Chapter 6: A Witch, A Monster, and A Plan
But, of course, Amanda wasn't pregnant. Amanda was sure, so Lee was sure. Pretty sure.
"What do you think, Lee?" Jamie asked.
"What?" Lee didn't want to tell the boys what he was thinking just then.
"Should we have La Llorona, the banshee, or the witch in the haunted house?" Jamie asked. "They sound a lot alike."
They were sitting on folding chairs in the garage with the boys' friends, Mark and Andy. They were expecting a third friend, Tom, later. Philip and Jamie had recruited them to help with the haunted house, and they were all pretty eager to join in.
Lee had stayed with Amanda most of the morning, then he had gone home for lunch and to study the information for their assignment with the Petrescus and to make a few calls to the Agency. Later that afternoon, Lee had returned to Amanda's house to check on her. He didn't bring the pregnancy test because they had already agreed to do it on Thursday. Amanda's mother had somewhere to be that day anyway, so no one else would be home, and they could conduct the test privately. If he brought it too early, Dotty might spot it by accident.
When Lee got back to the house, he learned that the boys had invited some friends over to talk about the haunted house project. With Amanda sick, he'd volunteered to help the boys, and Philip and Jamie had accepted more eagerly than he'd even expected.
It turned out that Philip and Jamie's friends were the same boys Lee remembered meeting a couple of Halloweens ago. Philip had managed to get tangled up in an errand that Amanda was running for the Agency because he had decided that one of their neighbors, the one who was actually a Russian agent, might be a vampire. He had dragged their friends along on his little vampire-hunting expedition on Halloween night.
Fortunately, Lee had been disguised as a policeman that night, and Mark and Andy didn't recognize him now. He hoped that the same would be true of Tom, the boy who was coming later. When Lee had last seen Tommy (as he was called then), he was the chubby boy who had stayed behind at Amanda's house, eating all the Halloween treats and watching monster movies while all the other boys were on their vampire hunt. It had been a pretty confusing evening, and Tommy had only seen Lee briefly toward the end of it, when he'd ordered the boys to clean up their mess.
"Why are we even thinking about those?" Mark complained about the banshee and witch ideas. "We don't even have any girls to play them."
One of the regrets Lee had about the boys bringing their friends in on the haunted house project was that Philip and Jamie spent more time talking things over with them than with him. It gave him more time to think about things he didn't want to think about.
"Think about it," Philip said. He held up his hands like he was setting the scene before them. "Long flowing gowns, eerie wailing. Perfect haunted house stuff!"
"I'm not dressing up as a girl, even an undead one!" Mark declared.
"Who asked you to?" Philip asked.
"Nobody yet, but I'm still saying I'm not going to!"
On the other hand, the boys' friends weren't bad, Lee thought. Mark apparently knew how insistent Philip could be when he wanted something. But, Lee doubted that Mark really needed to worry.
"Maybe we could find some girls," Philip said. His tone was casual, as if he really didn't care one way or the other whether they did or not. Lee was instantly suspicious.
Had Philip been planning this all along, to invite some girl, probably the Kelly Sharp that Jamie was talking about, to join the haunted house? Was that even more of a motive for him than making money off it? Of course, if Philip had a new little girlfriend, there would be no worries about him being interested in young Antonia Petrescu. That would be one less thing for Lee to worry about.
"Tom said something about the witch idea when I talked to him on the phone the other night," Jamie said. "He says he knows someone who can play a witch. That's why he's not here yet. He had to wait for her softball practice to end."
"Softball?" Philip frowned, his brow furrowing slightly.
Lee didn't know what softball had to do with it, but he thought he knew why Philip was concerned. Whoever Tom was bringing, it might interfere with Philip's plans to include his new girlfriend.
"Well, between La Llorona, the banshee, and the witch," Lee said, speaking up for the first time in the last half hour, "La Llorona and the banshee are the most alike. They both wear long gowns and wail a lot. You could combine them both into one character and call her, 'The Wailing Woman' or something like that. Witches are a little different, so you can have one of those too, if you want."
"'The Wailing Woman,'" Jamie said thoughtfully. "I like that."
Philip's frown didn't change. He was still worried about something.
"I'm still not wearing a dress," Mark stated flatly.
"I don't think you'll have to worry about that," Jamie said.
There was a knock at the side door.
