Say Cheese - And Die Screaming! Read online

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  SAY CHEESE—AND DIE SCREAMING!

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  ENTER HORRORLAND

  The Story So Far…

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  TEASER

  FEAR FILE #8

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ALSO AVAILABLE

  COPYRIGHT

  “Julie — wait up!” My best friend, Reena Jacobs, ran across the school hallway toward me. Her blond ponytail bobbed behind her. “Is that a new camera?”

  I shook my head. “It’s one of my old cameras.” It swung from a strap around my neck. “Dad says he’ll buy me a new one if I get the big assignment from Mr. Webb.”

  Reena blinked her green eyes. “Big assignment?”

  I gave her a shove. “Reena, I’ve only been talking about it for months. Remember? To shoot the entire student body for the big two-page spread in the Tiger?” That’s the name of our yearbook.

  Reena scrunched up her face. “I thought Mr. Webb already chose David Blank for that.”

  “Well, you thought wrong,” I said. “That’s why I’m hurrying to the Tiger office. I’ve got an awesome idea. No way Mr. Webb can say no to it. David can sit on his butt and watch me take the photo!”

  Reena laughed. “You don’t like David — do you?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Does a lettuce like a goat?”

  She frowned at me. “Goat? I don’t get that, Julie.”

  With her light blond hair and big green eyes, Reena is very pretty. I think she’s the prettiest girl at Twin Forks Middle School. And she’s smart, too.

  But she only understands straight talk.

  “I meant David tries to gobble up everything,” I explained. “He wants to be the only star. Mr. Webb asked me to shoot the bake sale in the gym last week. And when I showed up, guess who was there.”

  “David?”

  “You got it,” I said.

  “He’s very competitive,” Reena said. Then she grinned. “But I think he’s kind of cute.”

  “Cute?” I stuck my finger down my throat. “With that bright orange hair and those orange freckles? He looks like a carrot!”

  “You have vegetables on the brain,” Reena said.

  “No, I’ve got pictures on the brain,” I said. “I can be just as competitive as David. I really want to take that big photo. That’s why I want to get to the yearbook office before David does.”

  I turned and started to jog down the hall. It was nearly three-thirty, and the school had emptied out.

  “Julie —” Reena called after me. “Are we still going bike riding on Saturday?”

  “I’ve got to watch Sammy in the morning,” I said. Sammy is my little brother. “We can ride all afternoon.”

  I turned the corner and bumped right into the Sneer Sisters.

  Actually, Becka and Greta aren’t sisters. They’re best best friends. I’ve never seen them apart.

  I call them the Sneer Sisters because they both always sneer when they see me. Like I smell like rotten meat or something. And they’re always so totally mean to me.

  They even look a little alike. They are both tall and very skinny, and they both have long noses and kind of pointy chins. Like witch chins.

  “Hi, Ju-Ju,” Becka said, sneering.

  I gritted my teeth. She knows I hate to be called Ju-Ju. That’s what I called myself when I was too little to say the name Julie.

  Greta pointed at my mouth. “Ju-Ju, you have something on your front teeth,” she said.

  I rubbed my teeth with my pointer finger. “Is it gone?” I asked her.

  Greta nodded. “Yeah. It was your finger!”

  They both slapped high fives and cackled like that was the funniest joke in history.

  “Where did you get that joke?” I said. “First grade or second?” I pushed past them and hurried down the hall. My camera bounced in front of me as I jogged.

  The yearbook office was the last door on the left. I grabbed the knob, twisted it, and burst inside.

  And then I gasped as I was blinded by an explosion of white.

  Okay. It wasn’t an explosion.

  A few seconds later, I started to see again. And David Blank slowly came into focus.

  He was standing next to Mr. Webb. He had his camera raised. And a big grin on his carroty face.

  “That’s a lesson for you, Julie,” he said. “That’s how you take someone by surprise. An awesome candid shot.”

  “David — you nearly blinded me!” I cried. I still had white flashes in my eyes.

  David stared at the view screen on the back of his camera. “The look on your face!” he cried. He shared it with Mr. Webb. “Like something in a horror movie.”

  “You’re a horror movie!” I shot back angrily.

  I was so disappointed that David was there. I elbowed him out of the way and tried to squeeze next to Mr. Webb. “You’re leaving — right?” I said to David.

  He shrugged. “I’m just hanging out,” he said. “Mr. Webb and I were talking about some yearbook ideas.”

  Mr. Webb took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He is very tall and lanky. He’s so skinny, the bones stick out of his wrists. He has a very narrow face, and his black hair is cut very short.

  Some kids have a nickname for him. They call him The Needle because he really does look like one.

  He has a soft voice. He always seems to stop and think for a long time before he answers a question. And he’s always taking off his glasses and putting them back on. A nervous habit, I guess.

  I’ve never had him as a teacher. But I think he’s a good yearbook adviser. He’s very fair. And he’s always ready to listen to new ideas.

  “My dad got me a new lens for my Pentax,” David said. “I’ve got ten-times zoom on this camera. And twenty-times zoom on my other camera.”

  “Don’t brag or anything,” I said.

