Night of the Puppet People Read online

  Anna’s grin stayed frozen on her face. “It only takes ten minutes to put new strings on puppets, dumb head.”

  I gasped. I couldn’t breathe.

  “And the words on the wall?” Jenny said.

  Anna and Maria nodded. “Your puppets were very naughty,” Maria said.

  “You — you — you got us suspended from school,” Bird stammered, his face red with anger. “You got us grounded for a week. You got us in so much trouble.”

  “Have a great lunch,” Anna said. They turned and started to walk away. They both couldn’t stop laughing.

  After a few steps, Anna turned around. “If you tell on us, no one will believe you,” she said. “You know I’m right.” She spun away and hurried to catch up with her friend.

  I stood watching them walk away. I was gritting my teeth so hard, my jaw ached. Every muscle in my body was tensed and tight. I felt the anger in my chest and imagined steam pouring from my ears.

  Jenny and Bird appeared frozen in shock. I turned to them and in a trembling whisper, I choked out: “This means WAR.”

  After dinner Friday night, Jenny and I ran across the street to Bird’s house. Coach Sparrow was away at his soccer team practice. The three of us hurried up to the attic to pull the marionettes from the cabinet.

  I realized my heart was racing and my hands felt cold and sweaty. I just couldn’t get over my lingering fear of puppets. These puppets had already landed us in major trouble. I knew it wasn’t their fault. I knew thinking that they were actually alive wasn’t just crazy — it was stupid.

  But still …

  The strings on all three puppets had become tangled when we returned them to the cabinet. We spread them out on their backs on the attic floor and worked at untangling them.

  “Tell me again,” Jenny said to me. “Why exactly are we doing this? Why are we rehearsing our skit again?”

  “Yeah. Explain,” Bird repeated. “You know what my dad said. He said —”

  “I know what your dad said,” I interrupted. “He told us a hundred times not to use these puppets.”

  Bird’s eyes locked on mine. “And you do remember that Mrs. O’Neal kicked us out of the variety show?”

  “I know, I know,” I replied. One of the strings to the sultan’s head had a tight knot in it. Squinting in the dim attic light, I struggled to loosen it.

  “So why are we up here rehearsing our puppet skit?” Bird demanded.

  “We’re going to photo-bomb the variety show,” I said.

  Jenny laughed. “You mean puppet-bomb the show?”

  I nodded. I couldn’t keep a grin from my face. I knew my idea was brilliant and awesome, if I didn’t say so myself.

  “We’re going to sneak to the side of the stage during the variety show,” I explained. “Then we’re going to run onstage and do our skit.”

  Bird raised a hand. “But — but —”

  “Once we’re out there, how can Mrs. O’Neal stop us?” I said, waving him down. “Is she going to drag us off one by one? Of course not. Once we start, there’s no way she can stop us.”

  “But we can’t win the prize money,” Jenny said. “We can’t —”

  “That doesn’t matter,” I told her. “This is all about revenge. Our puppets are so awesome, and our skit is totally funny. Let’s say Anna and Maria win the grand prize. Everyone will know that we were better. Even if they win, WE win!”

  Jenny and Bird thought about it for a moment. Then Bird cracked a smile, and his little bird eyes lit up. “Excellent plan, dude.”

  Jenny frowned. “We could get into trouble again.”

  “But it would be worth it,” I said. “Anna and Maria spoiled everything for us. Now it’s our turn to spoil it for them.”

  Jenny shrugged. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

  It took a while to get the strings untangled and the knots out. Then we made the knight, the princess, and the sultan stand, and we started to rehearse. It was easy to get back to the skit, especially since we had rehearsed for so long for our audition.

  We had some funny new ideas. In one, the knight deliberately gets his strings tangled up with the princess. The sultan tries to separate them, and he gets tangled up, too.

  It was a tricky thing to do, because we didn’t really want the strings to become tangled. But when we finally got it right, it looked very funny. And we made up a lot of great dialogue for the three mixed-up puppets.

