A Scary Story
Misty,
Heather, and Katie were spending the night at Nicole’s
house. “Let’s tell scary stories,” said
Misty.
“That will be fun,” said Heather.
“The creepier the better,” agreed Katie. Nicole smiled and nodded, but she felt a little worried. Would she be able to think of a scary story?
Misty went first. She shook her hair in front of her face and cackled like a witch as she began her story.
“. . . and I only need one more thing to make my stew complete,” she finished in a screechy voice. She leaned closer to the girls. “Can you guess what it is?” she whined. Then she suddenly leaped toward them. “You!”
Nicole and the
other girls jumped in surprise, then laughed. Nicole hoped
she 
could
think of a story as scary as Misty’s.
It was Heather’s turn to tell a story next. She held her pillow in her lap and pretended to make it talk. “I am a ghost,” she moaned. “Once I was alive, just like you. Then bad luck crossed my path. Here is my pitiful tale. . . .”
When Heather
finished her story, her listeners were holding their breath.
All was quiet except for the tick . . . tock
.
. . tick of the grandfather clock in the hall. Nicole felt
a shiver run down her back. She wished she could think of
a story as spooky as Heather’s.
Katie said she would tell a story her grandmother had told her. It was about a great white wolf that had lived in the mountains of Mexico many years ago. Katie paced back and forth as she told her story, just like a restless wolf.
Dropping
her voice to a whisper, she ended her story—“And
to this day, whenever there’s a full moon, villagers
still hear the wolf’s mournful howl—ah-oooo,
ah-oooo!”
Her eerie howls made the other girls cover their ears with their hands.
Now it was Nicole’s turn to tell a story. Nervously she stood by the big window and stared into the darkness outside, trying to think. Misty, Heather, and Katie waited. Nicole looked across the gray and black shadows on the lawn. She heard the owl’s whoo-whoo. Then Nicole saw something she didn’t expect to see.
“Oh,” Nicole gasped. “Something is coming. I can see it under the streetlights.”
“Is-is it coming this way?” Misty asked.
“Yes,” Nicole whispered. “And it’s moving fast.”
“Is it very . . . big?” Heather asked. She pulled the covers over her head.
“So
big it’s making noise in the trees as it comes closer.
Listen.”
Whoosh, whoosh.
“It must be a huge monster,” said Katie.
She crawled under the bed.
“It’s nearly here,” Nicole said. She closed the window with a loud bang. The other girls yelled in fright.
“It’s tapping on the window,” Nicole told them. “Listen.”
Tap, tap, tap.
Nicole stood
bravely by the window. Splash. No one moved. No one spoke.
Splish, splash, splish, splash.
Misty laughed. Heather threw the covers off her face. Katie crawled out from under the bed.
“You tricked us!” Misty said. “That was the best story of all.”
“I said something was coming,” Nicole said, laughing. “I just didn’t say it was the rain.”
