The Dreadful Future of Blossom Culp by Richard Peck Page A

It was Roderick.
    He stepped out of the china closet in his small pair of bib overalls.
    “What say, Roderick?” I greeted him, though my mouth was dry. Roderick looked us over but said nothing.
    “Who,” moaned Alexander, “who in the—”
    But the kitchen door banged open then, sending a shudder through the house. Footsteps stalked, and another fearful apparition appeared in the dining room door. Alexander’s head swiveled toward this new horror. He grabbed his throat.
    Daisy-Rae marched in. “There you are, you little rascal!” She was wearing a feed sack nightgown and a nightcap of faded flannelette. Sweeping Alexander aside, she made a grab for Roderick and hooked him by the ear.
    “Ain’t I told you time and agin not to slip off? It’s a-way past your bedtime!”
    Alexander’s eyes were like saucers, and in truth, Daisy-Rae in her night togs is a sight. He managed to stand clear of her flailing elbows as she nearly shook Roderick loose from his ear.
    “Who,” Alexander moaned again, “who in the—”
    “Hey there, Blossom,” Daisy-Rae said, nodding her wan face at me.
    “Hey there, Daisy-Rae,” I replied.
    “Be glad you ain’t got any little brothers,” she said. “They are a continual worry. It’s my own fault. I had no more sense than to tell Roderick here that you and yore Alexander was coming over tonight to check over this place for haunts. Naturally the little scamp had to spy on you. You know how he is.” Roderick’s neck seemed permanently bent, but she never turned him loose.
    Out of the room she marched, quick as she’d come. Roderick scampered by her side, trying to keep up with his ear. The back door banged behind them as off they went to their chicken coop home.
    After a long pause Alexander spoke. “Don’t tell me. I don’t even want to know.”

    Delay it though he would, it was time to explore upstairs. The thought of those throbbing blue lights in the upper window skated past my mind. But I planted a firm foot on the stairs, keeping Alexander by me. Thunder crashed above the attic. Lantern light wobbled on the treads as we climbed up through the house. The things that live in walls skittered,seeming to warn one another. Cobwebs swept our beanies and caressed our ears.
    Where the stairs curved at the top, I dropped back a little just to see how far ahead of me Alexander would go. The ceiling had fallen up there, so he crunched along a step or two over broken plaster, holding his lantern high.
    Alexander opened the first door he came to and banged it shut again. Making a strangled sound, he took flight and shot into the next room he saw. After a moment he spoke in a hollow voice. “Now here is a good room for your fortune-telling, Blossom. Yes, this will do very well.”
    I was standing in the upstairs hall. Even without the lantern I could still see. My gaze fell to the door Alexander had opened and closed so quick. There was a line of light under it, bright across the dusty hall floor.
    It glowed like daylight but whiter. To save my soul I couldn’t walk past that door. I looked back down the curving stairs into blackness.
    “Get in here, Blossom!” Alexander called out from a far room. “Don’t go near that door! You hear me? There’s something there. I don’t know what, but . . . something.”
    I hardly heard him. Everything faded except for the light beneath the mystery door. All by itself my hand reached for the knob.

10
    L IGHTNING SPLIT THE AIR , traveling down the rods on the roof. It clamped my hand to the doorknob. I couldn’t turn loose or turn back now. My skin sizzled, and the door blew in, jerking me half out of my boots.
    Inside, the light like a white fog peeled my eyeballs and took me prisoner. The sounds I’d heard in the distance were clearer and nearer: the
pyongs
and the
beeps
alike. They were no noise of nature or the human voice.
    Suddenly I was free of the electrified doorknob, so I threw up my hands, thinking I’d be burned by the