"I'll get it," Jamie said. "It must be Tom."
Philip muttered, "I hope he didn't bring . . ." When Philip saw the two kids who entered the garage, he put his head in his hands and said, "He did!"
Lee recognized the stocky boy as the couch potato from Philip and Jamie's Halloween party. The kid wasn't quite as pudgy as he'd been back then, but his build suggested that he still liked to eat. Tom was carrying a large, overstuffed duffle that kind of caught on the edge of the door as he came in. He staggered a little under his unwieldy load.
With Tom was a girl who looked like she might be a couple years younger than he was. She wore jeans and an oversized red sweater that looked like it was probably a hand-me-down from her older brother. She was also wearing a blue baseball cap and dirty tennis shoes. Her straw-colored hair was tied in a single braid down her back, and she was chewing gum. She blew a big, purple bubble. Until that moment, Lee hadn't been aware that bubble gum came in purple.
Philip groaned loudly, not even trying to hide his irritation. "You brought Al!" he said accusingly to Tom.
"Al?" Lee asked the other boys.
"Alice," Andy said helpfully.
"She's Tom's sister," Mark explained in a low voice. "She's also a pest."
Alice, otherwise known as 'Al,' was looking around the garage critically. She said, "This barn doesn't look very haunted yet."
"It's a haunted house, and we're in the planning phase," Philip said tightly. To Tom, he said, "What did you bring her for?"
"Philip, don't be rude," Lee said. He was surprised at how easily he said it. It was almost automatic. And very Amanda-ish.
Philip looked surprised, too, hearing words his mother would have said coming out of Lee's mouth.
"Who are you?" Tom asked, looking at Lee curiously. Neither he nor his sister seemed fazed by Philip's comments, and Lee was relieved that Tom didn't recognize him.
"This is Lee, Mom's boyfriend," Jamie said. "He's helping us put the haunted house together."
"Oh, nice to meet you," Tom said, putting out his hand for Lee to shake.
Lee shook hands with both Tom and Alice.
To Philip, Tom said, "If we're going to have witches and banshees in here, we'll need girls to play 'em. Our aunt works for the Arlington Community Theater, and we've both been in plays there. Al's a pretty good actress, and our aunt let us borrow a bunch of props and costume pieces."
Philip stared disapprovingly at Alice as she calmly blew another bubble. "I guess she could play a witch," he grumbled.
"Be a gentleman," Lee said softly in Philip's ear. "Ask her if she'd like to play a witch."
Philip gave Lee a resigned look and reluctantly asked, "Would you like to be a witch, Al?"
"I get to use some of the fake blood, right?" Alice asked around her wad of gum.
Out of the corner of his eye, Lee saw Mark, Andy, and Jamie nudging each other and trying to smother laughs. Philip gave Lee an I-told-you-so look.
"Do you have any fake blood?" Lee asked the girl politely.
"We know how to make it," Tom said proudly. "Our aunt gave us her recipe. It's just dish soap, cornstarch, and food coloring."
Some families handed down recipes for cookies and some handed down recipes for fake blood. If Lee had known that years ago, he wouldn't have made so many housewife jokes when he first met Amanda. The kids' aunt must be really interesting.
"Sounds simple enough," Lee said. "It won't stain the costumes?" The dye packs they sometimes used at the Agency stained like crazy. He'd ruined at least four shirts because of those.
"Nope," Tom said. "That's why you use dish soap for the base. It's got some thickness to it, and it washes right out."
The fake blood idea seemed to intrigue Philip, but he was still giving Alice suspicious looks.
"As long as it doesn't stain, I think that would be okay," Lee said. "Do you have a witch costume, Alice?" He didn't like to call her 'Al,' like the boys did.
"I have a black dress that will work," Alice said. "And makeup and a glow-in-the-dark bone necklace."
"You have a dress?" Philip asked skeptically.
Before Lee could reprimand Philip, Jamie asked, "Bone necklace? Why would a witch wear bones?"
"They're the bones of children I've eaten."
Now, she had the boys' attention.
"Gnarly!" Andy said, grinning.
"That's why I should have some blood on me," Alice explained logically. "The bones glow because I'm magical, and they're haunted. It will look eerie in a darkened room."
Lee wasn't sure why Philip didn't like Alice or why Mark said she was a pest. She might not be quite the "sugar and spice and everything nice" kind of girl, but she was . . . interesting. She seemed to have spirit and a big imagination.
