Tj and The Haunted House Read online

  He plunked the second pile of books on the table.

  “There really are ghosts. Here are the books to prove it.”

  This stack of books looked every bit as impressive as the first stack. The titles sounded every bit as official too.

  The Science of Strange

  True Ghost Stories

  “I don’t get it,” I said.

  “They’re all in the same section of the library. Books saying there are ghosts. Books saying there aren’t.”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “But which are the true ones?” I asked.

  Seymour shrugged.

  “It depends on how you decide what ‘proof’ is. Or what it isn’t.”

  I was getting more and more confused.

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Seymour. “What we want right now are ways to haunt a house. There should be some great ideas here.”

  Seymour and I looked through the books. Actually, Seymour did most of the looking. I pretended I was helping, but mostly I played with Alaska and T -Rex. It was fine for Seymour to get excited about ghosts; Seymour didn’t have to live here. I was beginning to feel more and more like I was getting in way over my head.

  “Weird smells … that’s something Amanda hasn’t come up with yet,” said Seymour. “TV channels that switch without anyone around; that won’t exactly fool people because anyone can do it with a remote control, but it might add to the atmosphere if we switch from Sound of Music to Curse of Dracula. Billiard balls moving mysteriously on a pool table; that would be neat … “He looked at me hopefully.

  “No,” I said. “My parents aren’t going to buy a pool table just so you can figure out how to make the balls mysteriously move.”

  “Maybe I could move something in the kitchen then, like the toaster. I could do it with magnets.”

  It would have to be a huge magnet to move a toaster, but I didn’t bother pointing that out. I was confused again.

  “Are these things that real haunted houses have or things that pretend haunted houses have?”

  “Real haunted houses, except if you believe this stack of books it’s people’s imagination or swamp gas or a big hoax and if you believe this stack of books it isn’t. I explained all that already.”

  He read some more and sighed.

  “None of these are dramatic enough,” he said. “There was another book that the librarian couldn’t find. Maybe it’ll show up on Monday. Maybe the library has its own ghost that steals books.”

  After Seymour had gone, I began to look at the books myself. I only read little bits. I didn’t want to get into the scary stuff. Basically, however, Seymour was right.

  I read a paragraph from the “yes there are ghosts” pile.

  And there, at the top of the steps, Megan Walters saw a figure in a long, flowing robe. Her small dog began barking — clearly the dog saw something as well. At that exact moment the neighbor across the street, a respected doctor and community leader, looked out his window and saw a figure in a long, flowing robe standing on the Walters’ doorstep. He also saw it vanish into thin air.

  I was sure there really were ghosts.

  I looked at a book from the “no ghosts” pile.

  Although four people claimed to have seen the “ghost,” it was later discovered that two of them had actually been away from the house at the time and had only seen a figure much later in the day when it could have been almost anyone. The third person, although present at the time, was on a waiting list for cataract surgery for severely blurred vision.

  I was absolutely sure that ghosts did not exist.

  I tried another example.

  As proof that Mr. Toft was communicating with a ghost, he provided details of childhood visits to the oceanas well as the name and description of a much-loved dog. All of the information was accurate, although Mr. Toft had not previously known the family in any way.

  Sounded like ghostly information to me.

  I looked through another book.

  A favorite trick for people pretending to talk to ghosts is to take a quick look into a family photo album while the client is distracted.

  Did the mysterious Mr. Toft have a chance to look at a photo album? Would the ghostly figure seen by Megan Walters have been proven false if there had been a little more investigation?

  I picked up a fifth book.

  The scientific world once believed the world was flat and the sun revolved around the earth. Later science proved these “facts” were wrong. Is it not possible that the science of the future might prove ghosts truly exist?

  And then in the very next paragraph …

  On the other hand, if you or I were to entirely make up a creature called a blimble and claim that science was not yet advanced enough to discover it … would that mean our blimble creature was real?

