Spell of the Screaming Jokers Read online

  “Yuck!” Louisa squealed, turning her face away. “It’s so ugly!”

  I started to turn away too—when the joker’s face began to move!

  Its eyeballs darted left and right! First it peered at me. Then it glared at Louisa. Then Jeff.

  The joker’s eyeballs came to rest on Frankie. Its mouth twisted open—in a grin full of yellow, jagged teeth.

  I stared in horror. I couldn’t speak.

  “What’s wrong?” Max’s mom asked. “What are you looking at?”

  At the sound of her voice, the joker’s ugly face froze.

  Had it really moved?

  Or had I imagined it?

  I glanced at my friends. Had they seen it?

  But they were all staring at me. “Brit, what’s the matter?” Louisa asked. “You’re so pale!”

  “The joker . . . ” I began. But then I trailed off. No way. It wasn’t possible. I couldn’t have seen it move!

  Could I?

  Mrs. Davidson bent and picked up the card. “What a horrible card!” she cried. She gathered up the other cards from the floor.

  “Let me have all the cards, kids,” she said. “I’ll check to make sure there aren’t any more jokers. How in the world did this terrible-looking thing get into the deck in the first place?”

  Max only shrugged as he handed his mom his cards. He didn’t seem very upset about the joker. Maybe his doctor told him not to get excited—about anything.

  But I was plenty excited. My heart was racing!

  “That was horrible,” I told Frankie. “That wasn’t a regular joker. No wonder you screamed.”

  “I told you—I didn’t scream,” Frankie said.

  “Come on, Frankie,” Jeff said. “Just admit it. We all heard you. I bet the whole neighborhood heard you.”

  Frankie glared. “Would you all just—”

  “There. I’ve checked the deck. There aren’t any more ugly jokers,” Mrs. Davidson interrupted. She handed the deck of cards to Max. “Remember, it’s good card manners to let someone cut the cards, Max.”

  Max began shuffling.

  “Um . . . you really want to play?” I asked.

  Max shrugged. “Why not?”

  “Yes, but . . . ” I began. I stopped. With the jokers out of the deck, I guess it was okay to play.

  We played hand after hand of hearts. By the time the four of us left Max’s house, I saw clubs and diamonds, hearts and spades swimming before my eyes.

  And I still saw that ugly joker. Saw its evil grin. Saw it move.

  How could a single card be so frightening?

  How?

  5

  “I wish we’d left earlier,” Louisa grumbled as we walked along Fear Street in the dark. “I hate this street at night.”

  “It seems like the streetlights are always broken here,” I complained. “I can’t see a thing!”

  “We could always cut through Mrs. Murder’s yard again,” Frankie suggested.

  “No way!” I said. Then I heard something. “Hey, listen. What’s that?”

  I glanced in the direction of Mrs. Marder’s house. But it was too dark to see anything.

  “I hear something rattling,” Jeff whispered.

  Rattling—that was the sound I heard. Rattling—like someone shaking a can full of pebbles.

  “I hear it,” Louisa agreed. “Listen. It’s getting louder.”

  My eyes searched the shadows along Fear Street.

  “Hey!” Frankie yelled suddenly. “Watch it, buddy!”

  I whirled around.

  I saw Frankie sprawled on the sidewalk. A small figure bent over him. A kid. He must have run into Frankie and knocked him down. Now he said something to Frankie.

  “Frankie!” Louisa called. “Are you okay?”

  Frankie didn’t answer.

  The figure straightened up. He wasn’t very tall. He wore a green hat with a brim pulled down low over his forehead. I couldn’t make out his face under the brim. The only thing I could see clearly was the stick he held in his hand.

  I ran toward Frankie—and the shadowy figure shook his stick fiercely. Something rattled inside. He let out a scream—and raced away into the darkness.

  “Frankie, are you okay?” I asked. “Who was that?”

  “I don’t know, some little kid,” Frankie groaned. “Boy, he sure slammed into me hard!” He stood up and rubbed his arm.

  The four of us huddled close together as we walked along Fear Street.

  “He said something weird,” Frankie began as we headed home. “It sounded like ‘We shake the skull . . . . ’ No. That wasn’t it.”

