“Ghost! Ghost! Ghost!” the little kids screamed. Then they grabbed cupcakes and ran in circles until Sparky and Mrs. Bookman herded them back to their parents.
I stared at Joey. “A ghost?”
“Probably not,” said Kelly.
Mara’s eyes got big. “A ghost?”
“Doubtful,” said Kelly.
Brian scratched his head. “These newspapers are itchy. Wait, a ghost?”
“A GHOST!” said Joey. “Ten minutes ago!”
“I don’t believe in ghosts,” said Kelly.
“I do,” said Brian. “They’re just people. Well, they’re sort of ex-people. But still.”
“I believe in ghosts,” said Mara. “That’s because I saw a ghost once. It was at night and from a distance and I didn’t have my glasses on and I may have been asleep. But I’m positive I saw one.
“Since then, I’ve watched lots of cartoons with ghosts in them, so I’ve become an expert on Ghostology. That’s what they call the study of ghosts.”
“I’m not sure about ghosts,” I said. “I like to keep an open mind.”
“I used to do that, too,” said Brian. “But one day it rained and everything got soggy in there, so now I keep it closed.”
“Well,” said Joey, “the ghost I saw was a great big blobby thing. It floated right across the ceiling of a haunted house!”
I yanked out my trusty cluebook.
Because this was a brand-new case, I flipped to a brand-new page. “Joey, please tell us where you saw this ghost.”
“At the big empty house on the corner of Chestnut and Maple Streets.”
I wrote that down. “Okay, Joey, go on.”
“My parents just went to look inside and I went with them. They’re thinking of buying it to open a bookstore there.”
“I love bookstores even more than candy corn cupcakes,” said Kelly. “I especially love open bookstores!”
“Everyone does,” said Mrs. Bookman, coming over after the toddlers were settled again. “I know that old house. It’s been empty for years. It’s called Hyde House, because Lavinia Hyde used to live there.”
“Spooky name,” whispered Mara. “Write that down, Jeff.”
Brian chuckled. “Does Lavinia Hyde have a friend named Lavinia Seek?”
“I wish she did,” Mrs. Bookman said. Then she whispered, “It’s been many years since anyone even saw Lavinia Hyde!”
“You mean, she vanished?” said Mara.
“No one knows,” Mrs. Bookman said.
Vanished is a special detective word that means disappeared.
“There aren’t any ghosts,” said Kelly. “But if Joey saw something weird, it’s a mystery. And a mystery is a case for the Goofballs.”
I wrote that down because it sounded so good. “Joey, please tell us everything from the very beginning.”
Joey gulped. “Well, I think the universe started as a big empty place.…”
“Not everything, everything,” said Brian. “Just about the Haunting of Hyde House.”
“Which is a great title for this case,” Mara said, nudging me to write it down, so I did.
Joey blinked. “First my parents and I heard thumping. Then moaning like this—Ohhhh! Then we went through a bunch of rooms into a place called a parlor. Then we saw it. A white ghost floating across the ceiling. We all ran out of there. I won. But now my dad says our bookstore will never open!”
“Your dad should put a door on the house,” Mara said. “That will make it easier to open.”
“It has a door!” Joey said. “In fact, it has more doors than there are rooms to go into—”
“Stop!” said Brian. “Did you say doors?”
Joey nodded. “There are tons of—”
“Stop!” Brian said again. “I need to think.”
He slowly paced the room. Sparky followed at his heels. They both stopped at the same time and spun around to us.
“Maybe it’s all these newspapers near my brain, but I’ve figured the whole thing out,” he said.
“Already?” asked Mrs. Bookman.
“Joey, you or your parents must have opened the wrong door,” Brian said. “You opened the wrong door and—fwit!—a ghost flew out. People open wrong doors all the time and—fwit!—ghosts fly out. It’s a national problem.”
“Is it?” said Kelly with a frown.
Joey shivered. “Lavinia Hyde must be the blobby ghost I saw. Either way, we’re not opening any bookstore now!”
Mrs. Bookman sighed. “I so wanted Badger Point to have its very own bookstore.”
My mystery radar poked out of my mystery mind and started to buzz as I reread the clues.
I glanced at my fellow Goofballs.
Mara gave me a little nod.
Brian’s hat gave me a little nod.
I looked at Kelly. “What about you, Kelly?”
“Well,” she said, “a mystery is a mystery. And a Goofball is a Goofball. So, yeah.”
And Kelly gave me a little nod, too.
“I declare right now,” I said, “the Goofballs will go to Hyde House. We’ll find this ghost.”
“Or whatever scared Joey,” said Kelly.
“And Badger Point’s first bookstore will open its doors!” said Mara.
Joey shivered. “There sure are a lot of them in there. Doors, I mean.”
