Alligators Overhead: The Adventures of Pete and Weasel Book 1

Prologue

Something just a little suspicious-odd happened last week near Egret Lane.And when the Wartgob sisters told Clara Frankenhoff, Clara told Margo Stiltencranz, the meter maid, who passed it on to Lucy Thricewater at the gift shop. But word never reached Lizzie Glopp (spelled with two P’s) because she was having coffee with her friend, Gladys Neep. By the time the story had traveled the Hadleyville Whisper Circle, it wasn’t news anymore, and planning Gladys Neep’s 100th birthday party was, so everybody forgot that suspicious-odd thing.

Too bad.

If Lizzie Glopp had heard about the dark cloud sightings over the Ornofree swamp, their shapes almost like—maybe exactly like—alligators she would have known there was something brewing. She might have kept a better eye on that twelve-year-old rascal of a nephew of hers, maybe she would have warned him about how much trouble was headed their way. But Pete had so many problems, an alligators-overhead-sighting would have had to take a ticket and stood in line for his attention.

To be honest, Pete was in so much trouble that he was downright nervous-scared. That was how Lizzie Glopp would describe her nephew’s condition. And Pete didn’t like that nervous-scared bundle of stuff tumbling around inside him. Not one bit. So he’d come up with a good system to avoid those feelings. When he was busy hatching his pranks, and then dodging blame, he didn’t have time for the nervous-scared stuff. He almost forgot how much he missed his real home. He almost felt happy again. The problem was his good system got him into bad trouble.

All.

The.

Time

Chapter 1

Pete chewed on what was left of his right thumbnail, stared up at the round-faced clock above Aunt Lizzie’s desk and watched it tick off his last minutes of freedom.

The clapper pulled back and snapped against the brass bell, shaking his morning brain awake, more awake than it wanted to be on the first day of spring break.

His other hand hovered over the chunky, black phone on Aunt Lizzie’s desk. Like everything in the house it was retro, but today it was a bomb set to explode with a call from Principal Pitt, wiping out his spring vacation, wiping out his allowances, probably wiping out the rest of his life.

Brrrring!

Before the phone rang a second time, he sprang out of the chair, knocking it over. He snatched up the receiver, and, with a shaky hand, held it to his ear, waiting to hear Principal Pitt’s wheezy voice. Instead a woman said, Today is the day, Peter Riley.

Before he could make his mouth work to spit out the word, What? the phone went dead. He dropped the receiver. It missed the desk and dangled over the edge, spinning by its cord, humming with a dial tone.

Breakfast in ten minutes, Aunt Lizzie called from the kitchen.

He jumped at the sound of his aunt’s voice, and then swallowed so his heart slid back where it belonged. No way could he explain that call to her, but most importantly he couldn’t explain why he was camped next to the phone so early in the morning. Hauling the cord up, he set the receiver on the cradle, slow and easy.

Was that Pitt’s secretary? How about Lucy Burke’s mom? No. They never called him Peter. The woman’s voice on the phone had sounded hollow, like a recording, not a live person.

One thing was sure. It had jiggled his insides even more than last night’s nightmare. Pete stared at the phone, wondering if he’d really heard what he thought.

Aunt Lizzie called again. Young man, did you hear me?

Yes, Aunt Lizzie. I heard you. He righted the chair and tried to ignore the mess of hamsters in his stomach.

Who was on the phone, Pete?

Uh... Wrong number.

But how could that be? The woman knew his name. Today is the day, Peter Riley.

The day for what? he whispered, and the sound of his own voice sounded eerie.

Pete had one of those very readable faces, so when he was up to something he shouldn’t be—which was the case most of the time—Aunt Lizzie knew it with only one glance in his direction. He looked into the mirror over the desk. For a change, guilt wasn’t there, not one speck. And that was mostly because there wasn’t any room for it. At that moment, his face read confused with nervous-scared elbowing its way through.

The smell of pancakes and eggs found its way out of the kitchen, but he was passing on food, even Aunt Lizzie’s super-sized buttermilk pancakes. He had to get outside, take a few runs up his bike ramp. He had to do something to get rid of that spooky voice. One step away from the desk he stopped. He couldn’t leave the phone unguarded, so he backed up and dialed the number for automated time. He waited until he heard, At the tone the time is— That would keep the line busy. He set the receiver on the desk and hurried to the door.

On his way out he called over his shoulder, I’m going to the lot, Aunt Lizzie. Back in a sec. Before she could tell him no, he shut the door behind him and grabbed up his bike at the bottom of the steps.

In the vacant lot next door, weeds grew waist high, except where Pete and Weasel had cleared a path. That path lead from the hole they’d cut in Aunt Lizzie’s hedge to their bike jump. As Pete pumped his way through the hedge, the wind picked up and whipped those weeds around something fierce. He pulled up short and looked up at the sky, hoping they weren’t in for another hurricane. Even after living in Hadleyville for over two years, he wasn’t used to wind that sent cows and cars into other counties.

He aimed his bike toward the lot, gripped the handlebars, and was about to push off when the ground rumbled under his tennis shoes like it used to back home.

Earthquake?

Not that AND hurricanes.

He waited with his heart doing thud-thud, thud-thud against his ribs and the wind pelting his face.

When the wind stopped, a creepy hush followed. New hamsters joined the couple already chasing each other in his stomach, so, while he faced the weedy lot, a whole rodent family scrabbled around inside him.

He focused on the bike jump again. Standing on the pedals, he pumped, got up to speed and bore down on the sloped plywood. When the wheels hit the wood, the tires swerved and yanked the handlebars to the right. He rolled to the side and landed with a whump on his back, tires whirring next to his head.

Everything spun—a blurry sky, dirt, a house. The earth rumbled underneath him again and settled down to being quiet.

