The next day, Goldie, Li, and Ruby headed to the town hall to fight for the old inn. But they needed to make one stop first.

Goldie pressed the Voltzes’ doorbell.

Val opened the door. “Hey.”

“We need you, Val,” Goldie said. “We’re going to talk to the mayor and the town board. We need to convince them to save the inn.”

“Didn’t we try to convince the mayor of something before? To reopen your old school?” Val asked. “That didn’t end well.”

Goldie remembered. She had accidentally kidnapped the mayor by snaring him in a net.

“This is different,” Goldie promised.

“What’s in the bag?” Val pointed to Goldie’s backpack.

“Nothing crazy. No net cannons. We’re just going to talk. Mostly. And we need you there.”

“You can tell them about the ghost cat,” Li said.

Val looked at Goldie. “But you don’t believe me.”

“That’s not important,” Goldie replied.

“It is to me.” Val kept her eyes locked on Goldie.

“What we need is for the board to believe you.” Goldie forced a smile. “With your help, we can save the inn. It’s the ghost cat’s habitat, after all.”

If it even exists, she thought.

“Okay,” Val finally agreed. “But before this is all over, I’m going to prove to you that the ghost cat is real.”

Goldie and Li hopped on their souped-up skateboards. Val and Ruby took their bikes. As they rode to the town hall, Goldie imagined how she could persuade the mayor to save the inn. She could convince Nacho to do what she wanted with a strip of bacon. She wondered what meat the mayor liked.

The Gearheads parked their rides, went inside, and quietly made their way to the mayor’s office.

“Knock, knock,” Goldie said, standing in the open doorway. “Hello, Mayor Zander.”

The mayor groaned. “What do you want?”

“Not much. Just to save the old Bloxtown Inn.” The Gearheads stepped inside the office, even though they weren’t officially invited.

“It’s a historic landmark,” Ruby added.

The mayor smiled. Goldie noticed it wasn’t his usual evil smile.

“It’s scheduled for demolition next week,” he said. “The town board has already made its decision.”

“Well, then—we need to talk to them.” Goldie took a seat in one of the leather chairs across from the mayor.

“Are you refusing to leave unless you get to talk to the town board?” Mayor Zander asked.

She shrugged. “Sure.”

Mayor Zander picked up his phone and ordered someone on the other end to gather the town board.

Goldie leaned over to her friends. “This is going pretty well so far. I don’t even need plan B.” She patted her backpack.

Ruby stepped back. “What’s plan B?”

“A tickle-machine prototype. It almost works.”

Soon, the mayor’s office was crowded with people in suits.

“What’s going on?” asked a woman with red hair.

“What’s the emergency?” asked a man with very little hair.

Goldie stood on her chair. “We’re here to save the Bloxtown Inn.”

“Why?” asked a man with a bow tie. “It’s abandoned.”

“And that land is valuable,” added a woman in a green suit. “We’re going to turn it into a gas station.”

“It’s not abandoned,” Val said. “Ghosts live there. You’ll be destroying their home.”

The room suddenly grew quiet. Li nodded, but everyone else seemed to be frozen.

“Where do you expect the ghosts to go if they’re homeless?” Val asked.

“Maybe they’ll have to live here,” Li said. “You’ve got lots of room in this building.”

“This is ridiculous,” the red-haired woman said. “The inn is not haunted. It’s simply an eyesore.”

“I don’t know.” The bald man shook his head. “My father used to tell me stories about the ghosts of the inn. He claimed to have seen them in the windows.”

The mayor and the town board continued to argue about whether the inn was haunted and ghosts were real. Goldie did not join in. She definitely had an opinion, but she also had an idea.

She pulled a whistle from her hair and blew it loudly. That got everyone’s attention.

“None of us know if the inn is actually haunted,” she said.

Val made a small harrumph sound.

“But if it is, can we agree that it must be saved?” Goldie looked at each board member and then at the mayor.

“Well, if it is haunted, I don’t see how we could tear it down,” Mayor Zander said.

“Seriously?” Ruby asked. “You’d tear down a child’s playground to put up a parking lot if it meant making money.”

“I don’t mess around when it comes to ghosts.” He crossed his arms over his chest.

“This is foolish talk,” said the woman in the green suit.

“I have to agree with the mayor,” the bald man said. “I don’t want to upset any ghosts. They might haunt us.”

Goldie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Are adults afraid of ghosts?

“You’re making the right decision,” Val said with a satisfied smile.

“It’s not haunted!” The red-haired woman stomped her foot.

“It is!” Val snapped back.

“It’s not.”

“It is.”

“It’s not.”

“It is!” Goldie interrupted. “We’ll prove it. And when we do, you have to promise not to tear it down.”

Val smiled. And Goldie felt bad. She didn’t actually think the inn was haunted.

“If these kids can prove the inn is haunted,” Mayor Zander said, “then I will declare it a Bloxtown landmark.”

Goldie held out her hand. “Let’s shake on it.”

The mayor agreed, and the Gearheads left his office.

In the hall, Li pulled Goldie aside. “You don’t believe in ghosts. You don’t believe it’s haunted,” he whispered.

“But I can engineer that,” Goldie said with a wink.