R. L. Stine_Mostly Ghostly 03 (5 page)

“I have to get ready. I have a five o’clock study date with Traci Wayne. She’ll be here any second,” I said, feeling my heart start to pound.

I don’t know if I’m in love with Traci or just have a major crush or what. But every time I see her, my heart starts to beat a hip-hop rhythm, my skin starts to tingle and break out in a rash, and my tongue ties itself into knots and hangs down to my chin.

Is that true love, do you think?

Traci is blond and pretty, not in a stuck-up way. She is in the totally cool group at school. And I am in the fungus life group.

So when she came up to me in school and asked to come over, you can imagine my shock. But I played it cool. I only did
two
backward cartwheels.

I hurried to my mirror. I tried to brush down my hair. But it's thick and curly, and it always pops right back up. Colin says it looks like I’m wearing a small brown poodle on my head.

Nice guy.

“Don’t be nervous, Max,” Tara said. She stood behind me, but she had no reflection in the mirror.

“Don’t be nervous?” I cried. “This is Traci Wayne!”

“But we’ll be right there to help you,” Nicky said.

“No way!” I cried. “I don’t want your help. We’ll talk later. Okay?”

I changed into my coolest T-shirt—dark gray, with the words
WHUSSUP, DAWG?
in red. Then I hurried downstairs. “Hey, Mom,” I said to her in the kitchen.

She was sliding a tray of cookies from the oven. I took a long, deep breath. Wow.

“Toll House. Your favorite,” she said, setting the tray on the counter. “I thought you might need milk and cookies for your study date.”

“You’re the best, Mom,” I said. It always makes her smile when I say something like that. Mom usually looks kinda sad and tense. Maybe it's because she's a tiny quiet person and she's married to a big loud elephant.

That could make you kinda tense, don’t you think?

Dad and Colin came up from the basement, sweaty and red-faced. Dad said he was going out to shovel the driveway.

Colin stepped up to me with a big grin on his
face. He opened his mouth and spit a Ping-Pong ball at me.

“Hey!” It bounced off my forehead.

“One to nothing, my favor,” Colin said.

“Leave Maxie alone,” Mom told him. “He has a study date. And I don’t want you playing your usual tricks and trying to embarrass Max when his friend is here.”

“No problem,” Colin said. But I didn’t believe him. He's always de-pantsing me or something when my friends come over.

“Yo! Cookies!” he cried.

“Those are for Max and Traci,” Mom said.

“Yeah, sure,” Colin said. He grabbed two steaming cookies off the tray and stuffed them into his mouth.

Colin chewed for a few seconds—and then his eyes bulged. “Hot!” he gasped. “H-hot!” He opened his mouth and the cookies came spewing out—all down the front of my new T-shirt.

“Stop picking on Maxie,” Mom said.

The doorbell rang.

Traci!

The coolest girl in school in
my
house!

My heart did a flip-flop. I felt sweat pop out all over my forehead. I hurried to the front door and pulled it open.

Please, please—let this study date go well!

TRACI STOOD ON THE
front stoop in a red down jacket and brown suede Ugg boots. She had a smile on her face as I opened the door. But her smile faded quickly.

“Ooh, gross,” she said. “What's that brown gook on your shirt? Did you barf or something?”

“Heeh heeh,” I said. My tongue was suddenly as big as a salami.

Not a good start.

I brushed most of the cookie barf off and stepped back so Traci could come in.

Mom said hi and hung Traci's jacket in the front closet. Then Traci carried her backpack into the kitchen, and we sat down at the table.

Mom served the cookies and milk.

Traci pulled books and a notebook from her bag. “Have you started your social studies project?” she asked.

“Heeh heeh,” I replied.

She stared at me, waiting for a better answer.

I took a deep breath. I knew I could untangle my tongue if I really tried.

“Well, Aaron and I are supposed to do the history of Paraguay,” I said, finally getting my mouth to work. “But we went to the Grover Mansion Saturday night. And maybe we’re going to do something about ghosts instead.”

Traci laughed. “A haunted house? How come you’re so into ghosts, Max?”

I couldn’t tell her the real reason.

I couldn’t tell her that I had two ghosts waiting for me in my bedroom right now.

