Ten Read online

  Then again, I made Dad put all three designs on me as well. I got him to do me early, since I was the birthday girl, and actually I sort of ended up with multiple tattoos of each, including ten spiders (because I was ten!) marching up my arm in a line.

  Like I said, I was the birthday girl.

  After tattoos, I led everyone to the top of the basement staircase. I glanced around and hollered, “Amanda, your presence is required!”

  I wanted her up front with me. It was another best-friend thing.

  “Burst my eardrum next time,” Louise complained.

  “Okay,” I said.

  Amanda weaved her way to me, and I took her hand. Even without additional party spookiness, the basement was already plenty spooky because of how old and unmodern our house was. The stairs were creaky and clompish, and sometimes there were dead roaches on them. Built into the wall along the side of the staircase was a hidden trapdoor, and if you opened it, all you saw was dirt. It was like peeking into a coffin . . . or peeking out of a coffin. Shudder.

  “Is everyone ready?” I said. “If you’re not, this is the time to speak up, especially if you have high blood pressure, extreme scaredy-cat-ness, or a tendency to faint. And if you’re pregnant, or think you may be pregnant, you’ll need to consult with your doctor before proceeding.”

  “Winnie,” Amanda said, hip-bumping me.

  “What?” I said. That’s what the signs said at the rides at Six Flags. If only I owned a wooden cutout of a person holding up his hand to measure how tall kids were—that would have been hilarious! I could have placed it at the top of the staircase and made everyone get checked!

  Oh, well. Next time.

  Louise raised her hand.

  “Yes, Louise?” I said.

  “First of all, no, I’m not pregnant.”

  “Thank you, Louise,” I said. “Thank you for clearing that up, even though I never actually thought you were.”

  “But I don’t understand this whole haunted-house thing. Haunted houses are for Halloween.”

  Then why did you ask for three tattoos? I was tempted to ask, and I would have if I, myself, weren’t also tattooed to the hilt.

  “Haunted houses are for Halloween,” I said. “You’re right.”

  “Then why—”

  “However!” I cried, whipping one finger high into the air. “They’re not just for Halloween, now are they?” I took that finger and pointed it dead at Louise. “Do you think ghosts just lollygag about for the three-hundred-and-sixtyfour days of the year that aren’t Halloween?”

  “Well—”

  Jab went my finger. “Are witches not allowed out except on October thirty-first? Isn’t that a little unfair?”

  “I just—”

  “Exactly,” I said. My finger was a sword, and I the swordsman. Swordsgirl. Whatever. “So let’s just keep our Negative Nelly thoughts to ourselves, shall we?” I waggled my eyebrows. “Unless you’re too afraid? Is that what you’re trying to say, Louise?”

  She gave me a look, because we both knew she wasn’t. Louise wasn’t as brave as I was, perhaps, but she was certainly no chicken. Once she faked being sick during PE because she didn’t want to play dodgeball. She said, “Oh dear, I feel faint,” and she collapsed on the floor and didn’t open her eyes even when people poked her. One girl even nudged Louise’s ribs with her sneaker, and Louise still kept her eyes shut. And the girl with the sneaker was me.

  I went back and forth between admiring Louise and finding her annoying. Often it was both.

  “You are so weird, Winnie,” she pronounced from her spot at the top of the staircase.

  Karen giggled, and so did Chantelle. My stomach muscles fluttered, because was this what Mom meant about how life might be hard for a girl like me? A girl who was her own self, that is, and thought haunted houses in March were fine?

  I glanced past my friends, anxiously seeking out Mom. She was at the back of the group with Ty, and when our eyes met, she gave me a private, knowing smile. We prefer the term *unique*, don’t we? her smile said. Stand tall, my Winnie. You are fabulous, and I love you.

  My chest swelled. I stood tall. Shifting my gaze back to Louise, I said, “Of course I’m weird. You’re just now figuring that out?” I clapped twice. “Now, enough with the chitchat. This is serious business here, people.”

  I started down the basement stairs. We passed the secret trapdoor, and Amanda said, “Inside that door, there’s dirt.”

  “Yep,” I confirmed.

  A few feet farther, the stairwell curved to the left, and the inside edges of the stairs grew narrower than ever.

