Ghost Detectors Volume 1 (16 page)

M
alcolm tugged on the school's front door. Locked. There were lights on, and a few people milled about inside. Finally, a teacher came over and pushed open the door.

“What do you need?” she asked.

“I forgot my homework,” Malcolm fibbed. He couldn't tell her the truth. How do you explain to a teacher that you really need to make contact with a ghostly fisherman to find out what it is he doesn't want you to tell? Much too complicated.

“In and out,” the teacher said, holding the door open.

Malcolm and Dandy rushed by her, hurrying through the lobby and down the hall. They ducked into an empty classroom.

“What now?” Dandy wondered. “There are still teachers around.”

Malcolm, busy digging his specter detector out of his backpack, said, “We'll just have to avoid them.”

He flipped the switch to the On position. Someone passed by the doorway. The boys flattened themselves against the wall.

“Maybe we should've come at night,” Dandy suggested. “When all the teachers were gone.”

“That's when the janitors are here. No way they would let us in.” Malcolm watched the warm-up light on his gadget, then flipped it to Detect.

Bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep!

It immediately picked up ghost activity.

The boys looked at each other and glanced around the empty classroom. Then . . .

Yip! Yip!

They both jumped with fright.

“Spooky!” Malcolm said softly. “You followed us?”

Yip! Yip!
The dog happily bounced around like he was on springs.

“Go home,” Malcolm ordered. “Now!”

Spooky, not the most obedient of ghost pets, raced in and out of Malcolm's feet. Literally!

“What are we going to do now?” Dandy asked.

“Good question,” Malcolm said. “As long as Spooky's here the specter detector will bleep. We won't know if the fisherman is around until he actually appears.”

“Yeah, and I don't want him sneaking up on me with a big old shark hook or something,” Dandy added.

Spooky continued his hyper play.

“Settle down, boy,” Malcolm warned. “We can't let anyone see you.”

The boys stood, watching Spooky run in circles and yip at most everything.

“We've got to do something,” Malcolm finally said. “The longer we stay here, the better our chances of getting caught.”

Dandy rubbed his head in thought. “If there was just some way to distract him. Like with a Frisbee.”

“Frisbees go right through him,” Malcolm reminded Dandy.

“What we need is a ghost cat,” Dandy said. “That would keep him busy.”

Malcolm nodded. “Or another dog to distract him.”

After a moment, Dandy lit up, giving Malcolm an award-winning grin. “I've got an idea.” He pointed to the overhead projector.

Making sure no living person was lurking nearby, Malcolm and Dandy pulled the projector out of the corner and plugged it in. Dandy flipped the switch, causing a large lighted square to appear on the wall.

“Watch this,” he said. Dandy moved his hands in front of the projector, making a doggie shadow puppet. He even added sound effects. “Yip! Yip!” he imitated.

That got Spooky's attention.
Yip! Yip!
he barked back.

“Keep him busy,” Malcolm said. “I'll go see if I can find our ghost.”

“Wait,” Dandy called. “When you leave with the specter detector, Spooky will disappear. I won't be able to see him.”

Malcolm looked at Spooky, who seemed to be smitten with Dandy's shadow dog. “As long as you keep that up, he'll be here. I'm going to go find our fisherman.”

Making sure no one was in the hall, Malcolm slipped out. He aimed the ghost detector into the teachers' workroom. Nothing. Then he tried the boys' restroom. Still nothing. Then Malcolm did the bravest thing he'd ever done—he aimed it into the girls' restroom. Nothing there either.

Malcolm slowly made his way to the library. He passed Mrs. Goolsby's room. Strangely, she wasn't there. Malcolm had imagined that she stayed at school late into the night, working on massive piles of lesson plans. Mrs. Goolsby wasn't there. But someone else was.

In the corner by the American flag, stood the fisherman. On the classroom whiteboard he'd written
TELL NO ONE!
over and over, like a kid punished for doing something wrong.

Malcolm carefully approached. “H-h-hello,” he muttered.