  All the books did was make me more and more confused. How could life do this to me? I’m just a kid. I need to know what’s real and what isn’t. I don’t want to have to make up my own mind!

  That’s when the phone rang.

  “Apple cobbler or chocolate brownies?”

  Gran is like Seymour. She doesn’t waste time with “hello, how are you.”

  “Hi, Gran!” I said. “The kittens miss you, but I’m taking good care of them.”

  “I knew you would,” said Gran. “Cobbler or brownies?”

  “Apple cobbler would be nice,” I said. “Of course chocolate brownies are wonderful too.”

  “Some of each then,” said Gran. “See you tomorrow.”

  Tomorrow? I got up and looked on the calendar. Written on the square for tomorrow were the words Special Sunday Supper.

  The good part was — Gran would be coming over.

  The bad part was — we always sat around the table talking afterwards. Gran would be sure to ask about the haunted house plans and that would lead to the ghost story.

  I took a deep breath and dialed the store to ask Mom if we could have extra company on Sunday. If the bad part was going to happen anyway, Seymour might as well be part of it.

  Chapter 6

  “Look!” I called. “The ghost!”

  Seymour’s head shot around. A paper bag was rattling its way towards us across the kitchen floor. It moved without strings, without wires and with a will all its own.

  Suddenly a streak of gray flew from under the table to pounce on the bag. The bag exploded in a fluff of orange, black and white fur. Alaska and T -Rex rolled over and over on the floor in a joyous play-fight and then scampered off in search of more adventures. Seymour grinned.

  “Alaska loves paper bags,” I said, laughing.

  “Are those kittens going wild again?” asked Mom, coming into the kitchen with a flower vase and a wrapped bundle of carnations.

  “Just medium wild,” I said.

  “I wish they’d hold it down to medium wild on the back of the sofa,” said Mom. “And the curtains in the spare room look like someone’s been practicing Tarzan swings on them while we’ve been out.”

  She was smiling, but it wasn’t quite a joke. The kittens were scratching and climbing more and more lately. Another thing I needed to train them not to do.

  “They sure are cute little guys when they’re not getting into trouble,” said Dad.

  Mom filled the vase with water and took the flowers into the dining room.

  Everyone helped with Special Sunday Supper. Mom made bread and set the table. Dad cooked the main course. I was in charge of salad. Seymour had come over early to help, so we decided to try something different — spinach salad with oranges, marshmallows and chocolate chips. It wasn’t too bad if you picked out the marshmallows and chocolate chips and saved them for later.

  Gran was pleased to see the kittens. She said they’d grown, even in the few days they’d been here. And, of course, she brought dessert. I’d made Seymour promise he wouldn’t ask for the ghost story until the cobbler and brownies were served. I wanted to make sure I had dessert before I lost my appetite.


  The moment it was set on the table, Seymour jumped right in.

  “Anyone know a good ghost story?” he asked cheerfully.

  I made my first helping a big one.

  “Is that why you’ve been so quiet, Seymour?” asked Gran. “Have you been waiting to hear about the resident ghost?”

  Seymour nodded.

  “Actually there are two ghost stories about this house,” said Gran.

  “Is one of them about the bank robber and his ghost stallion?” asked my dad.

  Gran smiled at him.

  “You tell it,” she said.

  “Are you sure? I don’t want to steal it from you?”

  “Go ahead,” said Gran. “I enjoy hearing it from someone else. It helps me improve my timing.”

  I wasn’t sure what that meant, but Dad seemed to understand. He set down his fork, leaned back and began to tell the story.

  “A long, long time ago, back when people traveled by horseback, and cars were new and more than a little frightening, there was a bank robber around this area. His name was Wild Buck Mulligan. That was his name, wasn’t it?” he asked Gran.

  “Oh yes,” said Gran. “He had a great black stallion, a wonderful fast horse he used for his getaways. He raised that horse from the time it was a colt, and that horse, wild as it was, loved Buck.”

