The Secret of the Smoking Mirror

The Secret of the Smoking Mirror Chapter One When Peter Collins woke up, he knew right away that there was something strange in the room with him. It was too dark to see what it was, but he sensed a heavily breathing presence standing at the foot of his bed. There was just enough light coming through his bedroom window for him to make out a form the size of a grown-up person. “Mom? Ben? Is that you?” But he knew it wasn’t his mother. She wouldn’t just stand there, without saying anything, and frighten him like that. He wouldn’t put it past Ben to want to scare him, especially if his stepfather had been drinking. But Peter could see enough of what was in the room with him to know it didn’t have Ben’s big, pointy ears or humongous beer belly. Besides, it didn’t have Ben’s thick arms—or any arms at all, for that matter. The intruder made a low, hissing sound, and then Peter thought he heard something like a maraca shaking under his bed. Was he dreaming? He knew he was in his own bed, in his own room, the room that had been his ever since he was eight years old. Almost four years. But he’d been fooled before. Sometimes he would run away from a monster in a dream, like the lady with the huge, spinning eyes and the snakes in her hair. Just as he was about to be caught, he would wake up, or think he did, feeling safe and sound in his bed, until the closet door opened and the snake lady jumped out at him, yelling, “Gotcha!” Then he would really wake up, his face clammy with sweat and his heart pounding, as it was now.