I shrugged. “I’m just into it.”

Traci tossed back her straight blond hair. “Do you really believe in ghosts?”

“Kinda,” I said. “The Grover Mansion—I guess it was pretty fake. But it had great special effects. I mean, the ghosts seemed real.”

“Ms. McDonald won’t let you do a project on ghosts,” Traci said. “Ghosts aren’t social studies.” She took a bite of a cookie and got a smear of chocolate on her perfect chin. I didn’t know if I should tell her about it or not.

“I brought my math problems,” she said, opening her notebook. She flashed me a smile. “Think you could do them for me, Brainimon?”

Oh, wow.

So
that's
why she wanted to come over. It wasn’t a study date. She just wanted me to do her math problems for her.

I sighed.

“Max, what's that pendant?”

The silver pendant I wear around my neck had swung loose. Traci grabbed it to study it. “That's awesome.”

“My mom found it and gave it to me,” I said. “You really like it?”

She nodded.

“Hey, wait,” I said. “I’ll show you something.” I hurried to the front closet, pulled the six silver-bullet-shaped objects from my parka pocket, and trotted back to the kitchen table.

“Check these out.” I spread them on the table. “I found these in the haunted house. Look. They match mine. Isn’t that weird?”

Traci studied the six silver objects. She picked two of them up and rolled them around in her hand. “Know what, Max? These are just what I need for the necklace I’m making.”

“Really?” Wow. I suddenly had an easy way to impress Traci Wayne. How many days and nights had I daydreamed about this moment?

“Take them,” I said. I rolled all six of them over to her. “Take them. They’re all yours.”

“Hey—thank you, Max!”

I had a big smile on my face as I watched Traci tuck the six objects into her bag.

Of course, I had no way of knowing that I had just put us both in deadly danger.

“
NOW LET'S TAKE A
look at the math problems,” I said.

Traci slid the book and her notebook over to me. “You’re so good at long equations,” she said. “I always lose my place halfway through.”

I studied the page of problems. I’d already done this page and handed it in. “Would you like me to explain them to you?” I asked. “Or just do them?”

“Just do them,” Traci answered.

I picked up a pencil and started to work on the first problem. But I didn’t get very far because Colin came dancing into the room.

And what was he holding up in front of him? A pair of white underpants.

Colin had a fat, disgusting grin on his face. “Are these yours, Max?” he asked, holding the underpants up by the elastic. “How did they get in my dresser drawer?”

He waved them in front of Traci.

She put a hand over her mouth and giggled.

I could feel my face turning red-hot and knew I
was blushing. Colin was just trying to embarrass me—and it was working!

Colin raised the underpants to his face and sniffed them. A long, loud sniff. “Yep. They’re yours!” he said. He laughed and tossed the underpants from hand to hand.

With her hand covering her mouth, Traci giggled some more.

I wanted to sink under the table and never come up. Why was Colin doing this to me?

Because he's Colin, that's why.

Colin started to dance around the room, waving the underpants above his head like a flag.

“Colin—please!” I shouted. I blinked as Nicky and Tara appeared in the doorway.

They stopped Colin and spun him around. His eyes bulged. He didn’t know
what
was going on.

Tara grabbed the underpants from Colin's hand—and jammed them down over his head.

Traci let out a cry. She couldn’t see Nicky and Tara. All she could see was the underpants leaping out of Colin's hands and flying down over his face.

Then Nicky grabbed the elastic of Colin's underpants and gave him a screaming wedgie.

Both ghosts shoved Colin hard. He stumbled from the kitchen with the underpants over his head.

Traci squinted at me across the table. “Max, I’m confused. Why did your brother
do
that?”

“He's very immature,” I said.

We turned back to the math problems. I hoped that was the last of Colin. “When we finish, maybe I can show you some of my new magic tricks,” I said. “Mom bought me a live rabbit, and I’ve been practicing making it appear and disappear.”

Traci glanced at her watch. “No. I don’t think so. I have to get to Patti Berger's party. Are you going?”

I kept my eyes on the math problems. “I wasn’t invited,” I said. “Patti doesn’t know I’m alive.”

“Yes, she does,” Traci replied. “She just doesn’t like you.”

