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“Tiny, of course it’s me!” cried his voice from behind the door. The door handle shook harder than ever. “It’s so dark in here. Help me.”
Brian had said he wouldn’t call her Tiny again. Maybe that was a clue? That it wasn’t the real Brian? Should she just start trying doors? Asking trick questions to whoever was in there? But there were dozens of doors in the hallway. How long would it take her? And what would happen to Ollie if she took all this time trying to find Brian?
As she stood there, indecisive, on the edge of panic, Coco heard a very soft beeping. Coming from her pocket. Where she’d shoved Ollie’s watch in the race to get away. Coco, with a sudden surge of hope, pulled out Ollie’s watch and looked at it.
Nothing. The watch display was blank. Some help there. Maybe she’d been wrong to waste so much time on the chess game to get Ollie’s watch away from Seth.
Coco was about to put it back in her pocket. But then she paused, staring at the watch. It was still beeping. Why would it be beeping?
Coco licked her lips. She whispered, “If you can hear me, be quiet.”
The watch fell silent. Coco let out a soft breath. Even if Seth had somehow blocked the screen from working, maybe—
The doors in the hallway rattled louder than ever, and Brian’s voice rose to a terrified scream. “Coco, Coco!”
Coco didn’t let it distract her. She whispered to the watch. “One beep is no, and two beeps is yes. Beep three times right now if you understand me.”
The watch was silent. Coco held her breath. Then, slowly, the watch beeped three times.
Coco let her breath out with a shudder. Then she had another terrible thought. What if this was a trick too? What if the beeping wasn’t Ollie’s mom, but Seth? She thought quickly.
“Ollie plays softball, yes or no?”
Two beeps. YES.
“Ollie is scared of dogs.”
One beep. NO.
“Her favorite color is blue.”
NO. True. Ollie’s favorite color was yellow.
Okay. It definitely wasn’t a foolproof test, but she needed some help and this seemed like the best Coco would get. She hitched Seth’s Ouija board more firmly under her arm. She gathered her courage. “Okay,” she said. “I need to find Brian. Which room is he in?”
She turned to the first door. “This one?”
The door she was pointing at shook back and forth. Brian’s hopeless yell from inside hurt her ears.
But the watch beeped once. NO.
Coco began making her slow and steady way down the darkened hallway, crossing and recrossing to each door. Brian’s voice yelled at her from all of them. Each time, she whispered, “Here?” and each time, the watch said NO.
Now Brian sounded mad. “Coco, are you playing or what? Coco, help! Coco, why do you hate me? Coco. Tiny, what’s your problem? I never liked you anyway. You’re so lame. Ollie’s better than you, and braver than you and—”
On and on Brian’s voice went, saying hurtful things, desperate things.
Coco closed her ears and kept going. The hallway seemed endless. At each door, the watch said NO, and NO. Coco’s heart pounded. How much time had gone by? How much time did she have? She began to think that she’d just be walking until dawn, checking door after door, and then the sun would rise, and she’d be stuck in the smiling man’s hallway forever. Maybe she’d been tricked anyway. Maybe the watch wasn’t Ollie’s mom at all.
Just then the watch began beeping urgently. Coco halted. Realized that she was right about in the middle of the hallway. As though she hadn’t been walking for the last ten minutes.
Maybe she hadn’t. She didn’t know what was a trick and what was real. All around, Brian’s voice shouted at her. Was she alone in the dark? Did she have a friend behind any of the doors? Where was Ollie? Was the smiling man lurking in the shadows, watching her and laughing?
The watch was beeping softly. Not a YES or NO, but as though it were trying to talk to her. As though to tell her, Calm down and look.
Calm down, Coco thought. Calm down. She was surrounded by rattling doors. That’s the trick, she thought. He’s full of tricks. He makes things seem different than they are. Don’t listen.
Then she realized that the door in front of her wasn’t rattling at all. It was totally silent. “This one?” she whispered.
