Read Online Don't Scream (9780307823526) by Joan Lowery Nixon - Free Book Online

gushing a flash of brightness across his yard before it closed.
    Peaches’s nightly trip outside
, I thought. I was about to pull down the nearest window shade when the trunk of the large elm tree at the front of the Maliks’ property wavered and thickened.
    It can’t be the tree that moved
, I told myself,
but I haven’t seen anyone approach the tree.
Had someone been there, watching and hiding behind the stocky trunk?
    In the pale half-light I thought I saw somethingsmall streak across the lawn toward the tree and the trash next to it, then vanish into the deep shadows. The tree moved again, then was still.
    I squinted, straining to see until my eyes hurt. Could that small shape have been Peaches? No. I didn’t think so. Peaches was as antisocial as Mr. Chamberlin. The animal I’d seen must have been a squirrel.
    My eyes began to water, but I kept them fixed on the tree. No more strange shapes, no more movement. I ran to Mom and Dad’s room, at the front of the house, for a better look at the elm; but in the darkness the tree looked like nothing more than a twisted, bent skeleton with splayed fingers that waggled in the light breeze.
    The street was empty. Had someone been there and gone? Or had my eyes been playing tricks on me?
    I heard Mom and Dad checking doors and turning out lights, so I walked back to my room, pulled down my shades, and got ready for bed.
    For a moment I sat on the edge of my bed, stroking Pepper, wondering if I’d seen something or not.

CHAPTER
seven
    The sky had faded to a thin, pale gray, stamped with a transparent, fading moon, when our doorbell jangled sharply and fist-weight blows hammered against the door.
    Mom and Dad, staggering from sleep, pulled on robes as they hurried down the stairs. I stopped only long enough to snatch up Pepper before I followed them, my heart thumping.
    As Dad opened the door, Mr. Chamberlin, leaning forward on his wobbling cane, stumbled and nearly fell.
    â€œPeaches!” he cried out. “Peaches … she’s gone. Where’s my cat?”
    I thought about what I had seen in the darkness, and my heart skipped a couple of beats.
    Mom put an arm around Mr. Chamberlin’s shoulders and guided him to the nearest living-room chair. “Now, now,” she said in a soothing voice, “don’t be upset. We’ll help you find Peaches.”
    Mr. Chamberlin’s hands trembled as he pressedthem against the round knob on his cane. Thin wisps of white hair stuck out at angles from his face, which was tight with fear. “Peaches went out last night, as she always does. Sometimes she comes back right away. Sometimes she don’t. I fell asleep. It’s my fault. I should have waited for her. I usually do. But I went to sleep.”
    â€œPeaches probably did, too,” Mom told him. “Right now she may be curled up in a ball, sound asleep in some cozy spot she found.”
    â€œI agree,” Dad said heartily. “Mr. Chamberlin, when you’re ready, I’ll walk you home, and I bet that Peaches will be waiting at the door for you.”
    I wondered how I could recount what I’d seen and still make sense. “Last night,” I said, “I thought I saw Peaches cut across your lawn and run toward the elm tree next door.”
    They all looked at me, waiting, but what else could I add?
    Mom finally broke the silence by asking, “And …?”
    â€œThat’s it,” I said. “It might have been a squirrel, or it might have been Peaches. Mr. Chamberlin opened his front door, then closed it, and all I saw was a small shadow running toward the elm tree. Or maybe she was running toward the trash. Last night the Maliks put their trash near the curb, next to the tree.”
    â€œDid you see Peaches leave?” Mom asked.
    â€œNo,” I said. “I watched for a while, but I didn’t see her again.” I quickly added, “It might not even have been