Revenge of the Manitou Read Free Page B

don’t
talk to teacher’s pet, that’s all. He’s a sissy.”
    “His mom just
died. Maybe you’d be a sissy if your mom just died.”
    “I wouldn’t be
a sissy for nothing. What were you talking about?”
    Toby finished
his chocolate bar and screwed up the paper. “What’s it to you?”
    Andy Beaver
grabbed his hand and bent his fingers back. Toby yelped in pain, but Andy was
much stronger, and he couldn’t get free. A couple of the other kids came over,
yelling, “Fight! Fight!” Toby and Andy fell to the
dusty ground and rolled over and over, kicking and grunting and punching.
    At last, Andy
held Toby down on the ground, his knees pressed against Toby’s arms. Both of
them were flushed and grubby, and there were tears in their eyes.
    Andy said,
“Okay-what were you talking about? I want to know!”
    Toby coughed.
“We were talking about those bad dreams, that’s all. Nothing that you’d understand.”
    “Oh yeah?”
    Toby pushed bun
off and struggled to his feet. His shirt was hanging out at the back, and his
pants were ripped. He took out his handkerchief and wiped his face.
    “You’re so
smart, you think you’re the only person who ever had dreams,” Andy said.
    “So when was
the last time you had a bad dream?” demanded Toby. “The last time your mother
cooked spaghetti, I’ll bet.”
    “It was not!”
said Andy, hotly. “I had bad dreams last night, and the night before.”
    “You had bad
dreams?” asked Toby.
    “I did too. Nightmares.”
    “You shouldn’t
have gone to see Star Wars,” said Ben Nichelini . “You’re
not man enough to take it.”
    “Will you shut
up?” said Andy. “I had bad dreams about people having all their hair torn off
of their heads. Dozens of ‘ em . All screaming and shouting, because somebody was tearing the hair right off of
their heads.”
    “Gee, that’s
scary,” put in Debbie Spurr . She was a thin, mousy
little girl in a brown gingham print-frock and her hair in bows. “That’s worse
than my bad dream.”
    “What is this?”
asked Andy. “Just because Toby and Petra and me had bad dreams, that doesn’t
mean everybody else has to say they had one too.”
    “David had
one,” said Toby. “That makes four.”
    “I did have
one,” insisted Debbie. “I thought I was awake, but I wasn’t. I heard someone
calling out. It was terrifically scary. They kept on calling and calling, and I
didn’t know what to do. It was a woman, and she sounded awful scared.”
    Toby looked at
Andy, and for the very first time in their lives they looked at each other as
people, not as classmates or as children. Their young faces were sober and
expressionless, as if they had both recognized that what was happening was
unusual and dangerous. Then Andy broke the spell by smirking a little, and
saying, “That was nothing compared to my dream. Some woman
calling out? I’ll put a thumbtack on Mrs. Novato’s chair, then you’ll hear some woman calling out.”
    Just then, Mrs.
Novato came to the schoolhouse door and blew her whistle to signal the end of
the lunch recess. The talk about bad dreams broke up as they drifted back to
the classroom, and Andy Beaver started on his R-2 D-2 impressions again,
colliding with the girls and making burbling sounds. Toby walked back to the
school door alone, and he was the last to go in. At the door, some feeling made
him pause, and he looked back at the schoolhouse fence.
    Under the windy
sun, a tall man was standing, only about three or four feet beyond the gate.
His eyes were shaded by a wide, dusty hat, and he was dressed in worn, dusty
clothes. His lips appeared to be moving, and Toby was sure that he could hear
the whispered word “Alien...”
    Right in front
of his horrified eyes, the man began to fade in the afternoon heat, like a
photograph. In a moment, he had vanished, and there was nothing to see but the
rounded hills of Bodega, and the hot blacktop leading westward to the beach.
    A scuffling
noise right behind Toby