Chapter 19: The Growing Storm
The rest of the week passed quickly, and there was still no sign of Stefan and Vasile. The Agency wasn't sure whether the two men could have fled upon discovering that their cohort had been arrested or if they were still lurking somewhere in the area, and Anton was understandably nervous. At Amanda's insistence, Antonia's parents explained the situation to her, telling her about her uncles for the first time in her life. She was shocked because she had believed that the men who tried to grab her were enemy agents from Romania. She had been aware that her father had enemies in Romania, but her parents had never told them that some of them were relatives.
"I suppose that I had always hoped that things would change and that I would be reconciled with my brothers," Anton said. "But, I think it's too late for that now."
Now that her parents had finally confided in her, Antonia didn't make any further attempts to run off on her own. She stayed close to home except for school and her visits to the King house. The Agency security team watched over the school and the Petrescu house, and her parents always walked her over to the King house under the watchful eyes of Lee or Amanda. At first, Antonia's mother wasn't sure if it was a good idea for her to continue with the haunted house project, but Anton persuaded her that it was good for Antonia to have friends and that she couldn't be anywhere safer with Lee helping the children with the project.
Jamie was polite but distant for the rest of the week leading up to Halloween. Lee continued to help the boys and their friends put the finishing touches on the haunted house, but no matter what Lee tried, he couldn't get Jamie alone to talk to him. It was deliberate. Jamie didn't want to talk to him.
"He won't talk to me, either," Amanda said. "He denies that there's anything wrong, but you can tell that there is. I'm not sure exactly what Antonia told him about us, but I think he believes it."
"Why shouldn't he believe it?" Lee grumbled. "It's probably the truth. I wish we'd thought to tell her not to talk to the boys about us because they don't know. Didn't know."
"It wouldn't have done any good," Amanda said. "Antonia is tired of her parents' secrecy. She probably would have made it a point to tell Philip too if she'd realized that neither of them knew anything. As far as I can tell, Jamie hasn't talked to Philip about it yet."
That was puzzling. Lee wasn't sure why Jamie hadn't told Philip. But, Philip acted perfectly normal. He told all of their friends about the strange men at the school and then the man who'd been hiding in the garage. The others kids were nervous about strange men lurking around, and asked Philip, Jamie, and Antonia all kinds of questions about what they'd seen. Philip was eager to talk about the excitement, but Jamie and Antonia both claimed that they hadn't seen very much and didn't want to talk about any of it.
Jamie continued watching Lee and Amanda like a hawk. Amanda said that she'd had the feeling a few times that Jamie had picked up phone extensions and listened at doors, spying on the two of them. When Lee and Amanda talked privately, they were careful to do so only when Jamie was safely at school.
Jamie and Antonia had become closer than ever, constantly hanging around each other while working on the haunted house project. That was part of the reason why Lee had a difficult time getting Jamie alone to talk to him. The other reason was that Philip kept hovering around Antonia, trying to get her attention. The other kids seemed content to give Jamie a little space to be with his new "girlfriend," but Philip still seemed determined to get Antonia to like him.
On Wednesday afternoon, when the kids got together to put the finishing touches on their costumes and the haunted house, Philip kept trying to suggest things he and Antonia could do together to try to get her away from Jamie.
"Want to give me a hand with my costume?" Philip asked.
"I thought your costume was ready," Antonia said, watching Jamie test out the system of switches he'd rigged up to control the lights. He was up in the loft, and she was telling him how the lights were working from below.
"I see the yellow one now!" Antonia called.
"Okay!" Jamie's distant voice said. "Watch for blue!"
"It almost is, but I'd like your opinion on it," Philip said. "Do you think I should wear the cape or not?"
The lights changed, and Antonia's white shirt began to glow.
"I see blue, and the black light is working, too!" Antonia called. Then, she turned to Philip and shrugged. "Whatever you want. You could ask Alice. She's good with costumes."
