R. Stine - Red Rain

“Hello,” Elena offered. She shifted the bedclothes in her arms.

“Come back,” Lea said. She shut her eyes. “Explain this to me.” She opened them and squinted at her daughter. “You’re taking all that stuff out back because-?”

“Moving in with our brothers.”

“No, you’re not,” Mark said sharply. “You’re definitely not.”

“Both of you?” Lea squinted at them, confused.

“Are you crazy?” Mark’s voice slid up a few octaves. Then he saw the blue arrows. “Huh? Oh my God! No! You too? I don’t believe it. What is this about?”

Elena moved a hand up to the arrow on her cheek. “It’s just a symbol. You know, Dad .” Dad said as a word of disgust.

Mark shook his head. “No. I don’t know.” Through gritted teeth. “Tell me. Why did you let them put those arrows on your faces?”

Lea took another long drink from the water bottle.

“We want to move up, ” Ruth-Ann said. She tucked her chin over the ball of clothing she carried. “That’s all. No big deal.”

“No big deal?” Mark cried. “It is a big deal. Believe me. It’s a big deal.” He shook his finger at Elena. “You will not be moving back there with the boys. You will be staying in your room. Of all the stupid, crazy ideas. I thought you were the sensible one.”

“I am !” Elena insisted with all the nastiness she could get into her voice.

“No arguing. No more talk. Take that stuff back upstairs to your room.”

“Let’s pretend this never happened,” Lea said quietly.

Those words seemed to send a shock wave through the air. The girls froze, wide-eyed. Mark felt it, too.

Pretend it never happened?

But what was actually happening?

Don’t we have to hear an explanation? We can’t just pretend it didn’t happen.

“Come back here. I mean it!” Mark cried.

But the girls were out the door. Mark could hear loud music and laughter from the guesthouse. The door slammed behind them, the window glass rattling.

The sound made Lea gasp. “Mark-what is going on?”

“It’s. . the twins.”

“There you go again. The twins. The twins. How can you blame the twins if these two girls-”

“I could storm out there and yell and scream and send everyone home,” he said. “But I’m kind of drunk, Lea. And I think maybe if we get calm first-”

“Get calm?”

“If we go screaming after Elena and Ruth-Ann and threaten to physically pull them back to the house, it’s war. And we’re the ones starting it. We need to be the adults here. I need to talk to the twins. But I need to go into the house and be the calm, reasonable one.”

“Do you hear all the voices out there? It sounds like a mob. How can there be room for them all in that tiny guesthouse!” she said.

The kitchen phone rang. The sound made them both jump. Lea glanced at the clock above the sink. Nearly midnight. Who would be calling this late?

Mark made a move toward the phone but let her reach it first.

She recognized the voice of one of the class parents. Alecia Morgan. She sounded agitated. “Lea, is Justin over there? Is he with you?”

She hesitated. “I. . don’t think so. Was he-”

“He said he was going over to Ira’s. He was supposed to call so we could pick him up. I’ve been calling him since nine-thirty, but I only get his voice mail.”

“The boys are out back,” Lea said, staring hard at Mark. He was mouthing something but she couldn’t understand him. “In our guesthouse. They like having their own little hideaway.”

The woman’s voice turned cold. “I just want to know if he’s there and why I haven’t heard from him.”

“I’ll check. I-” A long beep. “Uh-oh. I’m getting another call. I’ll get Justin and tell him to call you.”

“Lea, wasn’t anyone supervising them?”

Lea cut off the call without answering her.

“Mark, go see if Justin Morgan is out back with the boys.”

He nodded and started to the door. But stopped to listen to the next conversation.

“Your daughter?” Lea made a shrugging motion to Mark. “Debra? No. I don’t think so, Mrs. Robbins. Elena is having a sleepover with Ruth-Ann. But I don’t think-”

“Would you check, please?” The woman’s voice quavered. “I’m going out of my mind. She was supposed to be home three hours ago.”

“Well, of course I’ll check. Do you want to hold on? I’ll-”

The doorbell chimed.

“I can’t believe Roz can sleep through this,” Mark muttered.

Lea waved him to the front door. She told Mrs. Morgan she’d call her back. When she stepped into the front hallway, Mark was talking with a smiling, middle-aged man in a gray running suit, a high forehead, square-shaped eyeglasses catching the entryway light.

“Oh, hi, Mrs. Sutter. I’m Steve Pearlmutter. Rex’s father. Sorry I’m late picking him up. There was an accident on Noyac Road and the cars were backed up for over an hour. No way to turn around. Unbelievable.”

Mark and Lea exchanged glances. Rex Pearlmutter?

Lea spoke up first. “Sorry you were stuck for so long. Let’s go out back and find Rex.” She turned and led the way to the kitchen. “It’s been a crazy night. Our kids invited a lot of their friends over. I hope they haven’t been too wild. Mark and I had to go out and-”

Pearlmutter’s eyes grew large behind the square glasses. “You mean the kids aren’t in the house?”

“They’re right out back,” Mark offered. “They love hanging out in the guesthouse.”

Pearlmutter smiled. “We didn’t have a guesthouse when I was a kid. My friends and I had to play in the basement.”

“Is your son in Ira’s class?” Lea asked, pulling open the back door.

Pearlmutter nodded. “Yes. And I think they know each other from tennis camp.”

Mark shook his head. “Ira only lasted a few days at tennis camp. It was too rigorous for him. He got blisters.”

“They worked them pretty hard,” Pearlmutter agreed. “But Rex learned a lot. Really improved his technique.” He laughed. “He’s only twelve and he can pretty much keep up with me now.”

They stepped outside. Low hedges clung to the back of the house. Rows of just-opened tiger lilies, bobbing in a light breeze, led the way along the path to the guesthouse.

Music blared from the guesthouse. Lea’s bare feet sank in the dew-wet grass. The ground felt marshy even though it hadn’t rained. She felt something brush over her feet. It scampered into the flowers, making them shake. A chipmunk? A mouse?

She raised her eyes to the guesthouse. The lights were all on. Two tall pine trees stood as sentinels on either side of the red wooden door. The light from the windows made their long shadows loom over the yard.

“Pretty loud in there,” Mark murmured.

“They like their music loud,” Pearlmutter offered. “We used to-right?”

“I guess you’re right,” Mark said.

“Rex is usually an early bird,” his father said. “He uses up so much energy during the day, he’s exhausted by eight-thirty or nine. Staying up past midnight is a special treat for him.”

Lea stopped at the door. She had a heavy feeling in the pit of her stomach. She thought of Elena and Ruth-Ann. And who was the other girl? Debra Robbins?

Why would these snobby, sarcastic fourteen-year-old girls want to hang out with a bunch of immature twelve-year-old boys? Did that make any sense?

No.

And the blue arrows on their faces. Would fourteen-year-old girls really want to join a club for elementary school kids?

These thoughts made her hesitate with her hand on the brass doorknob. “Should we knock first?”