He stayed away from Katherine, too.
He and Katherine managed a polite truce at the streetcar stop, but she wasn’t there every day. Christopher tried to forget about the somethings in the park, and he almost managed it …
… until one day after school, when he and his many-assorted-older-brothers were playing ball hockey on the driveway beside their house. The driveway was perfect for ball hockey, since it was so long and straight. Christopher wasn’t crazy about playing goalie, but as the youngest he never had much say. He was almost always the goalie. His oldest brother, Marc, passed the ball to his second-oldest brother, Nathan, who passed it to his third-oldest brother, Adam, who took a slap shot from halfway down the driveway. It went wild, and the bright orange ball bounced off Christopher’s goalie mask, whipped through the air, and flew over the spiked iron rails of the park.
The ball rolled deep into the park bushes.
“Nice going, C.C.!” Marc yelled at him.
Christopher took off his mask and dropped his goalie gloves on the driveway. “Now what?” he asked, looking nervously at the park.
“Go get it! You let it fly over the fence!” Adam called.
“No way, you took the slap shot. You go get it!” Christopher yelled back.
“Nice try, C.C. The last one who touches it has to find it,” Nathan said. He had Christopher there — the last-touch rule was ball-hockey law.
It was no use. Marc, Nathan, and Adam had already lost interest in the game and were leaning their hockey sticks against the house. It was almost dinner time anyway. Christopher looked back at the park.
Nothing moved.
He bit his lip. What to do? Everyone bigger than him had gone inside. It was his best ball-hockey ball. It was Marbles’ favourite ball. He really didn’t want to lose it.
He was putting the goalie equipment and the net away in the shed at the back of the house when he looked over at the park again. The bushes were rustling.
An orange ball shot through the iron bars, crossed Christopher’s driveway …
… and rolled to a stop right at his feet.
Chapter Ten
The Giant at the Gates
Christopher gulped, then reached down and picked up the ball.
Something wanted to play. He tossed the ball up and down in his hand, unsure what to do. Just then, his mother opened the back door and called him.
“Christopher! Can you please take Marbles for a walk before dinner?” Marbles burst out the back door and ran to Christopher, wagging his tail and dragging his leash behind him.
“Sure, Mom,” Christopher called back.
He pocketed the orange ball then picked up his dog’s leash and started the long struggle down the driveway. He really didn’t want to get dragged around by Marbles. Tonight, right now, he wanted to be brave. He wanted to get to the bottom of whatever was going on in that park.
“Come on boy, we’re going this way,” Christopher grunted as he used all his strength to drag Marbles toward the park gates. The neighbourhood was quiet. There were no cars driving by, no streetcars, and very few people were out on the streets. The old man with the thick glasses, hat, and the brown coat wasn’t sitting on the bench down the sidewalk. Christopher attached Marbles’ leash to the gates and drew up all his courage. He was going back in.
“I have to find out what’s going on in there, Marbles. Just stay here, bark if anyone comes.” Marbles whined and licked his lips, quivering on the sidewalk. Christopher contorted himself once again and just barely managed to squeeze through the bars.
He stepped into the park and looked around. Again, it was very silent, more silent than it should have been. Except for the bubbling of the seahorse fountain, it was like he was in the middle of the countryside. There was the little apple tree, almost bare of leaves, but still bearing delicious-looking fruit. Two benches surrounded the tree. The bushes around the outside of the park were still.
Christopher took a deep breath. He was determined to be courageous. “Hello?” he whispered, but it came out as a croak. So he tried again, a little louder this time. “Hello!” he squeaked, but at least audibly. His heart was hammering in his chest.
The park was still and quiet.
“Uh, thank you for returning my orange ball,” he said, a little braver this time. Suddenly he felt really foolish, like a little kid imagining things, talking to an empty park like a crazy person.
The ball could have bounced off something and rolled back out on its own, couldn’t it?
Then he heard it. The wind rattling the barren dry leaves, or maybe it was something else. A gravelly voice said, “Megathon dret alba.” But Christopher also heard it say, “He left the monster outside.”
Christopher gasped but tried not to scream. He bit his tongue and tried to remember to breathe. He managed to stutter out, “Uhhh, heelllo? I know you’re here. You threw apples at me, but you tried not to hit me. You clapped at my guitar music. You returned my ball.” His teeth were actually chattering together, he was so scared. But he was also determined.
“Morten gella dorth!” came another gravelly voice, but sweeter, which translated into, “You’re frightening him!”
Christopher’s eyes were like giant saucers now. Clearly there were two voices, two somethings, in the bushes.
But what?
He didn’t get to find out what. At that moment Marbles stopped whining. A tall figure was standing at the gates. A really, really tall lady.
She was standing on the sidewalk patting his dog’s head (who, unlike any good watchdog, was sniffing her hand and wagging his tail) and peering into the park.
She called into the park, “Hello? Boy? Are you in there?”
Christopher wasn’t sure whether he should answer her or dive into the bushes and hide.
It wasn’t an easy choice. Christopher really wanted to hide, very badly, but since the bushes had strange voices in them, he decided they might not make such an entirely great hiding spot. He hesitated, but in the end had little choice but to answer the lady.
“Yuh … yes. I’m here. I think you mean me? I think I’m who you mean?” Christopher jibbered. He stepped away from the tree and walked toward the gate. The tall lady smiled nicely at him through the fence and pointed toward a small handle inside the gate.
“Pull that handle there, would you please?”
Christopher hadn’t noticed it, but there was the outline of a small doorway cut into the gate, next to the gatepost. It was kind of a secret, hidden door, which you probably wouldn’t see unless someone pointed it out to you. He pulled on the handle, and the door swung inward with a creak.
The tall lady undid Marble’s leash and stooped to walk through the door with him. The dog was very happy to be on the same side of the fence as his master and licked Christopher excitedly. The lady handed Christopher the leash. Then she added, “You’d better hold on to him tightly.”
“Thank you,” Christopher said. “Uh, I’ll see you then.”
He was starting to go through the doorway, back out to the street, when he heard the whispery, growly voice again. It sounded very close to him, and Christopher heard it say very clearly, practically in his ear, “Megathon alta!” At the same time he also heard it say, “Get that monster out of here.”
Many things happened next, rather quickly. At the very instant in which the voice spoke, Marbles caught the scent of something. He snapped his head up, sniffed twice, then dove into the bushes, yanking Christopher off