Sleepover Stakeout (9780545443111) Page 9

  I scanned the yard in a slow circle. There were many places to hide. Behind a bush, around a corner, not to mention in the trees. Anyone could be out there. And we didn’t even know who or what TDB was.

  “Did someone just go into the woods?” Darcy said, her voice trembling. “I think I see someone standing in the woods. No, wait, it’s just a tree.”

  “Dude, you’re creeping me out,” I said, rubbing my arms against the chill.

  “I’m creeping myself out,” Darcy replied.

  “I don’t think we should be out here,” Maya whispered.

  Fiona nodded. “Let’s go back in.” Then she covered her mouth with her hand as a stream of giggles leaked out. Darcy raised one eyebrow.

  “It’s a nervous laugh thing,” I explained.

  But, no, I’d already decided we weren’t going back in. Not when we’d gotten this far. And not when someone out there might need help. “Come on, guys,” I said. “Nothing actually scary has happened. We’re just freaking ourselves out.”

  Where this bravery came from, I didn’t know. I wished I could bottle it and save it for class presentations. Public speaking: Now that’s scary stuff.

  I took charge. “Everyone search. Look for a person or some equipment that could transmit, like another monitor or a walkie-talkie or radio of some kind. Remember to look with your eyes and your ears.” I started pointing. “Maya, you take the front yard. Fiona, you take the sides. Darcy, look all around the backyard.”

  “Where are you going to look?” Darcy said.

  I held out my hand. “Give me the goggles. I’m checking the woods.”

  Maybe it was the new confidence my glasses had given me. Maybe it was impatience and wanting to know what was going on. I didn’t know for sure why, but I was filled with a clear and sudden sense of courage.

  Darcy handed me the goggles. “Be safe.”

  The girls all ran off to search their assigned areas. And I took my first step into the woods. They were darker than dark. Even the light of the moon didn’t help much. Had I made a mistake? I knew I could always shout over to my friends if need be.

  With trembling hands, I slid on the night-vision goggles. Thankfully they were big enough to fit over my glasses. And suddenly the air around me turned from deep black to an eerie green. I looked over my shoulder toward the yard and could see Darcy examining the back deck. She was only a green blur, but bright in the darkness. This was good. No one could hide from me.

  If someone was out in those woods, I’d find them.

  Dried twigs and dead leaves snapped and crackled under my shoes as I walked deeper into the woods. With each step, I scanned left and right, my widened eyes looking for any sign that I wasn’t alone. Night bugs buzzed, and I swatted at something that flew too close to my face.

  A sound cut through the air.

  A sob? A soft cry?

  I listened, keeping still. A breeze picked up, shaking the tree branches. Their dying leaves dropped down around me like falling snow. And on the wind came a word.

  “Help….”

  My stomach clenched. I spun in the direction of the voice and charged ahead. My feet were trampling the ground, making all sorts of noise.

  I stopped to get my bearings and the voice called out, “I’m over here! Please!”

  It was clear now that the voice was young and male. And, though he couldn’t see me coming, he could hear me. And he desperately needed help.

  I came around two large, thick trees and skidded to a stop.

  I adjusted the night-vision goggles to make sure what I was seeing was real.

  Fear slithered around me like a snake.

  Darcy may have been right. I might have just fallen into a trap.

  I shoved the goggles up on my forehead and pulled the flashlight out of my pocket. I needed to see this in bright light. I flicked on the switch and aimed it onto Slade Durkin.

  From his position, lying on the ground, he looked up at me. His eyes were wet and shiny. With my flashlight blaring in his face, I could clearly see him, but he couldn’t see who I was. Still, he wasn’t surprised that a shadow with a flashlight was standing over him in the dark woods. It was as if he’d been expecting me.

  But if I’d just fallen into a trap, I would’ve expected a smug look on his face. He would’ve jumped up and yelled, “Gotcha,” and then his older brothers would’ve jumped out from behind the other trees.

  But none of that happened.

  Slade looked up, red glassy eyes squinting against the harsh glare of the light. Then he sniffled and said, “I’m out of the group. I don’t want to be one of the Danville boys anymore. I quit.”

