JJ WASN’T SUPPOSED to read the letter, but he did anyway. He couldn’t resist the thick paper and the chance to break the seal on the back of the envelope. It all looked so important. You really couldn’t blame him. His mom had already forgotten about the letter and left it unopened on the kitchen counter. She rarely had time for anything these days.

JJ, on the other hand, had nothing but time.

He had just gotten out of school, and Tuesday was his most hated day of the week. He was always forced to go to Book Club and Battle of the Books, which was like the grand master of misery for those who are not into books. JJ didn’t like reading very much (that’s an understatement—he despised it, everything about it, from the quietness to the dancing letters and the book reports afterward).

What JJ really loved was ghost hunting. He got excited at the thought of collecting evidence of haunting activity with his infrared camera, voice recorder, and electromagnetic field (that’s EMF for short) detector. The camera would catch temperature fluctuations, since ghosts show up as cold spots. The voice recorder could catch a ghost’s voice (this was harder, JJ thought), and the EMF detector would reveal a ghost’s electrical current—the detector would spike. Ghost hunting can be exciting or monumentally boring, depending on how the ghosts are feeling that day.

The week before the invitation came, JJ and his friend Tristan had caught signs of a (possible) haunting in the attic. JJ lived in an old house that made squeaky noises and had lots of dark, mysterious corners. But JJ had reason to believe that those little orbs he and Tristan caught on camera were not dust. The EMF detector spiked, and there was some garbled noise on the voice recorder—sure indicators that a ghost was present. You never knew what evidence you might find. It was why JJ loved ghost hunting.

And now there was this envelope, on a regular (most hated) Book Club Tuesday. Unfortunately, JJ’s dad was an English professor at the local college, and he loved all things books, which was why his dad had volunteered to run the Book Club and Battle of the Books at Aspen Springs Middle School. It made the whole situation with JJ hating books a little sticky.

JJ could hear his mom on the phone in the other room. Just troubleshoot it, guys, just troubleshoot it. It was her favorite phrase. JJ’s mom was very good at her job as CEO—a little too good, if you asked JJ. He wished she would take a break from her phone every once in a while.

JJ scratched his mop of curly red hair as he read the invitation.

Jackie Jacobson was written in cursive letters across the front of the envelope. It looked like the writer had used one of those old-fashioned ink pens. JJ couldn’t resist. He looked at the letter, read it twice (except for that tiny print—you needed a magnifying glass to read that). And smiled to himself.

This was his moment.

Around the same time that JJ found the envelope addressed to his mother, he’d been hatching a plan to convince his parents to let him visit the spookiest places in Aspen Springs, Colorado. The Barclay Hotel was at the top of the list of most haunted places within a twenty-mile radius of his house. The trouble was it had been closed for years. No one was allowed in. Not even professional ghost hunting crews.

Even JJ’s favorite online show, Ghost Catchers, had tried and failed. This guy named Hatch (even his name was cool) would go to haunted locations and investigate. Hatch had been to Alcatraz, the Winchester Mystery House, and a whole bunch of other creepy places. But never to the Barclay Hotel. The show had tried to get access (they even just showed up once), but the owner, Mr. Barclay, always declined.

And here was an invitation, a fancy one at that, to give JJ access to the place for a whole entire weekend. He could ghost hunt while he was there!

Maybe he’d even send his video footage and other evidence (there had to be lots!) to Hatch, and then JJ would definitely be invited on the show. And then maybe his parents wouldn’t think ghost hunting was “silly fake science” (his mom’s words) anymore.

Access to the Barclay Hotel—for a whole weekend, no less. An opportunity like this one comes along rarely. Once in a lifetime, one might say.

“Are you ready for Book Club, JJ?”

“Did you see this?” he asked his dad, waving the invitation.

His dad squinted (he really needed glasses but was avoiding a trip to the eye doctor). “An invitation?”

“Mom won a trip to the Barclay Hotel.”

JJ’s dad smiled. “How fun.”

“I want to go to the Barclay Hotel,” JJ blurted out, knowing that with parents, it was better to tell them what you actually wanted sometimes. Except when it came to Book Club. “And you know Mom owes me one.”

JJ had been saving this IOU for a few months now, waiting for the best opportunity. See, JJ’s mom was always so busy running her restaurant franchise (PB&JJ—because everything’s better with peanut butter!) that sometimes she missed important stuff, like parent-teacher conferences, award ceremonies, and science fairs.

Not that JJ was an award-y kind of kid. But there had been an art exhibit back in December that his mom was supposed to come see. And she’d missed it, because she had a PB&JJ emergency in Kansas. JJ’s mom apologized—a lot—and gave JJ a big IOU.

He decided it was time to cash it in.