"It won't be completely dark," Jamie said, getting into the technical aspects of the house. "I'm rigging up a lighting system with colored lights. But, if you're under a black light, it will give anything glow-in-the-dark a charge and make it glow brighter. Neon colors will glow, too."
"I don't know . . ." Philip said, still eyeing Alice uneasily.
"You want this haunted house to be scary right?" Alice said to Philip. "I could try to lure kids into my cauldron by promising them candy."
"We didn't bring the cauldron with us this time because it's kind of big," Tom said, "but our aunt says she can bring it by later."
"And the cauldron will be surrounded by the skulls and bones of my earlier victims," Alice said dreamily. She held up her hands as if setting the scene before them, just like Philip had done earlier. Unlike Philip, she ended it by blowing another purple bubble.
"Aunt Sue only has one skull you can use," Tom pointed out. "I've got it in here somewhere." He put the duffle bag down and started rummaging through it.
"So, do I have the part?" Alice asked. She gave Philip a challenging look. The girl had some guts. Definitely spirited.
Philip didn't say anything. He didn't seem to know what to say.
Lee decided to be democratic about it. "What do you guys think?" he asked Jamie, Mark, and Andy.
"Sounds alright to me," Jamie said. He glanced cautiously at Philip. "I'm still going to have to get a black light bulb. Maybe a couple."
Lee looked at Andy.
"Okay," Andy said with a shrug.
"I'm sure not wearing a dress," Mark said as if that settled everything.
"Philip?" Lee asked gently.
With everyone else agreeing, what could Philip say?
"Fine," he said unenthusiastically. "You're in."
"With an equal cut of the profits?" Alice asked.
A pair of sharp blue eyes peered out from under that baseball cap. Alice's reasons for wanting to participate were clear.
"Sure," Philip said. With Lee there, he'd have to give her a fair deal.
"Good," Alice said. She nodded for emphasis.
Lee wondered what she was going to do with her share of the money. Softball equipment? More bubble gum?
Philip wasn't happy.
"Now that that's settled," Lee said, trying to move things along, "what parts will the rest of you be playing?"
Philip took a seat as far away from Alice as he could get, but as the others started looking through the props and costume pieces in Tom's bag, discussing the costumes they already had at home, and talking about the parts they wanted to play, he started to relax again.
Since the haunted house was Philip's idea and was taking place in his garage (or his family's, anyway), he appointed himself the tour guide for the groups going through the haunted house, "Your Guide to the Unknown" as he put it.
The others took some of Lee's monster suggestions and came up with some of their own. Mark loved the Skinwalker/werewolf idea, and he said he could borrow the werewolf costume that his brother wore last year. Alice said that she had more glow-in-the-dark plastic bones, like the ones she had in the necklace she was going to wear and that she could give some to Mark, too.
"The evil Skinwalker casts his dark magic with the bones of the children who have made my evening meal!" Alice cackled.
She's going to make a great witch, Lee thought. Very dramatic.
"We don't want to make this too scary for the little kids," Philip said, throwing a damper on everyone's enthusiasm. If the idea had come from anyone other than Alice, he probably would have said it was great.
"We don't have to say all that to the younger kids," Jamie reminded him. "We said so before. But, it would be great stuff for the older ones."
"I can pull extra bones out of my cauldron and give them to you," Alice said helpfully to Mark. "I bought a whole bag of them at the costume shop."
"Cool!" Mark said.
Philip frowned at Mark's enthusiasm.
"So, the witch and the werewolf, er, Skinwalker can be together in one room of the haunted house," Tom said. "I have a great idea for another room of the house."
He pulled a white lab coat and a wild wig out of his duffle bag.
"See? I'm a mad scientist!" Tom said. "One room of the haunted house can be my lab. I've got some stuff in here that would be good for a mad scientist's lab, and my aunt might let us have some more stuff from-Oh, there's the skull I was looking for!"
"Do you think Aunt Sue will let me paint it glow-in-the-dark to match the rest of the bones?" Alice asked.
Philip brightened a little at Tom's suggestion. "That would be cool!" he said, ignoring Alice. "And, Andy can play the monster the mad scientist is making. He could be lying on a table and jump up to scare people when they pass by."
Andy frowned. He'd been looking at the list of suggestions that Jamie had written down.