  He thinks he’s way cool because his dad is manager of Camera World, the camera store at the mall.

  Mr. Webb pushed his glasses up on his nose and turned to me. “Julie, you got some nice shots of the wrestling team last week,” he said. Then he added, “So did David.”

  I bit my lip. “I thought the wrestling team was my assignment,” I said.

  David grinned. “Just thought I’d back you up,” he said. “You know. In case that little camera of yours broke or something.”

  Couldn’t you clobber that kid?

  “You said you have an idea you want to show me?” Mr. Webb asked.

  I reached into my backpack and pulled out the plans I had drawn. If only David would disappear in a flash of white light!

  “It’s for the picture of the whole student body,” I told Mr. Webb. “I had this idea about using the new swimming pool.”

  David laughed. “You want to take the picture from underwater? That’s awesome!”

  “Give me a break,” I moaned. “You know they haven’t filled the new pool yet. There’s no water in it.”

  I spread my drawing out on the table, and Mr. Webb bent over to study it. He scratched his head and squinted at it. “Is that you on the high diving board?” he asked me.

  I nodded. “Yeah. See? We get everyone standing
in the pool. Fifth grade in front. Then sixth. Then seventh in back. And I use a wide angle and shoot down at everyone from the high board.”

  David giggled. “And then you dive into the crowd? Awesome!”

  I ignored him.

  Mr. Webb studied my drawing for a long moment. “There might be some safety problems,” he said finally. “The high diving board is —”

  “It’s a very wide platform up there,” I said. “With railings on both sides. No way I could slip.”

  David leaned over the drawing, blocking Mr. Webb’s view. “I think Julie and I should both go up there and shoot,” he said. “She can use her old-fashioned wide angle. And I’ll use my Konica square shooter.”

  I wanted to pound him into the ground.

  David is such a total pig.

  “The platform isn’t that wide,” I told Mr. Webb. “There’s only room for one person up there. And since it’s my idea …”

  “I know!” David said. “Let’s make it a contest. Between Julie and me.”

  I swallowed. “A contest?”

  “Whoever has the most pictures accepted for the yearbook — wins,” David said. “The winner gets to take the big picture from the high board.”

  Mr. Webb thought about it. Then a thin smile crossed his needle face.

  “Well, I guess that would be a fair way to decide,” he said. “Okay, you have one week.”

  Fair?! It wasn’t fair at all! The pool was my idea. But how could I back down?

  David had a big grin on his face. I wanted to wipe it off. But I couldn’t let him think I was upset. Instead, I said, “Okay. Done deal. We’ll have a contest.”

  I folded up my plan and shoved it back into my backpack. Then I waved good-bye to the two of them and left the room.

  As I walked home, I couldn’t think about anything else.

  I really wanted to win. I really wanted to be the one up on that high board with everyone in school looking up at me.

  How was I to know that before too long I’d be falling to my doom?

  Saturday afternoon, the sun beamed down from a clear blue sky. It was the first warm day of spring. Reena and I couldn’t wait to climb on our bikes and ride all around town.

  We pedaled past the school, then turned right and coasted downhill toward Fairfax Park. We were both in shorts and T-shirts. It felt great to pretend it was summer.

  We had to brake to slow down at the bottom of the steep hill. “How was Sammy this morning?” Reena asked.

  “The usual,” I said. “He was Sammy. What else?”

  Reena laughed. “Your brother is a little spoiled.”

  “And a little whiny,” I added. “And a little obnoxious. Mom always says he’s just being Sammy. I guess that means he can get away with anything.”

  “Baby of the family,” Reena said.

  We rode through the park, in and out of the shade from the old tangled trees that hang over the street. Then we rode past houses where some of our friends live.

  Some kids were washing a car with a garden hose at the corner. We turned, and a red SUV pulled up beside us.

  The back window rolled down. And who should poke their heads out but my best buddies, Becka and Greta.

  “Ju-Ju!” they both called. “Ju-Ju!”

  “You got rid of your training wheels!” Becka shouted.

  Greta spit her bubble gum at me. Missed.

  “Bye, Ju-Ju!” The SUV roared away with the girls laughing wildly.

  I rolled my eyes and started pedaling hard. Reena raced to catch up to me, her blond hair flying behind her. “What did you ever do to them?” she asked.

  “I know what it is,” I said. “Remember my birthday party last fall? The bowling party?”

  “I remember,” Reena said. “I dropped the ball on my foot.”

  “Well, my mom said I could only invite five kids,” I said. “And you know Becka and Greta were never in my top five. They’re closer to my bottom five.”

  Reena laughed. “So you didn’t invite them.”

  I nodded. “Right. They’ve been horrible to me ever since.”

  I slowed to a stop at a corner. The street sign was lying on its side on the grass. “Where are we?” I asked.

  We both squinted into the afternoon sun. I saw tiny houses jammed close together on both sides of the block. The front yards were small squares, mostly of tall weeds.

  One house had cardboard across all its windows. The yard was cluttered with tin cans and other garbage.

  A mean-looking dog, tall and scrawny, barked at us from a dirt driveway, tugging at a chain leash. Two young boys were tossing stones against the side of a little shingled house.

