The Hanging Hill

3

“Sorry we’re so behind schedule,” said Zack’s step-mom, Judy.

“That’s okay,” said Zack. He was just glad no ghosts had shown up in the hotel suite to help them pack their bags for the three-week trip to Chatham. It was almost seven p.m. and getting dark outside. He dumped an armload of socks into his open suitcase. All the fuzzy balls were mismatched: red socks with blue, white with sort-of-white, ankle-striped athletic with ankle-logo sport.

“What’s up with the socks?” Judy asked.

“I think I lost some in the laundry room.”

“Maybe the sock gremlins got ’em!”

Zack, not really in the mood to joke about supernatural stuff, faked a pretty good chuckle anyhow.

Judy’s big brown eyes lit up with a fanciful idea. She got a lot of them. In fact, she got more than anyone Zack had ever met except maybe himself. “You know, Zack, this hotel is brand-new,” Judy said in her hushed storyteller voice. “So, maybe … just maybe … they built it on top of a fairy kingdom where all the wee people slumber inside stolen socks instead of sleeping bags!”

Zack played along—even though he knew there used to be a bank on this plot of ground, not a fairy kingdom. He Googled it. Mad Dog Murphy had, indeed, robbed the North Chester branch of the Connecticut Building and Loan back on August 3, 1959—the happiest day of his life.

“Of course,” said Judy, “there might be a more logical explanation.”

“Like what?”

“Well, they are socks, Zack. They could’ve grown feet and walked away.”

“True,” said Zack.

“They could’ve run away and joined a sock puppet circus.”

Now Zack laughed for real. Judy was the only adult he knew with an imagination even crazier than his. It was probably why she was a writer. And why they got along so well.

“Maybe it was another ghost,” suggested Zack, testing the waters. “A sock-lifter spirit.”

Judy closed her suitcase. Studied his face. “Have you seen something, hon?”

“Nah,” he lied. “Not, you know, recently. I’m just goofing around.”

“You can tell me if you do.”

“Okay.”

“No matter what. You know that, right?”

“Yeah.” He smiled, so she did, too. Zack knew he could talk to Judy about ghosts and gremlins and sock-swiping nymphs, because they both understood that the supernatural world was very, very real. In fact, they had spent some quality time there together. However, Zack didn’t think this was such a hot time to let Judy know that one of Connecticut’s most notorious criminals had shown up downstairs just in time for the breakfast buffet.

She had enough to worry about. Curiosity Cat was the first show Judy Magruder had ever written, and since it was about to be produced, live onstage, at one of the biggest, most famous summer stock theaters in all of America, she was, well, to put it mildly, freaking out!

Therefore, Mr. Mad Dog Murphy and his traveling companions, Old Sparky (according to the Internet, that was what people had called Connecticut’s electric chair) and the curly-haired lady he called Doll Face, would remain Zack’s secret.

Besides, they were about to get into a car and drive far, far away. Murphy, his chair, and his ghostly girlfriend would soon be nothing more than a distant memory, a bad dream forgotten just like the dragon-sized bee who’d been chasing you with an earsplitting buzz that was really your alarm clock telling you it was time to wake up.

“Hey! Easy, boy!”

Zipper, Zack’s feisty little Jack Russell terrier, hopped up on the bed and started nuzzling his muzzle inside the suitcase, rooting around in the crannies between stacks of Zack’s clothes.

“You sure those socks are clean?” Judy asked, cocking a quizzical eyebrow.

“Yep. Completely stink free.”

Zipper kept digging, pawing a tunnel between some T-shirts and jeans.

“Did you pack any dog treats?” Judy asked with a laugh. “Peanut butter biscuits? Liver snaps? Bones?”

“Nope. Just this ball!” Zack dug out Zipper’s favorite toy: a spongy ball with half its outside color chipped off. “Go get it, Zip!”

He tossed the ball across the hotel room. The dog leapt off the bed and flew after it. Zack saw his chance and slammed his suitcase shut.

It was time to hit the road.

They had a show to put on.