“Brian, your plan worked!” Mara gasped. “Lavinia Hyde is reading the newspaper.”
“I’m not surprised,” Brian said, clutching his ghost-catching net. “She must be hungry for news.”
“Let’s hope she’s not hungry for anything else,” I said.
Using my sketch of the house, and with Sparky hugging our heels the whole way, we tiptoed back through the rooms to the haunted parlor.
“Flashlights off,” I whispered. “But get ready to turn them on.”
I quietly turned the doorknob of the parlor door, while Brian raised his net overhead.
“If you touch me with that creepy ghost net, Brian, I’ll turn you into a ghost!” said a voice.
And Kelly stepped out of the darkness.
“K-K-Kelly?” said Mara. “You’re back!”
“And the rest of her, too!” said Brian.
I jumped up and down. “Kelly, what happened? What was it like in Ghostville? What do you remember about being a ghost?”
Kelly stared at us, then took Mara’s flashlight and held it under her chin.
Spooky shadows moved over her face.
“Well,” she began, “I didn’t see all of Ghostville, of course.”
“You weren’t there very long,” said Mara.
“Right,” said Kelly. “But it’s like a very old and very big—how do I say it?—house.”
“Weird!” said Brian. “Jeff, totally write this down. We’ll make millions! Kelly, what else?”
“Well, it has these things on every side of you,” she said. “I guess you could say they’re like—what’s the word?—walls.”
“Holy cow!” said Brian. “Houses! Walls! This is amazing stuff. Jeff—”
“I’m writing!” I said. “Kelly, go on!”
“With every step I took,” Kelly said, “I put one foot in front of the other.…”
“And?” said Mara.
“I stepped on …”
“Tell us!” I cried.
“A floor!”
We were practically in shock, watching Kelly’s face seem to float in the darkness.
“Finally,” she said, “I reached out my hand. How do I say this …? I touched something!”
We were all shaking.
“It must have been sooo creepy!” said Brian. “What was it? Don’t tell us. No, tell us!”
Kelly swallowed once. Then again. She took a deep breath and finally spoke.
“A doorknob,” she said.
Mara practically fainted. “Holy cow!”
I wrote down the words …
Then I realized what Kelly was telling us. “Wait a second. Are you talking about—?”
“This doorknob,” Kelly said, tapping the knob behind her. “That’s right. There’s no Ghostville. I followed the blob through that door and couldn’t find my way back.”
Mara was shaking her head. “But we heard knocking. And the ghost even spoke to us. It said, ‘Is someone there?’ ”
“That was me,” said Kelly. “I said that. I banged on the walls, trying to find you. Which I finally did. And now I’m free!”
We all laughed, but my brain started to buzz when she said “free.”
“Goofballs, we’re getting close, very close. We keep coming back to this room. This parlor we’re standing in right now is the scene of the mystery. Let’s find clues!”
We did the famous Goofball search for clues. We each took a side of the room and looked and stared and studied everything.
Even Sparky went hunting.
But there weren’t any clues except lots of dust and the single piece of furniture in the room. The chair.
“I still don’t know why this chair is right next to the door,” said Kelly.
“Or why it’s the only furniture in the house that doesn’t have a sheet on it,” said Mara.
“Or why we didn’t find an extra sheet lying around,” said Brian.
That’s when Sparky began licking the chair.
“Um, don’t do that,” I said.
But all at once, Kelly got down on all fours like Sparky. She stuck her finger on the chair where Sparky was licking and put it in her mouth.
“That’s so gross,” said Brian. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Because you don’t like candy corn cupcakes like Sparky and I do,” Kelly said, licking her lips. “There’s cupcake frosting on this chair!”
“And now I’m hungry,” Mara said.
“Have an egg,” said Brian, offering her his hard-boiled egg, which she popped into her mouth.
Meanwhile, my brain sparkled like a sparkler. “Right next to a door, there’s a chair with no sheet on it but that’s smeared with cupcake frosting.… I wonder …”
Then came another piece of the puzzle.
Crunch!
No, it wasn’t another ghost catching up on news. It was Brian, trying to stuff the crumpled newspaper back into his top hat, when Mara stopped him.
“Hey,” she said, her mouth still filled with egg, “thish papah’s from eggzatly free yearsh ago, the day after Halloween.”
It hit me like a bolt of lightning.
“Free yearsh ago!” I cried. “Free? Let me see that paper!”
Suddenly my mystery radar crackled like a big crackly thing, because I had found exactly what I was looking for.
“Goofballs,” I said, “I have a hunch.”
“It goes away when you shtand up shtraight,” said Mara, swallowing.
I began to smile. “Goofballs, there isn’t a single ghost in this house. There are three!”
“I need more gear!” said Brian.
“Only they’re not really ghosts,” I said.
“I still need more gear,” said Brian.
“What do you mean?” asked Kelly.
“I mean only one kind of ghost needs a chair near a door or is a blobby floaty thing. The kind of ghost who’s not even a ghost!”
“A ghost who’s not even a ghost?” said Mara. “That’s the scariest kind! Wait. No. But who’s a ghost who’s not a ghost?”
“We’ll find out,” I said, “as soon as we go through this door.”
“Should I bring a net?” asked Brian.
“Sure,” I said. “And tell her to be ready to sing.”
“Sing what?” asked Kelly.
“You’ll see,” I said. “But I think we need Joey for this. Sparky?”
“Goof!” Sparky ran through the rooms. Five minutes later, he returned with Joey Myers.
“If I see a blobby ghost, I’m out of here,” Joey said.
“You might see a blob,” I said. “But no ghost. It’s time to go on the offensive.”
“I try never to be offensive,” said Joey.
“Into Ghostville!” I said.
“Into Ghostville?” asked Mara.
“Into Ghostville!” said Brian.
“What’s Ghostville?” asked Joey.
“A hallway,” said Kelly.
And in we went.