A/N: Sorry it took so long to update! My schedule has been swamped, but I finally got there!

Close Call

The footsteps were planted. Louis took in a deep breath, but as soon as he did he knew it was too loud. Miss Pateer's short, sharp breaths paused for a moment. The doorknob began to turn.

"Quick! Under the bed," Tawny shoved the comforter aside to reveal the underside of Allison's bed.

Louis dove under the bed before Twitty could make a move. He frantically looked for a place to hide and scampered across the room to the closet, shutting the door seconds before the door to the hall opened.

Miss Pateer's bulky body took up all the space in the doorframe. Sophie, the cook, stood huffing behind her. She looked as if she'd just run a mile. Her graying hair was falling loose from a bun. It was then that Tawny noticed her lazy eye.

Miss Pateer's face was very red, her chest was heaving. But then as if by magic, the redness was replaced with a peach-like, but white-colored glowing face. Her soon-to-be-famous smirk spread across her face.

"Children," she spoke quickly. "Have you seen your two friends Darnell and Clarence?"

"Darnell and Clarence?" Tawny raised an eyebrow.

"You know, Luke. . . and what's the other's name?"

"Oh!" Tom exclaimed. "You mean Lou—"

He was interrupted when Tawny slapped her hand across his mouth.

"Yeah!" She continued. "Our friends."

"But if I recall," Allison stepped in. "We were asking you the same question."

She gave the short woman a detective-like look.

"Oh. . . of course!" Miss Pateer stuttered. "I just wanted to know if you'd spotted, well, found them yet."

By this time Tawny had uncovered Tom's mouth.

"Why? Are they lost?" He asked. "It's a mighty big house. They could be anywhere."

"Hmm."

Tawny shot a quick glance at the closet door, but out of the corner of her eye, she saw Miss Pateer's eyes start to survey the room.

Sophie cleared her throat. "I think I'd better help some kids unpack downstairs. There's a lot to hang up in the closet."

Miss Pateer took the hint. She began walking slowly toward the closet. What Tawny, Allison and Tom hadn't noticed, was that there were two closets. And Miss Pateer was walking toward the one Twitty was not in.

She had a sly look on her face and she inched closer and closer to the closet. The three teens tried to keep solemn looks on their faces.

With what seemed like the speed of light, Miss Pateer flung open the door and peered inside. The closet was bare. It was then she noticed the other closet.

"Oh," she said turning. "I thought I had a rat in there." She emphasized the word "rat."

She casually brushed something invisible off the front pocket of her blouse as she began stepping toward the second closet. "Maybe it's in here."

She had her hand on the knob. This was it.

Suddenly, someone sneezed, and not just anyone. It came from under one of the beds.

Miss Pateer's head turned abruptly. The smirk returned. She began walking alongside the opposite wall of the beds, away from the closet.

"Are you sure you haven't seen your friends?" She asked, in a matter-of- fact type way.

"P-Positive," Tom managed to choke out. He had begun to start quivering.

Miss Pateer frowned. Without warning, she marched over to the bed, leaned over, and whipped up the covers.

Tawny swallowed a scream. She closed her eyes; ready for the evil laugh she'd heard in too many horror movies.

"Humph." Miss Pateer murmured. "Drat."

Bewildered, Tawny bent over a bit to see Louis sneaking out from under the bed, behind Miss Pateer's back. He quickly crawled quietly under the other bed.

"Well, if you see them, tell them we've been looking for 'em!" With that, Miss Pateer pranced out of the room.

Tawny let out a deep sigh that she'd been holding for about a minute. She quickly got to the door and shut it before pushing her back against it. "She doesn't know your real names."

"So?"

"That could go to our advantage, Louis," Tawny replied hotly. "It means she has a lesser chance of finding you when most people are going to talk about you using your real name. I don't think she even knows my real name!"

"That women is mad," Allison said. "We need to do something."

"Like what?" Twitty asked, opening the closet door. "Do you except our parents to believe us if we tell them what happened? They'll think it's a practical joke."

"Not if we've got Tom with us," Allison remarked. "Everyone trusts him."

"Even if that's true—" Tawny started.

"We don't have a phone."

"But, Allison, I thought you did."

"I know," Allison sighed, "but if my mother hadn't kept telling me she'd call every day to make sure I was okay, I would have brought it."

