Daddy! Jasmine’s voice screamed inside her head as she sat straight up. She looked at the clock on her bedside table. The little blue numbers said 4:25. Somewhere in the fog of Jasmine’s mind she remembered waking up from her nightmare at that exact same moment last night. It was just a dream, just a dream, just a dream, Jasmine repeated in her head, suddenly aware of not wanting to wake Lisa up. Instead she mentally said what she always said: You’re okay. You’re okay. You’re okay.
She automatically looked around for Momo, who always made her feel better after she had a nightmare. But no Momo. Where was Momo when you needed him?
And Momo wasn’t the only one who wasn’t there. It was light enough in Jasmine’s room to see that there was no lump in Lisa’s sleeping bag where she should have been.
She must have gone on that ghost hunt anyway, Jasmine thought. She’s probably creeping around the house “investigating.” Why does she have to play these games at exactly the wrong times? Anyway, there’s nothing fun about a ghost hunt—anywhere, anytime!
But, truth be told, it felt to Jasmine less and less like a game. She was terrified for Lisa out there in the dark house with who-knows-what lurking. At once she had two thoughts, making her want to bury herself under the covers and never come back out:
1. The nightmare was some kind of warning that something was lurking in the house.
2. She had to go look for Lisa and bring her back to safety. It was the only right thing to do.
Jasmine got out of bed, feeling sick to her stomach. Every cell of her body told her not to leave her bed. But Lisa! What about her best friend out there with some headless masked monster? Jasmine would never forgive herself if something happened to Lisa. It was like the “buddy system” that her teachers used on field trips when they were younger: Everyone had a buddy, and you watched out for your buddy at all times. If your buddy got hurt or you couldn’t see your buddy, you told a teacher right away. Whenever they went on a field trip, Lisa and Jasmine were buddies. If only there were someone to tell, someone who could help, Jasmine thought. But Jasmine didn’t want to have a “talk” with her dad about her fears. She was getting too old to go running to Daddy or Nana every time she was scared.
Jasmine walked slowly downstairs. So far, Lisa was nowhere in sight, but Jasmine had an idea where her best friend would be. The basement. Lisa was always saying that the cold spots were most noticeable down there.
Jasmine’s bare feet were cold. Moonlight filled the first floor of the house. She went into the kitchen where empty Chinese food containers had been rinsed and left on the counter. It seemed like so long ago that she had sat and eaten with her dad and Nana. She opened the cabinet under the sink to find the flashlight. There it was. She turned it on to make sure it was working. It was. She kept it on. I need all the light I can get, she thought.
The basement door was right off the kitchen, and it was open. Jasmine shone the flashlight down the steps. Put one foot in front of the other, she told herself. For Lisa, your best friend. She put her foot down on the first step. There you go. One more step. One more step. She was concentrating on not falling down the stairs, which was a welcome distraction from other, more disturbing thoughts. She shone the flashlight on her foot and the next step. Finally she was at the bottom. The cement floor was cool and dusty under her feet. Her heart beating wildly, she slowly moved the beam around to search the room.
And in a far corner of the basement she saw it, shining in the beam of light.
The mask! And it was moving! Silently thrashing around in the dark with its crazy smile and furrowed brow. Even in all its writhing, its eyeholes never lost their focus. They stared right at her. And then Jasmine saw it. One of the eyes in the holes winked.
The next sound Jasmine heard was not the hissing she had heard in her nightmare. It was her own voice, screaming.
Screaming. Screaming. Screaming. And everything began happening in slow motion. Her screaming could have been going on for two seconds or two minutes, maybe even two hours. Jasmine had no clue. She only continued to scream, too terrified to turn her back and run upstairs.
Then—no more mask. Instead there was Lisa’s face in front of Jasmine’s, twisted into a mixture of laughter and guilt. She held the mask in her hand, at her side.
“It’s only me!” She laughed.
Jasmine sat down right on the cold cement floor, brought her knees up, buried her head in them, and covered her head with her arms. She concentrated on breathing. She wasn’t even able to look at Lisa, who kept repeating, “It’s only me. It’s only me!”
A trick. Her best friend in the world had played a trick on her. A dumb, mean, thoughtless trick. Jasmine got up, a little dizzy from standing too fast.
Jasmine had felt pure fear when she saw the mask moving wildly in the darkness of the basement. And now she felt something else just as strongly—fury. Pure fury. She stared at Lisa. Her anger was so strong, she almost believed that her eyes could bore holes right into Lisa’s head.
Lisa stared back with a nervous smile. She held up the mask in front of her face again and jiggled it in the air a little. “See, it’s only me!” she said again, laughing. Then she stopped. She seemed to realize she’d gone too far.
Well, it’s a little late to realize that, Jasmine thought. Jasmine walked quickly up the basement stairs and through the kitchen. She heard Lisa behind her, but she just walked faster.
“Jazzy!” There was her dad, a panicked look on his face.
Her screaming must have woken him up. And the night just keeps getting better, Jasmine thought sarcastically.
“Sorry, Dad,” Jasmine said quickly. Suddenly she was embarrassed. “Everything’s fine.”
“Really? It didn’t sound fine,” her dad said, putting a hand on Jasmine’s shoulder. “Where’s Lisa?”
Just then Lisa appeared. She followed Jasmine’s lead. “Sorry, Mr. Porter,” she said. “We were just playing around.”
“It didn’t sound like play. You scared me half to death.” Jasmine’s dad sighed. The three stood there in awkward silence. “What were you two doing in the basement at this time of night?”
“We’re sorry,” Lisa said. She was holding the mask behind her back, not wanting Jasmine’s dad to see it.
Jasmine’s dad sighed again. “Okay, I’m going back to bed, and I strongly suggest that you both do too.”
Jasmine pushed past her dad and ran upstairs. She couldn’t get into bed fast enough. She was already there and under the covers when Lisa entered and silently crawled back into her sleeping bag. The two lay in silence. There were no words for Jasmine’s anger. And her heart was still beating so fast.
Jasmine stared at the glowing constellations on the ceiling. When she and her dad had put them up, they had arranged them in the shapes of actual constellations, like the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper. And there was Orion, the hunter.
When she finally spoke to Lisa, Jasmine’s voice was low and even. “We are totally not going to be speaking for a long time.”
Lisa said nothing in reply. Was she asleep already? Jasmine turned to look at her. Lisa’s eyes were open and she was staring at the ceiling too.
“Get it?” Jasmine asked Lisa. Her voice was hard around the edges.
Lisa had an odd grin on her face, like she was about to crack up, laughing. “Why are you talking to me? I thought we weren’t speaking,” she said. She seemed to think that this whole thing was hilarious.
“You thought right,” Jasmine said, and turned over, putting her back to her best friend. She hugged her extra pillow and closed her eyes tightly. You’re okay. You’re okay. You’re okay.