37 - The Headless Ghost (3 page)

He was still staring at us. He didn’t even try to be polite and turn away
when we caught him.

Why was he watching us like that? What was his
problem?

Something told me we should wait. Something told me not to hide from the
others just yet.

But Stephanie had other ideas. “Forget him,” she said. “He’s nobody.” She
grabbed my arm—and tugged. “Let’s go!”

We pressed against the cold wall of the hallway and watched the others follow
Otto down the stairs.

I held my breath until I heard the last footsteps leave the stairway. We were
alone now. Alone in the long, dark hall.

I turned to Stephanie. I could barely see her face. “Now what?” I asked.

“Now we do some exploring on our own!” Stephanie declared, rubbing her hands
together. “This is so exciting!”

I gazed down the long hallway. I didn’t feel real excited. I felt kind of
scared.

I heard a low groan from a room across the hall. The ceiling creaked above
our heads. The wind rattled the windows in the room we had just come from.

“Steph—are you sure—?” I started.

But she was already hurrying down the hall, walking on tiptoes to keep the
floors from squeaking. “Come on, Duane. Let’s search for the ghost’s head,” she
whispered back to me, her dark hair flying behind her. “Who knows? We might find
it.”

“Yeah. Sure.” I rolled my eyes.

I didn’t think the chances were too good. How do you find a hundred-year-old
head? And what if you
do
find it?

Yuck!

What would it look like? Just a skull?

I followed Stephanie down the hall. But I really didn’t want to be there. I
like haunting the neighborhood and scaring other people.

I don’t like scaring myself!

Stephanie led the way into a bedroom we had seen on other tours. It was
called the Green Room. Because the wallpaper was decorated with green vines.
Tangle after tangle of green vines. Up and down the walls and across the
ceiling, too.

How could anyone sleep in here? I wondered. It was like being trapped in a
thick jungle.

We both stopped inside the doorway and stared at the tangles of vines on all
sides of us. Stephanie and I call the Green Room by another name. The Scratching
Room.

Otto once told us that something terrible happened here sixty years ago. The
two guests who stayed in the room woke up with a disgusting purple rash.

The rash started on their hands and arms. It spread to their faces. Then it
spread over their entire bodies.

Big purple sores that itched like crazy.

Doctors from all around the world were called to study the rash. They
couldn’t figure out what it was. And they couldn’t figure out how to cure it.

Something in the Green Room caused the rash.

But no one ever figured out what it was.

That’s the story Otto and the other guides tell. It might be true. All the
weird, scary stories Otto tells might be true. Who knows?

“Come on, Duane!” Stephanie prodded. “Let’s look for the head. We don’t have
much time before Otto sees that we’re missing.”

She trotted across the room and dove under the bed.

“Steph—please!” I started. I stepped carefully over to the low, wooden
dresser in the corner.

“We’re not going to find a ghost’s head in here. Let’s go,” I pleaded.

She couldn’t hear me. She had climbed under the bed.

“Steph—?”

After a few seconds, she backed out. As she turned toward me, I saw that her
face was bright red.

“Duane!” she cried. “I… I…”

Her dark eyes bulged. Her mouth dropped open in horror. She grabbed the sides
of her face.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” I cried, stumbling across the room toward her.

“Ohhh, it itches! It itches so badly!” Stephanie wailed.

I started to cry out. But my voice got caught in my throat.

Stephanie began to rub her face. She frantically rubbed her cheeks, her
forehead, her chin.

“Owwww. It itches! It really itches!” She started to scratch her scalp with
both hands.

I grabbed her arm and tried to pull her up from the floor. “The rash! Let’s
get you home!” I cried. “Come on! Your parents will get the doctor! And…
and…”

I stopped when I saw that she was laughing.

I dropped her arm and stepped back.

She stood up, straightening her hair. “Duane, you jerk,” she muttered. “Are
you going to fall for every dumb joke tonight?”

“No way!” I replied angrily. “I just thought—”

She gave me a shove. “You’re too easy to scare. How could you fall for such a
stupid joke?”

