The Dreadful Future of Blossom Culp by Richard Peck

squiggly black letters that read:
    REPENT WHAT’S PAST;
AVOID WHAT IS TO COME
    “Tess and Bess did that sign for the entrance,” Alexander explained. “It’s a nice, scary motto.”
    “It’s from
Hamlet,”
I said, “also Act Three.” We stepped inside, Alexander politely letting me go first.
    In the front hall the lantern threw red light across curling wallpaper and up a long stairway. “Here’s where we’ll collect the admission fees,” Alexander said in a breaking voice. “We’ll have a couple jack-o’-lanterns around for light. The cobwebs are real.”
    I touched his sleeve to quiet him. We stood in thatshadowy place while I listened to the house. If I started Vibrating and picking up messages with my inner ear and my special Powers, I wanted to be close to the front door. But I heard nothing except the wind in the eaves and a spatter of rain in the gutters. Far off, a loose shutter clapped against the house.
    “Quit listening,” Alexander muttered. “You’re just asking for trouble.”
    Never a step ahead of me, he gave us a tour. The dining room was bare except for trash and an old-fashioned gasolier fixture hanging down from the ceiling.
    “Harriet Hochhuth is going to hang in that china closet over there. We’re going to string her up with wires as an artificial corpse.”
    Alexander scooted through a door, taking the lantern and leaving me in darkness. “This here’s the kitchen,” he hollered. I skipped on into the so-called kitchen, which was a filthy mess.
    “We’re going to stretch Champ Ferguson out on this drainboard,” Alexander explained, “and disguise him as a monster, which we’re sewing together from spare parts found in a graveyard. There’ll be a big bucket of grape juice for blood. That’s one of my own crackerjack ideas.
    “And over there”—Alexander pointed—“are the stairs to the cellar, where we’re setting up the deadman’s dungeon and model torture chamber.” He turned his back on the black cellar stairs, making it clear he wasn’t going down there tonight.
    “Where am I to tell my fortunes?” I asked. “I wouldn’t mind a well-aired spot. This kitchen smells like a bear’s breath.”
    “You’ll be upstairs in one of the bedrooms,” Alexander said in an offhand way. “We don’t have time to wander around up there.”
    He was more than ready to leave right then.
    “Listen, Alexander,” I said, “we’ve come out here to give this house a thorough investigation. We aren’t going to learn a thing with a quick look around a couple of rooms.”
    He sulked.
    “It’s all right if you’re afraid to go upstairs with me,” I said. “I understand.”
    I had him there. He wasn’t about to hang around down here all by his lonesome. His imagination was already working overtime.
    We were in the dining room again as Alexander edged toward the front door. He knew he was going to have to go upstairs with me, but he was putting it off. Setting the lantern on the floor, he reached down to rub his so-called twisted ankle.
    Suddenly, right behind him, I saw a small wink of light, bright in the lantern glow. I’d like to have turned to stone. My mouth fell open. Alexander happened to notice my bugging eyes.
    Slowly, slowly he turned to look behind himself, his face as white as this page. The brass knob on the china closet door was winking in the light and turning.
    My boots seemed nailed to the floor, and Alexanderbegan to sway. Still the knob kept turning, all by itself.
    Squeaking on its hinges, the door opened upon the blackness of a tomb within. Peering from inside was a frightful sight, a face not quite human in the flickering lantern flame. It appeared to be an ungrinning skull.
    “Oh, I will be a good boy for the rest of my life,” Alexander moaned, “if only this isn’t happening!”
    He sagged, but he couldn’t run any more than I could. The ghastly little face looked up into Alexander’s tear-filled eyes. The terrible little mouth drooled.