Chris Grabenstein - The Hanging Hill

“Careful, boy! You’ll pull down the ghost light!”

Zack froze. “The what?”

The old man gestured toward the solitary lamp.

“The ghost light. It burns onstage all night, every night.”

Great. A ghost light .

The janitor creaked his rolling bucket forward. “Every theater has one. You know why we call it a ghost light?”

Zack thought fast. “Um, because if you didn’t leave it on, people would stumble around in the dark, fall off the stage, crack open their skulls, and turn into ghosts?”

The old man shook his head then peered into the darkness above their heads. “No. We leave it on as a courtesy. To help all the ghosts haunting this theater find the children who shouldn’t be here!”

Zack looked up into the dim fly space climbing high above the stage. It was filled with ropes and scenery panels and curtains and darkness.

He couldn’t see any floating fiends or phantoms.

But that didn’t mean they weren’t up there, biding their time, waiting for a chance to swoop down and terrify Zack.

They’d probably all heard how special he was.

18

Zack saw Judy and Monica the Company Manager near the box office, which looked like an elaborately decorated circus wagon with bank-teller windows.

Zipper barked.

“Hey, Zack!” Judy waved them over.

“Sorry we’re late. Zip and I ran into some of the actors out back.”

“Who?”

“Meghan McKenna!”

“Really?”

“Yeah!”

“Did you get her autograph?”

“Not yet.”

Judy was excited. “Well, get one for me when you do!”

The company manager beamed. “We were all so thrilled to hear that Miss McKenna, an actual Oscar nominee, would be joining the Pandemonium Players!”

There was that word again. “Pandemonium?” Zack asked.

“That’s what we call our resident acting company,” Monica explained.

“Cool,” said Zack, wondering why the janitor wanted him to beware of a bunch of actors. They seemed pretty harmless. Unless, of course, that kid Derek sneezed all over you.

Judy handed Zack a brass key. “Monica and I need to get the scripts organized for the table meeting. Why don’t you take Zipper up to the room, make sure he has water, and then meet us downstairs in rehearsal room A? We’re on the very top floor!”

“Awesome. Oh, I forgot to tell you—I also met Derek Stone.”

“Who?”

“You know, the Hollywood guy who used to be on Ring My Bell?”

Judy looked confused.

“It’s a TV show. He’s not on it anymore.”

“Oh,” said Judy. “I see. He’s one of the adults in the cast.”

“No. He’s a boy. About my age. I guess he’s playing Charlie.”

“No, Brad Doyle is playing Charlie,” said Judy. “He’s a Broadway actor from New York.”

“Uh,” said the company manager, “Derek Stone was a last-minute replacement. Signed him on yesterday.”

Now Judy seemed shocked. “Really?”

“Yes. Brad Doyle got sick. Very, very sick.”

19

“Have you memorized your lines, Derek?”

“No. Not completely.”

“What’s taking you so long?”

“I just got the script yesterday, Mom.”

“And?”

Derek Stone hung his head. He and his mother were striding across the carpeted lobby of the Hanging Hill Playhouse, on their way to rehearsal room A for the first read-through and table meeting.

Derek didn’t want to be here.

He couldn’t sing. In fact, he scared the neighbor’s pets when he tried. Yes, driving around in a chauffeured limousine was fun but what he really wanted was to go home to Marina del Rey so he could race his remote control monster truck up and down the driveway some more.

“Chin up,” said his mother. “You’re a star, Derek. Act like one. Stop slouching.”

Derek did as he was told. He held himself erect and moved swiftly. He smiled and nodded at everyone they passed. He even tucked one hand into the side pocket of his blazer while letting his other arm swing freely at his side. He’d seen a British prince walk that way once on TV. It looked suave.

Derek Stone would make his mother happy and try to act like a great actor.

He just wished he really were one.

It would make all the pretending so much easier.

20

Judy and the company manager headed for the down staircase and rehearsal room A.

Zack and Zipper hurried across the lobby to the elevator. He kept pushing the up button until he finally read the sign hanging on the sliding cage door:

OUT OF SERVICE

That meant he and Zipper would have to climb the steps.

All the way to the fifth floor.

21

Bleary-eyed, Reginald Grimes sat at the desk in his office, devouring the curling pages of the thick book.

“I have a table meeting at ten,” he mumbled. “Shouldn’t miss it.” He kept speed-reading.

He had been up all night with the ancient text and was nearing the end of The Book of Ba’al , which was filled with astonishingly incredible spells and incantations, amazingly powerful rituals and rites.

In the first pages of the book, he had found his family tree, something every orphan dreams of one day discovering. He learned that not only did he have a father and a grandfather, he had two thousand years of history and could trace his roots all the way back to Carthage and the supreme high priests of Ba’al Hammon.

He felt as if he were in a hypnotic trance. Maybe it was the lack of sleep or all the coffee he had been guzzling. Grimes remembered the time when the orphanage doctors had attempted to surgically repair his withered arm years after the incident with the wringer washer. They had put him under with ether, an anesthetic that had sent him swimming through a murky pool of sleep and dreams. He felt the same way now, under the spell of this intoxicating book.

“The children have arrived,” said Hakeem, standing guard at the office door. Two Tunisian musclemen had accompanied Hakeem to the theater this morning: One was named Badir, the other Jamal.

“Hmmm?”

“The chosen children. They are here. Young Miss McKenna and Master Stone.”

Grimes looked up from the book. “Master who?”

“Stone,” said Hakeem. “Derek Stone.”

“Who in blazes is he?”

“The young boy who will be playing the leading juvenile in your next production.”

“Charlie?”

Hakeem nodded.

“Bah! I cast Brad Doyle for that part!”

“Have you not heard? Young Master Doyle has taken ill. It came over him quite suddenly.”

Grimes thought he heard one of the burly thugs guarding the door chuckle.

“Besides,” Hakeem continued, “Master Stone is better suited for the role. He has—how shall I put this?—the same qualifications as Miss McKenna.”

“Really? Says who?”

“The financial backers of Curiosity Cat.”

“Oh. You’ve spoken to my producers? Because I never have. I am given to understand that they are very wealthy, very busy men.”

Hakeem smiled. “Indeed. We are. Very, very busy.”

22

Yesterday Zack had thought it was totally awesome that they’d be sleeping in what was basically the Hanging Hill Playhouse’s attic. Now, as he and Zipper rounded the landing for the second floor, he wasn’t so sure.

“Only three more floors to go,” he said. He was panting. Zipper wasn’t. Zack hoped that they’d get the elevator fixed before he and Judy had to haul in their luggage. Otherwise, they’d be lugging it up five flights of stairs.

Trudging up to the third floor, Zack heard a little girl giggling.

Probably Meghan McKenna , Zack thought. He held on to the handrail. Leaned out. Peered up.