I reached up my hand to turn off the lamp.
Strange. Because I had never turned the lamp on. So how come the room was filled with light?
I froze, then slowly swiveled my head toward the mirror.
The mirror was glowing again.
The mist swirled in the center and then flew apart. Letters formed. They were faint and shaky, hard to read.
I sat up and concentrated hard.
HELP ME, it said.
Slowly the words faded but the mist returned and more words formed.
SAVE ME.
The wispy letters slowly dissolved, revealing another image deep in the mirror.
I squinted, staring with all my might, and saw what looked like a long, narrow staircase. At the top of the stairs a door swung slowly open.
The attic!
Then the image faded and the room was dark once again.
Shivering, I went back to bed and pulled the covers up to my chin.
I didn’t want to go back to the attic. No way.
And how could I save a ghost?
How could anyone help a little boy who was already dead?
20
It was the itching that woke me up.
I sat up scratching, blinking at the daylight that flooded the room.
Itching?
That’s when I realized that a couple of the spiders must have bitten me, too. You’re not supposed to scratch stuff when it itches, but I couldn’t help it.
Which made me think of poor Katie, covered with tiny little spiders. Spiders she thought I’d dumped on her bed.
I jumped out of bed and got dressed quickly. Don’t scratch, you moron. But there was an itching in my brain I couldn’t ignore: Katie had sworn she was going to call my parents and tell them all the horrible tricks I was playing on her.
Big mistake. That would only make things worse. Something in the house wanted to get rid of Katie, and complaining to my parents wouldn’t change that.
Remembering what I had seen in the mirror last night, I felt excited. Bobby had asked for my help! This had never happened before. He had always treated me like the enemy.
But last night something had changed. Even though he didn’t like Katie, he sent me a warning in the mirror. That showed he was on our side—against the old witch.
And afterwards he asked for help.
I still didn’t know what he wanted, but one thing seemed to make sense. If I could figure out a way to help Bobby, maybe the haunting would stop.
This seemed like such a good idea I wanted to tell Katie about it. Especially before she called my parents.
I hurried downstairs but paused outside the kitchen when I heard Katie’s voice speaking to Sally.
“You don’t really believe in ghosts, do you?” Katie was saying. “A big girl like you?”
“No,” Sally answered solemnly. “Not me.”
“And you know that Bobby is just pretend, right? An imaginary friend?”
“He’s not imaginary,” Sally replied. “He’s just invisible.”
It seemed like a good moment for me to interrupt. I poked my head around the corner.
“Um, good morning, everybody,” I said. I couldn’t believe how wimpy it came out. Even though I hadn’t done anything, I sounded guilty!
Katie gave me a steely-eyed look. “I’ve decided not to call your parents,” she said abruptly. “I’ll give you one more chance.”
Turning back to the stove, Katie flipped eggs in the fry pan. “Your mom and dad have important work to do and they’re relying on me,” she said. “I’m not going to let your infantile sense of humor wreck everything.”
She dumped eggs and bacon on a plate and banged them down in front of me.
I made a face. It was so unfair! She was so stubborn and closed-minded about everything.
But I had to convince her. I had to try.
How could she watch out for Sally if she didn’t believe in the danger?
“Listen, Katie,” I began. “We need to have a serious talk. There are things you should know about what’s going on here.”
That’s when Sally started whimpering and fidgeting and wouldn’t stop until Katie picked her up.
At first I thought Sally just wanted the attention. But when she met my eyes she smiled secretly, as if she’d made a fuss just to interrupt me.
For some reason Sally didn’t want me warning the baby-sitter about the house—she wanted to keep Katie in the dark.
21
Lucy stopped by after breakfast. She had an oversized T-shirt on over her bathing suit and a beach towel slung over her shoulder. Her dark ponytail was pulled through the back of her baseball cap.
She squinted at me under the brim of the cap. “What’s the matter with you? You’re looking kind of pale.” Her eyes widened. “More ghost stuff?”
I told her about the mirror and how I’d seen the old lady bending over Katie. But when I got to the part about the spiders, Lucy started laughing so hard she fell down holding her stomach.
“Stop it,” I said, “or I won’t tell you the rest.”
“I can’t help it,” she gasped, clutching her side. “You shooing the spiders out the window and poor Katie with bugs in that beautiful red hair, it’s very funny.”
“There’s more,” I said.
Lucy suddenly looked serious. “I should have known,” she said.
“When I got back to my room the mirror started glowing again,” I said, describing the message and the image of the attic stairs.
Lucy shivered a little even though the sun was hot. “What does it mean?” she asked.
“I guess Bobby thinks I can find something in the attic that will help him. Somehow.”
“How do you know it’s Bobby?” asked Lucy, squinting at the house intently. “It might be another trick. The house trying to get you into the attic.”
I shivered. “Maybe you’re right. Whatever, I’m not going up into that attic, no matter what.”
“Forget it,” Lucy suggested. “What you need is a dip in the lake.”
She raced me to the lake and won, but only because I tripped over my Nikes like an idiot and fell flat on my face. I made up for it by outswimming her to the