A giggle escaped from Louis.

"Smooth move," he muttered.

"So what are we going to do?" Tom asked. "There could be someone out to get us, and now we'll never see our parents again, we'll never see our school, we're all going to be eaten by flying squirrels—"

"Tom!" Twitty cut him off. "Just. . .shut up. Please."

"Sorry," Tom laughed. "I tend to a bit excited when there's, you know, a MURDERER on the loose."

"What makes you think that?" Tawny asked. "I mean, what's-his-face was killed by Henry Stevenson, remember? If there was still a murderer here, it would have to be a ghost."

"And there's no such thing," Allison added cheerfully. "There's no murderer, Tom."

"Fine, I'll let you think on that for awhile, but until you come up with proof that Miss Pateer isn't hiding something, I'm on the lookout!" Tom stated superiorly.

"We should talk to Ren," Twitty spoke up. "I mean, she's the High School Helper. She'll believe us. She believed us when we thought Beans was an alien."

"And found out we were wrong!" Louis yelled. "No way is she gonna believe us! We've got to do this our way."

"And what's our way?" Tawny asked.

"A night job," Louis replied.

It was dark. The hallways were lit with only the dim lights coming from under the doors to all the bedrooms on that floor.

Louis, Tawny, Twitty, Allison, and Tom slowly crept through the hallway. They could hear someone snoring in one of the bedrooms as they passed it, and some other girls laughing and gossiping in the room across from it.

Tawny felt the walls until she came to an opening, the staircase.

"Be really careful," she whispered. "Any one of these old steps can creak."

They slowly lowered themselves onto the first step, about two people at a time, and began to descend the old stairwell.

Tom lacked closeness to the group in no time. He was being extra careful, surveying each step, putting a bit of weight on it to make sure it didn't creak. Too bad it didn't turn out that well.

"Tom! Come on!" Louis hissed. "You're going to get caught!"

Exasperated he marched back up few a steps and grabbed Tom's arm, pulling him down two steps at a time. He soon regretted it, though.

The second Louis and Tom set foot on the last step behind Tawny and Allison, it let out the loudest creak, so loud that Tawny had to plug her ears, hoping that would block out the sound for everyone in the house. Of course—it was the opposite.

"Who's there?" Came one of the butler's voices.

"Run!" Louis yelled, immediately being slapped in the face by Tawny.

"Shut up!" she yelled, but followed as the group stumbled down the last dozen steps.

They rounded the corner at the end of the banister and dove behind the desk in the gift shop. Not long after did they hear the steps of the butler, creaking at the bottom of the stairs, and it was pretty obvious he was looking for them.

Tawny put her fingers to her lips and everyone held their breath. They were forced to quickly exhale when the butler yelled, "Show yourself!"

He thinks it's just one person, Tawny thought.

She pushed Twitty out from behind the counter and quickly whispered instructions to him.

"Uh, hi!" Twitty smiled, brushing his hair out of his eyes. "I was uh, looking for my favorite. . .book. Yeah, my book. I think I left it down here. Uh. . ." He looked around the room, trying to find anything that resembled a book.

It was hard, though. He could feel the deathly stare of the creepy butler.

"Oh, there it is!" Twitty exclaimed, grabbing some large book from under the coffee table.

"A photo album?" The butler's cruel expression disappeared a bit as he raised an eyebrow, but the toughness remained.

"Um, yeah. Every picture's worth a thousand words and I'm a heavy reader, so. . .goodnight!" Twitty ran past the butler and darted up the stairs.

The butler grunted a turned his head toward the gift shop, where the strange young boy had emerged from.

Tawny peered around the counter and saw the butler was looking in their direction, but over the desk, and was still at his spot in the hallway.

The butler slowly began to walk into the room, his head tilted to the side a bit, as if he was listening for something like—

"Hold your breath!" Tawny mouthed.

It was too dark to see her mouth, but everyone knew what she meant.

Tom looked behind him and saw something dark towering over him. He cowered into Louis' side, but soon realized that it was a the inside of a door. Maybe it was a storage room.

He tapped everyone's hand and began to crawl into the room, feeling everything around him to make sure he didn't knock anything over. Everyone followed him, until they were safely inside. The butler was still there, but now he couldn't see them at all.

The only bad thing about this situation was that. . .

They were trapped.