Bloody Skeleton Series #1 The Monster in the neighborhood

4-Hang Out

Mikey's dad guffawed. Everybody laughed. Except Harry because he didn't want to wake Sugar, and Mikey.

'Go on kids, you guys don't want to go to the shed?' Mikey's dad asked.

'Aren't you done with the car by now?' Mikey asked back, trying hard not to feel Jerry watching him.

'Not yet, buddy, we're doing a maintenance check.'

Ned spoke up. 'Can we check out your yard, Mr Jerry?'

Even though he felt watched, when Mikey looked up, Jerry wasn't looking at him. He was chuckling at Ned. 'I don't think anything interesting is there, I haven't had time to really unpack.'

'We just wanted to see what it's like. Nobody's lived here before.'

Jerry looked amused. 'Really?'

'Yeah,' Mikey's dad answered. 'I grew up here, but even when I was a kid nobody lived here. You're a celebrity just for moving in here. You've got everybody curious.'

Maybe it was just Mikey, but a weird look covered Jerry's face for a second. He blinked and the look was gone.

'Yeah kids, knock yourself out. But you'll have to promise to come back when I'm clearing out the yard.'

'Yes!' Ned was excited. They were all very curious children, but none as curious as Ned. He always had questions and usually found a way to find the answers.

Yeah, maybe Mikey could try that too; finding his answers.

One of the things he definitely knew was that Jerry was here last night before Mikey went to bed, but for some reason he'd stayed outside until his parents had come back and then he'd lied that he'd just gotten there.

'Mikey let's go.'

No good evidence to support that something wasn't wrong with Jerry.

'Mikey, do you want to stay here with the big dude?' Mikey's dad asked.

Mikey made a face very akin to what he'd make if somebody offered him a broccoli ice cream. 'No, thanks.' He went after Ned and the others.

'Well, that doesn't hurt at all.' He heard his dad call after him, and Jerry's deep chuckle.

'Mikey here!'

They were standing close to a tree at the back. It was bigger than Mikey remembered.

During their last year of preschool, some of the boys in their class tried playing soccer on Mikey's lawn, and Harry had managed to kick the ball so hard it'd flown across the street and had bounced to the backyard of the old house.

Mikey had started chasing it before any of them had even moved. The yard had seemed very big and mysterious and scary, so he'd barely gotten a good look around and had just snatched the ball and ran back to continue the game. He had noticed the tree though. Exactly the same as it is now, but it was just that the yard looked a bit longer, bigger than it had then.

It shouldn't have been possible because he was bigger now.

'What're you guys doing?'

Sugar wasn't in Harry's arms anymore.

'Sugar woke up when he got here and went there,' Jake pointed, 'and started hissing, then she just ran away.'

It was a small window near the ground, maybe for the basement.

'Ned tried to see what was there, but there's a curtain. So, we're just looking elsewhere.'

Harry had his hands in his pockets, looking sadly at the other side of the yard, where sugar must have escaped through. 'I don't know why she woke up, I was very careful.'

Jake gave him a consolatory pat on the back.

'Guys, look at all these dead plants,' Ned called, bent over a garden of wilted flowers.

'Yeah, there are dead plants in some places and overgrown weeds in others,' Harry contributed, coming back to his chit-chat self now that Sugar was gone.

'Isn't that just because nobody's lived here before?' Mikey asked, disturbing a dead plant with his feet.

'Maybe,' Ned agreed. 'I don't think there's anything fun to do here, and I don't think Jerry's weird.' He faced back to look up at Jake.

Harry looked between them. 'Who said Jerry was weird?'

Mikey shrugged. 'He kind of rubs me the wrong way. I feel like he's hiding something.'

'I mean, he did just move here, so of course there're tons of things we don't know about him yet.' Ned stood up and dusted off his hands.

'I mean,' Mikey looked back to make sure Jerry wasn't coming and leaned closer to his friends who leaned closer on instinct. 'I saw him come last night, after you'd gone home.' He nodded to Harry. 'He drove in his car perfectly fine and just stood outside, perfectly still. But my parents came back when it was almost midnight and saw him still standing outside!'

They all frowned.

'That doesn't mean anything,' Harry said.

'Yeah,' Ned added, 'maybe he went in to just relax and came back out, I mean, his car is bad.'

'Yeah, but he told my parents that he'd just gotten there. That he got there just around the time they got home.'

'That doesn't make any sense.' Jake said.

'Exactly!' Mikey exclaimed without raising his voice. 'Why'd he say that?! And you know what's even weirder? I'm pretty sure he saw me looking out the window last night. He knows that I saw him, but he still lied!'

Ned pursed his lips. 'Are you sure it was him you saw?'

Jake jumped in before Mikey could say a word. He was somehow excited. 'Na, no way Mikey wouldn't know if it was somebody else. I think it really was Jerry. Maybe he was doing something and got fluttered when your parents came so he panicked and told a lie he couldn't take back.'

'You sound like an idiot,' Ned said.

'No.' Jake did a pose and spoke louder. 'I sound like the greatest detective to ever live!'

Harry snorted.

Ned rolled his eyes. 'What could he possibly be doing outside that late and how wouldn't he have noticed a whole car moving down the street at night? I mean, it's not like cars can tiptoe. He should have heard them coming while they were just far enough for him to sneak off if he was really doing something bad.'

Mikey pursed his lips now and thought it over. That did make sense, but it still didn't explain everything.

'Plus,' Ned wasn't done, 'do we really want to even find out what he was doing or why he lied? I mean, what if it's something really bad that puts us in trouble just for knowing?'

Ned was the smartest person in their grade. He wanted to be a scientist, but he'd once said he wanted to be an engineer, so nobody knew what he wanted to become. Everybody knew that whatever it was, he was going to be very good at it.

Jake gave Ned a look. 'You mean, Mr science person, that you don't want to know what he did?'

'I'm saying that he might not have done anything. We can't just go poking around somebody just because Mikey doesn't like his weird neighbour.'

'But you agree he's weird?' Jake asked with a playful look.

'I mean, of course, he is. But that doesn't mean anything.'

Harry nodded. 'Yeah, Ned's right. I think Jerry's nice, he let us come back here even though he hasn't even come here. It's his first day here.'

Mikey frowned. He didn't like where things were going.

'Look, I think he was really just checking out his car yesterday. Maybe he didn't even know how much time had passed or something.'

Mikey sighed. He hated that Ned made so much sense.