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house. Then I stopped. I stood still. I listened to hear if he’d seen me. No footsteps. Nothing. I finally took another breath. I was okay. I’d made it this far.
    I opened the door. It was unlocked. I snuck into the house. It was really peaceful inside. Not just quiet—but peaceful. You knew that the person who lived here never left his clothes on the floor or played air guitar when he thought no one was looking. The place felt like an old lady’s house.
    I tiptoed into the living room, and I got this weird feeling. It was like I’d been there before. I knew I couldn’t have been— but why did everything seem so familiar? I looked around. Wooden floor. Wooden chairs. Wooden table. One of those little rugs people make out of rags. A couple of old kerosene lamps. A fireplace.
    It hit me. I knew where I’d seen this place before. In the museum. This was exactly like the “Early Colonial” room they have in the “Historic Homes” section. We get dragged there every year. All this place needed was a rope across the door and a tour guide in a long dress and an old-fashioned hat.
    I knew there would be no phone in aplace like this, but that didn’t stop me from looking. I guess I just couldn’t give up my only hope. It was like I had two different brains, each telling me what to do. One was saying, Must find phone! Call for help! The other was going, Don’t even bother! The guy lives like it’s still 1895. There’s no phone here! There’s no Kleenex here either. Get out! Run for it!
    I just sort of ran around in circles like an idiot. I didn’t know who to listen to.
    I probably would have run around in circles all afternoon—if I hadn’t heard the back door open.

chapter ten
    I looked around the living room. There was no place to hide. No big couch. No big curtains. No closet. I didn’t know what to do.
    Or at least my brain didn’t. It was in a complete panic.
    My body, though, figured things out pretty fast. It saw the fireplace. Before I knew it, I’d ducked down and squeezedmyself in. I had to curl up like a cinnamon roll to fit.
    I just got my left foot tucked in when the guy came barreling into the room. He was wild—cursing and sputtering. He was headed right for the fireplace. The only thing blocking his view was a little wooden table. If he looked down, I was toast.
    I scrunched my eyes closed. If I was going to die, I didn’t want his ugly face to be the last thing I saw. I braced myself.
    Nothing happened. Or at least, nothing happened to
me
.
    The guy kept cursing. He knocked everything off the mantelpiece. He kicked the little wooden table. I opened my eyes a crack. His knee couldn’t have been more than six inches from my face. The guy obviously didn’t know I was there.
    Black, sooty dust was falling all over me. In my eyes. Up my nose. Down my shirt. Normally I’d be sneezing my face off. It dawned on me that I could start sneezing at any moment.
    But I didn’t sneeze. My nose didn’t even twitch. I guess terror works even better than pills for stopping allergies. Frankly I’d rather take the pills any day.
    I watched those big boots of his tromp around the room. He was looking for something—but not very well. You could tell he was not a patient guy. He gave up pretty quick.
    â€œThey ain’t here!” he said. I realized he wasn’t just swearing for the fun of it. He was talking to someone on his cell phone.
    â€œYeah, I told ya!” he was saying. “I found the kerosene...Yeah, and I found that too. That’s not the problem! The problem is I don’t have no more matches... Quit giving me a hard time! I needed a smoke, okay? Just tell me where the matches are!”
    There was a pause. Then the guy slammed something against the wall. The whole house shook—me included. He banged back into the kitchen.
    â€œWHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME THAT