The fisherman turned toward him. He eyed Malcolm for a moment and then asked, “Can I trust you?”

Malcolm nodded. He wanted to say yes, but his throat felt cottony and dry. He didn't think he'd ever get used to being able to talk to ghosts. He just kept nodding his head.

“This is extremely important,” the fisherman said.

Malcolm tried to sound brave. “Wh-wh-who are you?”

The fisherman pointed to the words he'd written on the whiteboard. “This is extremely important.”

“Okay,” Malcolm said.

The ghost took a step closer.

“I need—”

“Excuse me!”

Malcolm jumped. He whipped around at the voice. It was the teacher who'd let him in.

“I said in and out,” she nagged. “Let's get a move on.”

Malcolm glanced over his shoulder. The fisherman had disappeared. He shut off his detector and walked out. After rescuing Dandy, the boys hopped on their bikes and left empty-handed.

M
alcolm couldn't concentrate on his homework. His mind kept drifting back to his brief encounter with the fisherman. Malcolm had learned two things.

1.
  
Dandy can do an incredible shadow puppet.

2.
  
The ghost at school had something extremely important to say.

He had to find out what. But once he found out, would he be able to tell anyone?
TELL NO ONE!
He went to bed, still pondering what he should do.

The next morning, Malcolm felt like a zombie. He stumbled through his morning routine, which consisted of eating his cereal
while avoiding his sister. He had enough problems without listening to hers. He headed out to the bus in a daze.

Mrs. Goolsby's grating voice woke him with a jolt. “Class,” she started, “I've been easy on you until now. But let's face it, summer vacation is over. We've had a couple of days to adjust. It's time to get back to work.”

Malcolm glanced at Dandy, whose face had turned the color of plaster.

Mrs. Goolsby continued. “I expect the best from this class. That's why we're going to do some extra math drills this morning. Please pull out your textbooks and turn to the problems at the end of the chapter. We'll do a few on the board first. Then you'll do the rest on your own. And it will be timed!”

Dandy's face now turned whiter than any ghost they'd encountered.

“Let's start with the first problem. Malcolm, please come up and work it on the board.”

Malcolm slipped out of his desk, carrying his math book. He looked at the whiteboard. It was mostly covered with schedules, lesson plans, and quiz dates.

Only one small section was left clean. That was the same section the fisherman had used to write his message. Malcolm slowly picked up a marker. If he snapped a picture of the whiteboard right now, would the messages appear on film? Probably.

He couldn't be concerned with that. He had a major math problem to solve right now. He could solve the ghost problem later.

Malcolm scribbled the problem on the board.
Five hundred and eighty people went to the mall on Saturday. Twice as many people went to the mall on Sunday. How many people went to the mall for the entire weekend?

As he worked the problem, Malcolm couldn't help but think those 580 people were all clones of his sister, Cocoa, the Mall Queen!

He finished and faced Mrs. Goolsby. She addressed the class. “Do we all agree with Malcolm's answer?”

Most of the students nodded. A few gave a halfhearted, “Yes.”

“You may take your seat,” Mrs. Goolsby told him.

She didn't have to tell him twice. He grabbed his textbook and hurried back to his seat.

As he scooted by, something fell from the back of his math book and fluttered to the floor. Mrs. Goolsby bent down to retrieve it.

“You dropped this,” she said, strolling over to Malcolm's desk. Just before handing it over, she looked at it. It was the picture Malcolm had taken of the fisherman by the marquee.

Mrs. Goolsby's mouth dropped open, her face went pale, and she fainted on the spot.

A
fter a huge commotion in the classroom, someone ran for help. Another teacher hurried in and helped Mrs. Goolsby up. She saw the picture again, then
bam!
fainted a second time. The nurse came in next and helped Mrs. Goolsby out of the room.

“I need to lie down,” Mrs. Goolsby said, holding the back of her hand to her forehead. The nurse tucked the picture into her pocket to hide it from the teacher's view.