Adventures in Reading by Debra Chapoton
Chapter 4 - Sounds
So there we were. Lost. Deep in the dark forest. Monsters lurking. Mosquitoes buzzing. Spiders watching. Blood dripping. Dried poop stinking. Or something else . . .
“Okay, who let one?”
“Not me.”
“Not me.”
“It wasn’t me, either, and it’s different from this stuff that’s dried on me,” Sydney smiled as she said this. Nothing gets to that girl. I think she’s happy to be lost.
“Maybe it’s the creature.” Callie said this like she knew the creature personally and, well, it’s just the creature. Yeah, that’s all, the creature just had a little gas, no biggy.
I wasn’t falling for it. I made a face. I turned. I sniffed. I turned again, sniffed again. I picked a direction. There was nothing stinky to the left so that was going to be our new path. The others followed like the little lambs they are.
“Hey, let’s sing.” We just ignored Sydney on that one. Way to not be cool.
“I don’t get why it’s so dark,” Callie said as she stumbled along, last in our miniature parade. “It’s only a little bit after one. Maybe. I think.”
“Yeah,” Austin agreed. “We just had lunch before we came. We haven’t been out here that long.” He really stretched out the word “that” when he said it. We haven’t been out here thaaaaaaaaaaaaat long.
I wouldn’t be making a big deal about how he said it, but it was just that when he was stretching out the word I heard another sound. A sound that could have been someone else trying to mimic him. Not an echo exactly. Just the “aaaaaa” sound, like a sheep’s bleat or a bubble stuck in your throat or the witch in “The Wizard of Oz” before she says “my pretty.”
“Aaaaaaaaaa.” There it was again.
“What was that?” I asked. I glanced back and again everyone was swinging their heads all around. I knew that they had heard it, too. I could imagine all their arm and leg hairs popping out straight with goose pimply fright. Our parade line was tightening up fast as Austin crowded up closer to me and Sydney reached for Austin and Callie closed in on Syd.
“The Bigfoot,” Austin breathed.
“Mr. Two-toes,” Sydney said at the same time.
Callie was a second behind, “Mr. Poopy Pants.”
Well, we all had to laugh at that. Callie comes out with some good ones all the time. She just slides in a comment that may be only a few words, but she makes us all burst out laughing.
That’s what we did. We started to laugh and we couldn’t seem to stop. My sides started aching and Austin was clutching his stomach. This is what I found out later is called hysteria. You start laughing and then you can’t stop yourself and you change to crying or you start crying and the opposite happens and you start laughing. It’s really weird.
We were still at the laughing stage, but I could see that there were tears in Syd and Callie’s eyes. And sure enough, the next thing I knew they were crying like babies.
I might have been, too. Austin punched me and then he started yelling at us all to be quiet because he thought he heard something.