Warren & Dragon Scary Sleepover Read online

  “Yeah, it should be fun,” I say carefully. “Although I think I heard that the tent may not be made well and it may collapse suddenly. But we probably won’t get hurt too badly.” My parents glance at each other.

  “Michael said the tent isn’t working?” Mom asks.

  I take a bite of my taco so I don’t have to answer.

  “Well, we can always go and help set it up,” Dad offers.

  I swallow my bite. “I think it sets up fine, but then collapses later. Like, when we’ll be sleeping.” I’m hoping that my parents will decide to call off the sleepover if they imagine my mangled body caused by a falling tent.

  “I call Michael’s beanbag chair to sleep in,” Dragon whispers to me.

  “If you’re not comfortable sleeping in a tent, Warren, you can ask Michael’s moms if you can have a sleepover in Michael’s bedroom instead,” Mom suggests. “We have an extra sleeping bag you can bring. Or you can sleep in the basement in sleeping bags without the tent.”

  I hadn’t thought of those alternatives. I have to think of something else, fast.

  “But won’t you miss me?” I say.

  Mom and Dad glance at each other again.

  “Of course, Warren,” Mom begins. “But it’s just for one night.”

  “You have to go on the sleepover!” Ellie suddenly says. We all look at her. “What? I’ve never had the house to myself before.”

  “Mom and I would still be here, Ellie,” Dad points out.

  “Yeah, but he’d be gone,” Ellie says, and waves at me. “I’ve never had a night in this house without Warren here.”

  “Me either,” Dragon adds, raising his arm.

  “What are you going to do on Friday night that you can’t do with me home?” I ask.

  Ellie smiles. “Host my own sleepover,” she replies like it’s obvious.

  “You can have a sleepover with me here,” I say.

  Ellie rolls her eyes. “The point of a sleepover is to have fun with your friends. You’d probably throw water on us in the middle of the night and claim it was because your dragon doll started a fire and you needed to put it out.”

  Dragon giggles. “That’d be so funny. Wait, did she call me a doll again?”

  I cross my arms. “I would not do that. Fires aren’t funny.”

  “Fine. Then you’d hide all the good snacks so we couldn’t raid the cupboards after Mom and Dad fall asleep.”

  “Ellie!” Mom says.

  I don’t say anything, because I probably would do that.

  “I want to invite Carly, Madeline, and maybe one other friend,” Ellie says.

  I suddenly remember something. “You should invite Alison,” I tell her.

  Ellie looks at me with surprise. “Alison?” she asks. Ellie and Alison are friendly, but I know they aren’t close friends. “Why her?”

  “Um . . .” I try to think up a good reason that doesn’t involve me admitting I’m being too nice or sappy. “Alison is kind of goody-goody and she probably won’t let you leave slime under my bed covers or anything like that.”

  Ellie shrugs like she accepts my explanation.

  “If you invite Alison, I’ll go on the sleepover at Michael’s,” I offer.

  “Deal,” Ellie immediately agrees. She reaches her hand out and we shake on it.

  “When did we agree to have three of Ellie’s friends over Friday night?” Dad whispers to Mom.

  Mom shakes her head. “I guess I’ll need to get more snacks for the cupboard raiding.”

  5

  Telling Dragon

  Dragon and I decide to make a snow fort in the backyard after dinner before it gets too dark out. Instead of working on the fort, I end up pacing. I can’t stop imagining that I’ll get scared at the sleepover and have to tell Michael I need to go home.

  “What is wrong with you?” Dragon asks.

  “Nothing’s wrong with me.”

  “Are you upset because of what I did to your laundry hamper?”

  I stop pacing. “What did you do to my laundry hamper?”

  Dragon looks up and whistles. “It doesn’t matter. But there is something wrong with you,” he insists. “You only ate one taco at dinner. That’s just weird. Even with no jalapeños, you should have been eating at least four.”

  I wonder if telling Dragon what’s bothering me will help me feel better like it did when I told Alison.

