“The ambulance? Cool! What happened?”
As I told Steve about our horrible night, with the ghosts chasing us up into the attic and out onto the roof, his eyes got bigger and bigger.
“You’re making it up,” he said. “The baby-sitter really broke her arm?”
I nodded. “She’s okay now.”
“So you guys were left here on your own?”
“Only for a little while,” I said. “Then my parents came back. The witch-thing is still here, though. She just came after me with a sledgehammer. I’m lucky to be alive.”
Steve was kind of staring at me, trying to figure out if I was telling the truth. He’s a big, athletic kid, a star pitcher for his baseball team, and a real practical joker. He was always pulling some prank or another, but he’d seen enough of the haunting himself to know I wasn’t making it up.
“Any grub in this joint?” he asked, switching his attention to the cookie jar.
“Help yourself,” I said.
Steve thoughtfully munched an Oreo and gave me a quizzical look. “You really got attacked with a sledgehammer?”
I pointed to the bruise on my forehead.
“I thought the ghosts only came out at night,” he said.
“That’s what I thought, too.”
He sighed and wiped crumbs from his mouth. “Totally weird,” he said.
Just then my mom came into the kitchen. “Hello, Steve,” she said. “I see you boys found the cookies.”
“Hi, Mrs. Winter,” he said. “Welcome back.”
“Jay, I just got off the phone with Katie’s mother,” Mom said. “Your father and I feel responsible for what happened to her.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” I said.
“Nevertheless, she was in our house. We’re going over to the hospital to make sure she’s okay. Will you and your sister be okay for an hour or so?”
“Sure, Mom.”
“Sally’s still sound asleep. So I don’t want a lot of horsing around in here,” she said, eyeing Steve.
“No problemo,” I said.
A couple of minutes later the station wagon was heading back down the driveway. Steve and I watched it go.
“What do we do now?” he asked. “You want to play ball? Or we could go swimming.”
“I can’t leave Sally alone,” I said.
“But she’s asleep,” he protested.
“You know better than that,” I said. “But I do have something in mind.”
“Yeah? Like what?”
“Like an expedition.”
Steve grinned. “Right. Like to the North Pole, right?”
“Worse,” I said. “To the basement.”
“The basement?” he said, looking puzzled. “Why?”
“Because there’s something down there I want to find.”
Steve raised his eyebrows. “Like what?” he asked.
“A body,” I said. “A dead body.”
7
It was Steve’s idea to call up Lucy. She’s about our age, with long dark hair and a very serious expression—except when she smiles. Lucy knows all about the haunting.
All in all she’s pretty cool for a girl.
“Lucy was the one who told us about how they never found the old lady’s body,” Steve reminded me.
It was true. Lucy had a lot of good ideas about why there were ghosts on Cherry Street and I thought she secretly wanted to see them for herself.
She showed up right away, her eyes glowing with excitement, and I told her my idea about searching for the missing body.
“I don’t see what we can do against a ghost,” said Lucy doubtfully. “We’re only human.”
I ignored that. “It’s the witch-thing that’s doing the really bad stuff,” I said. “And the basement is her territory. I can feel her down there. Steve thinks it might be the ghost of the old lady.”
“Right,” said Steve. “If we find her body and give it a decent burial, maybe she’ll go away.”
Lucy shuddered. “What about the other ghost?” she asked. “The little boy?”
I took a deep breath. “I think he’s been trying to protect us from the bad ghost. But he’s not powerful enough.”
“The whole idea gives me the creeps,” Lucy said.
“We don’t have any choice,” I insisted. “We’ve got to do something.”
“Okay,” said Lucy reluctantly. “What’s the plan?”
“We go into the basement, find her—or her body—and drag it out.”
“But how do you know the body’s in the basement?” asked Lucy.
I’d been thinking about that for quite a while, and I thought I finally had the answer.
“Because that’s the one place Bobby never goes,” I said. “That’s how.”
8
Steve and Lucy went back home to get ready for the expedition into the haunted basement. We agreed to meet at my house in a half hour.
It didn’t take me long to get ready. All I needed was my flashlight, an extra battery, a stick for poking into corners, and a long, thick rope.
Then I sat around waiting, trying not to look at the clock every thirty seconds.
But Steve and Lucy were right on time. Both of them had changed from shorts into long pants. Lucy wore overalls with pockets everywhere, all of them bulging with stuff.
“I brought a flashlight,” she said, “and a Swiss army knife. If we find a coffin we can pry open the lid with it. I’ve got a screwdriver, too.”
Steve was wearing some kind of lumpy necklace.
Lucy squinted at it. “Is that garlic?”
Steve shrugged. “Yeah. Just in case.”
“That’s to keep away vampires,” I said. “I don’t think it’ll work on ghosts.”
“Phew!” Lucy laughed. “It’ll keep me away, that’s for sure.”
“What’s that for?” asked Steve, pointing at the rope slung over the back of a kitchen chair.
“I thought we should rope ourselves together like mountain climbers do,” I said. “So we won’t get separated.”
“So one of us won’t get snatched away, is what you really mean,” said Lucy. “Good idea.”
“Come on,” I said, uncoiling the rope. “Let’s get going.”
I tied the rope around my waist then passed it to Lucy who did the same.
Steve looked doubtful. “Well, if I fall into the witch’s bubbling cauldron of slime,” he joked, “at least I know you guys will be coming after me, one way or the other.”
I led the way to the basement door. My heart was booming in my chest. “Are you ready?” I asked.
“Go for it,” Steve said. But his voice cracked.
“Here goes nothing,” I said.
I pushed the door to the basement. As it
