Free Lore of the Underlings: Kid of Lore by John Klobucher Page A

said Eastie. Big Oakes nodded no.
    Hank looked again. “I’d say it’s a mess.
Gross but…”
    “Not what we’re going for. Rats!” Rusty
tried spitting a couple more times. That was the sign that he was
thinking.
    Inside the Carvers’ telephone rang. It came
loud and clear through a broken front window.
    Rusty’s ears twitched. His beady green eyes
got buggy. “Duh!” He slapped his forehead and disappeared into the
cellar behind him.
    The gang didn’t have to wait for long. He
was back in an instant armed with a flashlight and a shoebox full
of stuff.
    “This’ll do the trick I bet.”
    He brought the box over to where he had
painted and dumped the whole contents onto the wall. Out fell a
glow-in-the-dark alarm clock, a big square battery, and some
wire.
    Rusty rubbed his hands together then pulled
out the flashlight tucked into his belt. “Who wants to help finish
off this stink bomb?” The sticky red paint was still on his
mitts.
    “I’m in!”
    “Let’s do this.”
    “It’s almost time…”
    Darkness suddenly cloaked the kids. Night
came down. A pale moon eyed them.
    Eastie, Oakes, and Hank did the dirty work.
Rusty played mastermind, flashing directions. “Wind it up Cappy.
They gotta hear ticking.” But he let the spotlight do most of the
talking.
    “Pssst.”
    It was Haylee. “I can’t see, Johnny. Your
dumb trick is boring. I wanna go home.”
    “Shhh. Hold on Sis,” Johnny begged her.
“Can’t leave now. They’re almost done.”
    They squinted at Rusty holding the bag with
a grin on his face.
    “Cuz this part’s fun…”
     
    The teenage entourage made for the moonlit
road and stopped to look both ways. There wasn’t a car in sight.
Not a soul.
    “The usual spot?”
    “I don’t care.”
    “Your call Rust-man.”
    But Rusty didn’t hesitate. He took a quick
left and walked up toward the hillcrest.
    Everyone followed single file. Hank. Then
the older boys. Haylee and Johnny. They didn’t have to go too
far.
    Rusty pulled up when he got to a place where
the sky opened wide. “They’ll see it good here.” He put down the
pocketbook right on the pavement.
    Just then something caught Johnny’s eye. A
glow way down the hill. It was growing. And fast. The telephone
wires lit up.
    “Car!”
    Now everyone heard it coming. Metal rattled.
Tires screeched. The engine roared.
    And Rusty roared too. “Don’t just stand
there like roadkill — hide!”
    They scattered in the nick of time.
    A beat-up old pickup truck blew by the bag.
It nearly hit it but didn’t stop.
    Heads popped up from behind the gray stone
walls that lined both sides of the road. Six of them. Twelve eyes
in the dark.
    Johnny could make out four human shapes
across the street. One waved him over. He recognized Hank’s
silhouette. “Come on Haylee. They got a better view up there.”
    But all of a sudden he noticed a fifth more
beastly thing. It came from nowhere. Fangs on four legs — they
shined in the moonlight. “Killer…
    “On second thought, let’s stay put.”
    Haylee just nodded and zipped up her
sweatshirt. She copied him watching the empty road. But after a
minute she cleared her throat. “Hey Johnny,” she asked, “what is the trick?”
    “Huh?”
    She asked again.
    He giggled. “I guess I just figured…”
    She shook her head. “Is it magic?”
    “Not that kinda trick. A prank. And you
won’t believe who invented it.”
    “Rusty?”
    “Nope. Not even close.”
    “Who?”
    “Dad.”
    “Dad?”
    “Well maybe he didn’t invent it… but he said
they did it when he was a kid.”
    “Did what?”
    He pointed to the road. “His brothers and
him, Uncle Jerry and Jack — they’d take one o’ Gramma’s junky old
pocketbooks, fill it with cow pies, and see who stopped. They
called it the ‘pocketbook trick’. It still works…”
    He paused like he was picturing
something.
    “But not everybody gets the joke.”
    “What’d ya mean?”
    “Ummm, just be ready to run.”
    Haylee now