Skeleton Tree Page 10

  He caught a glimpse of the shape up ahead. It turned back to look at him, bones glowing yellow in the moonlight. Stanly stamped along the wet concrete until the ditch came to an end. The figure scrambled onto the sidewalk. A car drove past, and the headlights illuminated a boy, about Stanly’s age, wearing a cheap skeleton costume. A group of kids walked by and the boy joined in with them. Stanly slid back into the shadows, feeling stupid and sweaty and out of breath.

  The party kind of fizzled after that, and Stanly’s mom came to pick him up just before eleven. Stanly didn’t tell Jaxon about the kid in the skeleton costume; he felt like too much of an idiot.

  Later that night, long after Mom had gone to bed, Stanly crept into the backyard. He couldn’t sleep knowing the skeleton was still out there somewhere. The image of that white blur streaking past kept playing over and over in his head. And it wasn’t even because of the contest. He’d already blown his chances of winning that.

  It was because every time he closed his eyes, cold fingers slid around his neck, and he woke up gasping for air. When he drifted into sleep, he imagined he was spiraling down hollow eye sockets full of damp and cold and worms.

  Maybe it was just a bad dream, or maybe Jaxon was right. Skeletons didn’t just get up and walk away, not outside of scary stories. Dad had always told him the best way to get over being afraid of something was to face it head-on. That meant there was only one thing to do … He had to catch the skeleton before the skeleton caught him.

  He found a possum family living in the shed behind the broken lawn mower, a dead rat under the tarp covering the grill, and a moldy Easter egg forgotten in an empty planter.

  No skeleton.

  The backs of his hands tingled with relief, but he wasn’t ready to give up. He climbed over the back fence and dropped down on the other side, trying hard not to think about what he would do if he actually caught something. The grass tickled his belly button. In the silvery moonlight, the field looked like a giant version of Ms. Francine’s sweater, blowing in the wind.

  Stanly slumped down against the fence slats. He wished Jaxon were there. He would know what to do.

  “Darby Brothers’ rule number eight: Every problem has a solution.” Jaxon’s voice echoed in his head.

  He thought and thought, and kicked at the ground, and thought some more. Jagged stones came loose under his feet.

  That gave him an idea.

  He might not be able to find the skeleton in all those weeds, but maybe he could scare him out. He scooped up a handful of stones and tossed one into the swaying grass.

  Nothing.

  He threw another rock, a bigger one this time. Something squealed and skittered off toward the trees. He didn’t think it sounded like a skeleton. Probably another possum, or a not-so-dead rat. He chucked all of the rocks he could find, one by one, but he never hit anything but the squealer.

  After a while, he gave up trying to hit anything and just threw the rocks because he could. Farther and farther, until one hit a tree at least two hundred feet away with a hollow ping.

  Arm sore from throwing, Stanly sighed and climbed back over the fence. The PixelBlock T-shirt he’d bought with his Christmas money tore on the way down.

  Great.

  He stomped up to the spot where the skeleton had grown and kicked it.

  “That’s for making my little sister cry.” And for turning him into a real-life, sleep-deprived zombie.

  To his surprise, his foot dislodged a chunk of soft earth. He bent down and wiggled his fingers into the gooey, wet mud. Now that the skeleton had disappeared, the ground was normal again. He dug around some more and gasped when his fingers hit something hard and cool to the touch.

  Tingly sparks lit up his fingertips and ran along the back of his neck. Was it possible there was a second skeleton growing in his backyard? Wasn’t one creepy monster enough? Stanly tugged on the hard, cool thing, but it wouldn’t come loose. He scooped out more mud, and then a light came on in the hole he’d dug.

  The iPad screen shined up at him, flashing the time in white letters. 11:59 p.m. The inside of Stanly’s mouth went numb. He wrenched the iPad loose and opened up the browser. It was still on the submission page for the Young Discoverer’s Prize.

  There were a few seconds left to midnight.

  Stanly removed the corrupted image file from his entry. Only thirty seconds to go. He found the good version, still saved on the iPad’s home screen, and hit the upload button. Twenty seconds. The progress bar crept across the screen. Ten seconds.

  “Come on!”

  Five.

