"No, no, no! Jump, you idiot, jump!" A sad and electronic melody began to play, and Irene threw the videogame controller into the nearest pillow with a huff. She'd been working since she'd woken up to get to the next level, and it had once again eluded her. The feeling of failure was so overwhelmingly total that Irene instantly lost her appetite for the pancakes her mother had been cooking downstairs.
"Irene! Hey, cherry-head, breakfast is ready!" Irene's little brother dashed past the doorway of Irene's room before the disgruntled teen could reach for anything to throw at him. She'd warned him not to use the moniker of "cherry-head"; she hated cherries. In her opinion, they were too red and too sweet to be even considered fruit.
Irene quickly threw on some ratty clothing: torn jeans, a paint-covered t-shirt, and beat-up sneakers covered in dirt. Her old teacher, Mrs. Lavinne, who believed that a little community work could turn a juvenile delinquent into a sweet and caring friend, had conscripted her for volunteer service. Irene had always believed Mrs. L was off her rocker, but that hadn't stopped her mother from signing her up on the list at the end of the school year.
"Anything to get her away from those video games," her mother had whispered, "she's played them so much she'll be a robot soon enough."
Well, Irene would show her there was no wrong in her electronic habit. She walked casually past the dining room, ignoring her mother's call to breakfast, and proceeded straight out the front door.
The walk to Mrs. L's house usually took about five minutes, but Irene dragged her feet, absorbed in her own self-pity. She imagined her best friend, Sarah, sleeping in happily in her purple-quilted bed, the alarm clock blissfully unset. The sun seemed to mock Irene, burning down on the back of her neck as she trudged to the overly-pink house of her teacher. She'd wasted another five minutes just getting there.
Outside the house, a few students congregated, waiting to get set on whatever community service they would be doing that day. Irene hung back, hiding behind a bush to avoid the others, most of whom were smarmy honor-roll girls, now chattering falsely away about the benefits of work for others. Irene pondered sprinting away and realized Mrs. L would notice she was missing. It wasn't worth the trouble.
The noise and chatter settled down as Mrs. Lavinne emerged from her cake-like pink house, smiling broadly. Mrs. L always reminded Irene of a kindly old woman who baked cookies for the neighborhood kids, save the fact that her knitted sweaters hid the personality of a drill sergeant. Mrs. L would happily introduce herself to children at the beginning of each school year in a sticky-sweet voice, then promptly launch into an explanation of exactly how many units would be covered and how many detentions would be received for rule-breaking. It had always been a deep desire of Irene's to hit Mrs. L with the bright yellow yardstick she kept in the corner of the room to slam on the desks of sleeping students.
Today, Mrs. L wore pastel Capri pants, a yellow knitted shirt, and a woven straw hat, looking every bit as grandmotherly as she ever did. She carried a shovel and a pair of clippers in her pink-gloved hands, and smiled warmly as her former students gathered around her – Irene stayed by the bush, hidden behind the green leaves.
"Well, we have a most exciting assignment today!" Mrs. L began in a voice that Irene could only describe as saccharine, "the city council has told me that they're planning to tear down that old house on the hill to make way for a new mini-mall and movie theater!" There were quite a few feminine gasps and giggles at this announcement and Irene could make out the shining hair of her classmates as they jumped around and whispered happily. Mrs. L silenced them with a finger, and continued, "So, what I've volunteered to do is to help clear some of the brambles and ivy away from the walls to make the demolition job less messy for the workmen. And that's where we're going today!" She started off down her sidewalk and up the road, trailed by the multicolored group of girls and boys, moving and gossiping in anything but a straight line.
Mrs. L caught sight of Irene and beckoned her silently with a stern look. Irene dragged herself out from behind the shrub and hung as far back from the group as possible – the new mall was of no concern to her. She could get everything she wanted from sites off the Internet; what the American mentality with shopping in stores was for, Lord only knows.
As the group neared the enormous hill on which the old mansion house sat, Irene couldn't help but feel chilled. She, having grown up in this town, had heard practically every story surrounding the derelict home, and although she never believed in ghosts, she still was unwilling to approach someone denoted as "haunted". A few other kids in the group looked uneasily up at the gray-green visage of the house; Mrs. L, however, pressed boldly on in her pink pants, smiling and swinging her shovel.
Then, in an instant, they had begin the climb. The drive was almost indiscernible from the surrounding trees, so overgrown and ill-tended that whole gardens of wildflowers bloomed in the shade of overhanging branches. Now, the customary silence that came with walking through a heavily-wooded and less-visited area settled down on the teens, and even the most garrulous girls talked only in low whispers. Irene's t-shirt caught on a branch, and she nearly jumped out of her skin.
The group reached the house after a ten-minute hike up the verdant drive, and they clustered into a small group, looking up at the dank and foreboding building nervously. Mrs. L strode to the head of the group and smiled cheerfully, although not enough to break the fear and suspense that had blossomed in the students.
"Alright, now, let's all spread out along the fence. Just use your hands to pull up weeds and vines; they're very old anyways. I'll call you when it's time for a break." Smiling, she turned to the iron gate – completely solidified by vines – and began clipping away. One by one, the kids got the hint and walked along the fence, tearing up the ageless plants that seemed to grow out of the walls.
Irene ended up with a weedy and thistly spot near the back of the house; in her opinion, it was even creepier than the front because the sun hadn't risen over the mansion's roof as of yet. She sat down on a piece of stone and began ripping at the vines as Mrs. L had instructed her do to, immediately tearing up her palms. Irene watched the blood run down from the scratches calmly.
"Well, doesn't that suck," she muttered, flicking some of the red liquid away onto the wall, where it dribbled down into the mess of weeds. Irene sat sullenly, staring at the tangles for about five minutes. Then, she stood and, cursing, delivered a hefty kick to the wall.
What happened next flashed by in a blur. Irene's foot sank through the wall just as she noticed it was but a hole overgrown with vines and thistles. From the sudden movement, Irene fell back and knocked her head against the rock she'd been sitting on. Red stars exploded in her vision before darkness wiped everything away.
A piece of the wall crumbled behind Irene, blessedly missing the girl but obscuring where she'd worked from view. None of the other students on the hill heard the noise of the wall. In fact, only the inhabitants of the mansion noticed the echo; the birds, the bats, the mice, and one shadowy creature of rumor, who'd waited until darkness fell to examine the broken wall.