The next day, they walked to Mrs. Guardino’s, nervousness growing when she didn’t answer the door. Brian tried the doorknob, finding it locked. “You go around that way and I’ll go this way.”
With his heart pounding, afraid Mrs. Guardino had died, Brian jumped the six-foot locked gate and looked in the windows, seeing no sign of her. They got to the back door at the same time. Brian tried the knob, and the door opened. “Mrs. G, it’s Brian and Jim. Are you home?”
An eerie silence met them.
Brian had an urge to cry, until Sensei’s words came to him. “Action cures fear.”
Jim blinked out of a zombie-like stare. “We go together.”
Room by room, they checked the small house and didn’t find her. “She never goes out unless someone drives her to the doctor and she always locks the door.” He suck
