The Book of Bad Things Read Online Free PDF Page B

pitch-black hair. She was dressed in black cargo shorts and a black T-shirt decorated with a small pink skull decal on the chest. Her worn-out All Star sneakers were also black, as were her socks, which she had pulled up over her knees. “I should know better than to sneak up on people. Especially back here. I’m sorry.”
    Back here? What was that supposed to mean?
    “My name is Ping,” said the girl. “I live on that side of the Tremonts.” She nodded in the opposite direction of the Chambers house. “My family moved in last year, just before school started. You’re the girl who’s staying with them this summer, right? We must have missed each other by a couple weeks back then.”
    “I’m Cassidy.” Dropping her tensed shoulders, she waved, a flip of several fingers.
    Ping smiled and then chuckled and waved back the same way.
    She watched Cassidy observe her outfit and seemed to read her mind. “My nickname at school is Spooky ,” she said and shrugged. “I’m not really spooky though, I don’t think; not most of the time. It’s just that I’m not interested in the same things as a lot of other girls. You know: kittens or sports or being BFFs and writing notes back and forth all day long. I don’t really care what people say, and as long as I have a book with me, I’m okay.”
    “Huh,” said Cassidy. “Me too.” Sort of. She tightened the straps of her backpack, feeling the weight of her notebook shift against her spine. “What are you reading now?” Cassidy asked.
    Ping’s hand moved to a cargo pocket that seemed especially full. “It’s a book about ancient Egypt. Actually, this one is about what they believed happens to you after you die, you know, the rituals they did to prepare you for the afterlife.” Her face lit up. “Did you know that, back then, the Egyptians took out all of the dead person’s organs and kept them in jars? They even had these long hooks that they stuck up a person’s nose to pull out his brains! So cool.”
    “Yeah, I think I read about that somewhere too,” said Cassidy, clutching her arms. “Very … cool.” Strange that this girl didn’t think of herself as actually spooky. She seemed to be the very definition of the word.
    “And they mummified cats! I saw one in a museum in New York once. Isn’t that so weird?”
    Cassidy glanced over her shoulder behind the oak tree. She remembered why she’d come to the backyard in the first place — the large creature she’d seen moving through the shadows. All this talk about the dead, and now dead animals, was making her lightheaded. Lucky was buried somewhere back there.
    Ping gasped, looking where Cassidy had focused her attention. “You were here when it happened, weren’t you?”
    “When what happened?”
    “The accident with the Tremonts’ dog.”
    Cassidy held her breath for a moment. “Lucky. Yeah. I was here. Joey never believed it was an accident.”
    Ping smiled sadly. “Trust me, I’ve heard him tell the story at school plenty of times. Kids are starting to call him spooky too. And worse things.”
    “Worse things? Like what?”
    “Like crazy .”
    The previous summer, on the day that Cassidy suggested they make contact with Ursula Chambers, she and Joey had left the dog outside when they’d gone in for dinner. Later, when Joey opened the back door to bring Lucky in, the dog didn’t stir from his spot near the oak. Not even when Joey approached. Mr. Tremont rushed the dog to the local animal hospital, but it was too late. Cassidy had held Joey’s hand as the doctor delivered the horrible news. She’d been too much in shock even to cry. The strange part, though, was what the vet had pulled out of Lucky’s mouth: A scrap of cloth had been lodged in there. The poor thing had choked on it. Only when the family got home did Cassidy realize where the scrap had come from. It was the same piece of blanket that Lucky had torn away from the broken basement window at Ursula’s house.
    Later that