Free Seventh Son: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Volume I by Orson Scott Card Page B

because Al had told them there wasn’t nothing to fear.
    It wasn’t ten seconds before he heard the first whoop from the room next door. And within a minute the whole house was in such an uproar you’d’ve thought it was on fire. Girls screaming, boys shouting, and big old boots stomping as Papa rushed up the stairs and squashed roaches. Al was about as happy as a pig in mud.
    Finally things started calming down in the next room. In a minute they’d come in to check on him and Calvin, so he blew out the candle, ducked under the covers, and whispered for the roaches to hide. Sure enough, here came Mama’s footsteps in the hall outside. Just at the last moment, Alvin Junior remembered that he wasn’t wearing his nightgown. He snaked out his hand, snatched the nightgown, and pulled it under the covers just as the door opened. Then he concentrated on breathing easy and regular.
    Mama and Papa came in, holding up candles. He heard them pull down Calvin’s covers to check for roaches, and he feared they might pull down his as well. That would be such a shameful thing, to sleep like an animal without a stitch on. But the girls, who knew he couldn’t possibly be asleep so soon after getting stuck with so many pins, they were naturally afraid of what Alvin might tell Mama and Papa, so they made sure to hustle them out of the room before they could do more than shine a candle in Alvin’s face to make sure he was asleep. Alvin held his face absolutely still, not even twitching his eyelids. The candle went away, the door softly closed.
    Still he waited, and sure enough, the door opened again. He could hear the padding of bare feet across the floor. Then he felt Anne’s breath against his face and heard her whisper in his ear. “We don’t know how you did it, Alvin Junior, but we know you set those roaches onto us.”
    Alvin pretended not to hear anything. He even snored a little.
    “You don’t fool me, Alvin Junior. You better not go to sleep tonight, because if you do, you’ll never wake up, you hear me?”
    Outside the room, Papa was saying, “Where’s Anne got to?”
    She’s in here, Papa, threatening to kill me, thought Alvin. But of course he didn’t say it out loud. Anyway, she was just trying to scare him.
    “We’ll make it look like an accident,” said Anne. “You always have accidents, nobody will think it’s murder.”
    Alvin was beginning to believe her, more and more.
    “We’ll carry your body out and stuff it down the privy hole, and they’ll all think you went to relieve yourself and fell in.”
    That would work, thought Alvin. Anne was just the one to think of something so devilish clever, since she was the very best at secretly pinching people and being a good ten feet away before they screamed. That was why she always kept her fingernails so long and sharp. Even now, Alvin could feel one of those sharp nails scraping along his cheek.
    The door opened wider. “Anne,” whispered Mama, “you come out of there this instant.”
    The fingernail quit scratching. “I was just making sure little Alvin was all right.” Her bare feet padded back out of the room.
    Soon all the doors were closed, and he heard Papa’s and Mama’s shoes clattering down the stairs.
    He knew that by rights he should still be scared to death by Anne’s threats, but it wasn’t so. He had won the battle. He pictured the roaches crawling all over the girls, and he started to laugh. Well, that wouldn’t do. He had to stifle that, breathe calm as could be. His whole body shook from trying to hold in the laughter.
    There was somebody in the room.
    He couldn’t hear anything, and when he opened his eyes he couldn’t see anybody. But he knew somebody was there. Hadn’t come in the door, so they must’ve come in the open window. That’s plain silly, Alvin told himself, there isn’t a soul in here. But he lay still, all laughter gone out of him, because he could feel it, somebody standing there. No, it’s a nightmare,