The Tanglewood Terror by Kurtis Scaletta Page B

good. The fact that you remember what happened is
really
good. You’re going to be all right, Eric.” He tapped me on the shoulder like I’d made a good play, which I guess I had.
    He talked to Dad for a long time, but I couldn’t follow it very well.
    I was in one of those hospital gowns with the rear window, so I got up and got dressed in my football uniform, which was in a pile on a chair. I didn’t really want to get back into sweaty, stretchy pants, but my street clothes were probably still in the locker room. Something was missing, but I couldn’t think of what it was. I looked around for it anyway, until I got dizzy and had to sit down. I squashed a pile of pads under me and couldn’t find the energy to move them. The doctor went on and on talking to Dad, who kept nodding. The doctor finally handed him a bundle ofinformation and turned back to me. “The only treatment for a concussion is plenty of rest,” he said. “So no school tomorrow, and no football for a few weeks, okay?”
    “Football is done anyway,” I told him.
    One of my teammates had dropped my clothes off at the house. I poked through them and still couldn’t find whatever it was that was missing. There were a lot of messages waiting at home for me too: Coach, Randy, Will, and a bunch of other people wanted to know if I was okay. They also told me that the Oxen won. I didn’t care anymore. The game was a joke, like Tom had said. How many real football games are played shoeless?
    I couldn’t even make it through all the messages. My head was throbbing and I still felt sick to my stomach.
    I went up to bed.
    Brian came out of his room in his pj’s. They had the hedgehog heroes from his last favorite video game, before he discovered Gninjas.
    “Are you all right?”
    “Just a little banged up.”
    “What got banged up?”
    “Just my head. Nothing important.”
    “Do you have my little man?”
    “What?” It took me a second to remember the colonist. The carving I’d kept as a good-luck charm. Lot of good it did.
    “I lost it,” I told him. That was what I’d been looking forat the hospital, even though I couldn’t figure out what was missing. “It might be on the field. I’ll look later.”
    “Okay. Good night. Sorry you got hurt.”
    “Night. And thanks.”
    I replayed the touchdown over and over in my dreams, galloping toward the goal line and wishing I could go back in time and make myself swerve.
    I woke up in the middle of the night and remembered I hadn’t eaten anything since the apple I’d had that morning—or yesterday morning, since it was now well into Friday. Maybe a little food would make me feel better. I walked downstairs.
    There was plenty of blue-green light shining through the glass of the back door and spilling across the carpet into the hallway. Or at least that’s what I thought it was. When I got closer, I could see a row of mushrooms along the edge of the hallway near the family room. I reached down and pulled one up, ripping it out of the wood, breaking the tough little roots. I cupped it in my other hand and proceeded to pull up the rest.
    I started across the family room to toss them out the back door, and I realized the floor was all wrong—soft and spongy, like there was an extra layer of uneven padding under the carpet. This room was added to the house after it was built, so there was no basement beneath it. The mushrooms had bored straight up from the ground through the floorboards.
    When Dad came down an hour or two later, I had part of the carpet rolled back and was scraping at the floor with a putty knife.
    “What are you doing?”
    “Scraping up mushrooms,” I told him.
    “You’re supposed to be taking it easy,” he said. He came over and took the knife from me. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
    “No. My head hurts and I can’t sleep. I’m sick of these mushrooms.”
    “Your mother is finally taking a day off. Let her sleep in. Come on—I’ll make omelets.”
    “That would be