Home, Sweet Haunt (8 page)

With a creak and a crack, the panel shook again.

“I can't do it,” Caitlin said as she backed away from the panel. “Is it too late to cancel the invite?” She shouted to the wall, “Stay on the ninth floor, ghosts!”

Aleah started packing up her computer. “I think we should get out of here.”

“Rats!” LL said, shuddering. “Gotta be rats.”

“I'm being silly,” Nora said. She liked scaring people and she loved being scared herself. She was going to face the ghost.

Gathering her courage, Nora approached the panel in the wall.

Behind her Nora's new friends had gathered near the
door, so if things turned badly, they'd be the first ones out of the apartment, out of the building, out of trouble. Nora would be sacrificed to the . . . thing.

“Uuggghhh,” the ghost roared as the chains clanked loudly behind the wallpaper.

Nora didn't stop to think about what she'd heard, or wait for the ghost to groan again. If she waited, even a second more, she would lose her nerve. She grabbed a loose corner of the large wooden square and yanked the panel open. She was surprised to find it was hinged on one side like a cabinet door. The door swung open.

Caitlin, Aleah, and LL all shrieked as the ghost tumbled out of the wall and crashed with a familiar heavy clump to the wooden floor.

“Friend or foe?” Caitlin asked, her eyes closed.

“Foe,” Nora said without hesitation. “Definitely the enemy.”

Lucas lay on the floor behind the couch, rolling around and laughing so hard he had to hold his belly.

Nora stared down on her brother and let out a long breath. “What are you doing here?”

“Did I scare you?” he asked, standing up and surveying each girl's face. “I heard screaming, but it was
hard to tell through the wall. Did I? Were you?”

“No!” Caitlin and Aleah declared, glancing tentatively at each other.

“Not me,” Nora told Lucas.

“How about you?” He turned to LL. “Were you scared? How about when I shook the panel? That was terrifying, right?”

“A little brother! Ugh. I should have known better,” LL said. “When I think that I was
almost
sucked into this nonsense.” She stood straighter. “My mom would be so disappointed. She's one hundred percent right. There is no such thing as ghosts.” LL put her hands on her hips and snarled at Lucas. “Yes,” she admitted. “You got me this time, but it won't happen ever again!”

“One out of four's not bad,” Lucas said casually.

Nora could tell he knew he'd really scared them all, even her, a little. He had that twinkle in his eye. She'd never say it out loud, but Nora had to admit that it was a great prank.

“How'd you know about the dumbwaiter?” Nora asked.

Her brother had feathery white dust in his hair and black grease stains on his jeans.

“I told you about the building plans,” he reminded her.
“The dumbwaiter is in your room, since that's how the butler would get groceries in and send the trash out. Small things would be hauled up and down this elevator shaft.” Since Caitlin's apartment was the same floor plan, they were standing in her old butler pantry too.

“Clever.” Caitlin stepped to the opening and stuck her head into the shaft. “It's dark in there.”

Lucas shrugged. “I've been experimenting since I first found the panel. It's a tiny space, so I don't really need any light. I sit on the open platform and can move myself up and down, floor to floor.”

LL started to reason it all out. “The clanking of the chains must be the sound of you raising and lowering yourself. And the scratching and the rattling, that's you too.”

Aleah opened her notebook and reviewed all the things the neighbors on the ninth floor had reported about the ghosts. Nora watched as she crossed off all the clues that were now solved by this discovery.

“No ghosts in the building,” she declared.

“Oh man,” Caitlin said. She'd gone from determined to find ghosts, to scared to see them, to disappointed they didn't exist, all in one night.

“Told you,” LL declared.

“That doesn't mean I can't tell stories to scare us all out of sleeping. Don't forget, there's still the legend of the lost army soldier,” Aleah said.

“I'm not going to have any trouble falling asleep,” LL declared. “But I'd still like to hear the end. It's entertaining.”

“Of course,” Caitlin said with a wink to Nora.

“Let me see, where was I?” Aleah lifted the lid of her laptop and settled down onto the floor.

Caitlin asked Lucas, “Do you like scary stories? Aleah was telling us a good one!”

“I like all kinds of stories. Can I stay?” he asked Nora.

“Whatever.” Nora didn't want her brother crashing the party, but Caitlin and the others didn't seem to mind. Besides, she didn't have time to argue with him. It was nearly ten o'clock, and she wanted to hear the end of Aleah's story. “Sit.” She pointed to the couch that was still pulled out from the wall. The dumbwaiter panel was hanging open. “And no talking.”

Zipping his lips and tossing the key, Lucas sat down on the sofa. He couldn't help but open his mouth as he sank into the soft cushions, announcing, “This is so comfy!”

“I know,” Nora told him. “Now shhhh.”

He rezipped his lips and tossed away another pretend key.

Aleah scrolled through the website to find where she'd been. “Here it is,” she said. “So, the woman on the street meets a strangely dressed soldier.” Aleah quickly reviewed the story so far. “He asks her for directions. The man makes the woman uneasy, but she moves closer to hear his very soft voice. There is something about his eyes that draws her in. They are glossy black, like a cat's in the dark.”

Nora felt that rise of anticipation. She leaned forward, eager to be scared, as Aleah continued.

“The man opened the buttons on his jacket and removed a slip of paper from an inside pocket. The paper was yellowed with age. Tattered around the edges. Folded creases had been there a long, long time, and when he laid the page in his hand, the woman could see splattered reddish-brown stains speckled across the looping cursive words.”

“Is all this on the website?” LL interrupted.

“Sort of. The way it's written is so matter-of-fact and boring,” Aleah said. “I'm fixing it as I go. Upping the fright-o-meter.”

“Good job,” LL said. “Go on.”

