The Collector by KR Alexander

Author:KR Alexander
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2018-11-05T16:00:00+00:00

Karen Little never showed up. Either at school or at home.

Rumors began circulating. Even though I didn’t have any real friends beyond Vanessa, I still heard the talk in the hallways: Some kids thought she’d run away. Others thought she’d been abducted. I tried to ignore those. I didn’t want to think about something so terrible happening. Not in a town like this.

About the only good thing was that Anna had stopped having nightmares.

Although she needed to stop playing tricks on me.

I swore I heard her come into my room at night and giggle. When I turned on the lights, though, she had already run out and pretended to be asleep. I confronted her about it a few times, but she was as good a liar as she was bad at keeping secrets: She flat-out refused to admit that she’d come into my room at all. She even went so far as to start crying when I refused to believe her. And then she played a very mean trick.

I woke up to my alarm like usual.

From bad dreams. As usual.

I didn’t open my eyes when I reached to turn the alarm off. My hand smacked into something small and hard.

I blinked open my eyes and nearly screamed.

It was the doll Vanessa had given Anna.

It sat there on my bedside table, right next to my alarm. Its face was pointed directly at me. For some reason, that creepy smile made my skin crawl.

I couldn’t remember its smile being that wide before.

I shook my head and knocked the doll on its face.

Anna was playing tricks, probably for attention. Which just meant I needed to ignore her. And I needed to stop letting my imagination get away from me. Otherwise, soon, I’d be just as bad as Grandma Jeannie.

That was the other thing—Grandma Jeannie had gotten worse. Much worse. Now that Karen Little had been reported missing, Grandma doubled down on her strange rules and muttering. It made Mom upset, but no matter what she tried, she couldn’t get Grandma to calm down. Grandma Jeannie came into our rooms to make sure our windows were closed. She watched us from the back porch whenever Anna and I went outside. She checked our closets. She never told us what she was looking for, but I knew: She was making sure we weren’t hiding a doll anywhere.

Which just made me angrier that Anna would risk getting us both in a lot of trouble—and potentially getting me banned from ever seeing my new best friend again—by leaving the doll on my nightstand.

When I got up, I grabbed the doll and stuffed it inside a pillowcase, then stormed into Anna’s room. She was still in bed.

“Why would you do this?” I asked. I tried to keep my voice down, but it was impossible to keep the anger from my words.

“What?” she asked innocently, looking at the pillowcase with confusion.

I tossed it on her bed. She reached out for it.

“This. Why would you put this in my room?” I lowered my voice even more.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.