In Laymon's Terms

Donna bounced her flashlight off his head. Not very hard, but the bulb went dark and Nick yelped, “OW!” and dropped his light saber and candy bag and grabbed the top of his head with both hands and hunched over and walked in circles.

“Oh, take it easy,” she told him. “I barely tapped you.”

“I’m gonna tell!” he blurted.

“Tell your little ass off, see if I care.”

The ballerina fairy-godmother princess gasped.

E.T. or Yoda blurted, “Language!”

Little sister Peggy Pan almost split a gut, but seemed to know she shouldn’t laugh at Nick’s misfortune so she clamped a hand across her mouth.

Jimmy, more concerned about my fate than Nick’s, patted me on the back and asked, “You okay, man?”

“Fine,” I squeezed out.

Donna came closer. Looking me in the eyes, she said, “Did he get you bad?”

I grimaced and shrugged.

“Right in the nads,” offered Jimmy.

I gave him a look.

Instead of killing him, as intended, my look seemed to inspire him. “Donna’s a certified life guard, you know. All that first aid training. Want her to take a look?”

“Shut up!” I snapped at him.

“Stop it, Jimmy,” she said.

“How’d you like to have her kiss...”

I punched his arm. He yelled, “Hey!” and grabbed it.

“Okay, okay,” Donna said. “Everybody calm down. No more hitting. How are you doing, Matt?” she asked me.

“Okay, I guess.”

“Nick?” she asked.

He was standing nearby, gently touching the top of his head. “I’ve got a bump.”

“Well, that’s too bad, but you asked for it.”

“Did not.”

Donna said, “You busted my damn flashlight.”

Jimmy and I laughed. So did Peggy Pan.

E.T. or Yoda blurted, “Language!”

“You shouldn’t go around whumping people on the head,” Nick explained. “You can cause ‘em brain damage.”

“Not you!” Jimmy said. “You haven’t got one.”

“That’s enough,” Donna said. “Come on, are we gonna check out this house or aren’t we?” Without even waiting for a response, she stepped off the sidewalk and started trudging toward the creepy old place.

I went after her, hurting. Each step I took, it felt like a little hand was squeezing one of my balls. But I didn’t let it stop me and it seemed to pretty much go away by the time we reached the porch stairs.

Donna stopped and turned around. She still held the flashlight in one hand, though it wasn’t working anymore. With her other hand, she put a finger to her lips.

In a few moments, everyone was standing in front of her, motionless and silent.

Donna took the forefinger away from her lips. She pointed it at each of us, counting heads the way a school bus driver does before bringing a bunch of kids back from a field trip. Done, she whispered, “Okay, six.”

“Seven,” I said.

She turned her head toward me. The moon was full, so I could see her face pretty well. She raised her eyebrows.

“You,” I whispered.

“Ah. Okay. Right.” In a somewhat louder voice, she said, “Okay there’re seven of us right now. Let’s hope and pray there’re still seven when we get back to the street.”

Her words gave me the creeps.

One of the girls made a whiny sound.

“I wanna go back,” said one of them. Maybe the same one who’d whined. I don’t know whether it was Alice or Olive. It wasn’t Peggy Pan, though.

Peggy Pan whispered, “Wussy.”

Jimmy chuckled.

And I saw the look on Donna’s face and realized she was trying to psych us out.

Not us, really. Them.

Nick had made her mad, and she wasn’t exactly tickled by Alice or Olive, either, so she figured to make life a little more interesting for them.

“If anybody wants to go back and wait for us on the sidewalk,” she said, “that’s fine. It’d probably be a good idea. No telling what might happen when we go up and ring the doorbell.”

One of the girls whined again.

“You’re just trying to scare us,” Nick said. In the full moon, I could see the sneer on his face. “Can’t scare a Jedi,” he said.

Donna continued, “I just think...every one needs to know the score. I wasn’t planning to mention it, but...I’ve heard about this house. I know what happened here. And I happen to know it isn’t deserted.”

“Yeah, sure,” Nick said.

Lowering her voice, Donna said, “A crazy man lives here. A crazy man named...Boo. Boo Ripley.”

I almost let out a laugh, but held it in.

“Boo who?” Jimmy asked?

I snorted and gave him my elbow.

“Ow!”

“Shhh!” Donna said. “Want Boo to hear us?” She looked at the others, frowning slightly. “When he was only eight years old, Boo chopped up his mom and dad with a hatchet...and ate ‘em. Gobbled ‘em up! Yum yum!”

“Did not,” Nick said.

“I wanna go home!”

“Shut up,” Nick snapped.

“But Boo was a little boy back then. And his mom and dad were very large. Even though he gobbled them day and night, night and day, there was always more that needed to be eaten. Well, Boo’s mom was a real cat lover. She had about a dozen cats living in the house all the time and stinking it up, so finally Boo started feeding his folks to the cats. Day and night, night and day, Boo and the cats ate and ate and ate. At last, they managed to polish off the last of Boo’s mom and dad. And you know what?”