  “If you need to, you can hold onto the wall for balance,” I said, demonstrating. The deeper we went, the cooler it got. The air smelled different, too.

  At last I reached the bottommost stair. In front of me was the thick wooden door that led into the basement—or, as Mom and Dad called it, the furnace room. Because it wasn’t a basement like normal people’s basements. There were no Ping-Pong tables or flat-screen TVs or smooshy sofas. There was just . . . dum dum dum . . . the furnace: huge, ancient, and growly. And today, behind the furnace?

  Sandra, lying in wait in her full witchy glory.

  My heart pounded, and I already knew what was coming.

  I waited until everyone was clumped together. I put my hand on the brass doorknob. “Ready?”

  “You already asked us that, and yes,” Louise said.

  “I’m not,” Dinah said, squeezing up next to me and Amanda. Her skin was moist, and she had a big grin on her face. Her chest went up and down, up and down. “It’s not going to be bad, is it?”

  “Well, yes, I’m afraid it is.”

  “No,” Mom called from the back of the crowd. She held Ty in her arms since the stairs were so trippable. “Don’t worry, Dinah. It’s just for fun.”

  “If you consider terrible, scary things to be fun, she means.”

  “Ha ha,” Dinah said. She honestly said those two words—ha ha, like that—and she tried to worm her hand in with mine and Amanda’s. I shook her off, because three people can’t hold hands. It doesn’t work that way.

  “You’ll be fine, Dinah,” Mom called.

  “Here goes nothing,” I announced. I twisted the knob, and we stepped as a many-footed creature into the nearly pitch-black room. The walls and floor were made out of concrete, like an underground cell. The only light came from the hallway behind us. In the far back corner, the furnace hissed.

  “What’s that?” Dinah squeaked.

  “Oh . . . nothing,” I said, implying that it was far from nothing and might even eat her.

  I released Amanda’s hand and faced the group. I stared at them vacantly.

  “Come, leetle children,” I said in a floaty, spine-tingling voice. I stepped backward, beckoning with twiglike fingers. “Come and ssssssee what fate awaits you . . . if you dare.”

  “Mom?” Ty whispered loudly.

  “Shhh,” Mom said to Ty. To me, she said, “Winnie, take it down a notch.”

  She and Ty remained in the doorway as the rest of us moved deeper into the gloom.

  Karen bumped into someone and yelped, and I laughed creepily. “Yesssss. Yessssssss, my darlings, you are right to be afraid.”

  “She’s teasing,” Mom told Ty. “She’s still plain old Winnie. Right, Winnie?”

  I was Winnie, yes. But “plain old”? Never. My spine tingled, and I laughed again.

  Dinah hiccupped.

  Louise said, “Karen, ow. Let go.”

  “What, I wonder, might be behind such a terrible thing as that?” I asked, indicating the furnace. “Eees it . . . a ghostling? A zombie? A donkey?”

  “A donkey?!” Louise said.

  Chantelle giggled, and I scowled, irritated at myself. I hadn’t meant to say “donkey.” I didn’t know where that donkey came from.

  I shook it off. Re-widening my eyes, I said, “Or . . . could it be . . . just possibly . . .”

  “Rwaarggghh!” Sandra roared,
flying out from behind the furnace. She did a banshee dance, squatting and hopping from one foot to the other. In one hand she held a fake iron kettle, which she swooped through the air. Misty, gray smoke curled up because of the dry ice inside it.

  “Rwaargh! Rwaargh!” she cried, lunging toward us.

  Dinah screamed. Karen screamed. We all screamed, and something winged through me that turned my giggle-scream into a real scream. The sound of it—coming from me, from my open mouth—made me scream even louder.

  Ty started wailing, and Mom said, “Oh, Ty.” I looked over to see Mom holding his body away from her. Her nice pants had a big dark spot on them, and Ty’s jeans were dark, too.

  He tried to muscle his way back against her upper body, burying his head between her head and shoulder.

  “It’s okay, buddy,” Mom said. “But I think we should head back up, huh?” To me, she said, “Winnie? Maybe you should wrap it up, too.”

  “But Mo-o-o-m,” I complained.

  Dinah hiccupped. She hiccupped again, and Sandra dropped her witchy posture.