I glanced over Traci's shoulder and saw Nicky and Tara at the kitchen counter. They were helping themselves to cookies and milk.

Please don’t turn around, Traci, I thought.

Too late. Traci turned to see what I was staring at.

“Oh, wow!” She leaped to her feet. “Those cookies!” she screamed. “They’re flying back and forth. And the milk is spilling in midair! Max, what's going on?”

“No problem,” I said. “It's just a snack attack.”

Traci grabbed all her stuff, jammed it into her
backpack, and took off, heading for the front door. “You’re too weird!” she shouted. “Your brother is weird! Your house is weird! You’re
all
weird!”

The front door slammed behind her. She was gone.

I sat staring at the bare table. “This didn’t happen,” I murmured.

Mom poked her head in. “Maxie? How did your study date go?”

I searched for Nicky and Tara, but they had disappeared again. I spotted the camcorder on my bed. I rewound the tape, fell back on my bed, and started to watch it in the viewfinder.

I watched Aaron and me walking up to the Grover Mansion. And there we were inside the house. The picture was pretty good, even though it was so dark there.

I watched us exploring the living room, then moving to other rooms. Aaron was a good photographer. He kept the camcorder very still.

The tape wasn’t very interesting. Until I got to a certain part. And then I jumped to my feet and nearly dropped the camcorder.

My hands were shaking. I watched the tape in the little viewfinder with my mouth hanging open in shock.

Just as the tape ended, Nicky and Tara
appeared in front of me. “Max, we’ve got to talk,” Tara said. “You have to help us. We have to find our parents, and we’re all out of ideas.”

I lowered the camcorder and stared at the two ghosts. “You’re not going to believe this,” I said. “But I think I just found a big clue.”

I REWOUND THE TAPE
and started it again.

“Aaron and I went to this haunted house on the other side of town Saturday night,” I explained. “We saw a lot of weird ghosts, and some strange things happened. Like eerie howls following us around and warm goo dripping down the walls. That kind of thing. But it was all a big fake.”

Tara stared at the viewfinder. “You mean it was like a carnival fun house?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Just special effects. That's what the owner told us.”

“You met the owner?” Nicky asked.

“He was outside when we came running out of the house,” I said. “He said his name is Morgo. He explained that he spent a lot of money on special effects. And he's going to open the haunted house soon. You know. And charge admission.”

Tara narrowed her eyes at me. “So what's the big clue you found?”

“Keep watching the tape,” I said.

“But I don’t see anything,” Tara said, frowning at the tiny screen. “It's just a dark empty room with nothing going on.”

“That's right,” I said. “Nothing going on. Now watch this part.”

I fast-forwarded the tape to when Aaron and I came running out of the house and met Mr. Morgo. Aaron forgot to stop the camcorder, so it kept recording.

“What do you see?” I asked the two ghosts.

They both squinted into the viewfinder.

“I don’t see anything but snow,” Nicky said. “It's all just white.”

“And there
you
are, Max,” Tara said. “It looks like you’re talking to someone—but no one's there.”

“You’ve got
that
right!” I said. I tossed the camcorder down. “Aaron and I were talking to Mr. Morgo. But he doesn’t show up on the tape. You can’t see him and you can’t hear him.”

Nicky's eyes went wide. “You mean—?”

“You can’t see any of the ghosts, either,” I continued. “We saw ghosts all over the house. And Aaron had his camcorder recording the whole time. If they were just special-effects ghosts, they’d show up on the video, right?”

“So they were
real
ghosts!” Tara exclaimed.

“You got it,” I said. “I think real ghosts live there. And Mr. Morgo was trying to hide that by telling us it was all special effects.”

Nicky began pacing back and forth. Tara stared at the camcorder.

I could see they were both thinking hard.

“Your parents were scientists, right?” I said. “And they found a way to capture evil ghosts. They put them in some kind of prison.”

“That's right,” Nicky said. “But what does that have to do with these ghosts?”

“Try to follow me, here,” I continued. “One of the evil ghosts found a way to escape. His name was Phears, and he was the most evil ghost. He let out all the other ghosts. But we don’t know what happened to them. And we don’t know what happened to your mom and dad.”