At Bay With Mrs. Prenderghast: Part One

Three hundred years ago, a wealthy Aisha named Mrs. Prenderghast died in a house down the street from mine. That house sure gave me the creeps. No one ever moved into it after her death, and some said she still haunted it, protecting the valuable pieces of art that still hung on her beaten, old walls. Although the entire idea of a 'ghost' haunting a house like that made my hair stand on end, I was always intrigued every time I passed the old mansion. I knew that one day I would go in and explore, and probably realize the entire story of Mrs. Prenderghast was only a mere myth meant to scare people.

     My experience with this house all started on a weekend evening when my friend Jarri the striped Gelert showed up at my house door. I saw him through my room window and lumbered downstairs. I'm a yellow Tonu, and I'm bigger than most of my friends. "Tansu, open up!" he yelled. I opened the door to let my friend in.

     "Hey, Jarri!" I roared in my loud voice. "What are you doing here? I can't hang out right now; I have a paper due for Mr. Densen's class on Monday."

     He rolled his eyes. "Tansu, who cares? I have something to tell you that's more important than school," he announced, with a mocking gasp at my need to work on a school assignment. My friends always had to pick on me for being a good student.

     This was going to be good. Jarri's idea of 'important' is usually that he found a miniature spacecraft in his shower or something else equally meaningless or stupid.

     "What is it, Jarri? Is Doctor Sloth invading your backyard?"

     He blinked. "I wish. But no, it's something cooler. You know that creepy old Prenderghast House a few blocks down the street?"

     I shivered at the thought of the house. "Yeah, that creepy old deserted mansion? What about it?"

     "I heard something in there last night; something moving around. We should check it out," he proposed.

     "No way! I don't want to go in there, it freaks me out," I said, refusing.

     "Suit yourself, man. If you'd rather be doing homework all alone on a Saturday night, then be my guest," he chimed.

     We stood there for a moment in silence. He stared at me, waiting for a response. I sighed, shooting him a nasty look. He grinned, knowing that he had won. Without talking, I trotted out the door, him skipping gleefully along behind me with his tongue sticking out.

     "This is going to be so much fun!" he whined excitedly.

     "Yes, going to an abandoned haunted house is exactly what I had in mind when I asked myself 'What should I do to amuse myself tonight?'" I snorted.

     He nodded in agreement, except he wasn't being sarcastic. He probably hadn't even thought about starting Mr. Densen's assignment for our creative writing class. We had to write a fictitious story, so his would probably be about a society of Maraquan Babaas living in his bathtub. He claims there actually is, though.

     We passed rows of normal houses until up ahead we saw a shady, worn down mansion. "There it is!" Jarri exclaimed. "I heard something up and about in there last night, I swear," he reminded me.

     "Well, then the logical thing to do would be to go in then, right?" I asked sardonically.

     "Of course!" Jarri said contently. "Come on, let's go check it out!"

     "I'd love to, it's just killing me to know what is in there," I said unenthusiastically.

     We marched up to the front porch and stood before the door, with an eerie feeling creeping up our spines. "You open it," I basically ordered him.

     "It would be my pleasure..." he said giddily. I watched as the striped Gelert reached his paw swiftly onto the knob, twisting it gently in anticipation. The door creaked open.

     "Come on!" he told me, gesturing into the creepy house.

     "Um, I'd really like to be working on that paper, actually," I stammered.

     I decidedly had no interest in exploring a dead person's abandoned house. I mean, would anybody be all that excited?

     Jarri laughed, not buying my excuse. "Nah, it's a Saturday, you can work on it tomorrow. Let's go in already!"

     "Fine," I replied grumpily, sighing. We marched in cautiously, adjusting to the dim light.

     The first thing we saw was a narrow hall, reaching into what appeared to be infinite blackness. The faded brown wallpaper was ripped, and the wooden floors looked like they would break if you stepped on it. The famous old paintings hung down each side of the hallway, with barely an inch between them all. There were so many it looked like a museum! Most of the paintings were portraits, with a few fruit bowls thrown in here and there. All the Neopets in the paintings seemed to watch you as you walked. They freaked me out! I now had an urge to get out of this weird house more powerful than any urge I had ever had in my life. I was about to just run out of the house, not caring if Jarri followed me or not.