  “If I tell you something, you promise you won’t laugh at me?”

  “I pinky promise I won’t laugh at you,” Dragon says solemnly, and holds up his outermost claw. I reach over the snow fort to take it with my pinky finger. We shake.

  “Okay,” I begin. “I’m nervous about going to the sleepover Friday at Michael’s.”

  “Why?” Dragon asks in surprise. “Wait, is it because you’re worried they won’t have sleep covers for my wings? Because I was worried about that, too, and I’m planning on packing my extra pair.”

  “No. I’m worried I’ll get too scared at night and want to come back home.”

  Dragon looks at me for a moment before letting out a giggle.

  “You said you wouldn’t laugh at me!” I exclaim. I wonder if Michael would react the same way if he found out.

  Dragon crouches down behind the fort so I can’t see his face. I hear him take a couple of deep breaths before poking his head back up.

  “I didn’t laugh at you,” Dragon says, covering his mouth with his claw. I can tell he’s trying to stifle another giggle. “I laughed near you.”

  I glare at him before crunching some snow together in my hand and aiming for Dragon’s belly.

  Dragon jumps out of the way just in time. “Aw, don’t be like that,” he says. I throw another snowball at him and he ducks down but it grazes his shoulder. He smiles at me mischievously and before long we’re tossing snowballs back and forth. By the time we’re both laid out on the ground on our backs and out of breath, I’ve got snow on top of my hat, under my jacket collar, and in my boots. I’ve never felt better.

  “Dimpshompalong,” Dragon says. “That means we should have a snowball fight again in an hour or so.”

  “Okay, but don’t make fun of me again,” I tell him.

  Dragon sighs. “I was just surprised you’re worried because of a sleepover, Warren. I mean, you live with the most fearsome creature of all time. You’re not scared of me.”

  I push myself slightly up on my elbows and look over at Dragon. I raise an eyebrow.

  “Dragons are very, very fierce!” he insists. Dragon suddenly seems to remember he’s wearing a puffy unicorn hat with attached scarf. He touches them gingerly and grins. “Well, sometimes we can be.” He hops up. “Look, I know exactly how you can prepare for the sleepover.”

  “I know. I know,” I interrupt, and force myself to fully stand as well. “I have to face my fears on Friday by going to the sleepover and just trying to deal with it.” I brush snow off the front of my jacket.

  Dragon waves his claws around. “No, no, no. You have to prepare way before then. We’ll go over to Michael’s house and check it for scary stuff before the sleepover. If we don’t find anything suspicious, you know you’ll be safe Friday night.”

  “And if we do find something suspicious?”

  “We confront it and . . .”

  “And?”

  Dragon taps a claw against his snout like he’s thinking hard. “And we’ll see how it goes.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a good plan.”

  “Yeah, but it’s the best one we’ve got,” Dragon points out. He flexes his muscles. “Besides, is anything really going to mess with a dragon? Let’s go.”

  “Now?” I ask.

  Dragon gets behind me to push me in the direction of Michael’s house. “Don’t worry. I’ll be right behind you the whole time.”

  6

  The First Plan

  Michael’s mom Paula opens the front door. “Hi, Warren!” she says with a smile. “You look cold. Come on in.”

  “Thanks,” I say, and walk in with Dragon next to me.

  “What a well-dressed dragon doll,” Paula adds.

  I look at Dragon. I can tell he’s having trouble deciding between being mad he was called a doll or pleased at the compliment. Dragon touches his scarf and hat and flutters his eyelashes at Paula. The compliment has won out.

  I take off my snow-covered boots. Dragon shakes himself a little so that snow falls off him and onto the welcome mat.

  “Do your parents know you’re here?” Paula asks.

  “Oops,” I say, realizing I forgot to tell anyone.

  “It’s okay. I’ll call them now. Michael’s upstairs in his room. He’s excited about the sleepover Friday!”