  The three of us were feeling pretty good. And as we worked the skit out, our revenge plan seemed better and better. We rehearsed for nearly two hours. Then Jenny and Bird went downstairs to get some snacks and drinks.

  And that’s when something weird happened.

  I was dancing the sultan back and forth down the narrow attic. I made him raise both hands above his head, and then I had him kick his legs high in the air, one at a time, kick … kick … kick … in a wild rhythmic dance.

  I’m not sure if I tripped over the puppet or if I just lost my balance. I had the strangest feeling that the puppet tripped me. But, of course, that was ridiculous.

  Anyway, the next thing I knew, I was down on the floor. I hit hard on my left side and pain shot up from my elbow. The sultan puppet collapsed on top of me. The head and the turban bounced against my side, and its arms fell limply around me, as if wrapping me in a loose hug.

  “Ohhhhh.” I uttered a low moan and waited for the pain in my arm to fade.

  Then I started to pull myself up. But the puppet was in an awkward position. I mean, it felt as if it was pushing me down. Yes. Crazy. I know. But the two hands pressed against my side.

  And then the sultan’s head moved. It bobbed once. Twice. And raised itself toward my face.

  I tried to shake my head clear. I knew I was just feeling a little weird because of my fall. I knew the puppet wasn’t climbing over me, both little hands grabbling at my sweatshirt.

  “Whoa! Wait!”

  I cried out as I felt the puppet’s long nose poke at my ear. I struggled to push the sultan off me. But the wooden nose bobbed and bumped my ear.

  And then I felt it poke inside. Inside my ear. And I felt a strange tingle. Almost like an electric shock. I heard a buzzing sound and felt a strong vibration.

  “Nooooo!” I uttered a cry, grabbed the puppet by its shoulders — and heaved it off me. The nose slid out of my ear with a loud crackle.

  “Ben — what’s up?”

  For one second, I thought the sultan said that. But then I saw Bird at the top of the attic stairs, carrying cans of Coke, and staring across the room at me on the floor with the puppet gripped in both hands.

  “I … uh … tripped,” I said. I climbed up quickly. I held the puppet by the waist. Its head and hands hung limply down. “I tripped over the puppet and fell.” I rubbed my arm. “Landed on my funny bone.”

  “Ouch,” Jenny said, crossing the room with a large bag of tortilla chips and a bowl of salsa. “Are you okay?”

  I nodded. “I guess.”

  I could still feel the electric tingling in my ear. My whole body seemed to buzz. I shook myself, trying to force the sound away.

  I took the bag of tortilla chips from my sister, tore it open, and grabbed a handful. I suddenly felt unbelievably hungry, as if I hadn’t eaten in days. We sat down with our backs against the attic wall and had our snack time.

  A few minutes later, we put aside the chips and the soda cans and picked up our marionettes. We were just starting to rehearse again when Bird’s dad burst into the attic.

  He was still in his soccer sweatshirt. The front was stained with sweat. His coach’s whistle dangled from a cord around his neck.

  When he saw us, his eyes bulged and his mouth opened in an O of shock.

  “Those puppets? You took them out again?” he cried, pointing at the marionettes with a trembling finger. “I told you to put them in the cabinet and leave them there. I pleaded with you not to take them out.”

  He narrowed his eyes at us. “Don’t you realize we’re now in
danger? All of us — we’re in terrible danger!”

  Coach Sparrow lumbered toward us, shaking his head. He kept his eyes on the three puppets in our hands.

  “I told you last week,” he said, “I hid them away years ago. I knew I should have destroyed them.”

  “But — why, Dad?” Bird demanded. “What’s wrong with them? You keep telling us not to use them. But you won’t tell us why.”

  Coach Sparrow started to talk, but his voice faded from my ears. I suddenly had a flash of memory. Something had been troubling me since we found the puppets. Something had been pushing at the back of my mind. And now I saw it so clearly.

  “Jenny,” I said. “These are the puppets from our birthday party!”

  “Excuse me?” She squinted at me. “Birthday party?”

  “Yes,” I said, unable to hide my excitement. “Our party when we were five. I just remembered them.”