  “Want me to scare you?” she volunteered matter-of-factly.

  Amanda giggled, and just as Karen’s initial scream had made everyone else scream, Amanda’s giggle triggered a domino spill of giggle-giggle-snort-laughs. Even for Dinah, and even for me. Especially for me.

  Later, after everyone had gone home, I flopped onto my bed and gazed at the ceiling. I was feeling a bit blue because of my birthday being almost over. Also, I was feeling kind of . . . troubled. Had it been a good party or a bad party? Were haunted houses in March weird after all?

  Well, yes, haunted houses in March were weird. But were they too weird? Was there such a thing as too weird after all?

  At cake time, Louise pushed her slice away, claiming she only ate normal cake and not weird ghost-flavored cake. She also said black icing stunted kids’ growth.

  “So eat a piece from the middle,” I told her, since only the ghostie’s eyes and mouth were black. The rest was white. Anyway, the shape of the cake was a ghost, but the flavor was chocolate. And it was rude of Louise to say that with Mom right there, since Mom had baked and decorated the cake herself.

  “No, thanks,” Louise said, as in the whole cake is weird and anyone who eats it will turn short and deformed, the end.

  Lying on my bed, I sent Louise a telepathic scowl. Then I got up and went in search of Sandra. Sandra would know if my party had been too weird or not, and I could trust her to tell me the truth. She wasn’t the type of person who lied to make people feel better.

  “Was my party weird or good?” I asked when I found her in the bathroom. She was brushing her teeth. Her mouth was frothy.

  She shrugged. “Both.”

  “Both? How could it be both?”

  She spat. “Winnie, think about it. With you, how could it not?”

  “Sandra.”

  “What?” She cupped up some water and rinsed her mouth. “You are a weird child. You will always be a weird child. Deal with it.”

  I put my hands on my hips. “Listen, you. I am not a child. I am ten now, and being ten means I am fully and completely a tween. Before you know it, I will even be . . . doing puberty and taking shaving lessons.”

  She met my eyes in the mirror. “You totally just proved my point, you know.”

  “Nuh-uh!” I cried. “You just don’t want to admit that I’m growing up, but I am.” She looked amused, so I stomped my foot. “I am, you big old . . . you.”

  She turned from the sink and dried her hands on a towel. “Okay, okay,” she said, giving in way too easily. “It’s just . . . don’t feel like you have to rush it, all right?”

  “Meaning what?” I asked suspiciously.

  “Meaning that you should take time to smell the roses. Or in your case, that disgusting perfume you made out of daffodils and grape juice.”

  “ ‘Daffodil Delight,’ ” I said. I invented it in honor of Amanda, and it was not disgusting . . . although it was also not entirely undisgusting. “And I’m still perfecting the formula.”

  “Okeydoke,” she said. She patted my head.

  I ducked away from her. “Stop agreeing with me!” “Winnie, chill. All I’m saying is that growing up is fine, and it happens whether you want it to or not, but it isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

  “It is for me,” I argued.

  “Lucky you. Remember that when something hard comes along, ’kay? And remember that I tried to warn you.”

  “I will, and it won’t, and you did not!” I insisted. Then I got confused in my head. “Aaargh!” I cried, spinning on my heel and marching out of there.

  Back in my room, I went to my desk and got out a piece of strawberry-bordered notepaper out of the strawberry stationery set Chantelle had given me. It included a strawberry-scented pen, a strawberry pencil, and an adorable eraser that looked just like a strawberry, only smaller.

  “Growing up is all it’s cracked up to be,” I wrote. “And being weird is much more fun than not being weird, and so is being unique, and if anything hard ever does come along, then who cares? I’ll handle it, just like Mom said. I can handle anything, and the reason why is because I am me and I am ten and I am awesome. And maybe that sounds braggy, but I don’t mean it that way. I’m simply telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

  I tapped the end of the pen against my chin. Then I leaned back over the paper. “P.S. Black icing does NOT stunt your growth.”

  Full of righteous determination, I stood up, grabbed my chair, and dragged it over to my bed. I lifted it on top of my bed and positioned it near the headboard. Holding my note in my teeth, I climbed onto the chair, which rocked like a boat in heavy seas. S-l-o-w-l-y, I straightened up.

