“Seriously, dude, you look pretty bad,” Dill said, but his voice sounded small and distant. Little bitty voice coming out of Dill’s face, just two feet away.
“I’m okay…” Peter insisted, and then his knees buckled and he fell to the ground.
“Oh jeez, oh jeez,” he heard Dill cry out, although he couldn’t see him. “Don’t move, okay? I’m gonna go get your mom, don’t move, okay? Oh jeez, oh jeez, it was only an F, dude!”
Then there was the sound of Dill’s feet running away.
And then there was nothing.
* * *
He could hear voices as he drifted in and out of consciousness. They didn’t make much sense, but he didn’t care. It was like he was treading water in an ocean of darkness, waves lifting him up and down, up and down. He felt like throwing up sometimes, but then it would pass. The voices would come back, then go away again. The waves would stop moving for awhile and he would drift peacefully down into the dark, and then it would all start over.
5
Peter woke up on the couch in the den. There was a damp cloth draped across his forehead. He felt very weak, and his mouth tasted bad.
It was dark outside. Pitch black. The room was dark, too, except for a lamp very close by. Grandfather was sitting next to him in a wooden chair, reading from a giant leatherbound book.
“Hi,” Peter tried to say, but it came out as more of a froggy croak.
The old man peered over tiny spectacles. His wild hair looked yellow and dingy in the lamplight.
“Gave your mother a bit of a fright there, boy,” Grandfather said gruffly.
“What…what happened?”
“Your little fool of a friend came in yelling about you dying. We found you passed out in the middle of the lawn, took you to Dr. Rarrigen right away. He said it’s the flu, particularly nasty case. Gave us some medicine to help with the nausea, but said there was no reason to take you to the hospital in Charterton unless you get over 103 degrees. So we’ve been putting ice on your forehead and spooning broth down your throat the last 24 hours.”
“Twenty-four hours?” Peter said. He tried to sit up and found he couldn’t.
“Don’t get up. If you have to vomit again, let me know, there’s a bowl by the couch.”
“Where’s Mom?”
“Sleeping. She stayed up with you all yesterday night.”
Peter shook his head. “I don’t remember any of that…”
“What about the doctor’s? You were answering his questions.”
Peter closed his eyes. “I was on the bus with Dill…Mercy was there…”
Grandfather knitted his brows. “Mercy Chalmers?”
“You know her?”
“I know her family. Go on.”
“I got an F on my paper…”
“What paper?”
Peter paused. He’d already spilled the beans, and it was too hard to think. He might as well tell everything.
“History…I was supposed to write about a historical figure in Duskerville…”
Grandfather snorted. “You don’t know a damn thing about Duskerville.”
“I made it all up…that’s why I got an F.”
Grandfather turned back to his book. “Why didn’t you ask me, you idjit? I know everything about this accursed town.”
“Dill made up a whole bunch of stuff…his grandfather or somebody…became an Indian…lived in a teepee…he says all history stuff is made-up, so I made up some, too.”
Grandfather snorted again. “Fools of a feather. I told you that boy is trouble just waiting to happen.”
“Mercy tried to get me to write about her…great uncle or something…sold coffins…”
Grandfather looked back up from his book. He shut it and was quiet for a minute. When he spoke, he was very serious.
“What did she tell you?”
“He sold coffins…made a lot of money…collar…something…”
“Cholera. Yes, that’s the official story…the made-up one. Maybe your idjit friend is onto something.”
“What’s cholera?”
“It’s not what killed all those people, I can tell you that.”
Peter perked up. “What?”
“And those coffins were only half-used. ‘Half lived-in,’ you might say.”
Peter squinted. It was getting harder to concentrate. “What are you talking about?”
“Dark days, boy. Go back to sleep.”
Peter didn’t want to, of course. He wanted desperately to hear about the people who died from something other than cholera…and the half-used coffins…
But darkness had its say, and sleep gently washed over him again.
6
He woke up in the morning as his mother wiped a cold cloth on his forehead. She looked worried.
“Honey, how are you feeling?”
“Better.”
It was true. His stomach wasn’t nauseated, and his head didn’t hurt so much anymore. He felt very weak, but that was mostly it.
“Can you eat something? Some ice cream or something?”
Mmmmm. Ice cream. Peter felt ten times better.
He nodded. “I don’t have to go to school, right?”
His mother kissed his forehead. “Honey, you don’t have to go to school for a long, long time.”
Peter suddenly felt a hundred times better.
* * *
It wasn’t so bad after that. He got stronger with every meal. He listened to the ancient radio in the den as he laid on the couch. (Despite Peter’s pleadings, Grandfather still hadn’t bought a television.) They kept Beth far away from him – half so he could recover in peace, half so she wouldn’t get sick – and that was the best part of all.
Dill called Wednesday afternoon. “Hey, what’s up. You okay?”
“Yeah,” Peter said.
“I thought you were dead, man.”
“Thanks,” Peter said sarcastically.
“No, I was really worried. I came around Tuesday, your mom said you hadn’t even woke up yet. I thought you were in a coma or something.”