“And it's all true?” Lucas asked.

“Says at the top it is. The author claims he's just reporting the facts of the legend,” Aleah said.

“Wow.” Lucas raised his eyebrows. “What happened next?”

“So.” Aleah took a second to read to get the story in her mind. “The man turned the paper toward her and said, ‘I'm seeking this address.' She peered at the page. ‘You're not lost,' she told him. ‘This is where you need to be.' She indicated the numbers on the outside of the nearest building.”

Aleah described how the man reached into his other pocket and pulled out another slip of paper. “Newer than the first, this small slip was white and without folds or splatter marks. ‘I'm looking for a woman with this name.' He handed the lady the note. She gasped. ‘That's my name,' she—”

Caitlin's doorbell rang.

Nora jumped, not because she was scared, but because it was so unexpected.

“Nora?” Caitlin's father called from the hallway. “Your parents are here.”

“Oh no!” Nora jumped up. “I forgot to check the time!” She glanced at a clock. “I'm late getting home.” Bummer. She didn't want to leave.

“I better go!” Lucas peeled himself off the couch and hurried into the dumbwaiter. The chains immediately began to rattle as he tugged himself up, raising the platform out of sight. “Close the panel behind me,” Lucas shouted down through the shaft.

Caitlin shut the panel while Nora went out into the hallway. LL and Aleah pushed the couch into place.

Nora's mother and father were talking to Caitlin's parents. Nora felt a surge of joy. Maybe things were going to change. Maybe they could all be friends!

“You live upstairs?” Caitlin's mom was asking as Nora stepped into view. She explained how they were new to town. “What apartment are you in?”

“Oh, there you are,” Nora's father said, as if seeing her for the first time in the hallway, though she'd been standing there a few seconds already. “It's past curfew, young lady.”

“Did you have a nice time?” her mother asked.

“Yes.” Nora thanked Caitlin's parents.

Caitlin's mother asked her question again. “You were
about to tell us where you lived. What number apartment is it?”

“Do you have your bag of candy?” Mrs. Wilson asked Nora.

“And your mask?” her father asked. Then, seeing Nora's shoes, he wondered, “Where are your flip-flops?”

“I have them.” Caitlin appeared in the hallway. She had Nora's flip-flops, and behind her Aleah and LL had Nora's mask and treats.

There was a lot of hugging before Nora left.

“Thanks for inviting me tonight,” Nora said. “Sorry about the ghosts.” She winked.

“We can try again next year,” Caitlin said with a big grin. “Maybe we'll see a luminous disembodied soul next Halloween.” She gave Nora one more hug. “Will you come trick-or-treating again?”

“Of course,” Nora said. “Nothing will keep me away!”

“And we'll see you soon,” Aleah said. “Right?”

“Of course!” Nora said again. Caitlin was only a few floors down, so she could pop by anytime, and as for the others, she was determined to ask her parents about gymnastics lessons.

As they walked out into the hallway and waited
for the elevator, Nora's dad glanced over Nora's shoulder at her mom, then asked, “Ghosts, huh? What about ghosts?”

“Caitlin heard a rumor that our building is haunted,” Nora explained. Her mother appeared frightened at the thought, so Nora said, “We checked around. No real ghosts. All we found was an old man pretending to be a ghost.” Then Nora told them, “Aleah did discover a really scary story on the Internet. A creepy thing that happened a block away from here.” She told them about the strange soldier as they rode the elevator to the tenth floor.

“What happened at the end?” her mother asked when the elevator door opened.

Nora shrugged and sighed. Her parents had picked her up, that's what happened. But she didn't say that. Instead she answered truthfully, “I have no idea.”

Nora went to her room immediately. She didn't want to go to sleep. She wasn't tired. It was still Halloween. Nora had never ended the night without pulling a Halloween prank on Hallie and Lindsay. Well, she'd already pulled one on them today and it hadn't turned out as planned. But Halloween wasn't over yet. This year she decided that she'd prank her new friends, LL, Aleah, and Caitlin!

They were all convinced now that the building wasn't haunted. And they all thought Nora had gone to bed.

All she needed to do was to use the dumbwaiter shaft. The panel in Caitlin's TV room was still loose from when Lucas had fallen through. She could push through it, leap out, and scare them. Her parents would
never even know she was gone.

Ha! This would be the best Halloween prank ever.

One of Nora's favorite kitten posters was lying, slightly crumpled, on the floor. Just above it was the panel. Nora couldn't believe that in all the years they'd lived in the apartment, she'd had no idea the dumbwaiter was there. When she'd started collecting posters, her dad had put them up for her. He must have covered the old panel and then forgotten it existed.

“Hey.” Lucas stuck his head out of the dumbwaiter shaft and slipped into Nora's room. “Your new friends are way better than your old ones. That was fun tonight!” Lucas yawned. He turned back to shut the panel door, when Nora bolted up off her bed.

“It
was
fun!” She agreed that her new friends were awesome. “And the fun isn't over.” Nora asked Lucas to show her how to work the ropes and pulleys to raise and lower the small platform.

Lucas flexed an arm muscle. “It's hard to move the dumbwaiter. You have to control your speed going down.” He showed her how to put one hand over the other. “And the way up is even tougher.” Lucas imitated a pulling motion. “That's why I got here after you. It
takes a lot of muscles to pull your weight up.”

“I'm strong enough,” Nora said, feeling insulted. She was older and bigger and definitely stronger than Lucas.

Plus, she
really
wanted to get back to the sleepover. She wanted to hear the rest of Aleah's story, eat more candy, and hang out till morning. She could ride the dumbwaiter back up early tomorrow morning before her parents noticed she was gone.

“I'll sneak around with you in the morning,” Nora promised her brother. “Right now, I'm going to go—”