The Mansion at MLK and Pearl

The Mansion at MLK and Pearl
Noa Urbaitel - Grade 6 Charlotte Central School

It was dark. Small cottony clouds flitted over the full moon and the wind whistled through the trees. My friends and I giggled as we walked down the street in our costumes. Our footsteps made a squelching noise on the wet pavement. “Ooooh. There it is!” my friend Mary teased. We laughed some more and scurried past the big creepy mansion on the corner of Pearl Avenue and MLK Boulevard.
“Trick or treat!” we yelled at the next house. We each got a candy bar and we went to the next house.
After trick-or-treating, we all walked each other home so we wouldn’t have to go alone. Jessie was first in the line and we all dropped her off. Mary was after her, and I was next. Then the twins, Francis and Connor, went home together. I said thanks to the twins and walked into my house stamping my shoes on the doormat. I ran upstairs and dumped my loot on the rug. Sorting it into piles of chocolate, lollipops, sucking candy, miscellaneous and stuff I didn’t want, I started to get a little bit tired. I changed into my pajamas and climbed into bed. Then I immediately fell asleep.
That morning the sunlight streamed through my window and woke me up. I flung on some clothes and clomped downstairs for breakfast.
“Mornin’ early bird. Got plans for today?” my dad said in his usual greeting.
“I’m going to play kickball with Mary, Jessie, Francis and Connor at the twin’s house.”
“Don’t get too muddy. And quite frankly I don’t want you going near the old Harrison Mansion on the corner of Pearl and MLK. Old Mr. Harrison had a heart attack at the top of the stairs last night and fell down the brick steps. They found his body this morning and I don’t want you to get scared.”
“Oh, dad. You worry too much. I don’t get scared that easily. I think you’re confusing me with Bryn.” Brynmira is my sister’s full name and she is a complete scaredy-cat. I grabbed a piece of toast and walked out the door still shrugging my raincoat on. So Mr. Harrison died. That would prove some hearty exploring in the old house. He doesn’t have an heir. The old grouch never had kids. Not too big of a loss. I ran over to the corner and ran into the twins’ big backyard. I jumped the fence and started to make teams. Let the game begin.
After the game I decided to go exploring in the old house but I had trouble finding one of my friends who wanted to go along with me.
“No,” they all said, “absolutely not! It could be dangerous. And besides, the excitement is probably all gone.” They tried to reassure me that I wasn’t missing anything but I wasn’t convinced.
“Don’t you think it would be exciting to go on an adventure just this once?” I asked over and over again. Even after all my pleading the solid answer was no. But when I finally threatened to go alone, Francis gave in. The twins went everywhere together so Connor had to come, too. Then Mary didn’t want to miss out and neither did Jessie so we gathered inside the twin’s room and started to make plans.
When we were all collected (or as collected as a bunch of excited sixth graders can be) in a circle in the middle of the floor, we started to draw out the plan. We would go tomorrow night, as it was a new moon and we wanted the cover of darkness, and we would dress all in black. We would each have a flashlight, a walkie-talkie, a notebook, a pencil and a small flashlight for small places. We all moved throughout the house and tested out the walkie-talkies. We changed the batteries in all the flashlights and found some good notebooks that weren’t filled with Francis’ doodling. By then it was dark and the twin’s mom made us all dinner of macaroni and cheese and coffee cake for dessert. After that I said a sleepy goodbye to everyone and trudged home.
The next morning I was awake just as the sun streamed through the window and hit my face. I grinned from ear to ear and jumped out of bed hitting my head on the ceiling. Even that didn’t dampen my enthusiasm. The whole day was a flurry of running over the Mary’s house and getting ready and then running back home to get something we forgot and then scurrying back to Mary’s house. By six we were all jumping out of our skin. Even Jessie who was reluctant to join in the first place. Then, finally, darkness came.
