The Secret Bedroom by R.L. Stine, Bill Schmidt

And I haven’t done
anything
to her!
    â€œIf only there was some way to get back at her!” she said to herself, pushing open the front door to the school and stepping out into a bright but blustery day. “Then maybe she’d leave me alone.”
    All the way home, first on the bus, then walking against the gusting wind, watching the swirl of leaves around her, breathing the sweet-sour autumn air, Lea dreamed up suitable revenges. But none of them seemed suitable enough.
    I don’t want to play any kind of dumb practicaljoke, Lea decided. I want Marci to feel really bad, really grossed out, maybe. Really humiliated.
    No. Really
frightened.
    Yes, Lea wanted to scare Marci.
    A smile spread across Lea’s face as she turned onto Fear Street, a funnel-shaped cloud of brown leaves swirling high over the street ahead of her, past the cemetery that sloped up to the right, the crooked old gravestones standing as silent, gray sentries.
    Yes, I want Marci to be terrified, Lea thought, so engrossed in her schemes that she didn’t see the squirrels that scampered just in front of her, on their way to scavenge for acorns in the old cemetery.
    I want her to be as terrified as I was up in the attic last night.
    Last night.
    Yes.
    The idea seemed to fall into place, so that by the time Lea unlocked the back door and stepped through the pantry into the kitchen, carefully wiping the wet soles of her sneakers on the mat by the door, she knew what she wanted to do.
    The idea frightened her, but only a little. It would frighten Marci a whole lot more, Lea decided.
    She tossed her backpack onto the kitchen counter, then checked the refrigerator door for messages. None.
    Odd, Lea thought. Her mother almost always had some “emergency” instructions or news bulletins for her.
    Heading to the front hall, she pulled off her coat and tossed it over the banister. Then she ran up thecreaking stairs, cheered by her scheme, her eagerness to get back at Marci forcing away the fear she knew she should be feeling.
    She’s ruining my life.
Ruining
it.
    The words ran through her mind, again and again, as she paced back and forth in her bedroom, thinking about her plan, chilled by it, excited by it.
    Stop thinking about it and just
do
it, she urged herself finally.
    Stepping out into the hallway, Lea pulled herself quickly up the ladder and slid back the trapdoor. She stepped into the attic, half expecting the boards to be back in place, the hidden room locked and boarded up, her encounter the night before all a vivid, mysterious dream.
    But the boards were still on the floor. The smooth wooden door stood against the wall, exposed and inviting.
    The fear returned.
    Despite her excitement, despite all of her plans for revenge, the fear came back. Lea could feel her throat tighten, feel all of her muscles tighten as she made her way to the door.
    A silent voice inside her, the voice of her conscience, most likely, her sensible voice, her realistic voice, told her to back away. Get out of there. Leave the door alone. Leave the ghost alone.
    The voice told her to close up the attic. To stay away from there. To tell her parents about it. To tell her parents about Catherine. To let them deal with this. To let them face all the fear.
    But that sensible voice was too quiet. It wasdrowned out by a much shriller voice, a much more powerful voice, a much more compelling voice—the voice that called for revenge.
    â€œOpen the door!” Catherine called from inside the secret bedroom. “Please—open the door and come in.”
    Lea turned the key and, without hesitating to listen to her sensible voice, pushed open the door and stepped in.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you last night,” Catherine said nervously, her hands clasped at her waist.
    She stood in the center of the room, dressed as before, in the high-collared, ruffled white blouse and the heavy black skirt that went down to the floor.
    The same candles