  “Wild Buck and his wonderful black stallion robbed every bank in every town west of here,” continued Dad. “And one day they rode into town and robbed the bank on River Road.”

  “This River Road?” asked Seymour. “The one that runs past this house?”

  Dad nodded.

  “Wild Buck Mulligan and his black stallion went racing like the wind itself out of town, right past this very house. But just as they rounded the corner at the end of the street, a motorcar appeared. That stallion, wild and brave as it was, had never seen a motor- car. The horse was so terrified that it leaped into the air, throwing Mulligan to the ground. The fall broke Buck’s neck and the stallion raced off, leaving Wild Buck dead on the street.”

  “Wow,” said Seymour.

  “The horse and the money were never found,” said my dad, shaking his head.

  “Never?” I asked.

  “Never,” said Dad. “And even now, late at night if the moon is full, you can still hear that horse racing past the house, looking for its long-dead master.”

  Dad turned to look out the window onto the street as if he might see the ghost horse. We couldn’t help it. We all looked out at the street. And suddenly we heard it.

  Tha-da-d-dup. Tha-da-d-dup. Thada-d-dup.

  Seymour and I and even Mom jumped for a second. We looked at Dad. We looked at Gran. We looked at each other.

  Tha-da-d-dup. Tha-da-d-dup. Thada-d-dup. We laughed. It was Dad, of course, drumming his fingers beneath the table to make it sound like the stallion galloping through the moonlight. We’d all figured it out at the same time.

  “Good story,” said Seymour, drumming his own fingers beneath the table. “I’ll remember that one. Now tell us the real story.”

  Gran nodded. She finished the last of her pie. She took a sip of tea. Seymour watched her every move. My gran knows how to play an audience.

  “Now then,” she began. “When my parents first built this house, before I was born, they took in boarders. One of them was an old gentleman who had spent his earlier years prospecting in the mountains.”

  “Diamond prospecting?” I asked.

  Gran looked at me with sudden interest. Gran likes adventure shows almost as much as she likes having adventures herself.

  “Did you watch that program on TV too?” she asked.

  “It was neat,” I nodded, “the way they found the sign of diamonds but no one believed them and they didn’t even know where they came from.”

  “And so intriguing the way they tracked them all the way to the source,” said Gran. “And then of course … ”

  “Hold it, hold it,” interrupted Seymour.

  “Seymour!”

  I glared at him. It’s one thing to interrupt me, but it is not nice to interrupt my gran.

  “Oops, sorry,” said Seymour. “I guess I’m being rude.”

  “It’s all right, Seymour. You want the ghost story, don’t you?” said Gran.

  “Please,” he said. “If it’s not too much trouble. I mean, I can wait, I really can, kind of, but I have to be home by seven thirty.”

  I sighed.

  “Where was I?” asked Gran.

  “The old prospector,” said Seymour.

  “That’s right. I think gold would have been the big find back then.

  “Did he find any?” I asked.

  “Some people did, but not Mr. Smith-ers,” said Gran. “That was his name, I remember it now, Charlie Smithers. As I said, he was living in my parents’ rooming house, so he must not have found the mother lode. He was a secretive old man and my mother had trouble talking to him at the best of times. Anyway, one morning when she went down to begin the breakfast chores, she met up with my father, who was coming in from the stable.

  “‘Abe,’ she said, ‘as soon as you get a chance, will you go up and see what Mr. Smithers wants.’

  “My father looked at her in an odd way.

  “‘What do you mean?’ he asked.

  “‘He’s standing in his doorway, pointing up near the ceiling. He wants me to get something down for him, something above the window, but I can’t figure out what it is. There’s nothing hanging on that wall.’

  “‘Upstairs?’ my father asked her.

  “‘Why yes,’ she said.

  “Once again my father looked puzzled.

  “‘Mary,’ he said very gently, ‘don’t you remember? I took Mr. Smithers to the hospital last night.’

