Beware, the Snowman by R. L. Stine Read Free Book Online Page B

cave,” I told them. “You just have to keep Conrad busy so I can sneak past him.”
    “Huh? How are we going to do that?” Eli asked, leaning on the shovel.
    “We’ll think of something when we get up there,” I replied. “If you can keep
him talking to you, maybe I can sneak past and get up to the cave.”
    “But we don’t want you to go to the ice cave!” Rolonda insisted.
    “I’m going to do it one way or the other,” I told her. “With or without you.
So are you going to help me or not?”
    They glanced tensely at each other. Eli whispered something to his sister.
Rolonda whispered something back.
    Then Rolonda turned to me. “Will you build the snowman first?” she asked.
    “You won’t be safe without the snowman,” Eli added.
    I wanted to tell them that building a snowman wouldn’t protect me against
anything. I wanted to tell them how silly the whole thing was.
    But I needed their help. I knew I could never get past Conrad and his wolf
without them.
    “Okay. Fine. First, we’ll build the snowman,” I agreed.
    “Then Eli and I will help you,” Rolonda promised.
    “But we won’t go any farther than Conrad’s cabin,” Eli insisted in a
trembling voice.
    “Great!” I replied. “Let’s get started.”
    I bent down and started rolling a snowball for the snowman’s body. Rolonda
was right. It was good packing snow. I rolled the ball across my snowy yard
until it was big enough for two of us to roll. Rolonda and I worked on the body.
Eli worked on the snowball for the head.
    Building one of the strange snowmen gave me a creepy feeling. I felt as if I
had become part of the superstition. I was taking part in some kind of ancient
village tradition. A tradition built on fear.
    The people of the village all built these snowmen because they were afraid.
And now here I was, building one, too.
    Should I be afraid? I wondered.
    I felt glad when the snowman was finished. Rolonda pulled a red scarf from
her coat pocket, and we wrapped it under the scarred head.
    The snowman’s dark eyes seemed to glare at me. The mouth was turned down in
an angry sneer. The arms bobbed softly in the wind.
    “Okay. Good job,” I told my two new friends. “Now let’s get going.” I
motioned toward the mountaintop.
    “Are you sure you want to do this?” Eli asked in a tiny voice.
    “Sure, I’m sure!” I declared loudly.
    But as we started making our way along the road, I didn’t feel as sure as I
pretended.
    The road curved up the mountain. Soon the houses ended and we were walking
through snowy woods.
    We didn’t talk. We kept our eyes straight ahead.
    The afternoon sun was slowly lowering itself behind the trees. Blue shadows
stretched over the snow. The air grew colder as we climbed.
    When Conrad’s low cabin came into view, my heart began to pound.
    I tried to keep my mind calm and clear. But question after question whirred
through my brain.
    Was Conrad inside the cabin?
    Where was the white wolf?
    Would my plan work?

 
 
22
     
     
    All three of us stopped at the end of the road and stared at the cabin up
ahead. The late afternoon sun had fallen behind the trees. The snow billowed in
front of us in shades of gray.
    To the left of the cabin, I saw a row of low evergreen shrubs, covered in
snow.
    “I’ll hide behind those shrubs,” I told Rolonda and Eli. “You run up to the
cabin and keep Conrad and the wolf from seeing me.”
    “This isn’t going to work,” Eli muttered, his eyes on the cabin.
    “It’s getting kind of dark,” Rolonda fretted. “Maybe we should come back in
the morning.”
    “Maybe we should forget the whole idea,” Eli suggested. I saw his chin
quiver. He shuddered.
    “Hey—you promised!” I exclaimed. “A promise is a promise—right?”
    They didn’t reply. They both stared across the gray snow at the dark cabin up
ahead.
    “I came this far. I’m not going back,” I said sharply. “Are you going to help
me or not?”
    I gasped when I heard a low