  He frowned, trying to remember. “I know. ‘We shake the skull with eyes that gleam.’ ”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Jeff said.

  Frankie shrugged. “That’s what it sounded like.”

  “That can’t be what he said. Maybe he said something like, sorry to shake you up,” Louisa suggested.

  “No. That’s not what he said.” Frankie sounded definite.

  That didn’t stop Louisa. “Maybe the skull part was about how he hoped you didn’t crack your skull.”

  Frankie groaned. “Louisa. Do me a favor. Stop guessing.”

  We didn’t talk the rest of the way to Frankie’s house. I had to admit, Louisa’s explanations were pretty lame.

  Frankie paused on his porch. “Listen,” he said. “I’m sorry about getting you guys in trouble.”

  By the porch light I saw that Frankie was pretty scraped up. The side of his face was raw where he’d hit the pavement. And there was a strange, dark bruise above his wrist. It looked almost as if it were in the shape of a flower. Or something.

  “Frankie, that bruise . . . ” I pointed to his arm. “It’s shaped like . . . like a club,” I said, suddenly seeing it.

  “A club?” Frankie studied the bruise. “What do you mean?”

  “You know—the card suit,” I said. “Like spades, or hearts.”

  “Huh?” He stared at me.

  “Brit, I think you’re losing it,” Louisa told me.

  Maybe. But I wasn’t so sure.

  First—there was that hideous joker. Now—the club-shaped mark on Frankie’s arm. Was I imagining them because I didn’t like cards?

  Or was there something going on?

  Something bad?

  6

  “Truth or dare!” Louisa challenged me in the cafeteria on Monday. “Do you think Frankie is cute?”

  “Spike is cute,” I replied, reminding her of what she said about the rat. “Frankie is—interesting.”

  “He’s cute,” Louisa told me. “But he needs a haircut.”

  “You always want to fix everybody’s hair!” I exclaimed.

  I checked my watch. Oh, no—I was late! I bolted from my seat.

  “Hey! Where are you going?” Louisa asked.

  “I almost forgot! I have to meet Frankie,” I explained. “Mr. Emerson wants us to hang a community-service club poster. Lunch period is the only time we can do it.”

  “You and Frankie, huh?” Louisa waggled her eyebrows at me.

  I rolled my eyes. “Louisa, quit it! Meet me by my locker after school, okay?” I gathered up my books.

  “Right.” Louisa nodded. “Tell Frankie I said hi!”

  I charged out of the cafeteria. In the main hallway I spotted Frankie walking with the principal. Mr. Emerson had a large roll of poster paper under one arm. I hurried to meet them.

  “Brittany.” Mr. Emerson smiled. “I’ve been hearing about your visit with Max on Saturday. His mother said you really cheered him up. That’s terrific! Maybe your visits will help him get well faster.”

  “I hope so,” I said. And I did hope Max felt better. But I had another reason too. Between Max and my little brother, I was really sick of cards!

  Mr. Emerson showed us where he wanted us to put up the poster. He handed me a roll of masking tape.

  “Mr. Stock from maintenance set this up for you,” he said, pointing to a five
-rung ladder. “If the tape runs out, there’s another roll on my desk. Help yourself.” Then he left.

  “Okay, let’s see how high I can hang this baby.” Frankie started up the ladder with the poster.

  “I’ll make tape rolls,” I offered. “You can stick them under the edges of the poster. That way the tape won’t show.”

  I began tearing off strips of masking tape and rolling them with the sticky side out.

  When Frankie was on the fourth rung of the ladder, he reached down for a tape roll.

  I handed it to him—and caught a glimpse of his arm.

  “Frankie!” I exclaimed. “That bruise!”

  The bruise had darkened. Its outline had become more definite. Now it looked exactly like a black three-leaf clover. Like a club.

  “Yeah. It’s weird.” Frankie took the tape. “You know what else? It doesn’t hurt. Bruises definitely hurt. And this one doesn’t.”

  We both stared at the strange mark on Frankie’s arm. “Maybe it’s dirt,” I said.

