Spell of the Screaming Jokers Read Online Free

a stop.
    â€œOh, no!” My knees began to tremble. “Frankie! How did this happen?”
    Frankie lay on the floor.
    The ladder rested on top of him.
    The poster was draped over his body.
    â€œAre you okay?” I shoved the ladder off him.
    But Frankie didn’t answer. He didn’t move.
    I ripped away pieces of the heavy poster. “Frankie! Say something!” I begged.
    Frankie moaned. I breathed a sigh of relief.
    â€œWhat happened?” I demanded as he sat up.
    â€œI don’t know.” He shook his head. “It allhappened so fast.” Then he lowered his voice. “But I didn’t fall.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œFirst I heard this sound. This—rattling sound,” he said.
    Frankie heard it too! So I didn’t imagine it!
    â€œThen,” he went on, “these two kids came zooming down the hall. Little kids. Like second-graders. They pushed the ladder over. Then one of them said something—”
    â€œFrankie,” I interrupted. “The sound you heard—was it the same as that night on Fear Street? That rattling sound?”
    â€œYeah.” Frankie nodded. “It was the same.”
    He stared off into space for a second.
    I waved a hand in front of his face. “Can you remember anything about the kids who pushed over the ladder?” I asked him. “What they said? What they looked like?”
    â€œThey sped down the hall so fast,” Frankie told me, “and—wait a sec. There is one thing. They had on strange hats.”
    I don’t know why, but my mind suddenly flashed on Mrs. Marder again. Mrs. Marder—with the green bandanna tied around her head. Mrs. Marder—screaming at us. Screaming about how she would make us pay.
    â€œWell.” Frankie shrugged. “I guess I’m okay anyway.”
    We cleaned up the mess on the floor. Later we’d have to explain to Mr. Emerson what happened to the poster.
    As we walked to our next class, Frankie still seemed sort of dazed. He had this distant look in his eyes, like he was trying really hard to remember something.
    He turned to me. “One of the kids who knocked over the ladder said, ‘We make our marks, we laugh and scream!’ ” he told me. “Weird, huh?”
    I drew in a breath. It was weird. “What about last night on Fear Street? What did you think that kid said?”
    â€œÂ â€˜We shake the skull with eyes that gleam,’ ” Frankie remembered.
    â€œHey!” I cried. “It’s some kind of rhyme. Listen. ‘We shake the skull with eyes that gleam! We make our marks, we laugh and scream!’ See? The lines go together.”
    A bell rang. Kids poured out of classrooms into the hallway. They pushed by us. But Frankie and I stood there, staring at each other.
    â€œSomething very weird is going on,” I said at last.
    Frankie raised his hand and touched the bump on his forehead.
    When I saw his arm, I gasped.
    â€œWhat’s the matter?” Frankie asked. “What’s wrong?”
    I opened my mouth. But no words came out.
    â€œStop it, Brit!” Frankie cried. “Say something!”
    All I could do was point to his arm.
    There was another mark on it.
    Above the club.
    But this one wasn’t black.
    It was red.
    And it was in a shape I knew.
    The shape of a perfect diamond.

8

    â€œl t—it looks like a diamond,” Frankie whispered. His eyes were glued to the mysterious shape on his arm.
    I rubbed my finger over the club and the diamond. They were smooth. “They’re like tattoos.”
    â€œThey are like tattoos,” he agreed. “But I haven’t been to any tattoo places. So how did I get them?”
    Neither of us knew.
    *  *  *
    That afternoon the four of us headed for Max’s house again.
    I kept waiting for Frankie to tell Louisa and Jeff about getting pushed off the ladder. Or about the diamond-shaped mark on his arm.