Rating: PG-13 for language

Chapter 19 – Ditto

I woke up to the phone ringing. I planned to sleep through it but the ringing continued and continued and was very irritating. I pulled myself out of my bed and picked up the receiver that had gotten yellow over the years.

“Hello?” I said drowsily.

“Hi, it’s Suzie. Can I come over?” I heard over the receiver.

“When?” I asked.

“Uh, around now. Is that okay?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Well, my piano and violin lessons are cancelled for today. I’m alone at home and I’m . . . I’m scared.” Suzie answered.

“Fine, come over.”

“Okay, see you in ten minutes.” Suzie ended the conversation.

I quickly changed my clothes, brushed my teeth, combed and tied my hair, then told my mom that Suzie was coming over. I grabbed a bun for my breakfast and quickly shoved it down my mouth, I finished just before Suzie rang the doorbell.

“Hi.” She greeted.

“Hi.” I answered.

“It might be just my eyes playing tricks on me, if not then I think I saw Mr. Kaufman when I came over.”

“Why don’t we just forget about all this for just one day or two?” I suggested.

“I wish but no matter what, it’ll still be in our minds.”

“Whatever.” I muttered. “What can we do now?”

“I don’t know I just wanted to get away from my house. I was scared because I was by myself.”

“Nothing to be really scared of if you’re in your house, unless Mr. Kaufman knows you’re alone then . . . I don’t know what to say.”

“We can go biking.” Suzie suggested.

“Okay, just let me get my bike from the basement. Can you help?” I asked.

“Sure.”

We went down to the dark basement that was full of boxes, junk, and dust. We grabbed my silver mountain bike and picked it up the stairs and went out the rear door. I made sure the doors were locked properly before getting on the bike.

“Now, we need to go to my house so I can get my bike.” Suzie said.

“Yea, I know.”

I went fast on my bike, knowing that Suzie could not catch up. I made Suzie end up running after me.

“STOP IT!” She hollered, running after me.

I stopped my bike one block away from Suzie’s house and the very pissed Suzie caught up with me. She gave me an angry glare as I laughed.

“Don’t do that okay!” Suzie almost yelled.

“Okay, whatever.” I muttered.

I went slowly on my way to Suzie’s house with Suzie right behind me. I waited outside, sitting on my bike seat as Suzie pulled her bike out of a mess of other bikes in her house. I observed my surroundings as I waited; I thought I saw Mr. Kaufman at the corner of my eyes. I quickly turned and stared at the area where I thought I had seen him, nobody was there.

“Jenny?” Suzie tried to get my attention, but I just continued to stare at the same area. “Hey!” Suzie waved her hand in front of my face and pushed me slightly, breaking me out of my trance. I looked at Suzie, her bike was right next to her and she was ready to go. I was so lost in my fear that I saw Mr. Kaufman nearby that I didn’t notice that Suzie had taken her bike out and was standing right next to me.

“Alright, let’s go.” I said, sending my fear into a corner and away from clouding my mind. I quickly mounted my bike and took off at a steady pace. Suzie rode up next to me at the same pace.

“Now, where should we go?” Suzie asked. “We can see if P.S. 120’s yard is open. We could ride around there then maybe a small trip around the neighborhood.”

“Okay, sure but what do you mean by a small trip around the neighborhood? This neighborhood is huge!”

“Just ride around some blocks. Not the whole neighborhood.” Suzie answered.

The school was only two blocks away from Suzie’s house. We got to the yard only to find that the gates were locked. But the gates didn’t stop some kids from playing the basketball inside the yard; they had gotten in by climbing over the gate. There was no way we were going to climb over the gate and drag our bikes with us over the gate just to ride our bikes inside the yard.

“Let’s just ride around some blocks.” I muttered.

“I’m hungry, I want pizza. Can we go to the pizza store? Please?” Suzie begged, giving me puppy eyes to persuade me to agree.

“Yeah, I’m hungry too.” I agreed.

We rode to the pizza store and pigged out on pizza and garlic knots. After we finished eating, Suzie somehow convinced me to come to her house to watch anime she had downloaded on her computer.

“Hey Jenny?” Suzie asked.

“What?”

“You know when I was taking my bike out of my house, you were staring at something. What were you staring at?”

“I might be just seeing things out of fear, but I think I saw Mr. Kaufman.” I answered.

Suzie suddenly braked and stopped her bike. I was right in back of her and didn’t expect Suzie’s response to be like that so the front wheel of my bike slammed right into Suzie’s back wheel. The two wheels collided pretty hard and the both of us stumbled off our bikes to avoid falling on the ground.

“WHAT did you say you saw?” Suzie asked.

“Um, Mr. Kaufman?”

“Great, we better get to my house fast. Who knows what he’ll try to do, he might attack us because there are not a lot of people on the streets.”

“We have a bike, we can outrun him. But you’re right, let’s go.”

We speeded up our pace, so fast it looked like we were racing each other. Because of our speed, it took us only a minute to get to Suzie’s house. We quickly pulled our bikes up the stairs and set them down in the area where we took off our shoes. Then, we ran up the stairs to Suzie’s room. There, we saw something we did not expect.

Suzie’s room was in a mess; it looked kind of like my room when it was ransacked, except messier since my room was bigger than Suzie’s room. Books and paper were everywhere, littering the floor and Suzie’s bed. The shelves that once held many books were wiped clean. Her desk drawers were cleared of all papers. Suzie’s clothes added to the mess on the floor.

“That fucking bastard.” Suzie cursed.

“Looks like we were better off not going out.” I commented.

“I’m going to kill that asshole.”

“There’s no use, spitting profanity; won’t do anything.” I said. “Well, we could have figured out he was after your room next after he trashed my room. Now-”

“But we didn’t.” Suzie cut in.

“Now, we just have to figure out what’s he’s going to do next.” I continued, ignoring Suzie’s interruption.

“How’s that possible?” Suzie questioned.

“Think like him; if we were him, what would we do next?” I answered.

“I have no idea. What about you?”

“Well, he didn’t find the tape in either of our rooms. That’s logical because that cassette doesn’t even exist. If I were him, I would go for us and kill so we wouldn’t be a threat anymore, we can’t use the tape as leverage. He’ll do the same thing he did to Sonal and Dianna to us, he just used Sonal and Dianna to threaten us and it didn’t work. I guess getting rid of us is like the only thing he can do. Unless, there’s something else.”