Alice was nearby, listening but trying to act like she wasn't. She was putting the final touches on the monster head. In the end, she'd decided against using fake blood on herself because it wouldn't look that great under the lights that Jamie had chosen. Instead of looking red and scary, it would just look kind of black, like she'd spilled chocolate syrup on herself. But, it was okay, because the black lights allowed her to play more with colors that would glow, and she liked that. She was adding a few touches of neon paint to the monster head to make the eyes glow.
Lee was nearby, helping Andy with the headless costume. He had brought his old football shoulder pads and stuffed them with extra padding to give Andy artificial shoulders that would be about the height of his head. It was a trick he'd learned back when he'd played football in college. One of his roommates did the same thing for a Halloween party they went to.
"With this coat over your shoulders, it will look like you don't have a head," Lee said, helping Andy to adjust the old black trench coat he was wearing. "We can leave this button undone, so you can see out through here."
"It's hard to hear anything in this!" Andy said. "I feel like I'm wearing earmuffs and my ears are stuffed with cotton!"
Lee couldn't remember what his roommate did to get around that problem. It was just as well, because Andy totally missed what the other kids were saying.
"That's the green light!" Antonia called.
"It should be red," Jamie said from above. "Wait, I think I got the wrong one."
"Maybe he's red/green colorblind," Philip joked to Antonia, "and he only just found out."
"Jamie and I are busy," Antonia said, "and you don't have to be mean about it."
Philip seemed taken aback. "Sorry. I was only joking."
"Jokes are funny," Antonia said. "I'm not laughing."
"Sorry. Do you want to go help me set up the-"
"No. I'm busy helping Jamie."
"I just thought-"
"Red light!"
"Oh, come on, leave them alone!" Alice finally spoke up. "You don't get people to like you by being a pest."
Philip stared at her.
"Believe me, I know," Alice added more quietly. Then, she got up, taking the monster head with her.
Philip just stared after her in shock.
"Did somebody say something?" Andy said.
"No," Lee said. "Come on, Philip, help me with Andy's costume. I want to make sure he can get on and off the table like this."
Philip looked at Antonia once more, but she was staring fixedly up at the ceiling, the lights, and Jamie. He went to go help Lee and Andy.
Philip just worked in silence for the rest of the day, except for one point when he tried to talk to Alice, but Alice didn't have much to say to him, either. The only words she had for him were, "Wear the cape. It makes the outfit."
To Lee's surprise, Philip actually looked hurt. He just said, "I just wanted to say that you're not a pest. And, I'm glad you're here, helping out."
He turned and walked away, and for a moment, Alice looked like she wanted to go and say something to him, but then she caught Lee looking at her and didn't. Lee turned and watched Tom rehearsing his mad scientist act with Andy the Headless Monster. He considered having another talk with Philip later but decided not to. Eventually, he'd get over the embarrassment of his mistake with Antonia, and from what he'd seen, it looked like Philip had learned something from it. It would be better to just let the lesson sink in for now. Philip would work things out on his own.
Most of the week was rainy, and Halloween turned out to especially so. With no sign of it letting up, the kids were afraid that there would be no trick-or-treating.
"Well, you've decided that you're too old for trick-or-treating, right?" Dotty said as the boys and their friends moped around the house around lunch time. "You can just have fun with your haunted house."
Antonia and Alice were playing checkers on the floor under Lee's watchful eyes. The boys were mostly just sitting around, listless. Every so often, Alice would sneak a glance at Philip, and then quickly look away. She and Philip seemed to be getting along well enough now, but there was a kind of awkwardness between them because of what they'd said to each other earlier in the week. Everyone else pretended not to notice. Jamie still hovered pretty close to Antonia and tried to avoid being alone with Lee.
"But, if there are no trick-or-treaters, there won't be any customers for the haunted house!" Mark complained.
"I don't think anyone is going to go out in the rain like this," Tom agreed, looking out the window. "Not much of anyone, anyway."
