Chris Grabenstein - The Hanging Hill

“Enjoy your lunch, Mrs. Jennings.”

His jet-black eyes went back to the onionskin pages of his blasted book. He tilted it up toward his chest so Judy couldn’t read what was written inside.

Shaking her head, she left the rehearsal room and went into the lower lobby, where the rest of the cast and crew were milling about, making lunch plans.

Who was this Professor Nicodemus?

What had he really written in that leather-bound book that was so fascinating?

“Meghan?” she asked. “Do you know how to find the library?”

“Sure. It’s two blocks west on Elm Street. My mom was going there this morning.”

“Great. Maybe she can help me.”

“Do what?”

“Some quick research.”

“Cool. You want me to tell Zack where you went?”

“Thanks. Do you know how to find him?”

Meghan gestured toward the door that led into the basement. “I have a pretty good idea.”

“I thought the janitor said downstairs was off-limits.”

“He did. But, well, as you might’ve heard, the janitor didn’t come to work today.”

Judy smiled. “I see. Enjoy your afternoon off. Tell Zack I’ll catch up with him around six. And, Meghan?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t break anything down there.”

73

Wilbur Kimble dragged himself across the closet floor.

He had been locked up in the dark for nearly a full day. He was thirsty. Starving. Too weak to even speak, let alone cry out for help.

The closet door was so warped it made a tight seal along the bottom edge where it met the concrete floor. No light seeped in under it and the key was still down the drain, where he had dropped it when the sizzling ghost in the electric chair had made him all kinds of jumpy.

Wilbur Kimble was trapped. There was no way out.

His jailor, the spook who called himself Mad Dog Murphy, had vanished, threatening, of course, to come back.

He leaned against the closet door, closed his eyes, and dreamed of Clara—the one ghost he wished would come visit him.

“O, magnus Molochus.”

Kimble almost had a heart attack! Someone was out in the basement reciting the words!

“Nos duo vitam nostram damus ut vos omnes qui hue arcessiti estis vivatis.”

This couldn’t be happening! The words! Spoken once again by a young boy. That pampered Hollywood brat Derek Stone!

Kimble attempted to pound his fist against the door but he couldn’t find the strength to lift his arm.

“Help.” His cry came out as a scratchy peep while the boy, oblivious to Kimble’s presence in the nearby closet, pressed on.

“Puer et puella, puri et fideles, morimur ut vos resuscitet.”

Puer et puella . Boy and girl.

Puri et fideles . Pure and true.

Kimble knew these words.

Could translate them from the Latin, because they were the very same words Professor Nicodemus had made him utter the day Clara died.

Now someone had brought the words back into the Hanging Hill Playhouse.

Kimble had failed. He hadn’t scared anyone away.

The moon would be full tonight, and the children—a boy and a girl—would still be in the theater.

Soon they might never be able to leave!

74

Derek sneezed.

The dust in this basement was abominable; breathing was like inhaling a sack of airborne plaster particles. He was surrounded by all manner of dust-covered trunks and theatrical props: a barber pole; a papier-mâché crown; whiskey barrels; a couple of baskets; and a fake pig, a wax apple stuck in its mouth, sitting on a silver serving platter.

He sneezed again. Wiped his nose. Sneezed some more.

Derek knew he needed to stop doing that.

He needed to memorize the new script. Mr. Grimes believed in him. He couldn’t let down the one person in the world who actually thought he might be good for something besides sitting on the couch eating Doritos!

He wiped at his watery eyes so he could read the script without the words looking all smudged.

“O, magnus Molochus!”

He heard someone clodhopping down the steel steps of the spiral staircase.

“Derek?”

It was Meghan!

“Are you down here?”

Quick! He had to hide the script. He couldn’t let Meghan McKenna see it. He couldn’t let anybody see it, because it was supposed to be a secret, and if he blew that secret, Mr. Grimes would be as disappointed in him as his mother always was.

He thought about the whiskey barrel. One of the baskets.

The pig!

He plucked out the apple, stuffed his folded piece of paper into the fake swine’s snout, and crammed the apple back into place—stirring up another cloud of dust.

“Hey, Derek! Whatcha doin’?”

“Dothing,” he said, sounding wheezy. The dust. There was so much down here. He was toast. Toast with a rash.

“Have you seen Zack?”

“Doe.”

“Was that a no?”

Derek’s chest rattled as he breathed in. “Yes.”

“You sound horrible. You’d better go outside, grab some fresh air.”

“O-tay.”

Derek raced across the basement and hurried up the steps to the lower lobby. His lungs ached, his ears itched, and his tear ducts were spritzing like berserk squirt guns.

He was such a weepy, sneezy, wheezy mess, he forgot all about his secret script and the supersecret place where he had so cleverly hidden it.

75

Zack stood in front of a mirror in the wardrobe room and tried on the turban.

It looked pretty awesome.

“Zack?”

It was Meghan, calling from somewhere in the basement’s tangled maze of corridors.

“Are you down here? Zack?”

“Over here! Costume room!”

A couple second later, Meghan found him. “Wow!” she said. “What’s that?”

“This neat magician’s costume I found in a trunk! Well, a ghost led me to it.”

“Juggler Girl?”

“No. A new one.” He decided to skip the bit about how Doll Face had followed him here from North Chester. “I found some cool posters, too.”

“Awesome,” said Meghan, moving in for a closer look.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” said Zack. “What’s ‘pandemonium’ mean?”

“Hunh?”

Zack picked up the poster and unfurled it. “This guy was called Professor Nicodemus and performed here in 1939.”

“That would’ve been in the days of vaudeville!” said Meghan. “They always had magicians, singers, jugglers.”

“Okay. But the poster says this particular magician’s act was a ‘Pandemonium Production.’ When I first got here, the janitor told me to ‘beware Pandemonium.’”

“That’s because he’s an old grouch who doesn’t like kids or actors, so he doesn’t like the Pandemonium Players.”

“Okay, but why are they called that?”

Meghan shrugged. “I’m not exactly sure.”

“What does the word ‘pandemonium’ mean?”

Meghan assumed her best spelling bee stance. “Pandemonium: A place or situation that is noisy and chaotic.”

“Was vaudeville noisy and chaotic?”

“Probably. Most theater is.”

“Could the word mean something else?”

“Maybe,” said Meghan. “We could check a dictionary.”

“Yeah.”

“Not as much fun as exploring the basement.”

“I know but …”

“Zack, I think the janitor told you to beware of pandemonium because janitors hate watching other people make a mess to eventually make something beautiful.”

“I guess you’re right,” said Zack, even though he wondered why Bartholomew Buckingham and Doll Face had said the same thing.

“Besides, there are so many other mysteries we still need to unravel! Why was Juggler Girl in that movie? Who set up the projector? And what about that weird statue of the man with the head of a bull? Come on! I’ve got the afternoon off. Let’s go see if Mr. Minotaur is still there!”