The dummy's face on the door looked too familiar. She didn't want her hand anywhere near that mouth. Delilah's eyes turned to the doorbell. She pressed it with her left index finger.

Shawn had been close to the front of the gaggle of kids, but the moment he had seen the door knocker, he'd backed right off. It was...best that someone else knocked on the door, definitely. Bradford clearly had some complicated feelings for him, so why make a bad first impression, right?

There had been some sort of expectation on the part of the rest of the kids that the door bell would resonate with a classic 'Ding Dong!'

Instead, Delilah and Shawn could hear the cartoonish sound of Mr. Clayton's voice humming after Delilah pressed the doorbell. They could both feel the press of the kids behind them move back in surprise, the sound of sneakers scuffing the ground as all the kids took a few inadvertent steps backwards.

After a few moments, the door began to open slowly....
This message was last edited by the GM at 09:23, Fri 30 Mar 2018.

Delilah shuffled back a bit. She wiped her hands nervously on her sides and rocked back and forth on her toes. Remembering the other kids behind her, she lifted her chin and set her jaw.

She silently prayed it was just Bradford coming to the door.

Shawn’s step backwards was extra big, and he seriously considered making up some excuse as to why he was needed back home. It was only the knowledge that Mom and Dad were probably still arguing that kept him here.

Slowly, slowly the door opened. A shadow appeared from the inside of the door. Bradford's head slowly poked out. He looked pasty, face sweaty, skin slightly gray.

"hello." Bradford said in mouse voice. It was only his forehead and thick glasses peaking out from behind the door.

Beads of sweat dripped down from Bradford's forehead.

From behind the rest of the crowd, Shawn gave Bradford a quiet, awkward wave. They didn't get along, for obvious reasons, but he wasn't going to give someone with a ventriloquist dummy any excuse to use it.

Delilah had a small sigh of relief. She was glad to see the dork, but noticed something off about him.

"Hey, Bradford. We came over to talk to you. Are you sick or something?"

Bradford let out a sniff. "Ummm...no. It's just that its a little hot in here." Bradford replied. "I think the air conditioner is broken."

"Want to come in?"

He swung the door open and a gust of musty air greeted the kids outside. Past the door and into Bradford's house the hallway was littered with cardboard boxes. They were stacked three or four boxes high on each side of the hallway. In the distance, behind Bradford, loomed a large grandfather clock before the hallway turned out of sight.

Delilah blinked hard and reeled back half a step.

"Why does your house smell like a fart?"

Instead of graciously accepting the invitation, she stiff-armed the door to march inside.

Shawn tried to time his own entrance with the other kids, making sure that when he passed by the door, someone else was between him and the dummy door knocker. "Hi Bradford. How're you doing?"

Delilah pushed past the entrance while Shawn followed. Even though the summer sun was hot and bright, the hallway just past the door inside Bradford's house was dark.

Dust lay over every surface like dirty snow, not a foot print anywhere, free papers piled up to the letter box and cascading all the way to the foot of the rough wooden stairs. There were old tea cups that lay on a coffee table thickly encrusted with dried up mold. Sitting in the adjacent room was an old Victorian couch and an end table with dust covered mirrors. The smell of mildew seemed to permeate the front entrance. The stale air thick enough with dust was enough to make Ralph sneeze.

"AHH-CHOOO!"

The kids slowly made their way down the hallway, Bradford not quite in front of Delilah, more along to the side. They past an old black and white photograph on the wall of a ventriloquist dummy with an inscription on the golden frame that read "Mr. Clayton's 50th Show, 1923"

Light streamed through the heavy velvet curtains of the Living Room, absolute silence, not even the hum of a refrigerator, the houses only visible occupants besides Bradford seemed to be spiders. They had weaved their webs between the spindles of the stair banisters and from the ceiling to the wall, old cobwebs billowed in the draft.

"Umm..want to go into the basement?" Bradford asked with unfitting cheeriness, as if nothing was out of place.

Delilah pulled a face at the state of Bradford's home. Her lip curled and she seemed ready to fire off a smart remark. Then she caught sight of the spiders. Her breathing quickened and she grew visibly pale.

"Tiffany was gonna ask you stuff. So..." She didn't seem nearly as brave anymore.

Bradford had seem to ignore Shawn's original question of how he was doing when the door had first opened. Now he attended to it too late. So late in fact that it was sort of out of place, given that almost a minute had passed by.

"I'm doing great!" Bradford suddenly said.

"Right." Tiffany replied in a tone that suggested doubt. "Well, you said you knew something about this Monster. So...." she said, letting her voice fade away the same way Delilah did.

"Sure do!" Bradford said in a chipper voice. "And..."

"...I want to help out in any way I can." Bradford said after a moment.

"Let's go sit down." Bradford said heading towards the kitchen, seemingly expecting everyone to follow.

Shawn looked on at Bradford with friendly placidity, as if nothing was out of the ordinary at all. He followed him into the kitchen. "I already told them some stuff about a monster, but I don't know nearly as much as you do!" He sounded earnest, making it sound almost not like flattery.

Delilah clenched and unclenched her fist three times. On the third squeeze, she broke away from the group and followed Bradford into the kitchen.

Bradford sat down on a kitchen chair that looked like it was from the 1950s. A little plume of dust puffed out from all sides as his butt hit the seat.

Ralph and Tiffany also sat down. Unlike Bradford, they looked somewhat uncomfortable.

"It's OK." Bradford confirmed, recognizing the tension. "It's sort of a long story. In order to tell it right, everyone should really sit down. Then I'll start to talk about just how I can...I mean, how we should even get started."

"In order to know about the monster, We all have to be on the same page. It isn't something that really can be told the way a normal story can be told. At least not if you want to know how, or what we can do about it."

"In order to do it right, we all have to pretend and to play the game the right way. We all have to relax."

Delilah pinched a chairback between her thumb and forefinger. Dust rolled under her fingertips. She sat in a chair close to Bradford as she could get. She couldn't decide on how exactly to sit. Lean on the table and kick up more dust or lean back against the chair and get it in her hair? She settled on sitting up uncomfortably straight with her hair pulled over her shoulder. The bulk of it pooled in her lap. She stroked the length of it nervously.

"Hang on, is this a game or is it for real?"

Shawn pulled out a chair and sat himself down, looking largely at ease, as if he didn't notice the decrepitude of the surroundings or Bradford's odd behaviour. He gave Delilah an odd look, as if he didn't understand the distinction she was making, but didn't want to set off another argument like the previous one.

"It depends what you mean by real." Bradford responded cryptically.

"It's not real like math class. But math can't tell you everything. It can't tell you what you're dreams are gonna be like. Or what the potential of a kid like you or me is."

"But potential is real. I mean, we all have it."

"Are you ready?" Bradford didn't wait for an answer. "OK. When you're ready, close your eyes."

Delilah was hesitant. She licked her dry lips and flicked her gaze over each of the girls. She had a hard glare for Shawn, but turned her attention back to Bradford. She closed her eyes and frowned.

Ralph looked around and then closed his eyes. His pudgy body slumped into his seat. His hands rested on his lap, fingers opening so his palms were upward and limp.