"I kind of like the idea of being a headless man," Andy said.
"But we need a monster for the mad scientist, and you're the only one who's left," Philip said. "Unless Jamie wants to do it."
Jamie shook his head. He was busy scribbling notes about the rooms of the haunted house. "I'm going to be too busy with the lighting system and special effects to dress up and play anything."
"Oh, come on!" Philip said. "The lighting systems aren't that important."
"Yes, they are!" Jamie snapped. "Lighting helps set the mood! And we'll need sound effects, too!"
"That can just be a tape recorder!" Philip said. "You're getting too hung up on your inventions."
Jamie looked like he was going to yell at Philip, and Lee was about to tell them to calm down when Tom spoke up, saying, "Jamie's right, Philip. Lighting is important, and you can't leave the sound effects just to a tape recorder. They have to be appropriate to the rooms in the haunted house, so the sounds will have to change as people walk through it. A tape recorder can't watch what's happening and play the right sounds at the right moment. If Jamie hangs back somewhere and keeps an eye on where people are in the haunted house, he can trigger lights and sounds to go on and off at just the right time when people are moving between rooms."
It was a logical argument.
"I'm going to hang out in the loft," Jamie said, pointing to the storage area above.
"You can't see what's happening from the loft," Philip said.
"Yes, you can. Remember the trap door?"
"But we need a monster!" Philip argued.
"Special effects are important!" Jamie retorted. "Tom agrees with me!"
"I don't care!" Philip said.
"Hold it!" Lee interrupted. "Jamie's right."
"Lee!" Philip said.
"And so are you," Lee said calmly. "Both of you are right. But, Jamie, do you promise that if we let you manage the special effects from the loft that you'll be very careful not to fall from the trap door?"
"It's not big enough to accidentally fall through," Jamie said, surprised. "Besides, I'll be sitting next to it, not walking over it."
"I understand," Lee said, "but I know that your mother worries about it. So, I don't know if she'll let you use it like that unless you promise to be careful."
"I'll be careful," Jamie promised.
"Okay," Lee said. "I'll talk to your mom, and if she agrees, we'll do it."
"What about the monster?" Philip asked.
"If your mom thinks the loft is too dangerous for Jamie, you might be able to persuade him to be the monster, or maybe he'll find some other way to control the special effects. But, if he really doesn't want to be the monster, you'll have to get someone else to do it or make a dummy monster."
"A dummy monster wouldn't be the same. It couldn't move."
Philip looked at Andy. Andy looked torn. The kid had his heart set on being the headless man.
In a flash of inspiration, Lee said, "You know, the monster can be headless."
"A headless monster?" Philip asked. "A mad scientist's monster is more like Frankenstein than the headless horseman."
"It could be if he's not done making it."
Tom's eyes lit up. "Yeah! It would be perfect. I could be just about to put the head on the monster, when suddenly he sits up all on his own and gets off the table!"
"That could work," Philip said slowly. "What would you use for the head?"
"We could see if Aunt Sue has a good prop, or we could make one," Tom said.
"We made things out of papier-mâché in the art class I took last summer," Alice said. "It's not too hard."
"Okay, guys," Jamie said, finishing his scribbling. "How does this look?"
He'd made some additions to the map Philip had drawn earlier with the two rectangular rooms in the middle and a hallway leading off of each end, one for people to enter and one for them to leave. There were now notes about what was to be in each room and the lighting he would use for each.
"The first hallway is to keep people from seeing the main rooms right away, and the second one is so they have something to walk through as they leave so the haunted house feels bigger," Jamie explained. "Philip thought that up."
"It's good, but make the inner rooms triangles instead of rectangles," Tom said.
"Why?" Philip asked.
"It's a theatrical trick," Tom said. "People expect rooms to have ninety-degree angles in the corners, and it makes them feel weird when they don't. It will throw people off and make the place seem more eerie. If we do it right, they won't even be able to see the whole room before they enter, so we can surprise them with something scary off to the side."
"Like this?" Jamie drew a diagonal line across the middle of the middle of the map.
"That's it!" Tom said.
By the time the other kids had to go home, everyone seemed satisfied that they had a good plan for the haunted house. Everyone but Philip.
"Why so glum?" Lee asked him when the others left.
Philip just shrugged and asked his grandmother what they were doing for dinner.