  “That’s what I thought,” he replied. “But I tried scrubbing it. It won’t come off.”

  If it isn’t a bruise and it isn’t dirt—what is it? I wondered as I made tape loops.

  I came to the end of the roll. “Hey, Frankie. Don’t move!” I ordered. “We’re out of tape.”

  I hurried around the corner to the principal’s office to get another roll. As I reached for the tape on his desk, I heard a humming sound. Had Mr. Emerson left his computer on?

  I checked. No.

  A fan? No.

  I shrugged and left the office.

  In the hallway I could still hear the sound. But it changed from a hum to a hiss.

  Suddenly I pictured Mrs. Marder’s hissing, snarling cats. What an odd thing to think about.

  As I walked down the corridor, the sound grew louder.

  Now it didn’t sound so much like hissing—more like rattling.

  Like the sound we heard last night on Fear Street.

  I hurried down the hall.

  The rattling grew louder.

  I started to run.

  “Frankie!” I called.

  He didn’t answer.

  Then I heard a crash!

  And a horrible scream!

  “Frankie!” I shouted. “Are you okay? Frankie!”

  7

  I skidded around the corner. Then I screeched to a stop.

  “Oh, no!” My knees began to tremble. “Frankie! How did this happen?”

  Frankie lay on the floor.

  The ladder rested on top of him.

  The poster was draped over his body.

  “Are you okay?” I shoved the ladder off him.

  But Frankie didn’t answer. He didn’t move.

  I ripped away pieces of the heavy poster. “Frankie! Say something!” I begged.

  Frankie moaned. I breathed a sigh of relief.

  “What happened?” I demanded as he sat up.

  “I don’t know.” He shook his head. “It all happened so fast.” Then he lowered his voice. “But I didn’t fall.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “First I heard this sound. This—rattling sound,” he said.

  Frankie heard it too! So I didn’t imagine it!

  “Then,” he went on, “these two kids came zooming down the hall. Little kids. Like second-graders. They pushed the ladder over. Then one of them said something—”

  “Frankie,” I interrupted. “The sound you heard—was it the same as that night on Fear Street? That rattling sound?”

  “Yeah.” Frankie nodded. “It was the same.”

  He stared off into space for a second.

  I waved a hand in front of his face. “Can you remember anything about the kids who pushed over the ladder?” I asked him. “What they said? What they looked like?”

  “They sped down the hall so fast,” Frankie told me, “and—wait a sec. There is one thing. They had on strange hats.”

  I don’t know why, but my mind suddenly flashed on Mrs. Marder again. Mrs. Marder—with the green bandanna tied around her head. Mrs. Marder—screaming at us. Screaming about how she would make us pay.

  “Well.” Frankie shrugged. “I guess I’m okay anyway.”

  We cleaned up the mess on the floor. Later we’d have to explain to Mr. Emerson what happened to the poster.

  As we walked to our next class, Frankie still seemed sort of dazed. He had this distant look in his eyes, like he was trying really hard to remember something.

  He turned to me. “One of the kids who knocked over the ladder said, ‘We make our marks, we laugh and scream!’ ” he told me. “Weird, huh?”

  I drew in a breath. It was weird. “What about last night on Fear Street? What did you think that kid said?”

  “ ‘We shake the skull with eyes that gleam,’ ” Frankie remembered.

  “Hey!” I cried. “It’s some kind of rhyme. Listen. ‘We shake the skull with eyes that gleam! We make our marks, we laugh and scream!’ See? The lines go together.”

  A bell rang. Kids poured out of classrooms into the hallway. They pushed by us. But Frankie and I stood there, staring at each other.

  “Something very weird is going on,” I said at last.

  Frankie raised his hand and touched the bump on his forehead.

  When I saw his arm, I gasped.

  “What’s the matter?” Frankie asked. “What’s wrong?”

  I opened my mouth. But no words came out.

  “Stop it, Brit!” Frankie cried. “Say something!”

  All I could do was point to his arm.

  There was another mark on it.

  Above the club.

  But this one wasn’t black.

  It was red.

  And it was in a shape I knew.

  The shape of a perfect diamond.

