فصل 14

Monster Blood 2 - Chapter 14

“We must be digging under the wrong tree,” Evan said, sweat pouringdown his freckled forehead.

Andy pushed a wet strand of brown hair off her face with a dirt-coveredfinger. “No way.” She shook her head. “This is the right tree. And the righthole.”

“Then where is the Monster Blood?” Evan demanded shrilly.

They both came up with the answer to his question at the same time: “Conan!”

“He must have watched us bury it,” Evan said, his eyes darting around thepark as if he expected to see Conan jump out from behind a bush. “I thought hehurried away awfully fast that afternoon. He knew the paper bag wasn’tempty.”

Andy agreed. “He hid and watched us bury it. Then he waited till we weregone, and dug it up.”

They both stared into the empty hole in horrified silence.

Andy broke the silence. “What is Conan going to do with it?” she asked, hervoice just above a whisper.

“Probably eat it so he can grow bigger and pound me harder,” Evan repliedbitterly.

“But he doesn’t know what Monster Blood does,” Andy said. “He doesn’t knowhow dangerous it is.”

“Of course he does. I told him all about it,” Evan replied. He slammed hishand against the tree trunk. “We have to get it back!”

Before science class the next afternoon, Evan found Conan in thehall. He and Biggie were standing next to Evan’s locker. They were laughingloudly about something, slapping each other high-fives.

Conan wore a tight blue muscle shirt and baggy faded denim jeans withenormous holes at the knees. Biggie had wavy brown hair down to his shoulders.He wore a sleeveless white T-shirt and tight-fitting black denims.

They look like a couple of tag-team wrestlers! Evan thought as he steppedbetween them.

“Hey, look—it’s Air Evan!” Conan joked. “King of the slam dunk!”

He and Biggie guffawed loudly. Conan gave Evan a slap on the back that senthim sprawling into Biggie.

“Uh… Conan? Did you find something in the park?” Evan asked, struggling toregain his balance.

Conan narrowed his eyes at Evan and didn’t reply.

“Did you find something that belongs to Andy and me?” Evan repeated.

“You mean like your brains ?” Conan exclaimed. He and his tag-teampartner roared with laughter over that gem.

“Why don’t we dribble him to class?” Biggie asked Conan. “Coach Murphy wouldlike to see us get in some extra practice.”

Conan laughed gleefully at that idea.

“Ha-ha. Very funny,” Evan said sarcastically. “Look, Conan—that stuff youtook. It’s really dangerous. You have to give it back.”

Conan opened his eyes in wide-eyed innocence. “I really don’t know whatyou’re talking about, Evan. Did you lose something?”

“You know I lost something,” Evan replied sharply. “And I want itback.”

Conan flashed a sly grin at Biggie. Then he turned back to Evan, hisexpression hardening. “I don’t know what you mean, Evan,” he said. “Really. Idon’t know what you and that girl lost. But tell you what. I’m a nice guy. I’llhelp you look for it.”

He grabbed Evan around the waist with both hands. Biggie pulled Evan’slocker door open.

“I’ll help you look for it in your locker,” Conan said.

He shoved Evan inside the locker and slammed the door shut.

Evan started pounding on the metal door, shouting for help.

But the bell had rung. Evan knew the hall was empty. There was no one tohear his cries.

He decided to try fiddling with the latch. But it was too dark to seeanything. And he was so jammed in, he couldn’t raise his arms.

Finally, two girls happened to walk by, and they pulled open the lockerdoor.

Evan came bursting out, red-faced, gasping for air.

The girls’ laughter followed him all the way to Mr. Murphy’s class. “You’relate,” the teacher said sternly, glancing up at the wall clock as Evanstaggered in.

Evan tried to explain why. But all that escaped his lips was a whistlingwheeze.

“I’m really tired of you disrupting my class, Evan,” Mr. Murphy said,rubbing his nearly bald head. “I’m afraid I’ll be seeing you after schoolagain. You can give Cuddles’ cage a double cleaning. And while you’re at it,you can scrub the chalkboards and clean out all the test tubes, too.”

“It’s so dark,” Evan whispered.

“It usually gets dark at night,” Andy replied, rolling her eyes.

“The streetlight is out,” Evan said, pointing. “And there’s no moon tonight.That’s why it’s so dark.”

“Hide!” Andy whispered.

They ducked behind the hedge as a car rolled slowly past. Evan shut his eyesas the white headlights moved over him. When the car turned the corner, theyclimbed to their feet.

It was a little after eight o’clock. They were standing in the street infront of Conan’s house. Leaning against the low hedge, they stared across thesloping front lawn into the large picture window in the front of the house.

The lamp in the living room was lit, casting a dim rectangle of orange lightthat spilled onto the front yard. The old trees at the sides of the small brickhouse whispered in a hot breeze.

“Are we really doing this?” Evan asked, huddling close to Andy. “Are wereally going to break into Conan’s house?”

“We’re not going to break in,” Andy whispered. “We’re going to sneak in.”

“But what if the Monster Blood isn’t there?” Evan asked, hoping she couldn’tsee his knees trembling.

“We have to look, don’t we?” Andy shot back.

She turned to study his face. He saw that she was frightened, too. “TheMonster Blood will be there,” she told him. “It’s got to be.”

Bending low, she started to creep across the dark yard to the house.

Evan hung back. “You checked it out?” he called to her. “Everyone is reallygone?”

“His parents left right after dinner,” Andy told him. “Then I saw Conan goout about ten minutes ago,”

“Where?” Evan demanded.

“How should I know?” she asked sharply, putting her hands on her waist. “Heleft. The house is empty.” She came back and tugged Evan’s arm. “Come on. Let’ssneak into Conan’s room, get the Monster Blood, and get out of here!”

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Evan said, sighing. “We—we could bearrested!”

“It was your idea!” Andy reminded him.

“Oh. Yeah. Right.” He took a deep breath and held it, hoping it would helpcalm him down. “If we don’t find it right away, we get out of there—right?”

“Right,” Andy agreed. “Now come on.” She gave him a little shove toward thehouse.

They took a few steps over the dew-wet grass.

They both stopped when they heard the low barking.

Andy grabbed Evan’s arm.

The barking grew louder. They could hear the dog’s heavy paws pounding theground, approaching fast.

Two angry eyes. A loud warning bark. Another.

The dog attacked at full speed.

“Run!” Evan cried. “Conan has a guard dog!”

“Too late to run!” Andy shrieked.