably all I'll ever know about him.”

“I know one more thing. He missed that card.” When Hailey pointed, Cora realized that one of Evan's postcards was lying at her feet. She picked it up and looked at it more closely. The picture side had a black-and-white photo showing a cluster of statues on a lawn somewhere. Along the bottom were the words
METAXAS SCULPTURE GARDEN INVITES YOU
. . . .

“Invites us to what?” said Cora. She flipped the card over. “ ‘Please come to the unveiling of our newest acquisition,' ” she read aloud. “Oh—it's the day after the dance.”

“What's an acquisition?” asked Hailey.

“I think that's what museums call it when they buy a work of art,” answered Cora.

“You can't invite someone to a work of art!”

“No,” said Cora, “but you can invite them to come see it. The statue must be covered up, or something, and people can come watch them uncover it.”

But Hailey didn't seem interested in that part of the story. “It's like Cinderella in reverse!” she said now. “The prince dropped his postcard when he ran away. Don't you want to track him down so you can give it back?”

Cora shook her head. “He's probably a mile away by now. And it's just one postcard. He won't miss it.” Carefully she tucked the card between two books in her backpack so that it wouldn't get bent.

Hailey gave a fake-romantic sigh. “Your only souvenir of the mysterious Evan.”

“Oh, stop,” said Cora. She was relieved to see her dad's car pulling up. She waved at him, then turned to Hailey. “Want a ride home?”

When the two girls had arranged themselves in the back seat and Cora's father had pulled out of the parking lot, Hailey said, “Okay. So. How did you meet cute, cute Evan?”

Cora gave her a quick explanation, and Hailey nodded in a satisfied way. “Very romantic.”

“Is this guy someone I should know about?” asked Cora's father, glancing at Cora in the rearview mirror.

“
Dad!
No! I'm sure I'll never see him again,” said Cora.

“He must work at the sculpture garden,” suggested Hailey. “It's pretty close by. Have you ever been there?”

“No. I've only heard the name.”

Hailey, who was never shy about asking for favors, leaned forward in her seat. “Mr. Nicolaides, could you drive us past the sculpture garden? Your uneducated daughter has never seen it before.”

“Guess I've failed as a parent,” said Cora's dad. “Well, it's easy to fix. Sure, I'll take us over that way.”

The garden was on the corner of a quiet street a few blocks from the girls' school. The house, a dark red Victorian, was tucked back from the road. Stone paths led to the front door and, from a side door, into the sculpture garden.

Nothing about the house should have been unsettling. It should have looked like the cozy nest it had been built to be. But instead it looked forlorn and neglected. The dark, shaggy shrubs in front hadn't been trimmed in ages. Inside, Cora could see that curtains had been drawn across every window on both floors.

The garden didn't look very welcoming either. Cora hadn't been quite sure what a sculpture garden was. This was nothing like she'd imagined. The lot was enclosed by an ornate wrought-iron fence that made the statues look like prisoners. Stunted trees had been placed here and there. Apart from them, there was also a tall rectangular hedge—a labyrinth, Hailey said.

The statues she could see from the road had been arranged in clusters. They'd been carved out of some kind of grayish stone and made to look like gods, goddesses, and heroes, though here and there Cora spied a few ordinary people throughout different periods in history. They were very realistic. For some reason, Cora didn't enjoy looking at them.

She shuddered a little. “Kind of creepy,” she said.

“
Totally
creepy,” said Hailey emphatically. “When I was about five, my parents took me here. I don't remember it too well, but my mom says I completely freaked out—they had to take me home. What I don't understand is how anyone could
collect
statues like these.”

“There have always been rumors about this place,” said Cora's father. “Statues coming to life, strange goings-on in the museum—things like that. All urban legends, but still spooky. Anyway, have you looked at this long enough?”

“Yes!” said both girls in unison.

As Mr. Nicolaides began to drive away from the curb, a branch on one of the nearby trees suddenly shifted position—or at least that was how it looked. Most likely, it was the wind. But Cora had the unmistakable impression that an unseen hand had shoved the branch away.

The branch had been concealing the face of the nearest statue. And the expression on the statue's face was terrible.

It was the figure of a woman. She was wearing a tight-fitting buttoned jacket and what looked like a hoopskirt from the nineteenth century. The clothes had been carved with such amazing skill that the long stone skirt actually seemed to be rippling like fabric. Her hands were covering her eyes to shield them from . . . what?

Whatever it was, it had been something very, very bad.

Lots of Elizabeth clones came and went before Beth, and they left Beth a coded message to warn her. Can you interpret the previous clones' clue?

Circle the letters in the top half of the mirror that don't match the reversed letters on the bottom. The remaining letters written in order reveal a warning for Beth.

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!

I live in a pretty normal town with lots of normal buildings, like the mall, the high school, and the pizza place. But there's one building that's not like all the others. It's the old hospital that's been abandoned for sixty years. Most of the windows are cracked or long blown out, and there are even a few rusty old wheelchairs on the front lawn. My parents told me never to go inside the abandoned hospital, but one night a couple of my friends and I wanted to see just what was inside. As soon as we walked through the front doors, we saw . . .

THE END

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!

Visit us at

KIDS.SimonandSchuster.com

authors.simonandschuster.com/P-J-Night