And Another Batch of Concrit

Okay, one more time. I think I may have gotten myself a little more on track here, but, as we all know, I tend to think it's brilliant the day I write it and then hate it the following day.

So. This is the new opening to Chapter One. It takes us to the same point where I left off in the previous post, but I think this is a lot less exposition-y and a lot more character-y. Also, keep in mind that I've written this over the course of like, 45 minutes and have not gone back and made things pretty. I'm looking for a general idea, here, because there's no sense in making things pretty if I'm not keeping it.

Previous offering still stands: virtual cookies and my undying gratitude!

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“You want to spend our summer doing what?!” Allie Sullivan squeezed the hand brakes hard. Her bike skidded to a stop in the middle of the sidewalk.

At the sound of Allie’s screeching tires, Charlie Davis glanced over his shoulder. He turned around and cycled back over to her. “Sorry, I thought you heard me the first time. I said I think we should explore the Witch’s house this summer.”

Allie had heard him the first time, and therein lay the problem. There was no way that she was going to spend her entire summer anywhere near the Witch’s house. No way at all. “I was hoping I’d heard wrong,” she muttered, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Come on, Allie, it’ll be fun!”

She highly doubted that. The expression on her face must have said as much, because Charlie continued, “Tommy McClaren says that all of her stuff is still in all the rooms, just like the stories say. Just think about how much fun it’d be to go through it all!”

As usually happened anytime Charlie tried to explain one of his new projects, Allie’s head was swimming. Tommy McClaren would be going into eighth grade in the fall. She and Charlie would be going into sixth. Since the junior high kids didn’t exactly make a habit of hanging out with the kids in the elementary school, she had no idea when the two of them had become buddy-buddy. Unless … “How do you know he’s not just playing with you?”

“Because I’ve seen it for myself.”

At that, Allie shot him an incredulous look. “You have not! I’ve been with you every day since school let out.”

“Not every day,” Charlie reminded her. “Remember last week when your mom took you shopping?”

Allie wrinkled her nose at the memory. Lisa Sullivan was famous for her all-day shopping extravaganzas. Allie did not enjoy shopping anywhere near as much as her mother did and usually spent the day trailing her mom from store to store, bored out of her skull.

“Anyway, Tommy and Jeff Lane promised to get me a sundae if I told them what was in the big glass cabinet in the dining room.”

Ah, that explained it. Charlie had a love of ice cream that bordered on addiction. He would agree to pretty much anything on the promise of a hot fudge fix. “And what, may I ask, was in the glass cabinet in the Witch’s dining room?”

“A whole bunch of gross-looking, half-burnt candles,” Charlie shrugged. He turned his bike around and started pedaling to their original destination. “I’m telling you, Al, this summer’s going to rock!”

Allie begged to differ. She had spent most of her eleven years actively avoiding the abandoned house on Lancaster Road, and now Charlie wanted her to, like, hang out inside of it? No thanks.

Inhaling through her nose, she took off after Charlie. Based on the conversation they’d just had, she had a sneaking suspicion she knew where he was leading her. Her hunch proved correct when they rounded the corner onto Lancaster Road.

Allie shivered despite the humidity. The Witch’s house was visible from the top of the street. Her mom had often said that the house had seen better days, but Allie thought that was putting it mildly.

What was left of the paint that had once been a soft and pretty robin’s egg blue had dulled and dirtied to a deep thunderstorm gray. The salt air had taken its toll on the clapboard, which had warped and splintered. All of the windows were broken, lasting evidence of the decades of homeruns and wild pitches from the vacant lot next door.

The building looked like every single haunted house in every single horror movie that Charlie had ever forced Allie to watch. Was it any wonder that the place gave her the creeps?

Charlie dumped his bike in the far corner of the vacant lot and unhooked the bag containing their new Frisbee from around his handlebars. By the time he freed the Frisbee from its packaging, Allie had dumped her bike next to his. “Go long,” he told her, and she ran halfway across the lot and prepared to catch.

He whipped it so hard that it soared high above Allie’s head and cleared the wrought iron fence surrounding the Witch’s yard. “You did that on purpose!” Allie cried.

“Did not!” Charlie hollered back, though the mischief sparkling in his eyes told her otherwise. “The wind must have taken it.”

Wind? There was no wind, and even down at the beach, the breeze wouldn’t have carried a Frisbee that far. “Whatever. I’m so not going over there to get that.”

“Man,” Charlie snickered as he jogged past her on his way to the fence, “you are such a baby.”

Allie gave an indignant sniff. The simple fact that she didn’t want to go anywhere near the Witch’s yard hardly made her a baby.

“Hey, Allie? I can’t see where it landed.”

She muttered a word that, if her mom had been around to hear it, would have gotten her grounded for a good three days. Taking a deep breath, she summoned what little courage she had and joined Charlie at the fence. A brand-new Frisbee the exact color of a highlighter should have stood out, but Allie saw no sign of it.

Great, now a search and rescue mission was in order. She closed her eyes and tried to remember how much allowance money she had left. At this point, it might just be easier to scrounge up the four-fifty to get another Frisbee at the 7-Eleven.

“The Black Widow’s going to get you.”

Allie choked back a scream and whirled around in the direction of the harsh whisper. She found herself face to face with a grinning Charlie Davis. “You’re not funny.” She gave his shoulder as hard a shove as she could muster, which had the decidedly undesired effect of making him laugh out loud.

“Aw, c’mon, Al,” he chuckled, raising his hands in mock surrender, “it’s just an old house.”