  Four.

  Three.

  Ping! “Your photo has been successfully uploaded.”

  Stanly sank back into the mud, dizzy with excitement. He stared at the iPad, the screen shaking in his hands, and all he could do was laugh. He laughed and laughed, and when he’d laughed all he could, he did the only other thing he could think of. He headed inside to wash the mud from under his nails. He peeled off his shoes, left them in the cubby next to the door, and then scrubbed his fingers in warm water until the shaking stopped.

  He’d done it. He’d entered the contest. He practically ran down the hall, that’s how much his body was buzzing, but then he froze. The iPad fell from his hands and dropped onto the puffy carpet.

  Lights flickered in Miren’s bedroom, purple and gold stars turning dizzy circles on the ceiling. She was probably playing with the glow wand Ms. Francine had given her for her birthday, the one with shiny streamers on the end. But that wasn’t what freaked Stanly out. It was just an inkling, like a weight slowly pressing him into the carpet, but he knew something wasn’t right.

  “Mir-Bear, time to go back to sle—”

  The words caught in his throat. He stepped into Miren’s room and saw the shape looming over her bed … not a shape, a skeleton … sitting hunchbacked on her mattress, his bony jaw opening wide, his eye sockets empty and suffocating.

  “Get away—” Stanly couldn’t speak. He stood, helpless, as the skeleton twisted his fingers in the air, and that was when he saw Miren, small and fragile, tucked under her Stripy Pony covers.

  “Get away!” Stanly rushed into the room, forcing himself to move. He reached for the skeleton, but Miren’s voice stopped him.

  She wriggled out of the blanket, rippling with laughter. “Stanly! Look, it’s Stripy Pony!”

  “Miren, come over here, now! It’s not safe!” Stanly held out his hand, like Miren was drowning and he was trying to rescue her.

  “No Butt-Breath, look at the wall.”

  Stanly looked at the wall behind Miren’s bed. Her glow wand cast a circle of warm light. The skeleton bent his fingers into a complicated shape, and a shadow pony danced across the wall, making circles and leaps and graceful pirouettes.

  Miren clapped. Stanly’s fists unclenched, and the ball that had formed in the pit of his stomach started to dissolve.

  “Do another one, Princy. Do one for Stanly, even if he is a big Bony-Butt.”

  The skeleton wiggled and curled his fingers until another shadow came to life on Miren’s wall. A zombie lurched forward, loose skin hanging off his chin. He jumped on a skateboard, then looped around and around an invisible skatepark.

  Miren’s entire body shook with laughter. Stanly looked at the skeleton, with his knobby cheekbones and skinny fingers. And the skeleton looked at Stanly, but only for a second, before his eye sockets grew wide and his knees started to shake.

  “Stop it, Stanly, you’re scaring Princy!”

  “I’m scaring him?” Some of the nerves that had been pricking under Stanly’s skin started to relax. “Don’t you mean the other way around?”

  “No, look, he’s all sad now. Tell him you like his shadow people. Come on, Stanly! You’re going to ruin everything. I want to see more shadow people.”

  “Shadow puppets … oh, never mind.” He sighed, deep and long. His brain felt like a rubber band being pulled in opposite directions. “I’m not going to apologize
to a skeleton.”

  “Please!” Miren craned her neck up at him, lips pushed into a pout.

  “Guh, all right, no pouty face.” Stanly couldn’t believe what he was about to do. One minute he thought the skeleton was out to kill him; now it was like he was the monster. “Look, Mr. Skeleton or whatever … I’m sorry … ”

  “It’s Princy!” Stanly gave Miren his enough-is-enough big brother look. “Okay, Princy says he’s not afraid anymore. Come on, Princy, show Stanly some more tricks.”

  After Princy made a duck that flapped its wings and did cartwheels, and a dinosaur that knew ballet, Stanly decided that maybe movies didn’t get everything right. Princy wasn’t scary. He was kind of a wimp, the way he flinched every time Stanly got close to him. But what was he? Not a normal skeleton, that was for sure.

  “Time for bed,” Stanly said when the clock in the hall chimed one in the morning.

  “But Stanly, I want to see more shadow people! And Princy isn’t tired, so can’t we stay up a little longer? Please?”

