Midnight Adventure by Harcourt Tendhall
15 February 2022 { General Fiction }
It’s tonight. There’s a full moon and a clear sky. We all agreed. We know he’s out there, and we’re going to find him. Danny told us all about it. We googled it and it’s true. Well, that is, the stories are all there and Danny’s evidence collected from the churchyard and the fields around.
The hardest part will be sneaking out without Mum and Dad hearing me, but I’ve got a plan. I’ve tested the new trellis Dad put up. It’s strong enough to hold my weight. If I climb out of my window, I can wedge it just open, so I can get back in. Then I can shuffle along the narrow roof over the bay window and climb down the trellis. Climbing over the wall at the end of the garden is easy. Getting back again is a bit more difficult, cos the wall is higher on the outside, but if Danny gives me a leg-up, I’ll be fine.
Mum and Dad go to bed at half ten, so I’ll wait ’til eleven before I make my move. I’ve got an alarm on my old Superman watch I got when I was ten. It buzzes on my wrist. I don’t wear it anymore cos I’ve grown out of kid’s stuff like that, but I’ve still got it, so I’ll set that in case I fall asleep.
I fell asleep, but it’s okay, cos the Superman watch woke me up. We’re meeting at the broken cross in the middle of the village. We’re all wearing black, so we can hide and not scare him away. All we need is one picture to prove he’s out there and we’ll be famous. As I climb out of the window, the outside light goes on next door. I freeze and lie as low as I dare on the narrow roof. It’s only Mr Smethurst, putting out some rubbish, and he doesn’t even look up.
When he goes back in, he switches off the light and that’s when I see it. The Wolf Moon; big and orange, hanging low in the sky. You can see lots of details when it’s that low and so much bigger. I turn and wedge the window before shuffling across the roof to the trellis. It’s a lot scarier than I thought it would be, but I bite my lip and, on my knees, put a foot over the edge, searching for the trellis. There, one foot on. Now I’ve got to be brave and slide down a bit to let the other foot find a hold further down. The trouble is there’s nothing to hold on to with my hands, but I find it. Now I can slide down a bit more and, step by step, climb down the trellis. My legs are all wobbly, but I make it without falling off. There’s a pounding in my head, so I sit and wait. It goes away after a minute. I feel something touch me. It makes me jump. Then I realise it’s only Missy, next door’s cat, come over to say hello.
Climbing over the wall is easy, but the drop on the other side looks a bit scary in the dark, so I slide down until I’m just hanging by my hands and let go. It’s only a couple of feet and I land on the grass just fine, but crouch down and check the coast is clear before heading for the broken cross. I keep to the shadows and check round every corner before carrying on.
I’m first to arrive, so sit with my back to the cross and wait. The only sign of life is the pub up the road, but it’s quiet on a Monday night. The cross is set back from the main road and I’m on the other side, so can’t be seen from the road. Suddenly, Danny lands on the floor next to me and puts his hand over my mouth in case I scream or something, not that I’m going to. It makes me jump, though. He just sits there grinning. I’ll bet he was hiding, watching me arrive.
‘Where’s Jack?’ I whisper.
‘He’ll be here in a minute.’
As we wait, I see Jack, sneaking along the lane opposite, like a Ninja. Or maybe like Mr Bean in that telly advert. I giggle and Danny nudges me to shut up and be serious, but he’s grinning too. Jack runs across the green and lands on the floor next to us.
‘Made it. Nobody saw me.’
‘We did,’ I reply with a grin.
‘Okay, time to get serious,’ whispers Danny. ‘Remember, we only need one photo, but we’d all better use our phones to take one and hope one of them turns out good. Whatever you do, don’t use flash. Make sure your sound is off and put it on aeroplane mode. Even a click from the phone might scare him off, or worse. Let’s make our way to the churchyard together. We’ll go the long way round, just in case any cars drive through on the main road. As soon as we go through the gate, split up. Jack, you take the left by the church and Frank, you go right, by the wall. I’ll go straight down the middle. Stop halfway and wait. If you see him coming, make an owl hoot and point. No other sound, unless you’re in trouble, and no lights. Right, check your phones and let’s go.’
