Blue Bottle Tree

2. Penny: Penny Langston Freaks Out-3

Somebody killed this kid with a hammer, boiled the flesh off, and bleached the skull, then hid it in this cave. I turned over the newspapers and found more bones, presumably the rest of the body.

Everybody knew Seven LaVey was a strange kid, but he seemed harmless enough. He kept to himself or hung out with Mad Dog Rickey Smith. They were both weirdos but they could not kill anyone. I would not have taken him for the kind of guy to steal a clarinet either, though.

I looked back over the edge of the rock and he was smelling my clarinet reed. Oh, my God, he just licked it. He tasted my reed! Then he held the clarinet like he knew what he was doing, like he would try to play it. He blew and got nothing but a whistle.

The candle burned on the opposite wall and his back was turned against it. I steadied my hand, swallowed my fright, ever so slowly held the skull’s mandible in front of the candle, and cast a shadow over Seven’s head. He was engrossed in trying to figure out how to make a clarinet work and did not even notice. I was getting past my panic attack and put the skull and clavicle down. I made hand shadows until one got into his peripheral vision. He yelped when he saw it and almost dropped my clarinet. I was hidden again and the shadow was gone. He did not say anything, but moved around, scanning the area. No doubt there were bats or bugs or things that got in the cave sometimes. So, he may have thought it was something like that and went back to figuring out how to work the keys. He blew again, got a screech, and he jumped like it bit him. Served him right.

I could not keep telling myself I wasn’t freaked. There was a child’s skull in front of me and Seven was keeping it.