  “Maybe tomorrow night.” Stanly tucked Miren under the covers and made sure the tubes were still tight in her nose. “Mom’s probably trying to sleep anyway. You know she has to go to work early.”

  “I know.” Miren frowned. “Why does Momma have to work all the time now that Daddy’s gone?”

  “She doesn’t work all the time. Come on, let’s go back to sleep.”

  “You, too?” Miren said.

  “Me, too.”

  “What about Princy?”

  The skeleton shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

  “He wants to stay, Stanly. I made a spot for him.”

  Miren had set out a doll pillow and blanket on the floor. They were big enough for Ashleigh, but definitely not for a full-size skeleton.

  “I don’t think he’ll fit.”

  “No, he’s comfy, see?”

  The skeleton curled up on the floor, putting his head on the pint-size pillow and using the blanket to cover his ribs.

  “Are you sure you want him to stay?” Stanly said. “I can stay, too, if you want.”

  Miren shook her head. “Just Princy.”

  She yawned, rolled over to face the window, and a few minutes later started to snore. Stanly watched the skeleton a while longer. He couldn’t see his eyes anymore—they were facing the wall—but his ribs seemed to rise and fall under the glittery blanket.

  Stanly woke up Sunday morning to the sound of laughter and the smell of sizzling bacon. To his surprise, he hadn’t had any more nightmares about hollow eye sockets or bony fingers. Instead, he’d dreamed about shadow zombies performing a ballet, and how he and Miren and even Princy got up onstage and danced with them.

  It was a weird dream.

  Then he remembered the contest. He bolted out of bed to check the entries. A lot of people had submitted photos at the last minute. There were seventy-four entries in all, but his was back at number one. One thousand three hundred twenty-six likes! And, better yet, the photo was still there.

  “The winner will be chosen by a panel of experts from National Geographic magazine. Our experts will meet with the top three finalists to analyze their discoveries in person before making their final decision. Thank you for your patience as we review your submissions.”

  “Now the oranges!” Stanly heard Miren shout from in the kitchen. “Stanly, come and look! He’s doing the oranges!”

  Stanly tried to stand up, but his bones suddenly felt like lead. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? Of course they would want to see his discovery in person. And what would happen when the people from National Geographic came to his house and saw Princy doing shadow puppets? That is, if they could see him in the first place.

  Stanly staggered into the kitchen, his brain a tangle of confused thoughts. He blinked like his eyes needed a minute to adjust, as he saw Princy sitting cross-legged on the dining room floor, juggling apples and bananas and oranges.

  “Little Stanly, you’re awake. About time, too. In Kyrgyzstan, we always got up before the sun to milk the goats.”

  “We don’t have any goats,” he said through numb lips.

  “This is true. Here.” Ms. Francine handed Stanly a spatula. “Go flip the bacon.”

  “What’s he doing here?” Stanly said, nodding to the skeleton. Maybe it was a weird question to ask, considering he was the one who’d discovered him, but it didn’t seem right for him to be sitting in the dining room like it was no big deal. “Does Mom know he’s here?”

  “What do you think?” Ms. Francine tilted her head at him.

  “She still can’t see him, can she?”

  “Not yet,” said Ms. Francine.

  “He looks strange sitting there like that.”

  The skeleton stopped mid-juggle. Two apples and a banana clattered down on his head.

  “Shush! You’ll hurt his feelings, little Stanly.” Ms. Francine pulled him aside. “You don’t want to scare him away. See how he makes your sister happy?”

  Stanly watched the skeleton pick up the fruit and start to juggle again. No, he didn’t want to scare the skeleton away, did he? What if the experts from National Geographic came and there was no skeleton? Still, it was strange, even if every time the skeleton looked at Stanly, his cavernous eyes went wide. Geez, who’d ever seen a fraidy-cat skeleton?

  And there was something else. Miren. Her face lit up as the skeleton juggled. He made her happy, like Ms. Francine said. She clapped and bobbed her feet and didn’t seem to notice the tubes or the tank.

  “I guess he’s okay.” Stanly turned to the stove and nudged the crackling strips. “But I’m not saving him any bacon.”