  “Uh, me too.” I start to head toward the stairs when Dragon taps me on the shoulder.

  “You go to Michael’s room and check everything on the way,” he whispers. “I’m going to check the downstairs for anything scary that could pop out at us in the middle of the night.”

  I nod and make my way to Michael’s room. Everything I pass looks pretty normal and not scary. The hallway walls are painted a light yellow, the carpeting on the stairs is its usual blue, and the framed pictures on the walls are all of Michael’s family. I pause to look at the photos to see if any of the eyes move like they did when I went to a haunted house attraction the previous Halloween, but the eyeballs keep looking in the same direction.

  I make a move like I’m about to walk away, and then turn my head quickly back to look at the photos again. No change in the eyeballs.

  I finally get to Michael’s room and knock on the door.

  “Come in!” Michael shouts, and I open the door to find him on his bed reading a comic book. He looks surprised to see me but sits up and smiles. “Hey, Warren!”

  “Hi, Michael.” I try to look around his room all casual like I’m not searching for anything terrifying that could crawl to the basement on Friday night and jump out at me. The toy soccer players on the floor aren’t moving, the light fixtures aren’t flickering, and the books on the bookshelf aren’t jumping off the shelves. So far, everything checks out.

  “I’ve been planning for the sleepover,” Michael says proudly. “First, we’re going to order pizza.”

  “Great,” I say. I do not even have to force myself to sound excited. I like Michael’s plans so far.

  “Then, we’re going to have our first dessert. Ice cream sundaes.”

  First dessert? That means there’ll be more. I try to remember why I was scared of the sleepover.

  “Next, we’re going to play foosball and a game of checkers, and watch a TV show. Then it’ll be time for the second dessert. A cookie topped with whipped creamed and sprinkles. My moms don’t know about the second dessert though, so we’ll have to be quiet.”

  It seems to me that being quiet while getting the second dessert goes without saying, so I just nod my head again.

  “Then . . .” Michael grins mischievously and rubs his hands together. “Come with me.” Michael pushes off his bed and walks past me to the hallway. I follow behind.

  We head down two flights of stairs until we reach the basement.

  “This is where the tent will go.” Michael motions to one side of the room. “I figure we should wait to tell scary stories right before bedtime. The later at night, the better!”

  “Um . . . I don’t think I know any scary stories,” I say. I do not say I do not even want to think of any scary stories before bedtime.

  Michael waves his hand like it’s not a problem. “You can just make some up. It’ll be easy to think of some once all the lights are off and you hear the creepy basement noises.”

  “Basement noises?” I look around the room, trying to see where noises would come from.

  “At night there’s lots of noises down here,” Michael explains. For some reason he doesn’t seem bothered by this. “And with the lights off, it’s extra spooky. Cool, huh? I mean, Addie gets scared of the noises at night. But she’s just a little kid.”

  “Yeah,” I say like I understand. I do not say that Michael’s little sister, Addie, might have the right idea. After all, I do not want Michael to compare me to his three-year-old sister.

  I suddenly hear a thud coming from near the window above. “What’s that?”

  Michael looks to the window and shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe an icicle falling?”

  “Oh, that makes sense.” I feel silly for getting worried.

  “But if this was Friday night and we were telling stories, I’d probably say it was Bigfoot trying to find an opening to the house.” Michael scrunches his face like he’s thinking of something. “Or maybe an escaped convict.”

  I hear a thud again and jump.

  “Uh, I should probably get going home, Michael,” I say, trying not to gulp.

  “Oh, okay,” Michael replies. I can tell he’s disappointed that I’m leaving so early but I figure it’s a plus that I’m not running out. I don’t want Michael to get suspicious and figure out what my problem is.

  We make our way upstairs. Addie comes out of the kitchen, dragging Dragon by his tail in one hand with a half-eaten chocolate chip cookie in the other. Addie is also wearing Dragon’s unicorn scarf and hat. Dragon sees me and Michael and wiggles out of Addie’s grasp.

