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will hear us
then.”
    “ Don’t say whatever.”
    “ Some nice polite robber will be
waiting for us. How’s that? Better?”
    Philip rolled his eyes and reached out for
the doorknob again. He looked at Emery. “Ready?” he whispered in
his quietest voice yet.
    “ I’m ready. I’m ready.”
    Without speaking, Philip mouthed the numbers,
“One, two...” He swallowed, took a deep breath, and yanked open the
door.
    Both boys screamed. Something awful did wait
on the other side of the door! Something legless and headless! They
froze to the spot, their hearts pounding, waiting for their
stomachs to bounce back up from the floor.
    “ Oh!” Emery cried in relief. “It’s an
old raincoat. You picked a closet door. What’d you pick a closet
door for?”
    Philip closed the door and caught his breath.
He felt like he’d run around the block with a maniac chasing him.
“You didn’t tell me not to, did you?” He waved his hand at Emery
again. “Come on.”
    They found another door off the living room.
This time Philip opened the door slowly. A black tunnel descended
before him.
    “ This is no closet,” Philip whispered
over his shoulder. He could see halfway down the stairs, the lower
half lost in the black of the basement. He looked at Emery and
pointed down, telling Emery to go ahead. Emery shook his head and
pointed at the flashlight in Philip’s hand.
    Philip kicked himself again and snapped on
the flashlight, which made a dim, wide, yellow circle on the
distant basement floor. In single file, the two boys moved down the
stairs until they stood at the bottom.
    “ Shine the light around and see if
there’s a window,” said Emery.
    Philip played the light over the walls, but
this basement, like his and Emery’s basements, had no windows.
    “ Go up and turn on the lights,” said
Philip.
    A moment later, light. Beautiful light. Emery ran down the
stairs. The boys looked at each other and smiled. Now they could
take their time and search the basement in this beautiful, safe
light.
    “ Let’s start looking,” said
Philip.
    “ Let’s look together,” said Emery,
afraid Philip might say, “You start here and I’ll start
there.”
    “ Yeah, together—same way we mowed the
grass. It’s our lucky way of working.”
    “ Good idea,” said Emery.
    Philip waved Emery forward. “Let’s start
there and...” A dull noise stopped them in their tracks. They
peeked at each other, afraid to turn around. Something made a
clear, louder noise behind them.
    It came again. Louder.
    They slowly turned and saw a man tucked in
under the stairway they’d come down. He sat on a thin mattress,
rubbing his eyes as if he’d just woke up. He had a messy gray beard
and messy, long gray hair. He had on a pair of jeans torn at both
knees, and his T-shirt had a faded picture of Winnie-the-Pooh on
it. He lowered his hands and looked at the boys in amazement.
    “ Uh, oh,” the man said. He got to his
feet.
    Philip and Emery looked at each other.
They couldn’t run to the stairway because the man stood right in
their way. What was going to happen
now? both boys wondered.
     
     

Chapter Eleven
     
    Emery found his voice first and blurted out,
“Are you going to chop us into pieces and eat us and hide the
left-over parts where no one will ever find them?”
    The shaggy man made a ‘yuck’ face and said,
“No, thank you. I’ve already eaten.” He pointed back at a crumpled
bag tossed near where he slept. The two boys recognized it right
away. McDonald’s. Somehow knowing the man ate hamburgers and French
fries made him seem less like a monster to them.
    “ Well,” the man said. “Since none of us
are supposed to be here, why don’t we introduce ourselves and
explain why we are?”
    Philip felt his heart slowing down. When he’d
first seen the man, it felt like an electric shock went through
him. What a stupid question Emery had asked. Chop them into pieces
and eat them. Philip hurried to respond before Emery told the