I froze. I wanted to run, but instead, I kept perfectly still. Was the white van nearby? I’d been extra careful to check for it lately whenever I walked outside. Especially when I walked alone. But I’d been distracted by my talk with Mrs. Albertini. My eyes slowly slid sideways to get a glimpse of the hand resting on my shoulder. Please don’t let it be hairy.
It wasn’t. It was a kid’s hand, about the size of my own. I spun around.
“Nicholas?” I could barely hear my voice over my pounding heart.
He wore a black sweatshirt with the hood up over his head so that it covered most of his face.
“Not so loud,” he whispered. “My mom will kill me if she sees me here. I’m supposed to be at the market getting tomatoes.” He checked over his shoulders and then pulled his hood even farther over his face. “So can I come in or what?”
I wasn’t in the mood to hear him tell me all over again how he didn’t want to be my friend anymore. He was probably only interested in seeing Alice anyway. But I couldn’t get Mrs. Albertini’s friend Sally out of my head. “Yeah, okay,” I said.
Inside, Nicholas headed straight through to the kitchen, opened the door to the patio, and walked back outside. Without even asking or anything.
“Did you leave something out here the other night?” I asked.
He sat on the edge of the patio and pushed his hood off his head, staring up at the sky as he spoke. “I didn’t know Joey was going to say that today. The stuff about Larston. It’s not what I think.”
I sat down next to him but didn’t say anything.
“My dad . . . he said he was on the list for the next round of promotions with a bunch of other people. But then his boss told them they lost money from an order that got messed up. Said promotions wouldn’t happen. Made it sound like some of them might even get fired ’cause of it. Made it sound like your dad made the mistake.”
“He didn’t make any mistake,” I told him. “He just told the bosses about it. Before it became a bigger mistake. That’s why he got the promotion.”
“Some people are upset about it, that’s all.”
I reached down and picked at a weed that was growing between the cracks of the patio. “So they’re mad because my dad got a promotion and they didn’t? And that makes it okay to say awful stuff about my family?” I forced myself to look Nicholas in the eye. “My dad never got promotions when everyone else did, including your dad.” I stood up. My voice was getting angrier. “And you know what else? Every time that happened, I still stayed friends with you. I never said nasty things to the other kids.”
“I know that,” Nicholas said. “That’s why I’m here. I feel bad about it all. And I swear I didn’t say nasty things about you to anyone. I’m just . . .” He glanced over his shoulder again. “I’m just sorry, okay?”
I took a breath to calm myself and sat back down. “Okay.”
Neither one of us said anything else. We just sat—me picking at weeds, Nicholas watching the sky.
“There’s still no info on that missing kid,” Nicholas said eventually. “I heard they even bumped up the reward to three thousand.”
“Wow. That’s a lot of money. A thousand for each of us.” I thought about everything I could buy with a thousand dollars. I’d definitely get a new bicycle since mine was super old and not very fast, and maybe I’d get a set of encyclopedias too.
“So that means I’m still in?” He finally turned to me. “I can still come over to search for aliens and UFOs with you and Frank?”
“What about your parents?” I asked.
He smirked. “They don’t have to know.”
“Right,” I agreed.
“I should probably get going.” Nicholas stood and headed back into the kitchen.
Mom entered the same time we did. “I was just about to come get you, Danny,” she said. “Mr. Schneider is here. Hello, Nicholas. How’s your aunt?”
Nicholas’s face turned white. I didn’t know what color my face was, but I had a pretty good idea it had turned as white as his.
“S—she’s fine,” Nicholas replied.
“What’s Mr. Schneider doing here?” I blurted. “It’s not Friday!” I walked over to the doorway to peek into the living room. Sure enough, there he was, staring out the front window. His hands were clasped behind his back and looked hairier than ever.
“He called me and said you were a bit uncooperative on Friday.” Mom briefly glanced at Nicholas before returning to me. “We can talk about that later. He asked to make up your lesson today.”
“But I haven’t practiced,” I protested.
“All the more reason you need a lesson,” Mom said. “Come on. Let’s not keep him waiting. And this time, show a little respect, please. He rearranged his entire schedule to come over today.”
“I’ll bet,” I mumbled. What with snatching kids into the white van, transforming back and forth between alien werewolf and a human spider, and flying around the universe, he probably didn’t have a lot of free time. “Hey, can Nicholas stay around?” I asked. I turned to Nicholas. “You’ll be quiet, won’t you?”
“Yeah,” Nicholas said. He leaned over and whispered in my ear, “What about the tomatoes? I’m supposed to be at the market, remember?”
I reached into the fridge, grabbed two from the vegetable drawer, and handed them to him. Then I smiled at Mom. “It’s okay, right? His mom asked if he could borrow a couple.”
She furrowed her brow. “Just go out there and behave, please.”
Nicholas took the tomatoes and followed me out to the living room.
“Mr. Schneider?” He had his back to me, and I braced myself. We’d just had that full moon, and Alice’s friend said sometimes werewolves didn’t always switch all the way back to human—or whatever the heck he was. He could be some weird combo of werewolf, spider, and alien right now.
He slowly turned, and I let out a sigh of relief. He’d morphed back into human . . . or at least his version of a hairy-handed, bald, bug-eyed human.
“Daniel,” he said with a weird nod. He did one of those sideways eye glares at Nicholas but didn’t say hello or anything. Then he took a seat at the piano and began playing the part of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy that he had started to teach me last week. His hairy fingers scurried along the keys as usual. With Mom in the kitchen and Nicholas on the couch, I figured Mr. Schneider wouldn’t zap me up into his spaceship. At least, I hoped he wouldn’t. It wasn’t like anyone could have stopped him.
Mr. Schneider finished playing, and Nicholas stood right next to the piano, watching.
“Can I help you?” Mr. Schneider asked him.
“I’m okay,” Nicholas said. “Hey, did you ever find your Irish tart?”
I frowned across the piano at him. Why would he ask something like that? I wanted to kick Nicholas, but I was sitting on the other side of Mr. Schneider, so instead, I wiggled my eyebrows to try to get his attention. He didn’t seem to notice.
“Excuse me?” Mr. Schneider said.
“The Irish tart,” Nicholas repeated, calm as could be. “Danny’s sister saw you in Scholly’s on Friday after you left here. I was just wondering because it sounded good. I thought maybe you could tell me where to find one.”
“No,” Mr. Schneider answered. Then he pointed to the keys for me to play.
“You know, they might have something like that at a bakery where you live,” Nicholas interrupted. “You’re not from Croyfield, right? I’ve never seen you around here before. Other than for Danny’s piano lesson.”
“Can we get back to Beethoven, Daniel?” Mr. Schneider asked, ignoring Nicholas. I began playing Ode to Joy again but fumbled right as I got to the end of my part.
“I hear that kid from Mayson is still missing,” Nicholas continued as if I weren’t in the middle of a piano lesson with a white-van-driving Bermuda Triangle alien werewolf kidnapper.
Mr. Schneider sighed loudly.
“Everything okay in here?” Mom popped her head in from the kitchen.
Mr. Schneider glanced at Nicholas and then glanced at Mom.
“Your mom’s waiting on those tomatoes, isn’t she, Nicholas?” she asked.
“Yeah, I guess. Thanks, Mrs. Wexler. See ya, Danny.” He stopped right before he got to the front door. “Where did you say you lived again, Mr. Schneider?” he asked.
“Goodbye, Nicholas,” Mom said, and she shut the door behind him.
Mr. Schneider turned back to me and opened his mouth to speak. This time, I was almost positive I saw them—alien werewolf fangs.