I shoved her back. “Just don’t pull any more dumb jokes, okay?” I snarled. “I
mean it, Stephanie. I don’t think it’s funny. I really don’t. I’m not going to
fall for any more stupid jokes. So don’t even try.”

She wasn’t listening to me. She was staring over my shoulder. Staring in
open-mouthed shock.

“Oh, I d-don’t
believe
it!” she stammered. “There it is! There’s the
head!”

I fell for it again.

I couldn’t help myself.

I let out a shrill scream.

I spun around so hard, I nearly knocked myself over. I followed Stephanie’s
finger. I squinted hard in the direction she pointed.

She was pointing to a gray clump of dust.

“Sucker! Sucker!” She slapped me on the back and started to giggle.

I uttered a low growl and balled my hands into tight fists. But I didn’t say
anything. I could feel my face burning. I knew that I was blushing.

“You’re too easy to scare, Duane,” Stephanie teased again. “Admit it.”

“Let’s just get back to the tour,” I grumbled.

“No way, Duane. This is fun. Let’s try the next room. Come on.”

When she saw that I wasn’t following her, she said, “I won’t scare you like
that anymore. Promise.”

I saw that her fingers were crossed. But I followed her anyway.

What choice did I have?

We crept through the narrow hall that connected us to the next room. And
found ourselves in Andrew’s room. Poor, headless Andrew.

It still had all his old stuff in it. Games and toys from a hundred years
ago. An old-fashioned wooden bicycle leaning against one wall.

Everything just the way it was. Before Andrew met up with the sea captain’s
ghost.

A lantern on the dresser cast blue shadows on the walls. I didn’t know if I
believed the ghost story or not. But something told me that if Andrew’s head
were anywhere, we’d find it here. In his room.

Under his old-fashioned-looking canopy bed. Or hidden under his dusty, faded
toys.

Stephanie tiptoed over to the toys. She bent down and started to move things
aside. Little wooden bowling pins. An old-fashioned board game, the colors all
faded to brown. A set of metal toy soldiers.

“Check around the bed, Duane,” she whispered.

I started across the room. “Steph, we shouldn’t be touching this stuff. You
know the tour guides never let us touch anything.”

Stephanie set down an old wooden top. “Do you want to find the head or not?”

“You really think there’s a ghost’s head hidden in this house?”

“Duane, that’s what we’re here to find out—right?”

I sighed and stepped over to the bed. I could see there was no use arguing
with Stephanie tonight.

I ducked my head under the purple canopy and studied the bed. A boy actually
slept in this bed, I told myself.

Andrew actually slept under this quilt. A hundred years ago.

The thought gave me a chill.

I tried to picture a boy about my age sleeping in this heavy, old bed.

“Go ahead. Check out the bed,” Stephanie instructed from across the room.

I leaned over and patted the gray and brown patchwork quilt. It felt cold and
smooth.

I punched the pillows. They felt soft and feathery. Nothing hidden inside the
pillow cases.

I was about to test the mattress when the quilt began to move.

It rustled over the sheets. A soft, scratchy sound.

Then, as I stared in horror, the gray and brown quilt began to slide down the
bed.

There was no one in the bed. No one!

But someone was pushing the quilt down, down to the bottom of the bed.

I swallowed a scream.

“You’ve got to move faster, Duane,” Stephanie said.

I turned and saw her standing at the end of the bed. Holding the bottom of
the quilt in both hands.

“We don’t have all night!” she declared. She pulled the quilt down farther.
“Nothing in the bed. Come on. Let’s move on.”

A sigh escaped my lips. Stephanie had tugged down the quilt and scared me
again.

No ghost in the bed. No ghost pushing down the covers to climb out and grab
me.

Only Stephanie.

At least this time she hadn’t seen how frightened I was.

We worked together to pull the quilt back into place. She smiled at me. “This
is kind of fun,” she said.

“For sure,” I agreed. I hoped she couldn’t see that I was still shaking.
“It’s a lot more fun than tossing rubber spiders into Ben Fuller’s bedroom window.”