  The Danville boys …

  A shiver ran down my spine, and everything clicked into place.

  In the mall, when Slade had said those cruel things to me, his older brothers proudly told him he was a true Danville boy. And hadn’t Mrs. Wolfson said something about those Danville boys daring each other to bang on her door?

  “TDB,” I said aloud. “It stands for The Danville Boys.”

  Slade jerked backward, surprised by my voice. “Who is that?”

  “Who were you expecting?” I countered.

  He put his hand up to shield his eyes from my flashlight. “Norah Burridge? Is that you? Can you help me up? I twisted my ankle real bad. I can’t walk.”

  “Answer my question first,” I demanded. I liked having a bit of power over Slade for once. “Who are The Danville Boys?”

  He sighed. “If I tell you, will you help me get out of here?”

  “Yes,” I promised. I was so excited that I had put it all together, I wanted to run back to Maya’s yard and tell everyone. But I had to get to the bottom of this first.

  “TDB is kind of like a secret society,” Slade explained, wincing as he shifted a little on the ground. “You can get picked to join once you hit seventh grade, but you have to pass certain tests before you’re a full member.”

  And his older brothers were clearly members. “What do they make you do?” I asked.

  “Scary things, stuff to test your courage.”

  “Like what?”

  He hesitated, apparently not wanting to spill all the society’s secrets.

  “I can walk away and leave you here,” I said, taking a step back. “I don’t owe you anything after the way you’ve treated me.” Part of me felt bad saying that — Slade did look so scared and alone. But I wanted answers.

  He put his hands up in a begging gesture. “Okay, okay. I’ll tell you.” He took a deep breath. “First, I got a note saying I was ‘next.’”

  Just like Hunter’s note.

  He continued. “A couple weeks after that, I got another note, saying I had to meet TDB at a certain time and place. I went and they told me about the society and how I had been chosen, but I had to pass the tests to prove my worth. The first test was easy … knock on the Old Witch’s door.”

  I shook my head. Poor Mrs. Wolfson.

  “Then, another night, I had to steal a lawn ornament from someone’s yard. Some gnome thing.”

  I remembered Maya’s neighbor, his extensive garden gnome collection, and the spot that looked like one was missing.

  “Then everyone for their last week has to pass the final test alone. Tonight was my night.”

  “What’s the final test?” I asked.

  “The Danville Boys blindfold you and walk you out somewhere. You don’t know where you are. Then they leave you.”

  I gasped. “That’s awful!” Even for this group of bullies.

  “It’s not that bad,” Slade said. “They leave a walkie-talkie with you in case of emergency.”

  For the first time, I noticed the abandoned walkie-talkie lying on the ground beside him. Another shiver of realization went through me. So there had been other boys. But always the walkie-talkie.

  “Why didn’t you ask them for help when you hurt your ankle?” I asked.

  He looked down. “I did. No one answered.” He added sadly, “I tried ev
ery channel. Something must be wrong with it. That’s why I got so scared and started acting … not so brave.”

  I didn’t know why I was about to try to make Slade Durkin feel better, but I couldn’t help it. “Slade, it’s not that you weren’t brave. They did it to you on purpose.”

  He tilted his head. “What do you mean?”

  “Darcy, Fiona, and I have been helping Maya out with a case. For the last few Saturday nights, she’s picked up scary voices on the baby monitor in her house.” I pointed in the direction I thought Maya’s house was.

  “Saturday nights is when TDB does their final tests,” Slade said.

  “Yeah, and each night we’ve heard some poor kid in the woods, all alone and scared, begging for anyone to help him.”

  “Not just me?” Slade asked.

  “No,” I said. “It must be part of the test … to scare you as much as possible. They give you the walkie-talkie, but they either shut theirs off or they listen to you begging for help and leave you alone anyway.”

  Slade’s face distorted. He looked crushed. “They’d do that?”

  I opened my arms, gesturing to the woods around us. “They just did.”

  A twig snapped somewhere behind me. I stopped and listened quietly.

