Excerpt

CHAPTER ONE

“Yo, Eddie!” Kyle followed me across the schoolyard. My heart tripped in my chest. Great, I thought. What did he want with me now? Without turning, I sped up, and felt around in my front jeans pocket until I found the lucky scarab Gramps had sent me last week for my twelfth birthday. He and Granny had been vacationing in Egypt since the beginning of the month, and I couldn’t wait for them to get back. I rubbed the beetle-shaped amulet between my fingers. Panic rose in my throat like volcanic acid. “Please work,” I whispered. But so far, this scarab didn’t seem to be so lucky. And the way things were going right now, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was broken. Or cursed.

“Come here, Eddie. I want to talk to you,” Kyle said. He was really close to me now. I could tell because I could hear his sneakers swiping the grass, and his breath huffing between words.

“Leave me alone,” I said. I saw Sara hanging out on the other side of the ball field with some of her friends. She smiled and waved at me. “Hi, Eddie!”

My stomach twisted into sailor knots. Man, I thought. Don’t let her see Kyle pummel me.

Too late. He shoved me from behind, and I stumbled over my own sneakers. My arms pin-wheeled as I tried to keep from falling flat on my face.

Kyle snorted and swung me around by my shoulder. His mean, freckled face stared into mine. His eyes were so dark they reminded me of two black holes.

He poked me in the chest, which now made my heart jam up like a cog in a clock. “Watch yourself, Beyer,” he said through his rotten yellow and green fangs.

Okay. So they weren’t rotten. Or yellow. Or green. And they weren’t even fangs. But they sure seemed that way at the time.

A bead of sweat dripped down my cheek and I wiped it with my shoulder. “Watch what?” I asked, trying to keep my voice from shaking. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I rubbed the scarab harder, practically taking the skin off my fingers. Why wasn’t it working?

He glanced in Sara’s direction, and then back at me. Great. Did he like her too? Probably. Who didn’t?

“It means stay away from my sister,” he said with another poke. “You got that, Beyer?”

“Your sister? You mean Sara’s your--”

“Don’t play dumb. Just stay away from her.”

I wanted to say something like, “I just moved here, so how could I possibly know that she was your sister?” but he gave me another chest-poke/shove, knocking the thoughts clear out of my head. And then he stomped off across the grassy field, pushing past a group of whispering, pointing kids.

I jogged home, checking over my shoulder every ten seconds to make sure he wasn’t chasing me again. I was knee-deep in my thoughts by the time I came to my street. Thoughts about Sara, Kyle, and even unlucky scarabs, which I’d looked up on the Internet and read about. It seems that ancient Egyptians kept them for good luck. Pharaohs were buried with them for luck in the afterlife. I thought about that. If mine was real, what did that mean, exactly? It would have to mean that it couldn’t have been so lucky for the dude who owned it before me. I chuckled to myself as I pictured some unlucky pharaoh mummy searching all over the afterworld for it. He’d be scratching his head, going, “Now where did I put that thing?”

Anyway, lucky scarab, my foot. Gramps got duped.

I turned the corner and when I did, I stumbled over a cat.

A long-haired, gray and white cat looked up at me like a miniature statue. It didn’t seem the least bit bothered that I almost turned it into road pizza. But I sure was bothered. Cats freak me out. After the run-in I’d had with my Aunt Penny’s cat last winter, well, let’s just say I’d basically sworn them off forever.

I stomped my foot on the pavement. “Raah!”

The cat didn’t budge. It was as still as a log, except for its tail, which swished, scraping the asphalt.

“Boo!”

The cat blinked once, but didn’t take its marble-green eyes from me. Its tail flinched one last time, and then neatly wrapped itself around the cat’s bottom.

The more I looked at it, the more I realized it looked just like the one in my recurring dreams, except the one in my dreams had a hawk’s body and told me messages like, “It’s time.”

Creepy.

I rubbed the goose bumps on my arms. I knew I had to either go around it, or go back the other way because this animal wasn’t moving. We stared at each other as if we were about to have a western showdown. I imagined tumbleweed rolling across the road and that fluty music playing in the background. Who’d draw first?

Me.

I backed up, watching it the whole time, and then high-tailed it, down the street. I raced up the sidewalk and across four lawns till I got to my house.

Scrambling inside, I closed the front door. I stood on my toes to check through the peephole. The coast was clear, so I sighed and sank back onto my heels.

“What’s wrong, Eddie?” my mom asked.

I whipped around. “Nothing. Why?” I couldn’t tell her I was running away from a cat--too embarrassing. And I definitely couldn’t tell her about Kyle. She’d rush to the school and have a meeting with the principal first thing in the morning. Yeah. That would go over real well.

“I’m fine, Mom. See?” I faked a smile.

“Why are you out of breath? Was someone chasing you?” She peeked out the hole too.