The Grasshopper Trap Read Online Free PDF

speed, I noticed the Troll passing me on the left and still accelerating, her braids snapping like bullwhips as she cut in front of me. Maybe she thought there actually were some wolves following us, I don’t know. More than likely it was simply that panic loves company. For my part, I couldn’t have cared less about a mere pack of wolves. A pack of wolves wasn’t even in the same league as a pack of darkness.
    But now here were Ronnie and I, engaged in the insanity of actually spreading quilts and blankets on top of an old hay tarp in preparation for spending the night outdoors. If I even relaxed my feigned enthusiasm for the undertaking—good word that, undertaking—Ronnie would become suspicious. Then both Fred Phelps and I would become outcasts at school next fall, when Ronnie spread the word that we
two yellow-bellied chickens were scared of the dark. Poor ol’ Fred’s reputation was already shot; mine hung in precarious balance.
    Of course, all I needed was a tiny little night light. Something the size of a birthday-cake candle would do—a fifteen-foot birthday-cake candle. Any obvious night light, though, would cause Ronnie to put some tough questions to me, like, “What you doing with that flashlight and the big stack of batteries?” Even if I’d had a big stack of batteries, I couldn’t have risked it.
    â€œWhat say we turn in?” Ronnie asked. “It’s already dark.”
    â€œI noticed,” I said.
    I glanced longingly up at our house, the lights of which were being flicked off one by one as my mother made her final rounds. She opened the back door and called out, “I’m going to bed now. You boys all right?”
    â€œYep,” Ronnie said.
    â€œYaup,” I said.
    Mom went back inside, and minutes later the last light on our side of the house flicked off. Ronnie and I were in TOTAL DARKNESS ! Not just the well-defined cube of darkness that filled a bedroom, but a great shapeless ocean of night!
    â€œYou ever hear the story about the stranger who got himself hung for claim-jumping, and his ghost still wanders these parts looking for revenge?” Ronnie said.
    â€œYeah, I heard it.”
    â€œWell, my pa seen that ghost crossing a field right out this way one night. Foggy it was, he said, and …”
    Idea! Why hadn’t I thought of it before! I leaped out of the covers and told Ronnie I’d be right back. “I forgot to brush my teeth,” I said, rushing toward the house. In the
bathroom, I jerked the string on the overhead light, waited an appropriate length of time, and then sauntered back outside. Perfect! The light from the bathroom window cast a nice rectangular patch of light right next to my side of the hay tarp.
    â€œYou left the bathroom light on,” Ronnie said.
    â€œDang,” I said. “If that doesn’t beat all! Oh, well, a little light won’t hurt anything.”
    â€œThis ghost story is better if it’s plumb dark,” Ronnie said. “But anyway, this ghost …” He droned on about the ghost and its horrible doings. I smiled sleepily, starting to drift off as I secretly stroked the grassy patch of protective light, occasionally turning to admire it in all its loveliness.
    Without warning, an ominous shadow suddenly appeared in my patch of light. Wha? I turned and looked up at the bathroom window. No! There, framed in the window, stood the Troll! She was in silhouette, so I couldn’t see her face, but I knew she was grinning her evil grin as she stared down in my direction. Slowly her hand reached for the light string. NO! DON’T DO IT! She made several teasing motions with the light string, then—Zap! The light was gone. Faintly, off in the darkness, I could hear the hollow sound of trollish laughter. She would have already locked all the doors to the house. Trolls are nothing if not thorough.
    So now there was nothing to do but suffer the night away.