Chapter Eight

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All day at school, I couldn’t help but think about what Todd told me. He had to have been scared finding a stranger in his house. I know I would have been. As soon as I got inside my house, I locked the front door. Feeling a little safer, I carried my backpack to my room.

Why was it that a house always seemed scarier when no one was home? I flipped the lights on as I passed through each room, mentally reminding myself to let Jinx in as soon as I changed clothes.

The phone started ringing. I hurried and finished pulling on my sweats before running to answer it. “Hello?”

I could hear heavy breathing. They sounded as out of breath as I felt. “Hello?”

They still didn’t say anything. All I heard was a nerve wracking breathing in my ear.

“Is anyone there?” Waiting a moment for them to respond, I went on, “This isn’t funny.”

I slammed down the phone and went to get a drink. No sooner had I opened the refrigerator and the phone began ringing again. I checked the Caller ID and it didn’t show the name of the person calling.

“Hello?” I answered in an irritated tone. My luck, my mother would call and chew me out for the way I was answering the phone.

Nothing, not even heavy breathing this time.

“Hello?” This was getting scary. I hung up the phone and went to the back door to let Jinx in.

“Good boy,” I said, patting him on the head. He licked my hand and wagged his tail.

The doorbell rang and I jumped—expecting it to be the phone again. Jinx started barking and ran to the front door, continuing to bark and sniff at the door.

My heart beat rapidly in my chest. I still had to be careful, so I parted the curtains a fraction and peeked outside. A man in brown pants and a shirt was standing on the front porch. In the driveway was a UPS truck. We had a package? That's the only time the UPS truck ever came and around here, which was almost non-existent.

I pulled back on Jinx’s collar to move him so that I could open the door. Wedging my body between the door and the screen, I opened the screen door six inches to talk to the man. The package he held wasn’t very big. No telling what it was by the looks of it.

“I have a package for Kathy Severs,” he said.

“She lives next door.” I pointed to her house.

He smiled. “Yes, I know. But there doesn’t seem to be anybody home. Is there any chance you could sign for it and give it to her when she gets home?”

“Sure, but she won’t be home...” I stopped myself. It wasn’t good for me to tell a stranger Mrs. Severs would be gone for days, or even a week or two. “She won’t be home right away. I’ll take it over to her as soon as she is though. Promise.”

He smiled again and handed me something to sign. I hadn’t exactly lied. Mrs. Severs would be home later. I just didn’t tell him how much later.

“Sounds like your phone is ringing.” He handed me the package and nodded. “Have a nice day.”

I slipped back inside, careful not to let Jinx out in the process and ran to answer the phone. “Hello?”

Silence answered.

Not this again. I let out the loudest scream, I could muster up, directly into the mouthpiece and then hung up. I smiled at the knowledge that whoever it was that called was going to have a problem hearing out of that ear for a while.

Several options ran through my mind. Either I could take the phone off the hook and chance getting in trouble when my parents got home, or I could find a creative way to get them to say something. I was almost positive it was Rachael calling, but couldn’t prove it. Since I didn’t have her phone number, I couldn’t call her and tell her to stop calling me. Then a thought came to me. If I couldn’t get her to stop, I could at least have some fun.

By the time the phone rang again, I had an idea.

“Hello?”

No one answered. “Why wouldn’t the skeleton cross the road? Give up? He didn’t have the guts. Like you, chicken! Too afraid to say anything?”

Click. They hung up. Probably didn’t have a sense of humor. I laughed. Good. Maybe they would stop calling.

My hopes were deflated less than fifteen minutes later when the phone began ringing again. I set my pencil down next to my math book, scooted the kitchen chair back and got up to answer the phone.

“Hello.”

Nothing! Like I was really expecting anyone to answer? “Okay, what did the Mother Corn say to the Baby Corn when he got in trouble?”

I waited, not that I honestly expected them to answer. It just felt a little weird telling a joke and blurting out the punch line.

“Wait till Pop Corn gets home later.” Slamming the phone down I laughed. It rang again. I answered it again. “Another one? Okay, What did the Momma Chimney say to the Baby Chimney?”

“What is this? Joke a day? Are you doing your homework, Stephanie?” Oops. It was my Mom on the phone. Busted.

“I was but someone kept making prank phone calls.”

“Tell them we’re putting a trace on their phone calls and just hang up on them or don’t answer the phone,” Mom said.

“If I hadn’t answered the phone, I wouldn’t have known it was you calling me this time.”

“Well...” Mother began. “Check the Caller ID and if you don’t recognize the caller, then don’t answer the phone. I’ll talk to your father if we keep getting calls. Other than that, is everything all right?”

“Yeah. We got a package for Mrs. Severs.”

“Mrs. Severs sent us a package?” Mom asked.

“No, a UPS driver dropped off a package here for her and asked us to give it to her when she got home.”

“Oh, okay. Go ahead and shut off the ringer on the phone if you want, just remind me to turn it back on later when I get home. If you have any problems, give me a call at work.”

“Okay, Mom.”

“I’ll see you in an hour and a half. Bye, sweetheart.”

“Bye.”

Now if I can only figure out how to turn the ringer off. I hung up the phone and looked all around the outside of it and under it. Maybe it was on the handset. Who knows, it wasn’t something I normally looked for.

Ring.

I jumped. Not again!