  “I don’t know this neighborhood,” I said. “We never rode this far before.”

  “It’s kind of creepy,” Reena said. But then her eyes grew wide. “Hey — check it out! A garage sale!”

  She didn’t wait for me. She pedaled up the pebble driveway where red and blue balloons bobbed in the wind.

  Reena can’t resist a tag sale. She’s totally into old shoes and hats and vintage clothes. I don’t know what she does with all the stuff she buys. It’s lucky she has big closets in her room.

  The redbrick house was small and square. The screen door was ripped and hung half open. A stuffed monkey stared out of the dusty front window.

  A huge red-faced woman in a tight-fitting yellow dress sat in a beach chair in front of the garage. She waved to us as we climbed off our bikes, but she didn’t get up.

  She fanned herself with a folded-up newspaper. Then she used it to point to the tables of stuff. “Everything is half off,” she said in a hoarse voice. “I didn’t have time to tag it. Just ask me the price.”

  We set our bikes down on the pebble driveway. No one else was around. Down the block, the angry dog kept barking.

  Reena walked over to a rack of old dresses and coats. It all looked pretty ragged to me. But Reena likes pawing through that stuff.

  I stopped at a table in front of the open garage door. It was stacked high with yellowed, old Time magazines and sheet music.

  I picked up some sheet music and looked through it. My dad plays the piano, and he collects old songs. But these were too smelly and falling apart. Yuck.

  I dropped them back on the table, but my hands still smelled skunky.

  I turned and saw Reena trying on straw hats. She’s so awesome looking, hats look great on her. Whenever I try one of hers on, I look like a little girl playing dress up.

  There were shelves of old board games and action figures in the garage. I checked out an old werewolf card game called Bite My Face! Really dumb.

  Then in the gray light at the back of the garage, I spotted something on a low shelf. A camera.

  I bent and picked it up. “Weird,” I muttered.

  It was definitely old. It was square, like an old box camera. Bigger than my digital camera, and heavier. It was metal, covered in black leather. I turned it over and saw a built-in flash at the top.

  “Wonder what kind of film it takes,” I muttered. I’d never seen a camera like it.

  I had five or ten dollars in my backpack. Would that be enough to buy the old camera?

  I carried it up to the woman in the beach chair. “Is this for sale?” I asked.

  The woman’s eyes bulged. Her chins trembled.

  “NO!” she screamed. “Put it DOWN! You don’t want that! Put it down — NOW!”

  “N-no problem,” I stammered.

  The woman was waving me away with both hands. Her face was beet-red.

  I turned and trotted back into the garage, the camera still in my hands. What’s up with this camera? I wondered.

  I bent to set it back down on the low shelf — and felt a tap on my shoulder.

  “Huh?” I let out a startled cry. Turned — and saw a girl standing behind me. She was about twelve like me, big and red-faced like the woman outside.

  Her scraggly brown hair fell over her eyes. She wore baggy jeans and a pink sweatshirt tha
t said MOMMY’S PRINCESS on the front in sparkly letters.

  “You want that camera?” she whispered.

  “Well … I don’t know,” I murmured. “If there’s something wrong with it …”

  She shoved it against my chest. “Go ahead. Take it.”

  “How much?” I asked.

  The girl shook her head. “No charge. Just take it away before my mom sees.” She gave me a push toward the driveway.

  I picked up my bike and stuck the old camera into my backpack. The woman didn’t see. She was pouring herself a tall drink from a big plastic pitcher.

  Reena ran over and lifted her bike from the driveway. “Nothing good here,” she whispered. “Let’s go.”

  We called “bye” to the woman and pedaled away. At the street, I turned and looked back to the garage. The daughter was standing there stiffly, just staring at us.

  I waved to her. But she didn’t wave back.

  * * *

  Mom greeted us as we stepped into my house. My mom is dark-haired like me, except she wears hers the length of bristles on a hairbrush. She’s short and a little chubby and has nonstop energy. I mean, she never sits down.

  “Reena, would you like to stay for dinner?” she asked.

  “Sure, thanks,” Reena replied.

  “What are we having?” I asked.

  Mom shrugged. “Just pizza. I’ve been cleaning the attic all day. No time to prepare a feast.”

  That’s the other thing about my mom. She never sits down — and she never stops cleaning out rooms.

  “No peppers this time!” Sammy came bursting into the room, whining as usual. “I hate peppers! Even if you pull them off, you can still taste them.”

  Sammy looks like a junior version of Mom and me. He’s short with dark hair and has brown eyes and a gap in his front teeth — like I had before my braces.

  “Okay. No peppers,” Mom promised.

  I pulled the old camera from my backpack. I was eager to check it out.

  “Where’d you get that?” Sammy asked. He made a grab for it, but I swiped it out of his reach.

  “Take my picture!” he demanded. He posed against the fireplace, stuck his tongue out, and crossed his eyes. “Hurry! Take my picture.”

  “It doesn’t have any film,” I said. “I just got it. Besides, when I do get film, I’m taking Reena’s picture — not yours.”