The Tanglewood Terror by Kurtis Scaletta

before dawn, knowing sleep would never come. I rummaged through the Pig Boy bag and moved the uniform to my sports bag, since I’d need it for practice after I apologized to Randy. It looked like everything was there except my helmet, which I always left in the equipment room. But wait—my cleats were also gone. I’d thrown them in the garbage along with everything else, but they weren’t here. I’d have to go back to Michelle’s house to get them.
    Dad was up already, making toast. I grabbed a soda from the fridge.
    “You’re drinking Coke for breakfast?” Dad asked.
    “I guess so.” I cracked it open and took a swig. “How come you’re up already?”
    “I’m used to it. My job in Boston starts at seven, and I have to commute.”
    “Oh, yeah.” Dad’s day job was doing computer stuff for alaw firm. He lived in the city and worked in a suburb, which is the opposite of what most people do. When Brian and I visited him there, we all slept on the floor in the middle of the efficiency apartment. It was like camping out, except for the cars going by all night. “I thought maybe the mushroom light bothered you.”
    “Nah,” he said. “There’s a neon sign outside my apartment window in Boston, so it kind of reminds me of home.” His toast popped up. “Want this batch? I can make more.”
    “Yeah, that would be awesome.” I buttered it and peanut-buttered it and jellied it.
    “Can you walk Brian to school? I’m going to go early.”
    “Of course,” he said. “I got nothing else to do.”
    “We’re also low on lots of stuff,” I told him.
    “No problem. I can go grocery shopping.”
    “But, uh, I’m not eating pork anymore,” I told him, deciding then and there that I wasn’t. “So no bacon or anything. Not for me, anyway.”
    “What about beef?”
    “Beef is fine,” I said. I didn’t know any cows.
    After slamming down my toast and soda, I headed through the tunnel of green-blue light to Michelle’s house to find my cleats. Halfway there I could hear Cassie snorting and squealing, obviously upset. I couldn’t believe those guys were back. Even if they were mad at me, what did Cassie ever do to them? I took off running and stumbled over some tree roots but managed to regain my balance before I went facedown in the mushrooms. I stopped as soon as I got to thefence instead of running down to the gate. I wanted to see what was going on.
    There was a teenager-sized person in the shadows, pinned in the corner by Cassie, who was standing her ground and shrieking. Good for her. The intruder couldn’t have been Tom or Will—he wasn’t big enough—but it might have been one of the smaller players. Whoever it was, I could take him, but he had something in his hand that was hard to make out in the darkness. It might have been some kind of weapon. I didn’t want him to see me until I knew what he had.
    Cassie’s pen was connected to the shed so she could get in out of the cold. The only door was through the sty, but there was a window on the other side, about five feet off the ground. The fence was chain-link, and not a high-security thing. I dropped my backpack and gym bag and climbed to the top and leaped to the roof of the shed two feet away. I landed with a dull thud, which the intruder probably heard, but I didn’t think he could see me. I lay there for a few minutes, looking out at the field—which had become dotted by mushrooms—before I crawled to the edge, reached down, and pushed the top pane open. It slid easily and almost noiselessly, a little squeak of wood against wood.
    The window was really close to the roof. I wormed my way in, feetfirst, nearly getting Winnie-the-Poohed when I was halfway through, but gravity did its thing and I came crashing down into the pile of piggy-smelling hay where Cassie sleeps sometimes. Something smelled terrible—it was even worse than the usual pigsty smell—making me gag. Ipulled my shirt up to cover my mouth and nose, then found and flipped