  Were those the sounds of footsteps?

  I spun in a slow circle with the flashlight, but the bouncing glow lit up only small areas. I slipped it back into my pocket and pulled the night-vision goggles back down over my eyes to get a fuller view.

  “What are you doing?” Slade said, his voice high and tight now that he was plunged once again into darkness.

  But not me. I saw everything in that eerie shade of green. As the sounds grew louder, my breaths started coming faster. My legs wanted to run, but I couldn’t leave Slade alone.

  From behind a tree, a blur zoomed toward me like a green ghost.

  “Don’t worry,” a menacing voice said. “We always come back.”

  I gasped and pushed the night-vision goggles up on my forehead. TDB was here.

  Or at least two members. I recognized them as Slade’s older brothers and knew them only from their height difference.

  How sweet that they’d eventually come back for their brother. But in the meantime, he’d hurt his ankle and been scared nearly to death all alone out there in the dark woods.

  I knelt down beside Slade and pulled his arm around my shoulder. I must have looked like the Queen of All Dorks with the night-vision goggles on top of my head, but I didn’t care. All I cared about was getting out of there.

  “Let’s go,” I said. “I’m going to try to pull you up.”

  Slade was twice my size, but between his one good leg and all the strength I could muster, I got him to his feet.

  “What do we have here?” one of the brothers snarled. They shined their flashlights in our faces.

  I tried to look confident, but inside I was trembling all over. I could barely breathe. I remembered the last time Slade needed to get out of a bad situation with his brothers. He’d insulted me to divert their attention. Would he sacrifice me again now?

  “Leave us alone, jerks,” Slade said.

  “Oh, look who came to Slade’s rescue,” the taller brother said mockingly. “The Nerdosaurus from the mall.”

  “Don’t call her that!” Slade snapped.

  “Ooohhh … is she your girlfriend now?” the shorter one teased.

  Slade slipped his arm from around my shoulder and leaned his weight against a tree. “No,” he snapped, glaring at the guys. “But she had the guts to come out here in the woods in the dark when she heard my voice asking for help on the walkie-talkie. So that makes her better than you guys.”

  I felt something like a flush of pride come over me.

  They moved in closer, and one punched Slade in the shoulder. “Come on, wimp. You know it’s all part of the test.”

  “The torture, you mean,” I said.

  They ignored me. “Come on, Slade. You can laugh with us when your pal Hunter is out here doing the same thing in a couple weeks.”

  Slade’s face twisted in anger and pain. “It’s one thing to pull pranks or play scary games together. It’s another thing completely to abandon someone when they’re hurt. My ankle’s busted.” He pointed down at his foot. “The society ends now. You’re done.”

  They moved in closer. The taller one said, “There’s two of us here. And one and a half of you.”

  Half?! I’m only a half? My blood was boiling.

  The boy growled, “So we say you’re done.”

  And now my blood turned to ice. What were they going to do? I stepped backward until I hit a tree.

  And then a voice rang out in the darkness. “Learn to count, losers!”

  Darcy stepped forward, flashlight held high. “One!”

  Maya’s small voice said, “Two.”

  Fiona yelled, “Three!”

  Then from behind them came Zane and Hunter.

  Zane said, “And we’re four and five. So now you’re outnumbered.”

  “Oh, h-hey, Hunter,” the short brother stammered. “You’re invited to join TDB, too. You don’t want to be on the side of those geeks. Come join us.”

  “Slade is my best friend,” Hunter said furiously. “And you left him here, hurt.”

  “But we came back for him,” the tall one said. “It was all in fun. Come on. All the cool older boys are in TDB. You have to join or you’ll have no friends.”

  “That’s not true,” I said. I pushed myself off the tree and stood beside Darcy, Fiona, and Maya. I’d never been so happy to see them. “Look at us. We’re not all in the same group. We couldn’t be more different. But we’re all friends. And no one forced us to scare or hurt each other to join our little gang.”

  “Yeah!” Fiona yelled, clapping my shoulder.