  “Oh, wow,” Jenny murmured. “Wow. Wow. You’re right.” She raised her eyes to Bird’s dad. “These puppets terrified everyone at our party. We were all crying.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “I remember it all now. There was a puppeteer at the party. An old man. He had a long white beard.”

  “Yes. I remember him, too,” Jenny said. “When the puppets made everyone cry, he went berserk. He grabbed up his puppets and ran out of the house.”

  “I remember it, too,” Coach Sparrow said softly.

  The three of us turned to him. “Why do you remember it?” I asked.

  “Because I was the old puppeteer,” he replied.

  He walked to the cabinet, reached inside, and pulled out the fake white beard. He held it up to his face. “See? It was me at your birthday party.”

  Jenny and I stared hard at him. The memories of that frightening day came rushing back. And now we held the three puppets that had terrified us so badly.

  Bird was the first to speak. “Dad? You were a puppeteer?”

  Coach Sparrow sighed. “Well, I wanted to be an entertainer back then. I was already teaching. But I thought I could pick up extra money by doing shows at kids’ birthday parties. But it didn’t work out …” His voice trailed off.

  “Where’d you get these puppets?” Bird asked him. “Did you make them?”

  “Make them? No. I bought them from a puppet-maker on the other side of town. I brought them home and practiced with them, trying to come up with a funny act for kids. Ben and Jenny’s birthday party was the first puppet show I ever gave.”

  He sighed again. “The first and the last.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “I remember the puppets bit us and hurt us. Was that supposed to be funny?”

  Bird’s dad shook his head. “Of course not. I … I can’t really explain, Ben. I only know that I lost control of them. They didn’t do what I tried to make them do.”

  Coach Sparrow shook his head, remembering. “It scared me to death. It was like they were … ALIVE.”

  A hush fell over the attic. Jenny, Bird, and I were still holding our puppets by their control sticks. I set mine down on the floor and took a step back from it.

  “The birthday party was a disaster.” Coach Sparrow continued his story. “I grabbed the puppets up into my arms as fast as I could. I had to stop them before they hurt more kids. I grabbed them and ran home. And I locked the puppets away up here and hid the cabinet behind a stack of cartons. I knew I’d never use them again.”

  He mopped his forehead with the sleeve of his soccer jersey. He shuddered. I guess he was remembering how frightened he had been.

  “Why didn’t you just throw them in the trash?” Bird demanded.

  “I thought about it,” his dad replied. “But what if someone else found them? What if someone gave them to children and then the children were hurt by them? I decided it was safer to lock them up and keep them hidden.”

  I shuddered. Once again, I remembered feeling the sultan puppet’s wooden nose poking into my ear. We should have left these puppets locked up.

  Coach Sparrow had a faraway look in his eyes. “I wanted to give them back to the puppet-maker,” he said. “I was desperate to give them back to him. And to ask him why the puppets went out of control.”

  He shook his head again. “But I lost the man’s address. I searched the neighborhood across town, but I couldn’t find his building. I tried everything. But I couldn’t find him.”

  Bird made the knight puppet bounce up and down on the floor. Then he made the puppet take a bow.

  “Stop. We have to hide the puppets away,” Coach Sparrow insisted. “Hand them to me. We have to lock them up again — before it’s too late.” He bent down and lifted the sultan puppet off the floor and tossed it over his shoulder.

  “But we need them,” Bird cried. “We need them for school. You can’t lock them away. Just let us do our show with them. Then we’ll bring them right home and lock them up again for good. I promise.”

  “Not happening,” Coach Sparrow said. He took the princess controls from Jenny. “Not happening. Maybe the puppets haven’t done anything evil so far. But they will! Trust me. They will!”

  The three of us argued with him some more. But we could see he wouldn’t change his mind.

  We watched helplessly as he hung the puppets in the cabinet. Then he shut the cabinet doors tight and fastened the metal latch. “Stay away from them,” he said, gazing from Bird to Jenny to me. “I’m serious. Don’t let these puppets out again.”

  We watched him cross the attic. No one said a word until he lumbered down the stairs and was out of sight.

