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thing he’d ever tasted.
    He had that same feeling from Cat’s second kiss.
    “What was that for?” he asked in a whisper.
    “First time shouldn’t taste like blood. Should be sweet.”
    Golden raspberries, Kyle recalled, were very sweet.
    Cat put the tooth under Kyle’s pillow. Then she climbed up onto the windowsill.
    “Don’t forget, when the Tooth Fairy comes—don’t peek.”
    Kyle followed her to the window and once again leaned out. This time, Cat’s face didn’t startle him out of nowhere. Instead, she tightrope-walked over to the trellis, then climbed down and ran off toward her own house.
    It didn’t feel so cold anymore.
    Not even bothering to close the window, Kyle climbed back into bed. The sheets, which had felt almost smothering before, now comforted him. He reached under the pillow and felt his last baby tooth.
    Means you’re not a baby anymore.
    He wasn’t a baby anyway. Babies didn’t have dreams like he did. Babies didn’t stab people.
    Babies didn’t kiss pretty girls.
    Kyle had never thought of Cat as pretty before tonight. He wondered how he could have missed that about her.
    He faded off to sleep, comforted by the presence of the tooth under his pillow, not because he expected some stupid Tooth Fairy to show up and take it away in exchange for a quarter, but because Cat had put it there.
    The last thing he saw before he went to sleep was the curtains blowing in the night’s breeze.
    For once, he didn’t dream.
    He was, however, awakened by a buzzing noise.
    His eyes flew open. He looked around the room.
    The curtains still flapped in the breeze.
    The clown night-light continued to cast its shadows.
    But something about the shadows looked different.
    Like monsters.
    But only babies saw monsters in the dark.
    And Kyle wasn’t a baby anymore.
    He closed his eyes, forcing himself to go back to sleep and not be stupid.
    A minute later, he opened his eyes again.
    He still heard the noise. He had no idea what the noise was, but it would not go away.
    Looking up at the lamp next to his bed, he debated turning it on.
    No. That was what a baby would do.
    He closed his eyes again, pulling the covers up tight around his neck.
    The noises would not stop.
    Then the night-light went out.
    Bereft of the red-and-white light coming from the clown face, Kyle’s bedroom was plunged into darkness.
    No darkness! There has to be some light!
    He fumbled for the lamp and switched it on. The darkness went away, eaten up by the bright light of the lamp.
    Everything in Kyle’s room was right where he’d left it. His desk, his hamper, his posters, his comic books, his action figures, his school stuff, all of it. He reached under the pillow, and his tooth was still there. Everything was fine.
    He got up and went over to the clown night-light and jiggled it in the wall socket. It came back on, the smiling face with its wide eyes and bright red lips—
    (Lips the same color as the blood in your mouth and on Ray’s back.)
    —shining brightly. It had just come loose. No big deal.
    Only babies were afraid of the dark.
    So why wouldn’t he turn the light back out?
    There was something in the room with him. Kyle just knew it.
    (The same way you knew you had to stab Ray?)
    If he turned the light back out, whatever it was would come out.
    Kids always thought monsters came out only in the dark. Maybe they did, maybe they didn’t, but right now, Kyle wasn’t taking the chance.
    The house had one bathroom on the second floor, which had doors to both bedrooms. Kyle went into the bathroom and saw that Mom had left her bathroom door open. He looked into her room.
    She was sleeping soundly, tucked into her bed as snug as Kyle had been before Cat’s appearance woke him up.
    He wouldn’t wake her. Not until he was sure.
    Looking around the bathroom, his eyes settled on the scissors Mom kept on the sink. They were perfect.
    (Just like the protractor was for Ray.)
    Grabbing the scissors in his hand, holding them over his