“I like being in this house so late at night. I like sneaking off from the
group. I can feel a ghost lurking nearby,” Stephanie whispered.

“You c-can?” I stammered, glancing quickly around the room.

My eyes stopped at the bottom of the door to the hallway.

There it sat. On the floor. Wedged between the door and the wall. Half-hidden
in deep shadow.

The head.

This time, I saw the head.

Not a joke. Not a cruel trick.

Through the gray-black shadows, I saw the round skull. And I saw the two
black eye sockets. Empty eye sockets. Two dark holes in the skull.

Staring up at me.

Staring.

I grabbed Stephanie’s arm. I started to point.

But there was no need.

Stephanie saw it, too.

I was the first to move. I took a step toward the door. Then another.

I heard sharp gasps. Someone breathing hard. Close behind me.

It took me a few seconds to realize it was Stephanie.

Keeping my eyes on the head, I made my way into the dark corner. My heart
started to pound as I bent down and reached for it with both hands.

The black eye sockets stared up at me. Round, sad eyes.

My hands trembled.

I started to scoop it up.

But it slipped out of my hands. And started to roll away.

Stephanie let out a cry as the head rolled over the floor toward her.

In the orange light from the lantern, I saw her frightened expression. I saw
that she was frozen there.

The head rolled over the floor and bumped against her sneaker. It came to a
stop inches in front of her.

The empty black eye sockets stared up at her.

“Duane—” she called, staring down at it, hands pressed against her cheeks.
“I didn’t think—I didn’t really think we’d find it. I—I—”

I hurried back across the room. It’s my turn to be the brave one, I decided.
My turn to show Stephanie that I’m not a wimp who’s afraid of every shadow.

My turn to show Stephanie.

I scooped up the ghost’s head in both hands. I raised it in front of
Stephanie. Then I moved toward the lantern on the dressertop.

The head felt hard. Smoother than I thought.

The eye sockets were deep.

Stephanie stayed close by my side. Together we made our way into the orange
lantern light.

I let out a groan when I realized I wasn’t carrying a ghost’s head.

Stephanie groaned too when she saw what I held in my hands.

A bowling ball.

I was carrying an old wooden bowling ball, the pale wood cracked and chipped.

“I don’t believe it,” Stephanie murmured, slapping her forehead.

My eyes went to the wooden bowling pins, lying among Andrew’s old toys. “This
must be the ball that went with those pins,” I said softly.

Stephanie grabbed it from me and turned it between her hands. “But it only
has two holes.”

I nodded. “Yeah. In those days, bowling balls only had two holes. My dad told
me about it one day when we went bowling. Dad never could figure out what they
did with their thumb.”

Stephanie stuck her fingers into the two holes. The “eye sockets”. She shook
her head. I could see she was really disappointed.

We could hear Otto’s voice, booming from somewhere downstairs.

Stephanie sighed. “Maybe we should go down and rejoin the tour,” she suggested. She rolled the ball back to the pile of
toys.

“No way!” I exclaimed.

I liked being the brave one for a change. I didn’t want to quit while I was
ahead.

“It’s getting kind of late,” Stephanie said. “And we’re not going to find any
ghost head up here.”

“That’s because we’ve already explored these rooms a hundred times,” I told
her. “I think we should find a room we’ve never explored before.”

She scrunched up her face, thinking hard. “Duane, do you mean—?”

“I mean, the ghost head is probably hidden in a room the tour doesn’t go
through. Maybe upstairs. You know. On the top floor.”

Stephanie’s eyes grew wide. “You want to sneak up to the top floor?”

I nodded. “Why not? That’s probably where all the ghosts hang out—right?”

She studied me, her eyes searching mine. I knew she was surprised by my brave
idea.

Of course, I didn’t feel very brave at all. I just wanted to impress her. I
just wanted to be the brave one for a change.

I was hoping that she’d say no. I was hoping she’d say, “Let’s go back
downstairs, Duane.”

But instead, an excited grin spread over her face. And she said, “Okay. Let’s
do it!”