Sakura Haruno: The Haunted Mask
Chapter 1
"What are you going to be for Halloween?" Ino Yamanaka asked. She moved her fork around in the bright yellow macaroni on her lunch tray, but didn't take a bite.
Sakura Haruno sighed and shook her head. The overhead light on the lunchroom ceiling made her straight pink gleam. "I don't know. A witch, maybe."
Ino's mouth dropped open. "You? A witch?"
"Well, why not?" Sakura demanded, staring across the long table at her fiend.
"I thought you were afraid of witches," Ino replied. She raised a forkful of macaronito her mouth and started to chew. "This macaroni is made of rubber," she complasined, chewing hard. "Remind me to start packing a lunch."
"I am not afraid of witches!" Sakura insisted, her eyes flashing angrily. "You just think I'm a big scaredy-cat, don't you?"
Ino giggled. "Yes." She flipped her blonde ponytail behind her shoulders with a quick toss of her head. "Hey, don't eat the macaroni. Really, Sakura. It's gross." She reached across the table to keep Sakura from raising her fork.
"But I'm starving!" Sakura complained.
The lunchroom grew crowded and noisy. At the next table, a group of fifth-grade boys were tossing a half-full milk carton back and forth. Sakura saw Sasuke Uchiha ball up a bright red fruit rollup and shove the whole sticky thing in his mouth.
"Yuck!" She made a disgusted face at him. Then she turned back to Ino. "I am not a scaredy-cat, Ino. Just because everyone picks on me and - "
"Sakura, what about last week? Remember? At my house?" Ino ripped open a bag of tortilla chips and offered some across the table to her friend.
"You mean the ghost thing?" Sakura replied, frowning. "That was really stupid."
"But you believed it," Ino said with a mouthful of chips. "You really believed my attic was haunted. You should have seen the look on your face when the ceiling started to creak, and we heard the footsteps up there."
"That was so mean," Sakura complained, rolling her eyes.
"Then when you heard footsteps coming down the stairs, your face went all white and you screamed," Ino recalled. "It was only Sasuke and Naruto."
"You know I'm afraid of ghosts," Sakura said, blushing.
"And snakes and bugs and loud noises and dark rooms and - and witches!" Ino declared.
"I don't see why you have to make fun of me," Sakura pouted. She shoved her lunch tray away. "I don't see why everyone always thinks it's so much fun to try to scare me. Even you, my best friend."
"I'm sorry," Ino said sincerely. She reached across the table and squeezed Sakura's wrist reassuringly. "You're just so easy to scare. It's hard to resist. Here. Want some more chips?" She shoved the bag toward Sakura.
"Maybe I'll scare you some day," Sakura threatened.
Her friend laughed. "No way!"
Sakura continued to pout. She was eleven. But she was tiny. And with her round face and short stub of a nose (which she hated and wished would grow longer), she looked much younger.
Ino, on the other hand, was tall, dark, and sophisticated-looking. She had straight blonde hair tied behind her head in a ponytail, and enormous, dark eyes. Everyone who saw them together assumed that Ino was twelve or thirteen. But, actually, Sakura was a month older than her friend.
"Maybe I won't be a witch!" Sakura said thoughtfully, resting her chin on her hands. "Maybe I'll be a disgusting monster with hanging eyeballs and green slime dripping down my face and - "
A loud crash made Sakura scream.
It took her a few seconds to realize that it was just a tray hitting the floor. She turned to see Hinata Hyuga, her face bright red, drop to her knees and start scooping his lunch off the floor. The lunchroom rang out with cheers and applause.
Sakura hunched down in her seat, embarrassed that she had screamed.
Her breathing had just returned to normal when a strong hand grabbed her shoulder from behind.
Sakura's shriek echoed through the room.