  Whoa! Wobble! I crouched to regain my balance, then tried again. I stood on my tiptoes, and felt way high up along the molding that joined my wall to my ceiling.

  Yes, I thought when my fingers found what I was searching for. It was a hollow space in the crown molding, and I’d discovered it purely by luck one day. I’d been throwing mini-marshmallows into the air and catching them in my mouth, or trying to. Only one marshmallow flew up and disappeared . . . and that’s how I found my secret hiding spot.

  I took the note out of my mouth and dropped it inside the hole. If I ever needed a reminder that growing up was something to be glad about, well, now I’d know where to go.

  My eyebrows went up, because I had an idea for how to make it even better. Louise had given me a Hershey’s bar as part of my present, and I eased off the chair, hopped off my bed, and grabbed it. Then I repeated the whole wobbly process, dropping the candy bar into the hollow space along with the letter.

  Now if I ran into a time of trouble, I’d have my note and a chocolate bar to cheer me on. Hurrah! As a bonus, it would be a chocolate bar that came from Louise, which would prove my point even more. I wasn’t sure how, just that it would.

  I heard footsteps on the stairs, so I scrambled off my bed and lugged my chair back over to my desk. I scurried into bed right as Mom and Dad came in to say good-night. I pretended I’d been lying there peacefully for ages. I was a peaceful little angel.

  “Did you have a good day, Winnie-cakes?” Dad said.

  “Alas, I did not,” I said, as I was still in a mood of feeling bound to tell the truth. Also because it was fun to mess with Mom and Dad.

  Mom stepped closer, concerned. “Oh, sweetie. You didn’t have a good birthday?”

  “Nope,” I said. I waited one second, two seconds . . . and then I couldn’t stand it anymore. “I didn’t have a good birthday. I had a great birthday. Wanna know why?”

  “By all means,” Dad said.

  “Because this is going to be a wonderful year, and I’m not even kidding.” I broke into a big, angelic grin. “Being ten rocks.”

  April

  ONCE UPON A TIME there was a little mousie, and it was just a baby, and Amanda’s BAD DADDY killed that little mousie just because he lived in
the Wilsons’ basement. Or she. She might have been a girl mousie. We didn’t know. But that was very very bad of Mr. Wilson, Amanda and I thought, because how did the mousie know it wasn’t allowed to live in their basement?

  After Mr. Wilson killed the mousie, he chucked it into the backyard and just . . . left it there! Which was heartless and terrible and cruel, and we told him so.

  “Well, girls, I’m sorry I upset you,” he said, washing his hands at the kitchen sink. “But we can’t have our house overrun with mice. Amanda, do you want mice setting up quarters in your bedroom?”

  Amanda’s mouth, which was open in a getting-ready-toscold position, closed shut.

  I elbowed her.

  “Leaving mouse droppings in the carpet?” Mr. Wilson said. “Having mouse babies in your pillows?”

  I elbowed her harder. “Amanda,” I whispered-yelled. “Mouse droppings?!” she whispered back. “That would be freaky!”

  “I wish I didn’t have to kill the little fellow, either,” Mr. Wilson said. “You can move the body to the trash can if you prefer. Just be sure to use a paper towel.”

  Amanda and I looked at each other.

  “Or don’t,” he said. “My guess is that Sweet Pea will be happy to take care of it.”

  “Dad, no, and that’s not funny,” Amanda told him. I agreed. If I had a beautiful cat like Sweet Pea, I wouldn’t want her to eat a dead mouse and have dead-mouse breath, either. Also I wouldn’t want to be licked by Sweet Pea for a long time afterward.

  “I didn’t say it to be funny.” He turned off the faucet. “It’s the circle of life, that’s all.”

  “Come on, Amanda,” I said, dragging her out of the kitchen. We marched across the yard, scanning the grass until we found the little mousie’s body. It looked kind of . . . yucky, and not all that cute, to tell the truth. The If You Give a Mouse a Cookie mouse was a lot cuter. I felt bad for thinking that, though.

  “We need to name him,” I said. “How about Henry?”

  “Okay,” Amanda said.

  “Poor Henry,” I said.