“Oh.” Wow, Dill was being sincere. That was a first. “I’m okay…thanks for running and getting them.”
“You scared me, dude.”
“Sorry.”
“Your face scares me most of the time anyway, so no big deal.”
“Ha ha.”
“Hey, guess what – ”
But that was when his mother took the phone away. “Sorry, Dill, Peter needs his rest. He’ll see you again when he’s well, okay? Bye.”
She hung up while Dill was still protesting on the other end of the line.
7
Sunday night was both good and bad. There were hamburgers for dinner, which was good. His mom grilled them in a pan on the stove. And French fries, too, the curly kind, that she baked in the oven.
But Peter felt well enough that Mom said he should go back to school the next day. “If you’re strong enough to be running around the house after Beth, you’re strong enough to go back.”
That was bad. Because now he had to get that history paper signed. The one he made up. The F.
He was dreading it…maybe Mrs. Cashew would forget all about it. He had been sick for awhile now…
No, Mrs. Cashew had it in for Peter. She would never forget.
Never.
Peter trudged up to his room after dinner and unzipped his backpack. There it was, the big red ‘F.’ Peter sighed. First he would have to explain to Mom. Then there would be a huge lecture, and grounding, and –
Unless Grandfather signed it.
Grandfather already knew about it. And he hadn’t seemed to care that much.
Peter thought back to that night when he woke up and found Grandfather reading by the couch. He had almost forgotten their talk about the failing grade. And something else…something about coffins that had only been half-used…
Peter picked up the paper, folded it in half so no one could see the red letter at the top, and
snuck out of his bedroom.
* * *
Moments later he knocked at the wooden doors of the giant study. From within he heard Grandfather grumble, “Leave me alone.” Peter pushed the door open and headed inside anyway.
Ten thousand books, old and worn, loomed over his head. Shelves of dark wood soared thirty feet in the air. The smell was like a musty bookshop or a town library: the scent of old and yellowed paper.
Grandfather was sitting at his mahogany desk, another giant book laid out in front of him. He didn’t look up as he spoke. “I said leave me alone. What part of that didn’t you understand?”
“I need you to sign something.” Peter slid the folded paper across the desk.
“What’s that?”
“That’s my history paper…the one I made up.”
“Ah. Don’t want to face the music, hm.” Grandfather flipped a page. “I’ll not do your dirty work. Go get your mother to sign it.”
Panic welled up inside Peter. “You said it wasn’t any big deal to make stuff up.”
Grandfather looked up in irritation. “And when did I say that?”
“You said maybe Dill had it right, cuz people made stuff up.”
There was a very slight change in Grandfather’s face. Almost undetectable, but it was there. “I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”
“The coffins! You said – ”
“I never said anything about coffins. I never said anything at all. You must have been delirious.”
“What? No, you said – ”
Grandfather snatched the history paper up and scribbled on it. “There. Are you happy? Go away and leave an old man in peace.”
“But – ”
Grandfather threw the paper at him. “Git!”
Peter ran out of the study with the hard-won signature in hand. He was puzzled, that was for sure, but he was almost always puzzled after talking to his grandfather.
More importantly, he was relieved that his mother would never have to know about the made-up historical figure Jebediah What’s-his-name.
8
It rained that night. A thunderstorm blew in from the sea with flashes of lightning that lit up the yard as bright as day. Thunder rattled the glass windowpanes. Outside, tree branches scraped the house and the shutters banged open and closed.
Peter lay in bed, the covers up past his nose, and watched the fireworks in the sky. He wasn’t scared. Well, not much. To keep his mind off his nervousness, he counted the seconds between the lightning and thunder. He’d read somewhere that seven seconds was one mile.
“One one thousand…two one thousand…three one thousand…”
There was a rumble like a mountain collapsing in an avalanche.
Peter got up from his bed and made his way to the window. He sat on the cushions on the wide window ledge and looked out past the cornfield and the forest. From up here on the third floor he could see everything. On the far right was Dill’s ramshackle little home. Straight ahead, past the cliff and over the whitecapped water, distant bolts of lightning twisted like angry, glowing snakes.
One of them hit nearby and lit everything like a giant flashbulb. If he had been counting, Peter wouldn’t have had time to get to “two one thousand” before the thunder ripped the air.
But Peter wasn’t counting. Because he had seen something.
Someone.
Out in the yard.
A hint of white, that was all. Tiny. But it had been there.
Peter’s stomach twisted. He remembered what had happened the last time he saw someone out in the yard.
Now it was dark. Peter strained his eyes, but there was no lightning to help him.
“Come on, come on…”
And then it came again, bleaching out everything around the house for one brief second.
It was a girl. A girl in a white dress, a Sunday church dress. Her hair was plastered against her head, and her clothes clung to her body. She stood about 50 feet from the house, looking up at it.
Up at Peter’s window.
Peter’s throat clenched tight, but he leaned closer to the glass, waiting for the next blast of lightning. Water wasn’t exactly running down his window because the roof jutted out over it and protected it from the worst of the rain. But the droplets on the glass made it harder to see, harder to make out details.
