Free The Stone Child by Dan Poblocki Page A

well. Eddie only stammered a couple times. No one laughed, so he made it through his speech, then sat down quickly.
    After two more reports, someone near Eddie raised her hand.
    “Why do we like being scared?” said a voice quietly. Eddie turned around—it belonged to Maggie Ringer, the girl whom Eddie had run into the first day of school. She looked as pale and weird as ever. Her hair was especially stringy, as if she hadn’t washed it in days.
    “Excuse me?” said Mr. Weir.
    “In these stories, the authors are always trying to scare us,” said Maggie. “Why?”
    Mr. Weir pushed up his glasses and smiled. “Eddie? Can you think of an answer?”
    Silence. Then slowly, Eddie nodded. Before he could stop himself, he answered, “So we know what we’re up against.” All the students looked at Eddie like he was crazy. But he was certain he was right, so he confidently continued. “Nathaniel Olmstead once wrote that most of his stories came from his nightmares,” he said, looking at his desk. “He said that we have bad dreams because our brain is trying to protect us.” A boy coughed nearby. Eddie wondered if he was making fun of him. “If—if we can figure out a way to beat the imaginary monsters …” People started to snicker. Eddie spoke quickly, “Then the real monsters don’t seem so scary.”
    The classroom became very quiet.
    “That’s why we like reading scary stories,” Eddie finished quietly. He folded his hands and stared at the blackboard. “At least, that’s what
I
think.”
    Maggie leaned toward him and said, “So basically, you’re saying that monsters are real?”
    He made it to the woods before he heard the splashing. …
    “That’s not what I meant,” Eddie started to say, but the bell interrupted him and Mr. Weir dismissed the class.
    Harris was late meeting Eddie after the last bell to go home. Eddie sat on the stoop outside the cafeteria, looking at his copy of
Whispers in the Gingerwich House
. After rereading thebook the night before, he had a strange feeling that there was something inside it to which he should pay closer attention, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. He was scanning the beginning of chapter seven, when Viola finds the mirror hidden behind the secret panel in the living room wall, when a shadow crossed his path.
    Eddie glanced up and saw Maggie in front of him. Her purple tattered sweater and skinny black jeans looked especially harsh in the slanted autumnal light.
    “Can I help you?” asked Eddie, sticking his finger between the pages of his book to keep his place.
    She crossed her arms and bit her lip. She wouldn’t look at him. Quietly, she said, “I wanted to apologize.”
    “For what?”
    “The scary-story stuff.” She tilted her head and shrugged before continuing. “For some reason, every autumn, the teachers bring up the whole Gatesweed ghost and goblin thing. Just wait. Listen to people talking in the hallway and the locker room. I bet you’ll hear someone mention the Olmstead estate and how it’s creepy and dangerous and we should stay away in case we get cursed and go crazy.
I
live up there.
I’m
not crazy.” She paused. “I’m just so sick of everyone talking about it. Obviously, you’re not.”
    Eddie didn’t know what to say.
    She added, “The class wasn’t whispering about you. They were laughing at me. … That’s what usually happens. I justthought you should know. I’m the class freak, if you haven’t heard.”
    “I don’t think you’re a freak,” said Eddie quickly.
    She stared at the book he held in his lap for a few seconds, then said, “So … tell me. Are you an Olmsteady?”
    Eddie blinked.
    “I’ve seen you carrying his books around,” she said.
    “You have?” Eddie asked. Had she been watching him? “What’s an Olmsteady?”
    “Do you really need a definition?” she asked.
    Eddie cleared his throat. “Uh … no, I guess not.” He had heard the term before but hadn’t really thought about