It was a perfect night. No stars, no moon, everything was bathed in pitch blackness. We all put our black outfits on and our utility belts with all of our supplies. We slunk out of the house and down MLK Boulevard. When the mansion finally loomed in front of us we started shivering and my stomach started doing somersaults. We stepped up to the door and knock on the ancient wood. Clunk, clunk, clunk. Nobody answered but the door swung open of its own accord. We gulped down the screams we wanted to emit and stepped inside.
Connor was the first one in and he grabbed my hand and dragged me along. Then I grabbed Francis who grabbed Mary who grabbed Jessie and we were all inside. The door shut and we heard a click like a lock being turned and Jessie went and checked if we were locked in. When she looked back at us with a scared look on her face only then did we finally scream. We all screamed long and hard and it burned my throat and shattered my eardrums. When we were done we all looked at each other and laughed. You might think we were just a couple of crazy kids but if you were in our shoes I have a feeling you would do exactly the same thing. When we stopped nothing made a sound. Not even the mice that probably inhabited the walls. We all paired up and for once one of the twins wanted to be with me instead of together. So Mary, Jessie and Francis were a threesome and Connor and I were together. Both Mary and I spun around with our eyes closed and when we stopped we opened our eyes and pointed at the passageways our groups would head out to. Mine was a creepy hallway with lots of old looking doors on either side of the walls. Theirs was a short hallway that lead down to what looked like a dining room. We gulped, grabbed our partners’ hand, and set on our separate ways.
The hallway had a dusty smell that reached its ugly hand up and tickled the inside of my nose. My eyes were tearing from trying to keep the sneeze from coming out because I was afraid that if I made a loud noise something would come out and get me. So maybe Brynmira was rubbing off on me but I still wasn’t that scared. Connor randomly picked a door to open and reached for the knob. When he touched it we heard a loud crack and he pulled his hand away. “What was that?” I asked but my question went unanswered for right in front of us the door opened by itself and a wind rushed out of it. The wind lingered by our ears and a heard a low, soft voice whisper “Come in”. One look at Connor told me he had heard it too. We gulped dramatically and walked into the room.
The dusty wood creaked under our feet and even our own shadows scared us. Connor gripped my hand and I held on like his was a lifeline. My stomach started a gymnastics floor routine and you can believe that didn’t feel good.
“Do you know where a bathroom is? I really got to go!” cried Connor desperately.
“Check over there." I pointed to a small room, and Connor fled into it. I sat down and held my knees afraid to be alone in this creepy place. Suddenly I heard a yell from the bathroom and the sound of smacking lips.
“Don’t eat me!” the voice cried. The voice - it was Connor’s.
Connor started getting more hysterical. “NO, NO DON’T EAT ME LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!!!!!!!!!”
“I’ll save you!” I said in a pathetic voice, but I knew I couldn’t do it. “I’M SORRY CONNOR!” I yelled and then I ran, as fast as my legs would carry me, to the front door. I grabbed the doorknob and pulled with all my might but it was still locked. I turned around and pressed my back against the door and screamed. Right in front of me were four black figures and when they pulled back their hoods all that was there was a white sphere and a giant red hole where the mouth should have been. They didn’t breathe and they kept coming closer and closer and closer until they finally enclosed me in a tight circle. Then… I fainted.
I can vaguely remember being put in my warm bed and falling asleep. When I woke up my mom was all worried about me and my dad just kept laughing. Brynmira was bringing me her whole stuffed animal collection and insisting that I play with her but all I could do was sleep after last nights events. When my four friends came over they told me what happened.
“We knew that you were never scared of anything,” began Francis, “so when you insisted we go into the mansion it was a perfect chance to finally scare you. The door wasn’t really locked at the beginning. Jessie just made a sound with her tongue and pretended she couldn’t open the door. Connor didn’t really have to go to the bathroom either. We all agreed to meet in that room to get into the cloaks and socks we wore over our heads. And Connor wasn’t really getting eaten, of course, it was to muffle the sound of the fabric being pulled over our heads.”
My reaction to this explanation of course was, “I’M GOING TO KILL YOU!!!!”. All four of them looked at me and fled. Then when they were gone, I pulled out my notebook and started planning. You guys just wait till next year. You just wait.