Junior's Luck

Junior's Luck-Chapter 10

That Wednesday evening after supper, Kelsey's mother called him to the telephone.

"Is it a girl?" Kelsey asked as he passed his mother in the hallway.

He hoped it wasn't Olivia calling. She had phoned him every night and always in the middle of a good TV show. Each time, she kept Kelsey on the line for over an hour, talking about her girlfriends and clothes and the ‌car she wanted when she got her license and a lot of other boring stuff. Kelsey would rather have watched the end of the TV show.

"No, thank God. It's Junior Rush. Don't stay on too long. I need to use the phone pretty soon."

Kelsey put the receiver to his ear. "Junior, are you home now?"

"No. I'm still in the hospital. They want to keep me here to run some tests."

"When can you go home?"

"The doctors haven't told me. Kelsey, are your parents around where they can hear?"

"Huh uh."

"I don't have much time. My dad went to get coffee. I have a plan."

"A plan for what?"

"For us to go check out the secret passages."

Kelsey had hoped Junior would drop the idea of exploring the haunted mansion, but it was okay because Junior was stuck in the hospital with tubes and wires coming out of him. He wouldn't be exploring anything for quite a while.

Kelsey decided to humor him. "Okay, what is it?"

"Tell your folks that you're going to spend the night at my house on Friday. Then you come over. My mom and dad will be gone, so you can get my bike. You know where we keep the extra key to the garage?"

"Yeah, but wait, your bike?" Kelsey didn't understand why he needed to get Junior's bicycle.

"How do we get to the haunted mansion otherwise? I can't ride double on your bike, but I can on mine."

"I just wondered..."

"Let me finish. I don't have much time. My dad will be coming back in a minute."

Junior paused.

Kelsey didn't speak. He'd let Junior finish outlining his plan. It would not happen, anyway. Junior was too sick.

"My dad goes home at eight," Junior continued. "That's when visiting hours are over. I'm supposed to go to sleep then. No one checks on me until the new nurse starts her shift at eleven. That gives us a couple of hours to explore the secret passages. Meet me in the snack bar at the hospital at eight-thirty."

A clammy, anxious sweat seeped out of Kelsey's pores. Junior's plan was crazy and impossible. They'd get caught and be in some serious trouble.

Kelsey tried to appeal to Junior's sense of reason. "What about all those tubes and wires they hooked up to you?"

"I'm taking capsules now. The nurse taught me how to unhook the other stuff so I can go to the bathroom."

"But aren't you sick?"

"This new medicine helps me. I can make it. We won't stay too long."

"What if you pass out? How will I get you back to the hospital? What if I can't and you die?"

"I told you, I'm okay. It won't be a problem."

"I saw a drug pusher in that house," Kelsey said, hoping this would conjure up an image of machine gun-toting thugs and bloody, bullet-riddled bodies. But it had the opposite effect. When Junior spoke again, his voice carried even more excitement in it, more determination, too.