  I dropped onto the floor with a sigh, then rested my back against the attic wall. “So much for that great plan,” I muttered.

  Bird ran a hand back through his hair. “We’re ruined. We have no act. Anna and Maria win again.”

  I had my arms crossed in front of me. Suddenly, my hands shot up above my head. “Hey!” I let out a startled cry.

  “Ben — what are you doing?” Jenny demanded.

  My arms sank limply at my sides.

  My heart started to race. “I … didn’t mean to do that,” I stammered.

  My arms felt weird. Kind of light and weak. And my hands suddenly felt heavy, as if they’d put on weight.

  “Whoa.” Both hands rose up above my head again. And my legs kicked up and down.

  Bird laughed. “Dude, you look like a puppet.”

  “Stop doing that, Ben.” Jenny grabbed my left arm and tugged it down. But it shot right up again. “You’re not funny,” Jenny said. “Stop it. You’re scaring me.”

  It’s scaring me, too, I thought. What is happening to me?

  Bright yellow sunlight through my bedroom window woke me up on Saturday morning. I blinked a few times, glanced at the clock on my bed table. Nine twenty.

  My stomach rumbled. I don’t usually sleep that late.

  I tried to raise my head from the pillow. It felt heavier than usual. It took a hard pull to raise it a few inches.

  I blinked some more. My eyelids slid up and down. I tried to stop them, but they kept on blinking.

  What’s up with that?

  I started to kick my covers off. But my legs felt weak. My kick was too soft to move the blanket. I concentrated and tried again. My legs felt kind of rubbery, as if I had no bones.

  Still blinking, I sat up. I guessed I’d slept in a bad position. You know the tingling feeling you get in your hand when you’ve slept on top of it? That’s what my whole body felt like.

  I finally stood up, but my knees kept bending. I stretched my hands above my head. Gave myself a good stretch. Yes. I was starting to feel more like myself.

  I pulled on yesterday’s jeans and a T-shirt from the pile of shirts on my closet floor. Then I made my way to the kitchen for breakfast.

  Jenny sat at the table with her face nearly dunking into a big bowl of Corn Flakes. She looked up as I entered. “Mom and Dad went grocery shopping. They said they might be gone all morning.” She had a ring of milk around her
mouth and down her chin.

  I took the cereal box off the counter and started toward my place at the table. But my legs bent and I nearly dropped the box. I struggled to walk straight. But I kept bobbing up and down the way a marionette walks.

  Jenny squinted at me from behind her Corn Flakes bowl. “Why are you doing that? Are you trying to be funny?”

  I didn’t want to tell her I was having major problems. I didn’t want to freak her out until I could figure out what was wrong with me.

  “Yeah. I’m trying to be funny,” I said.

  She rolled her eyes. “Hilarious.”

  My arms felt stiff and weak. I had to grip the cereal box in both hands. My hands felt floppy, almost as if they had no bones.

  A chill of fear ran down my back. Something is very wrong.

  I forced a smile to my face. I didn’t want to frighten Jenny. I wished Mom and Dad were home. Maybe I was getting the flu or something. Maybe I needed to see Dr. Ackerman.

  I poured some Corn Flakes into a bowl. Then I reached for the milk carton. But both of my hands shot up over my head. They dangled up there like puppet hands.

  Jenny squinted at me from across the table. “Why are you even weirder than usual this morning?” she asked.

  “Dunno,” I muttered. I was suddenly too frightened to give a sarcastic answer. “Dunno.”

  My mouth slid up and down stiffly. I tried to move my lips, but they felt stiff, too. My jaw wouldn’t slide from side to side. It would only move up and down.

  “Put your arms down,” Jenny said. “You’re not funny, Ben. You’re just weird.”

  I have to tell her what’s happening to me, I decided.

  “Jenny, I’m not trying to be funny,” I said. The words came out garbled because my mouth wouldn’t move right. My teeth kept clicking after every word.

  “I’m not trying to be funny,” I repeated. “I … I don’t feel right. I think I’m … turning into a puppet.”

  She set down her cereal spoon and studied me. Then she burst out laughing.