     "Let's go, Tansu!" Jarri shouted just as the thought of leaving raced through my mind.

     Before I could say a word, Jarri was running down the hallway. My loyalty to my friend took over, and I trotted down the hallway after him. I caught up to him when he stopped to stare at a closed door. Jarri turned to me and grinned.

     "Dare me to go in there?" he asked.

     "No, I don't. I think we should leave now!" I worriedly said.

     "Then I'll dare myself. Jarri, I dare you to go open that door," Jarri dared.

     Jarri's paw started reaching towards the door knob. I had a horrible feeling about what was in that room. I had to stop him, but I was too scared to say anything! There were now just three seconds until he opened that door. Now there were two, one, and his paw was on the knob! Jarri turned the knob. I held my breath. He opened the door. I looked inside. There was nothing in the room, absolutely nothing! Jarri closed the door again and shrugged.

     "Maybe something better will be in the next room," he said hopefully.

     Jarri then took sprinting down the hall again. With a deep sigh, I jogged after him. Luckily, there were no more rooms in that hallway, just endless portraits and fruit bowl paintings. They were now more annoying then creepy.

     We reached the end of the hall pretty quickly. There were steep, rickety, stairs at the end. I glanced up. I could see the end of them high up.

     Jarri opened his mouth to speak, but I said, "Don't even say it; I'm going."

     I started climbing at a Slorg's pace. It was hard going up the steep stairs with hooves, and I was afraid they might break under my weight. To my surprise, Jarri didn't make one comment about how slow I was going. Maybe he was having trouble climbing too. I chanced a glance behind me. Jarri was busy counting the holes in the ceiling.

     We reached the top after what felt like hours of climbing. I wanted to sit and rest, but of course that wasn't Jarri's intentions.

     "Look at all these rooms, Tansu! We're going to be searching these rooms forever!"

     I looked around where I stood. It was another narrow hallway with decaying wood floors, torn brown wallpaper, and tons of portraits and fruit bowl paintings, but there was one difference in this hallway. Rooms dotted either side. As far as I could see, which wasn't too far, there were at least one hundred rooms! I gulped. We weren't going to be leaving too soon.

     "Let's start with the first room and work our way back!" Jarri excitedly shouted; how anybody could be excited about searching a haunted mansion was beyond me.

     "Sure, Jarri, whatever you say," I said monotonously.

     Jarri gave me an odd look; this was the first time I had ever agreed with him on something in our whole friendship. He got rid of the odd look and ran to the first door.

     "Let's open it at the same time and go in at the same time," Jarri instructed.

     I nodded and placed my hoof on the door while Jarri placed his paw on.

     "One. Two. Three," Jarri counted. We opened the door and ran in at 'three'. I gasped in amazement and delight at what I saw.

     It was Mr. Densen's classroom exactly. There were five rows of desks with six desks in each row. Mr. Densen's huge wood desk faced the rows of desks, with the mug of coffee in the right corner and the globe of Neopia in the left. Three pencils were right next to the mug of coffee. A blackboard was right behind Mr. Densen's desk. I gasped in happiness when I walked up to the blackboard. What looked to be a thousand assignments were written on the board!

     "Jarri, this is awesome! We better get started on all Mr. Densen's assignments right now or we'll never finish!" I excitedly said.

     "Tansu, what are you talking about?" I heard Jarri's voice ask.

     "I'm in Mr. Densen's class!" I giddily shouted. I looked around and realized for the first time that Jarri wasn't with me.

     "No, I'm at the Space Station. Sloth is talking about me in the room next to mine. He's going to make me a commander of his newest ship! Isn't that awesome?"

     "Yeah, it is! I'm going to start working on these assignments!"

     "I'm going to keep spying on Sloth!"

     Unknown to me, of course, a ghost of an Aisha drifted into the room Jarri and I lay in, seemingly asleep. The Aisha seemed to be as faded as the house she inhabited. She wore a green dress that was probably once beautiful, but was now ripped and dirty. She glanced at the two sleeping figures. She cackled.

     "Sleep and have fun in your illusions, my darlings, for you will never wake up again!"

To Be Continued...