Free The Secret Bedroom by R.L. Stine, Bill Schmidt

surprise.
    â€œOh!”
    There really was someone on the other side, someone locked in, boarded up.
    But how could that be?
    Taking a deep breath, Lea moved back to the door. “Who are you?” she shouted loudly.
    Silence.
    â€œWho are you? How did you get in there?” Lea asked.
    Silence.

    Then the girl’s voice pleading again, sounding very frightened, very unhappy. “Open the door. Please— open the door.”
    Lea stared openmouthed.
    Should she do it?
    Should she open the door?

“P lease open the door!”
    The girl on the other side of the door repeated her desperate plea.
    â€œPlease!”
    Lea was frozen by indecision. A frightening picture flashed into her mind. She saw a hideous monster with red eyes bulging out of its sockets and green slime drooling from its fang-filled mouth. The monster was hulking on the other side of the locked door, disguising its voice, using the voice of a frightened girl in order to fool Lea. Once the door was opened, it would growl in its natural, disgusting, horrifying voice—and pounce.
    Lea closed her eyes tightly and forced the gruesome picture from her mind.
    â€œPlease open the door!” the muffled voice, now even more frightened and desperate, called out to Lea.

    â€œI-I’ll be right back,” Lea replied.
    She had made her decision. She had decided to unlock the door.
    Down the ladder. Through the hallway and down the stairs, her heart pounding, her mind racing crazily from thought to thought, wild pictures forming in her head of what the girl inside the room looked like. She found her father’s big metal tool chest in the back pantry behind the kitchen. She shuffled through it, her hands moving rapidly, randomly tossing things aside, until she found the biggest claw hammer she could find. She found a small sledgehammer behind the chest and grabbed it too.
    And then back up the stairs, tools in hand. She glanced at the clock on the kitchen stove as she passed. Nearly midnight. Her parents should be home soon.
    What a surprise for them, she thought.
    What a surprise for
everyone.
    Cradling the heavy tools in her arms, Lea struggled back up the metal ladder and hurried to the locked attic door.
    â€œAre you still there?” she called loudly, dropping the sledgehammer to the floor.
    â€œYes.” The voice sounded so tiny now, so far away. “Will you be so kind as to open the door?”
    â€œI-I’ll try,” Lea said uncertainly.
    â€œPlease open the door!”
    â€œI’m going to try!” Lea repeated as loudly as she could. The girl sounded so distant, Lea wasn’t sure she could hear her.
    Lea reached up and pulled on the highest two-by-four.It gave slightly and pulled away from the doorframe.
    Not bad, Lea thought, encouraged. This may not be as hard as I thought.
    She changed the position of her hands on the board, gripped it tightly, and tugged. The board was dry and had weakened over the years. It cracked and squeaked as one end pulled completely off the frame, leaving the nails in place. Lea used the claw hammer on the other end and pried it off quickly, almost effortlessly. She let the board fall to the floor at her feet, then bent over and tugged it out of the way.
    One down, two more to go, she thought, pleased with herself.
    The old boards were practically rotten, she realized. She pulled the remaining two off as easily as the first—she didn’t even need the hammer—and dragged them to the center of the floor.
    â€œAre you okay in there?” Lea called in.
    Silence.
    â€œCan you hear me? Are you okay?”
    â€œPlease open the door,” the voice called.
    â€œI’m trying!” Lea shouted. “I’ve pulled off the boards. Now I just have to figure out how to unlock the door.”
    â€œPlease hurry,” the girl called.
    Lea bent down to examine the doorknob and the lock beneath it. To her shock, she saw a brass key in the