Fatal Bargain Read Online Free PDF Page B

it was Sherree’s house they were supposed to be going to?” Mardee was laughing.
    Kevin did not know Sherree. How was he supposed to be suspicious?
    “Sherree is all body and no mind,” said Mardee.
    Kevin was pretty sure he would remember meeting somebody like that.
    “They’re actually going to party all night in the dark in a deserted house,” said Mardee.
    Kevin was overwhelmed. His sister? Party? “No,” said Kevin. “I don’t think Lacey parties. She’s kind of a —” But Kevin loved Lacey, so he did not say that she was kind of an airhead. But it was true.
    “It’s a party, all right,” said Mardee cheerfully. “Bobby doesn’t do anything on Saturday nights but party.”
    Kevin was rather proud of his sister. It was time she broke out and did something other than study, practice, work out, and be kind to the elderly. Lacey at a party. Kevin could not quite picture this. He wondered if the others would give her partying lessons.
    He wondered what Mardee would be like at a party. Kevin had not done a whole lot of partying in his life, either. Starting with Mardee would be a pleasant introduction. He said, “Mardee.”
    “Yup. That’s my name, don’t wear it out.”
    Kevin had thought they stopped saying that in third grade, but evidently not. He went on manfully, “Mardee, what do you say we — um —” but unfortunately, he was too rattled to remember what he had planned to suggest. The only activity that sprang to mind, he could not suggest aloud on a telephone.
    “Yes!” said Mardee.
    Kevin was awestruck. Would it be as easy as this?
    “I know the address,” said Mardee. “Of course, neither one of us has a car, but that could be the fun part.”
    Kevin was eager to have the fun part.
    “It’s probably a mile if you walk over to my house,” said Mardee, “and probably another mile to the Mall House.”
    The Mall House? That horrible termite-infested porch-rotting monstrosity waiting to be ripped down? Kevin was horrified. Of all the places he did not want to go on a first date —
    “What we could do is,” said Mardee, giggling wildly, “we could scare them. That’s why they went there, you know. To be scared. We could add the extras. The special touches. The really good noises. Tapping on windowpanes. Howling like the wind.”
    “Let me get this straight. You want me to walk over to your house, get you, we’d walk to that abandoned mansion, creep up in the dark, throw pebbles at the window, hide behind those old fallen trees, and listen to my sister and your brother scream in the dark.”
    “Right!” cried Mardee. “Won’t it be fun?”
    Kevin ceased to be an eighth-grade boy striving for adulthood and sex. He became a fifth-grader, dying for Halloween and fake blood, free candy, and screaming girls. “I’m on my way,” said Kevin. “Find a flashlight.”
    “A flashlight!” said Mardee, disgusted. “And let them see us? Nosirree. We’re going in the pitch dark, buddy.”
    “Pitch dark,” repeated Kevin reverently. All sorts of possibilities sprouted in his beginner mind.
    Roxanne held on to the hammer.
    If the vampire came near her, she would let him have it. Roxanne was good at sports, although she had not gone out for any since middle school. The coaches were always after her to be on a team, but Roxanne disliked losing anything publicly. It wasn’t so bad to goof up in gym class, and it wasn’t so bad to screw up on an exam in an academic class. But in a gymnasium when the bleachers were filled? On a playing field when parents and friends lined the grass?
    No, Roxanne liked to stack things in her favor. And in sports, the odds of being an idiot or doing poorly were too uncomfortable.
    She hefted the hammer. It felt good and strong in her hand.
    “Okay, I’m sorry,” said Randy from his corner. He sounded belligerent, the way people do when the whole thing is their own fault, when there’s absolutely no way to pin it on anybody else.
    Nobody