  “I don’t think he’ll mind,” Ms. Francine said. “Now, you two eat fast, because today Ms. Francine is taking you on an adventure.”

  “Why can’t Princy come with us? He was going to show me some new dance moves.” Miren smooshed her face against the bus window. “Today won’t be any fun without Princy!”

  “Like my Uncle Goat always used to say,” said Ms. Francine, “some people need ten goats to be happy. Me, all I need is the mountainside.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Stanly said.

  “Your uncle is a goat?” Miren laughed.

  “Yes and no. Uncle Goat was his nickname, but he did have hair, just here.” Ms. Francine rubbed her bristly chin. “It’s better to have the mountainside, because then the goats will come to you. Patience, little one.” She patted Miren’s head and looked at her with sad eyes. Stanly didn’t understand why she looked so sad.

  Twenty-eight minutes later, according to Stanly’s PixelBlock watch, the bus stopped outside the Museum of Natural History.

  “Come on, little ones. Hurry up, quickly.”

  On the sidewalk in front of the museum, a dinosaur statue towered over them.

  “Look, Stanly, that dinosaur’s bigger than outer space. Why’s his head so weird?” Miren took Stanly’s hand. Somehow, Ms. Francine’s story about the goat had seemed to cheer her up.

  “That,” Ms. Francine said, “is a life-size replica of a brachiosaur. The tallest dinosaur ever discovered.”

  “Whoa.” Stanly’s eyes traveled all the way up the neck to the knobby head on top. Why couldn’t he have found something normal like that?

  “Like you say, whoa.” The word sounded funny in Ms. Francine’s mouth. “Now, follow me. We have many bones to see and not so much time to see them.”

  She nudged Stanly and Miren up the stairs and through the heavy front doors. Stanly carried Miren’s tank as they climbed a massive staircase to the second story. Along the way, she blew a kiss to each of the bronze monkeys dangling from the railing.

  They came out into an atrium. Another dinosaur skeleton greeted them at the top, hunched forward like it was ready to charge.

  “Triceratops!” Stanly said. He picked up Miren’s tank so they could run to the rope barrier surrounding the bones.

  “I like his pointy nose.” Miren laughed. “Very fancy.�
�

  “That’s a horn,” Stanly said. “The name triceratops means three horns.”

  Ms. Francine led them through rooms of polished display cases packed with old bones. A woolly mammoth with curly tusks ate leaves from a tree in one display. There was an entire room dedicated to ancient sharks. The whole time, Stanly wondered if any of the archaeologists at the museum had ever tried to dig up bones, only to have them get up and walk away. Maybe, but he didn’t think so.

  The third floor featured an exhibit called Human Bodies Revealed.

  “These people gave their bodies to science after they died. So others could learn from them,” said Ms. Francine.

  “You mean they’re real?” Stanly said.

  Miren reached her fingers out toward an old man hunched over a cane. Stanly could see the muscles and bones splayed out underneath his skin.

  “Go ahead,” Ms. Francine said. “This display says it’s okay to touch.”

  Miren poked a flap of dried skin, and a tiny shiver ran through her body and into Stanly’s fingers.

  Stanly wondered what it would be like to live in a museum after he died. The idea made his brain go all wobbly. Would he be able to watch the people passing through the museum? Could he flick them in the nose if they got too close, like Princy?

  Or would he turn to dust and crumbled-up bones? Unable to look or think or feel? Nothing but an empty space.

  Stanly stopped at the foot of a body posed with one leg cocked back. He looked frozen in time, like any second he might snap to life and kick an invisible ball across the room. Stanly touched his bony wrist and then wished he hadn’t. It felt fake, like plastic.

  A group of students in gray-and-blue uniforms filed out of the exhibit, leaving Stanly, Miren, and Ms. Francine alone. They sat in a mini-theater and watched a movie about how the traveling bodies got preserved before they went on their world tour. Miren’s eyes grew bigger by the second. Stanly clutched his forehead, and the room started to spin.

  “Let’s go get a cold drink,” Ms. Francine said when the movie finished. Maybe she could tell Stanly was about to barf. “What would you say to a soda and some dinosaur tracks ice cream in the museum restaurant?”