  “She’s right,” Slade said. “Hunter’ll always have my back. I don’t need TDB.”

  The tall brother snarled, “Fine. Don’t join. Be a loser.” He slapped the shorter brother’s chest. “We’re out of here.”

  “Good luck with your secret society after we tell Principal Plati about it Monday,” Zane said.

  They stopped mid-stride. “You can’t do that,” the tall one said, his eyes widening. “He’ll tell all the parents and teachers! The Danville Boys will be broken up! It’s tradition. It’s been passed down from grade to grade for years.”

  Zane glanced at Darcy and me, unsure.

  Darcy whispered, “We could tell on them and have TDB broken up. Or we could force them to change and get something out of it.”

  “Like what?” Zane said.

  Darcy shrugged and looked at Fiona, Maya, and me for ideas. Suddenly, my mind whirred with a wonderful thought.

  I cocked my head. “Then how about a deal?”

  “What kind of deal?” the tall one asked with suspicion in his voice.

  “We won’t tell on TDB in exchange for two things. One — no more hazing. If you invite someone to join the society, you can still make them do scavenger hunts and stuff like that, but never make them feel like they’re in danger.”

  He groaned. “Fine. And?”

  I smiled. “And tomorrow you’re all going to come prepared to work.”

  “What kind of work?” the short one asked.

  “You know that old lady you torture by knocking on her door? We’re going to fix up her house.”

  Slade’s brothers left in a huff, but we were all agreed on the plan for tomorrow. Of course, they left Slade behind, so Zane and Hunter were helping him hobble home.

  Darcy, Fiona, Maya, and I walked slowly through the yard, back toward Maya’s house. It was getting late, but we were all abuzz from the night’s crazy events.

  “I can’t believe TDB was a secret society!” Darcy exclaimed. Her eyes glowed with the thrill of it all. “And we saved Slade Durkin. I never thought that would happen.”

  “And Hunter sided with us!” I shook my head in disbelief.

  “And you fig
ured it out, Norah,” Fiona said, giving me a high five.

  I didn’t want to take all the credit. I’d pieced things together in the end, but there had been a lot of teamwork along the way. Plus, it had all started with one person. I smiled warmly in Maya’s direction and said, “None of this would have happened if Maya hadn’t been so caring and worried. She came to us with this case when other people might have ignored the sounds.”

  Maya blushed. “But it was Darcy’s idea to charge into the woods and save you.”

  “That was so awesome!” I said, elbowing Darcy playfully. “How did you know I needed help?” I asked.

  Darcy answered, “Fiona, Maya, and I had finished searching all our areas, and you still hadn’t come back from the woods. Then Zane and Hunter came outside. They’d been watching together from Hunter’s window. They saw you go in the woods from one direction, and then Hunter saw that bouncing light again coming from another direction. They knew someone else was out there — with a flashlight.”

  “And you guys all banded together to come and find me? So brave!” I pulled the girls together into a giant group hug.

  Darcy grinned. “I have to admit, the way we came out from behind the trees counting like that, we totally rocked.”

  I threw my head back and laughed. “Totally. I have awesome friends.”

  We returned to the living room and finally started to settle down. We crawled over to our sleeping bags and slipped inside. As I lay down, the night replayed in my mind: the voices, the goggles, Slade, his brothers … I suddenly felt wiped out. I could hear Fiona’s and Maya’s steady breathing so I knew they had instantly fallen asleep. But Darcy was still awake.

  She reached her hand out of the sleeping bag and aimed her fist at me. “To another solved case!” she whispered.

  Smiling, I reached my hand out and bumped her fist. Then I rolled over, feeling warm and proud. But before sleep overtook me, an idea popped into my head.

  “Hey, Darcy,” I mumbled tiredly, “maybe we could do a sleepover at my house next weekend?”

  “Yeah!” Darcy said, sounding happier than I’d heard her in a while.

  I closed my eyes and started planning the night. “Fiona could bring her makeup again. And Maya could bring the recipe for those smoothies her mom makes. I was even thinking we could ask Maya to join Partners in Crime. She’d love that.”