Free The Creek by Jennifer L. Holm

you go from being someone’s best friend to not existing?
    She was stationed with Oren behind the barbecue pit, which bordered on the woods. Her job was to throw fake guts at the kids as they passed. She’d taken a bucket, put cherry Jell-O, rubber snakes and worms, and plastic spiders into it, and mixed it all up.
    “It looks pretty real,” Oren said approvingly.
    “Hey, I know how we can make it look even cooler,” Mac said. He pulled out his Swiss Army knife and grabbed Penny’s hand, holding it over the bucket and pressing the knife edge against her palm.
    “No!” Penny shouted, going white.
    Oren shoved Mac away. “Knock it off!” He turned to Penny, who was shaking. “You okay?”
    “You’re such a jerk,” Penny snarled at Mac.
    Mac rolled his eyes. “Duh, I was just kidding.”
    “It’s not funny,” Oren said. “You know she has a thing—”
    “Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Mac said, and sauntered off, snickering.
    Oren and Penny were looking at each other in disbelief when they heard a voice say “Ow!” Zachary appeared with his arm in a sling.
    “Mac just punched me in my bad shoulder,” Zachary whined, eyes watery. He was rubbing his shoulder gingerly with his good arm. The bruise on his cheek was a yellowing purple blotch and his hair was pushed back off his forehead, revealing his stitches.
    “Hi, Zachary,” Penny said unenthusiastically.
    Mac wandered back, carrying a bag full of rubber snakes and spiders. “We’re not open yet, lame brain.”
    Zachary looked at Penny. “I can help,” he offered in a hopeful voice.
    “I’m sure,” Mac said derisively.
    Penny felt bad. “You could take the money,” she suggested. She looked at the other boys. “We need someone to take the money.”
    “No way,” Mac said swiftly.
    Oren’s face brightened. “Wait a minute, Zachary.” He walked away from Zachary and waved the other kids to him. “We’ll get a ton more kids to go through the trail if we have Zachary. I mean, we’ll get kids who’ll come just to
see
him!”
    “Oren’s right,” Penny agreed. “He’s practically famous since he got beat up by Caleb.”
    “Whatever.” Mac shrugged.
    The kids walked back to Zachary, who was waiting patiently.
    “Sure, Zach. You take the money,” Benji said.
    “Don’t even think of stealing any,” Mac growled.
    Zachary grinned. “I won’t.”
    The first kids Mac brought through were from Wren Circle, and the littlest one was so scared that he burst into tears when Penny threw the guts at him. Penny had to take off her mask and turn on her flashlight to prove that it was just a bucket of cherry Jell-O with a few plastic spiders and rubber snakes, and not real guts. After that, Penny only pelted the older kids.
    Toward the end of the night, Penny had to go to the bathroom, but her hands were too gooey for her to go inside, so she snuck into the woods and hid behind a tree. As she crouched there, she heard a rustle, but it was dark under the cover of the trees, so dark that she couldn’t see anything.
    “Who’s there?” she called softly. “Is that you, Oren?”
    Silence, and then the crunch of a footstep.
    “You can’t come back here. I’m going to the bathroom.”
    Another crunch, closer this time.
    “I mean it, you guys. Don’t be jerks.”
    She hastily wiped herself with a few leaves,dragged up her shorts, and flicked on her flashlight in the direction of the crunch, but nothing was there. Just shadows.
    Penny ran back up the slope.
    “Can’t you guys leave me alone for five minutes?” she said.
    “What are you talking about?” Mac asked.
    They were all there: Benji, Mac, Oren, and Teddy.
    “I was just going to the bathroom, back there in the woods behind the pit, and I heard one of you guys walking around.”
    “It wasn’t us, Penny,” Teddy said, looking perplexed.
    “Yeah, we’ve been here the whole time,” Oren chimed in.
    “Well, if it wasn’t any of you, then who was it?” Penny asked, getting