"The haunted house is indoors," Philip said thoughtfully. "It wouldn't be affected by the rain."
"Yeah," Jamie said, "but if no one even goes out, no one's going to know about it. We can't even hang up the signs that we were going to put up to advertise it."
"We don't need to!" Philip said, suddenly brightening. "We'll invite people over for a Halloween party, and the haunted house will be the star attraction!"
"Philip!" Amanda said. "You can't charge party guests to go through your haunted house."
"No," Philip said regretfully. "We can't charge them money. But, if we can have some guests over for a party, at least our hard work won't completely go to waste. Besides, it's better than everyone just being stuck inside for the evening. Everyone else is probably bummed out by the rain, too."
It wasn't a bad suggestion, and Lee was pleased to see that Philip was thinking about his friends' feelings and not just the money they'd hoped to earn from their project.
"Well, I suppose it would be alright to have a few friends over," Dotty said.
"We don't have a lot of provisions, though," Amanda said. "We didn't plan for this."
"Oh, that's okay!" Philip said, brightening. "We'll take care of it!"
"Yeah!" Andy said. "My mom made cookies the other day. I can see if she'll let me bring some."
"I could bring candy," Mark offered. "My mom said that my dad bought too much anyway, and since we're not going to have a lot of trick-or-treaters this year . . ."
"I can make punch," Alice said. "I'll make some that looks like bat's blood!" She grinned and cackled.
"We have some tapes of Halloween music that we can bring over, too," Tom said. "Maybe a couple of movies."
"And I can do popcorn balls!" Philip said. "Or maybe brownies."
Lee had almost forgotten that Philip liked to cook.
"I'll give you a hand in the kitchen," Dotty offered.
Amanda looked a little worried, and Lee knew why. If the kids spent a quiet evening at home, it would be much easier to keep an eye on Antonia. But, if the only people coming by the house were just a few friends of the kids, it wouldn't be so bad, Lee thought. Certainly, it would be much better than if strangers were coming to visit the haunted house.
Lee doubted that Antonia would stray far from the others during the party. For one thing, it was raining out, and there was nowhere for her to go, and for another, she'd been staying pretty close to Jamie lately. He'd noticed that the two of them were silent while the others were talking about the party. They seemed to be having the same silent conference with their eyes that Lee was now having with Amanda. They were aware of the possible threat to Antonia, and even though Jamie was avoiding the subject with everyone, he seemed to have placed himself in the role of her protector.
Lee gave Amanda a slight nod and a little smile to indicate that he thought the party idea was okay.
Amanda said, "Okay, you can invite some people over, but not too many, remember. There are already seven of you, and the house can't hold too many people."
"How many can we invite?" Philip asked.
"Well, if each of you invited one other person, that would bring it up to fourteen people," Amanda said.
"I don't know anyone else here yet," Antonia said. "I wouldn't know who to ask."
"How many people can you have in the haunted house during a single tour?" Lee asked. "Remember, the rooms aren't that big."
"We figured on having groups of about four or five at a time," Philip said.
"Why not just ask five people to the party, then?" Dotty said. "That would make twelve of you, and that sounds like a good number."
"I was hoping for more," Philip said. "That means that there will be less guests for the haunted house than the people who made it."
"It might be better to keep the party smaller and just do one tour through it for all of your guests than to try to have more guests and do separate tours for different groups," Lee said. "Some of the guests might get bored if they had to wait to go through the haunted house while the first group is doing it, and the first group might spoil the effect by telling the others what to expect."
"I guess so," Philip said.
"Do you guys think you can settle on five guests?" Amanda asked.
Philip handed Jamie a pad of paper and a pencil so he could make a list of things people should bring to the party and guests to invite while everyone else gave suggestions. Jamie did it because he was used to being the official note-taker for the group, but he and Antonia were still exchanging silent glances.
Outside, the rain grew worse. In the distance, there was the rumble of thunder.