  “‘But you must have brought him back this morning,’ said my mother.

  “My father shook his head.

  “‘I was going to go after breakfast and check on him.’

  “It was my mother’s turn to be puzzled then. She went back upstairs. Charlie Smithers was nowhere to be found. She came down just as the clock chimed seven o’clock. They later found out that the old man had died that very morning, not ten minutes earlier, just at the time she had seen him standing in the hall upstairs.”

  “Wow,” said Seymour.

  “My mother said later that she probably dreamed it,” said Gran.

  “Except for the cold spot in the hall,” said Seymour.

  “Except for the cold spot in the hall,” said Gran.

  Brrrrrr.

  Chapter 7

  “It’s a great story, but I don’t think it’s anything I can use,” said Seymour.

  I couldn’t believe it. I’d finally been brave enough to listen to Gran’s ghost story, and now Seymour was going to ignore it!

  “I was awake all night because of that story!” I told him.

  Seymour nodded his head sympathetically.

  “Maybe you should ask your parents to move to a new house,” he offered, “after Halloween of course.”

  “Seymour!”

  “It’s the same thing I told you before. It’s not dramatic enough.”

  “Not dramatic enough?” I protested. “It’s a ghost!”

  “A ghost that hasn’t been seen in eighty years except for a cold spot. A ghost that doesn’t do anything,” said Seymour. “Amanda has bowls of eyeballs and walls that grab people! Gabe has dry ice. Jen has spooky stories. And did you see what Mia brought this morning?”

  I hated to admit it, but I could almost see his point. Mia had brought in a life-size skeleton. She promised it wasn’t real bones, but her mother worked at the medical department of the university, so who really knew for sure?

  As the week went on, all sorts of Halloween items were showing up at the back of our class — cobweb streamers, scary masks. One person brought in a black light and “glow in the dark” material that seemed to float in the air. We played eerie music during math, science and social studies so th
at we could choose what we thought was the spookiest.

  Between our classroom and Gran’s scary ghost story, I wasn’t sure if I was getting really excited or really worried about Halloween. Not to mention the fact that I had other things to worry about.

  One of those things was the kittens. They were chewing everything in sight. Shoelaces were a favorite with T -Rex. I put on my running shoes, only to find the laces in three parts. I thought only puppies did that!

  Alaska was climbing things like crazy — the living room sofa, the blinds in the kitchen. The curtains in the spare room had threads pulled out all along one side, like a set of railway tracks running halfway up. Why did she like the spare room so much? T -Rex had steered clear of it since the first day. Why hadn’t Alaska?

  I’d also found Alaska hanging halfway up the screen door. My parents weren’t going to like the enlarged holes her little kitten claws had made.

  And then there was my dad. He came into the bedroom while I was doing homework (or at least pretending to do homework — it’s hard to do homework with a T-Rex chasing the end of your pencil) to ask me questions.

  “Do you think we should put out the Thanksgiving stock right after Halloween?” he asked me. “Do you think it’s better to advertise in the newspaper or on radio?”

  I found a pamphlet titled Small Business Basics sitting next to my schoolbooks, and when I arrived at the store Thursday after school, Dad took me through the plumbing section.

  Plumbing stuff isn’t as interesting as pet supplies, or even as interesting as the paint machine, at least not to someone like me. I’m pretty sure it’s interesting to plumbers because they work with it, but by the time we’d talked about valves and copper pipe and Y-drains, my brain was pretty well buzzed. Dad, however, was all enthusiasm.

  “That’s great, TJ,” he said. “Next week we’ll look at some of the electrical stock together. You’ll get to know the entire store.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Was Dad really trying to teach me the business? I breathed a big sigh of relief when Seymour arrived.

  “I’ve got it!”

  Seymour’s voice can be pretty loud anyplace, but it is especially loud in-doors. He managed to rein in his excitement level for a moment, but once we hit the street it went up to about level ten again.