  “I was minding my own business, checking the chips bags, the cereal boxes, and the cookie jar for anything suspicious. I was in the middle of seeing whether the cookies were poisoned by evil kitchen spirits, when she grabbed me!” Dragon points at Addie and glares. “She took my scarf and hat, and the rest of my cookie! She’s a blableebloohacker! Blableebloohackers are even scarier than teddy bears!”

  “Can I please keep Mister Dragoo?” Addie asks me. “We wanna play more dress-up and have a tickle contest.”

  “I did not agree to that!” Dragon exclaims. He jumps away to hide behind me. “Quick! Let’s make our escape! She can keep the scarf and hat.”

  “Maybe another time, Addie,” I tell her.

  Addie pouts.

  “Aw, she is kinda cute,” Dragon says, peering at Addie over my shoulder. “Still, she took my cookie. That’s unforgiveable.”

  I put my boots and coat on before saying bye to Michael and Addie.

  “I don’t think we accomplished anything,” I tell Dragon on our walk back home.

  “That’s not true,” Dragon replies. “Now we know the cookies aren’t poisoned.”

  7

  Late Night Research

  Later that night, I can’t fall asleep. Turns out, if I can’t sleep, Dragon can’t fall asleep either.

  “Stop tossing and turning,” Dragon says. “You’re keeping me awake. I’m so tired I can’t even think of an outrageous word that means you’re keeping me awake.”

  “Sorry,” I reply.

  I try to stay still. I listen for loud noises like I heard in Michael’s basement. The wind outside is rattling tree branches, but it doesn’t seem scary at all from my bed. I sigh. Michael is going to think I’m such a baby if I get scared at his house because of something like wind rattling.

  “Stop sighing.”

  “I can’t fall asleep, Dragon.”

  Now Dragon sighs. “So our first plan to take care of Friday night didn’t work.”

  “It did not.”

  “It’s okay. I’ve already got another plan.”

  I sigh and turn on my lamp.

  “Stop sighing! This is a great plan. Guaranteed to work.” Dragon must take my silence for acceptance because he continues. “What we need to do is find a lot of scary stuff, face those fears, and then by the time you have the sleepover it won’t seem as scary compared to all the other scary stuff you faced.”

  I’m confused and it must show, because Dragon tries to explain again. “What if you went into a room full of anacondas with laser eyes? That’d be pretty terrifying, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So after you faced a room full of anacondas with laser eyes, a little tiny sleepover won’t seem very scary in comparison.”

  “In case you haven’t noticed, there aren’t any anacondas with laser eyes nearby,” I say, and motion around my bedroom.

  “No, but there are plenty of other scary things in Eddington, New Jersey.” Dragon then grins the widest grin I’ve ever seen and taps his claws together. “It’s time for some research,” he declares, and motions for me to follow him. “Come on. We’re not getting any sleep tonight anyway.”

  I follow Dragon with light steps to my dad’s home office. He sits by the computer keyboard and hands me a pad of paper and a pen. “Take some notes.” Dragon turns on the computer and starts typing. “Scary . . . stuff . . . in . . . boring . . . suburbs. Okay, here we go.”

  I get ready to write down what he finds.

  “Number one. Jumping off roofs.”

  I stop writing after “jumping.” “That’s not scary,” I argue. “That’s just dumb.”

  “Even when there’s snow on the ground to fall onto?” Dragon asks.

  “Still dumb.”

  Dragon huffs and continues to tap. “Fine. Here’s a good one. Confronting a rabid squirrel.”

  “That’s also more dumb than scary.”

  Dragon takes the pad and pen from me and starts writing a list by himself. He won’t let me see what he’s writing.

  When he’s finished, Dragon hides the pad of paper behind him. “Part of being scared is the element of surprise,” he says. “Tomorrow, after school, we’re going to start facing your fears. Even if they’re dumb. It’s for your own good. Plincherstoo. It means you can’t live your life being afraid of things.”

  * * *