Too quiet.

He turned onto his stomach, and, staying with one ear pressed to the ground, he waited for his head to clear. Then he wiggled all ten fingers and stretched out his arms. Those worked. Getting to his feet, he stomped a couple of times to see if his legs would hold up under him, then he blotted his bloody elbow on his T-shirt.

As he brushed the dirt off and looked up, he froze. He was in the shadow of something big, a shadow that couldn’t be there. Nothing was on this lot but weeds.

Nothing except—He rubbed both eyes. Wooden steps. A porch. A... door!

The scream stayed inside his head. All he could do was blink because where the vacant lot and his bike ramp used to be, stood a house the size of the Hadleyville library—a house he’d never seen in his life.

Or had he?

Chapter 2

He covered his eyes again, counted to ten and peeked through his fingers. That trick used to work when he was a kid and scared late at night. It didn’t work this time. The house didn’t disappear like the monsters used to when he was six.

He turned his back on it, then whipped around.

Still there.

No way was a big two-story house with columns and a wrap around porch supposed to be in that lot next to Aunt Lizzie’s house. No house was supposed to be there, but this one was, and it wasn’t made yesterday. Nope. It was old. And wherever it had come from, the trip hadn’t been easy. Most of the paint was peeled away, with only some dingy white stuck to the porch. The wooden front door was splintery and dark with an iron knocker in the center shaped like an... alligator?

Whoa. He caught his breath. First that eerie telephone message, then the ground rumbling and shifting under his feet, now... this... house? He would have run back through the hole in the hedge if his legs hadn’t gone to rubber. If anyone needed some of Aunt Lizzie’s help-advice he did, and he’d be inclined to listen for a change. Aunt Lizzie always told him, he had a tendency toward sudden deafness whenever anything close to help-advice came his way, but not this time.

He gaped at the iron knocker, thinking that Hadleyville was the one place on the planet where somebody could put an alligator-shaped knocker on his front door and get away with it. The town didn’t have much of anything, but it did have a swamp full of those reptiles. The longer Pete stared at the house, the more it seemed to fit right where it was. The longer he stared at it the more it looked familiar.

Maybe it had been in a picture he’d seen. No. In a museum? His history book? He shook his head.

This... is... Crazy. Weird. Totally Whacked. Whenever Pete got scared, he talked to himself out loud—an only child symptom his aunt said. When he got really rattled he’d run his words together.

Hey, Pete! Talking to yourself again?

Pete jumped and whipped around. Cripes, Weasel! There went his heart shooting off someplace besides his chest for the third time that morning. Why are you sneaking up behind me like that?

If I was sneaking, you never would have heard me. Weasel pushed his glasses higher onto his nose and pointed at the house. Who put that there?

Pete opened his mouth to answer, but Weasel didn’t give him a chance.

Does your aunt know about this? How did you run into a thing that big? Where’s our bike jump? Weasel could ask a lot of dumb questions for a seventh grader already taking eighth grade math.

Knock it off. I wasn’t looking to run into a house, all right? Who needed to look out for a house when a house shouldn’t be where that house was? Pete eyed the front door, the windows and the dangling shutters ready to drop from their hinges. I’ve got to tell Aunt Lizzie. Pete picked up his bike, and without taking his eyes off the house, backed away. If that place could pop up out of nowhere, who knew what else it could do when he wasn’t looking?

He must have been suffering some kind of post-shock reaction because his head started making up little horror movies. Like, he could see someone behind that door, maybe waiting to yank it open. He kind of wanted that to happen, so he could get a look inside. At the same time, he didn’t want to be too close in case it did, and tentacles slithered out and dragged him inside and—

And that’s when he knew where he’d seen the house before. Last night’s nightmare. The splintery door. How it had creaked open and let shadows slip through and wrap around him.

Those shadows had been about to pull him inside when he shot out of bed, grabbed his baseball bat and took a swing.

Now, staring up at the door and thinking about last night had him swiping his sweaty hands on his jeans, trying not to freak out.

Creeeeek. Bang.

A window shutter flapped against the side of the house.

Run! Pete screamed. He tore across the dirt, running alongside his bike. Weasel kept up with him until they reached the hedge, then Pete shoved his bike through the shortcut and raced to the kitchen. Weasel followed right behind him, panting.

Whoa! Are you two that hungry this morning? Aunt Lizzie, her eyes still puffy with sleep and her yellow robe knotted around her middle, stood at the stove, scrambling eggs.

You’ve got to see this! Pete pulled his aunt out the door, across the driveway and through the hole in the hedge.

Aunt Lizzie clutched the spatula like a fly swatter. Slow down, Pete. What on earth is so— Her eyes went wide and her mouth made a large circle. Oh!

She only got excited about Christmas and La Mode dress sales, but Pete guessed she was more than excited because she was walking in circles and flapping her arms like she was warding off a swarm of bees.

I have to call Sheriff Elmer. He has to do...something. Anything! Aunt Lizzie backed through the hedge, waving the spatula. Smoke poured through the kitchen window. Oh, good heavens! The eggs. She hiked her robe to her knees and ran into the house.

Chapter 3

By the time Sheriff Elmer’s siren cut through the air, Pete decided his wishes for something, anything exciting, to happen in Hadleyville had been answered, all in one morning. He also decided to stop wishing stuff until he understood what was going on with him.

The news about the sudden arrival of a house next to Miss Lizzie’s place spread through the Whisper Circle at warp speed, and most of the nine hundred and ninety-five people in Hadleyville clogged their dead end road. As the sheriff’s car nudged through the crowd the gawkers stepped back for him to pass, then they closed the gap.

When he pulled to a slow stop and turned off his motor, an eerie quiet fell