We run, one by one, into the lane Jack had just come down and into the shadows. Danny in the lead, then Jack, then me. The churchyard is only a few hundred metres away but, by the time we get there, we’re just walking along normally. There’s nobody about, not even a stray dog to be seen. The churchyard gates are shut. Jack undoes the latch and slowly opens one. Thankfully, it doesn’t creak. Danny goes through, followed by Jack, and I shut the gate behind me.
Danny looks round at the moon. We all follow his gaze. It’s higher now, white and much brighter. We look back and he grins, then points to Jack and to the church. Jack nods and sets off. Danny points at me and then to the churchyard wall. I nod and set off. As I make my way along the wall, I’m looking all around the churchyard. It looks really spooky in the moonlight, but you can make everything out. I see Danny going from headstone to headstone, and Jack, sneaking from buttress to buttress at the side of the church, doing his Ninja impression again. I realise I’m in the wall’s shadow, so I’m probably the best hidden.
As I creep towards the halfway point, there’s a bench and I decide to sit there. I watch the other two until they stop. Danny sits in the shadow of a big gravestone and Jack hides in the shadow of one of the church buttresses. I move to sit on a flat stone by the side of the bench so I’m in the shadow. Now we wait.
We sit there for at least an hour. There’s an owl in a tree nearby. I’d watched him land silently there earlier. I check my watch; it’s twelve-thirty five. It’s getting cold, so I decide to eat my chocolate bar. I’m really careful not to make a noise by opening it, but the owl hears it and flies off. Looking across the churchyard, I check Danny and Jack again. Although I can’t see them cos they’re in shadow, I can see their breath in the moonlight.
Just as I put the wrapper in my pocket, I hear him coming into the churchyard through the little gate at the far end. Danny hears him too and makes the owl hoot. He stops and listens. We don’t make another sound. He doesn’t look like I was expecting, not crouching at all. I think he’s carrying a big bag. He stays at the far end of the churchyard, where the new graves are. When he stops at one, Danny creeps towards him, silently. I follow, as does Jack, but he stops at the corner of the church. Jack carries on, trying to get as close as he dares. I creep up alongside Jack. We’re about ten metres away.
He is on his knees in front of a gravestone with his back to us. It looks like he’s digging. He stays there for a few minutes, digging with something, then he reaches into the bag at his side and puts something in the hole. After a few more minutes, he takes a water bottle out of the bag and pours it on or in whatever it was, then he takes out a bunch of flowers. It finally dawns on me he’d dug a hole, put some kind of pot in it, filled it with water and is now putting flowers in it. This man is not who we’re here to find.
Danny raises his phone to take a picture. I pull his arm down and slowly shake my head, then point back, like we should go. He looks at me quizzically. I point at the man, shake my head again, then point at him and me, then to the front gate. He gets the message. We retreat to the front gate. Jack follows.
When we are there, I whisper to them, ‘That man is just laying flowers at someone’s grave. I know it’s a weird time to do it, but he can’t be a Wolfman.’
Danny said, ‘I couldn’t see what he was doing, so I was going to take a picture, anyway.’
‘Didn’t you hear him sniffing? I think he was crying. I don’t think it’s right to take pictures of people at times like that. It’s too personal.’
‘Yeah, you’re right, but why do it in the middle of the night?’
It is then we hear the blood-curdling howl. We look at each other, realising it had been him all along. We run out of the churchyard, leaving the gate open, then split up, each in different directions, heading straight home. I get back over our garden wall on my own, no problem. Then up the trellis, across the roof, and through the window, carefully locking it and closing the curtains. I’m in bed in seconds, but it seems like hours before I fall asleep.
The next day, we meet, and end up laughing at ourselves. We’d had the chance to photograph a Wolfman, but blew it, so we go to the churchyard to look at the grave. There’s no inscription on the headstone. The flowers are dead, and the pot is dry. We decide not to bother trying again tonight. Some things are better left as a mystery.
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