The Haunting of Hounds Hollow by Jeffrey Salane

Author:Jeffrey Salane
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2018-10-22T16:00:00+00:00

With a loud crack, Eartha Dobbs opened the front door to Sweetwater Manor. Her full frame blocked Lucas from coming into his own house.

“Oh no!” she cried as she glared down at him. “First you mess up the entire kitchen, then you disappear, then you make me come into this house from all your momma’s hollerin’ like the manor’s on fire, and now you’re tryin’ to sneak in the house? And I thought no-flushin’ was bad!”

“I’m not trying to sneak back in—I’m walking through the front door, like a normal person!” Lucas tried to squeeze past her, but Eartha wouldn’t budge. Lucas sighed. “Sorry about the kitchen and about the mom alarm. I just don’t see why a little exploding mustard and some spilled dog food is such a big deal.”

“Mustard?” Eartha called out from the doorway. “Dog food? If you think mustard and dog food caused that mess, then heaven help you.”

Lucas gave her an odd look, but Eartha shuffled him along as she went back to her cottage. “Don’t make me come in here again. You understand?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Lucas jogged to the kitchen. “Mom, I can explain. Remember the exploding mustard and the—”

“Not. A. Word,” Mom said in her coolest, calmest voice, which was parent code for There’s not a volume loud enough for how much trouble you are in. She stood in the middle of a wreck that used to be their kitchen. All of the chairs were knocked over, and some were even broken. Every door in the room was open, from the cabinets to the fridge to the dishwasher door. The food they’d just bought the day before was scattered across the floor. Tomatoes, broccoli, apples, grapes, raw meat, and potato chips were crushed, smashed, and stinking up the room. Uncooked chicken was even stuck to the ceiling. No food group had been spared.

“I … ,” started Lucas, but he was silenced by the death stare coming from his mom. The kitchen was a culinary crime scene. “This wasn’t me! You believe me, right?”

“Then who could it have been?” asked Dad, walking in with a broom. “I suppose this mess just magically appeared.”

“Maybe,” suggested Lucas. “Stranger things have happened.”

But his father held out the broom’s handle. “Well, then maybe you can make this mess magically disappear.”

Lucas was about to beg his mom to listen to him, but she had her arms crossed and was turning a particularly angry shade of red.

“Tonight.” Her voice was strained and measured, a perfect recipe that told Lucas she meant business. “If this room isn’t spotless tonight, we will have a problem. Am I clear?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Lucas leaned the broom against the wall and began picking up the plastic bags.

His parents left him to clean on his own. Piece by piece, Lucas picked up the trash. Empty soda cans littered the floor next to sticky spills. A sideways bottle of olive oil poured down the lower cabinets and glowed in the kitchen light. Lucas ran towels over everything, mixing the smells together in a rotten, sugary horribleness that made him gag.

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