  8

  “lt—it looks like a diamond,” Frankie whispered. His eyes were glued to the mysterious shape on his arm.

  I rubbed my finger over the club and the diamond. They were smooth. “They’re like tattoos.”

  “They are like tattoos,” he agreed. “But I haven’t been to any tattoo places. So how did I get them?”

  Neither of us knew.

  * * *

  That afternoon the four of us headed for Max’s house again.

  I kept waiting for Frankie to tell Louisa and Jeff about getting pushed off the ladder. Or about the diamond-shaped mark on his arm. But he just walked along silently. Maybe he was trying to forget.

  “What are we going to do with Max today?” Louisa asked.

  “Let’s think of something new,” I suggested. “Something besides card games.”

  “What else can we play with a sick kid?” Jeff asked. “Touch football?”

  “No,” I snapped. “But what about Monopoly? Or Scrabble? I’d even play Candy Land! Anything but cards.”

  “Oh, Brittany,” Jeff said. “It’s only for a couple of hours.”

  I glanced at Frankie. Why didn’t he speak up? Why didn’t he tell anyone about the marks on his arm? I wondered. He had even more reason than I did for being sick of cards.

  Well, he could keep quiet if he wanted to. I was going to say something.

  “Frankie?” I asked. “Are those marks still on your arm?”

  “What marks?” Louisa asked.

  Frankie pulled up his shirt cuff. They were there all right.

  “Do you see them, Louisa?” I asked her. “A club shape and a diamond?”

  Louisa squinted. “Yeah, I guess I see what you mean,” she admitted. “I can sort of see the shapes.”

  “You guys are crazy,” Jeff declared. “One’s a dark bruise and the other’s a reddish scrape. That’s all.”

  “Right,” Frankie agreed, pulling down his cuff in a rush. “That’s all. No big deal.”

  I stared at him. I didn’t know what to say.

  Those marks on his arm were definitely a club and a diamond.

  Frankie knew they were strange. That the
y weren’t a bruise and a scrape. That each one had come after someone pushed him down. We had talked about it! Why was he denying it now?

  We turned the corner. There was Mrs. Marder’s witchy old house.

  I shivered as I thought about her yelling at me.

  What did she mean, she was going to make us pay?

  We stopped at the gate and stared into her yard. No sign of her. She was probably in her kitchen, brewing up some strange potion!

  But her cats stalked everywhere. Under the bushes. Through the grass. Around the birdbath—hungrily eyeing the sparrows splashing in it.

  “We should do something to help those poor little birdies,” Frankie said suddenly. His voice had a nasty edge. “Come on!” He opened the gate and darted into the yard.

  Jeff groaned.

  Frankie stopped and turned toward us. A wicked grin crossed his face. He waved us in.

  “What do you think, Brit?” Louisa whispered. “Should we go?”

  “I don’t know,” I answered, biting my lip. “Mrs. Marder is really mad at us already.”

  “I’m not going,” Jeff declared. “I’m taking the long way to Max’s. See you.” He turned and walked toward Fear Street.

  Frankie vanished around the side of Mrs. Marder’s house.

  “Brit, we have to get Frankie out of there,” Louisa whispered. “Before Mrs. Murder sees him!”

  “Right.” I grabbed her arm. “Let’s go!”

  We ran through the gate.

  My heart pounded as we dashed across the yard. Black cats hissed at us as they scattered.

  I spotted Frankie. He stood over some big pots filled with blooming geranium plants. As I watched, he lifted up the biggest plant and ran with it across the yard.

  “Frankie!” I called in a hoarse whisper. “What are you doing?”

  He didn’t answer. He kept running. Then he heaved the pot—flowers and all—right into the middle of the birdbath. It made an awful crash.

  “There!” he cried loudly. “That’ll keep the birdies out of danger!”

  I groaned. Why did he do that?

  “Are you nuts?” Louisa shouted at Frankie. “Come on, Brit! Let’s get out of here!”

  “Too bad, kitties!” Frankie yelled. “No birdies for you! Fly away birds. Fly away.” He ran around the yard, flapping his arms. “You’re safe now.”