The lightning flared again.
The girl was closer. Thirty feet now, maybe. And at that distance, he could see that she wasn’t wearing a dress. It was a blouse, with a white top with straps and a skirt, that looked like it belonged in The Sound Of Music.
Mercy Chalmers was in his backyard in the middle of a thunderstorm, looking up at his window.
Freaked out, Peter stumbled back and fell off the window seat with a loud “OOOF.” After a second of lying on the floor, he cautiously lifted himself back up so he could see. But he kept his head low, close to the pillows, just high enough to see down into the yard.
Everything was dark as he waited for the next burst of lightning.
It had been Mercy, alright. Though he couldn’t really make out her eyes, they had seemed a little too far apart. The hair looked dirty blond, though darker than normal – probably from being soaked in the rain.
What in the world was Mercy Chalmers doing in his yard, in the middle of one of the worst storms Peter had ever seen?
He guiltily remembered telling her ‘no’ on the bus. He had been so mean and rude. Of course, he had felt awful, and had been deathly sick, but that was no excuse –
Or was it? He had told her no, he didn’t want to hang out with her at her house, and now she was outside his window in a rainstorm. Imagine what she might have wanted to do if he had said ‘yes.’
Peter shuddered.
She would have followed him everywhere.
Another burst of lightning, and the yard and forest were bright as noon.
But Mercy was gone.
9
Peter yawned as he walked to the bus stop the next morning. After Mercy disappeared last night, Peter hadn’t been able to fall asleep for the longest time. At one point he thought he heard a door open somewhere downstairs, and had imagined her climbing up the giant staircase, leaving a sopping wet trail behind her.
Peeeeeteeeeeeer…
But that was his imagination. She must have seen him in the window and, embarrassed to be found out, run home as fast as she could.
Which was kind of insane, because she lived over a mile away. Peter could imagine her trudging through the dark and creepy forest, the rain and wind lashing the trees around her.
Peter shivered.
She really was crazy.
Dill was already down at the corner, squatting on the sidewalk, furiously writing on a piece of paper.
“Hey, Dill!”
Dill looked up with a big smile. “Peter! You okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.”
“Cool. You missed a lot of stuff.”
Peter shrugged. “I’ll make it up. Dude, you wouldn’t believe what happened last night.”
“Yeah, yeah, big thunderstorm – I live right next door, remember? No, dude, listen – ”
“Not the thunderstorm – Mercy Chalmers.”
Dill looked shocked. “You heard?”
“Heard? I saw her.”
Dill’s mouth opened like a surprised fish. “You saw her?”
“Yeah, down in my backyard. She was standing out behind the house in the middle of the storm! She’s crazy, man – she’s stalking me now!”
Dill stared at him. “When…when was this?”
“Uhhhh, last night? You were there, remember? Big thunderstorm?”
Dill shook his head, slowly, like something was just plain wrong. “That’s impossible, Peter.”
“I saw her! She was wearing different clothes than normal, but it was still that same jumper thing she always wears, just white. She was right outside in the yard, I swear!”
“Are you…okay, Peter? Are
you sure you’re not still sick?”
Peter frowned. “Why are you acting like that? Don’t you believe me?”
“Dude…Mercy Chalmers is dead.”
Peter laughed once…and then stopped cold. This was a joke, right? Peter waited, knowing any second his friend would yell “Psych!” or “Did you know that ‘gullible’ isn’t in the dictionary?” or something else. It was a joke, it had to be.
But Dill looked pale and serious, with no indication that he was telling anything but the God’s honest truth.
Peter had never met anyone who had died. Except for his grandmother, but that was years ago, and he didn’t remember her very well.
He had seen it on TV plenty of times, yeah, but he had never known anyone who had died. And she had been out in the cold and the wet because of Peter.
“What…how did you find out so fast?” Peter asked.
Dill’s brow crinkled. “What are you talking about?”
“How do you know she’s dead? Did she get sick from running around in the storm? Did she die that way? How do you know?” Peter was talking loud now, but not out of anger. It was more like pleading. “You couldn’t have heard this quick – she can’t be dead – ”
“‘This quick’? Peter, she died last Wednesday. The funeral was last Friday.”
Peter’s knees trembled, but he held himself up. The whole word went still all around him. There was no sound except for Dill’s voice.
“You couldn’t have seen Mercy last night, man. She’s been dead almost a week.”
10
It had been sudden. No one knew for sure, but the story was that Mercy had fallen sick on Monday night, shortly after Peter. She hadn’t come to school on Tuesday. When the school called Wednesday night to check up on her, Mercy’s crying mother had answered. “She’s gone. My baby is gone,” was all she said.
All of this was hearsay, someone hearing it from someone who had heard it from someone else. Supposedly a kid had eavesdropped on Mrs. Cashew in the teacher’s lounge, but no one could say who that kid was. Somebody else claimed his parents were at the drug store when Mercy’s father rushed in, frantically searching the aisles for boxes of medicine, yelling at the pharmacist for help. All of it was whispers and rumors, a giant game of Telephone where the details differed depending on who was telling it.