The Stone Child by Dan Poblocki Read Free Book Online Page A

Haunted Nunnery
. The way Ronald Plimpton solved all the riddles was so exciting. Harris disagreed that Ronald was an expert. He insisted that Ronald had gotten all of the most helpful information from his grandfather.
    Eddie noticed that Harris was a little sensitive about who liked the books better, so he made sure not to argue about it. Eddie didn’t want to blow a potential friendship, so he changed the topic to Nathaniel Olmstead himself. He asked Harris what he thought might really have happened to him.
    “I’m not sure. Some people say he got in some sort of trouble and decided to hide for a while.”
    “From who? The librarian?”
    “Yeah … right!” Harris stopped and stood on his bike in the road.
    On the right was the tall rusty iron fence the tow truck had driven by on Saturday. It was set back in the woods about thirty yards from the road, stretching about a hundred feet in both directions. Farther ahead was a small gate. Someone had chained it shut. Nathaniel Olmstead’s house sat on the grassy clearing at the top of the hill. The boys stood at the base of the overgrown driveway. Beyond the gate, the road curved around the steep slope and disappeared into the trees. Gnarled vines hung from the branches, and brown grass grew in patches out of the pebbly dirt.
    At the gate, Eddie was certain they would not be able to go any farther. But Harris got off his bike, hiked into the brush, pushed aside some of the thick vines, and revealed a gap wide enough for them to squeeze through one at a time.
    “We’re going in?” asked Eddie, suddenly remembering the animal his father had hit only two days earlier. “Is it safe?”
    “Hmm,” said Harris. “Probably not. But I can’t show you what you need to see if we don’t. Come on, we’ll leave our bikes here.”
    “Won’t someone see them?” All of a sudden, Eddie felt nervous. The faces of the people he’d met in Gatesweed scowled at him when he closed his eyes. “We’ll get in trouble.”
    “Lay it down flat. You can’t see them from the road. Believe me, I’ve checked.”
    “Then you’ve been here before?” Eddie asked.
    Harris rested his bike behind a small evergreen bush. “What do you think?” he said.
    Eddie shrugged, laid his bike next to Harris’s, then followed him through the broken gate. Together, they hiked the rest of the way up the long driveway.
    At the top of the hill, the house sat in silence. Eddie couldn’t believe he was actually here, seeing the view Nathaniel Olmstead had seen every day. He turned around to take in the countryside. He wanted to see where the house stood. Farther up Black Ribbon Road was the spot where they’d stopped on Saturday. In the opposite direction were the hills through which the road dipped and curved. The town of Gatesweed lay beyond the small, smooth peaks. The blue sky made the house even creepier, as if on a day such as this, the house should have been alive and lived in. But covered in vines and falling apart, the house almost seemed to whisper,
Welcome …
    “What’s the matter?” Harris said.
    “Nothing. Why?”
    “You look … I don’t know … weird or something.”
    “Sorry,” said Eddie, stepping toward the house. Eddie pulled a clingy nettle off his sleeve. Goose bumps raced across his skin. He crossed his arms and shuddered. Those dark upstairs windows were dead eyes, but they watched nonetheless. “I don’t know. It’s creepier up here than I thought it would be.”
    “This is nothing,” said Harris, raising an eyebrow.
    The sound of crickets and chirping birds was interruptedonly by the wind and Eddie’s imagination. Harris led him to the back of the house, where a small pasture stretched down the other side of the hill. About three hundred feet away, five rows of small trees dared the boys to come closer.
    “An orchard,” said Harris. “I don’t think the fruit grows here anymore.” Beyond the orchard another hill arched up. A thick blanket of trees covered a