Dudes, the School Is Haunted! (4 page)

Now Greta, dressed in black as always, was setting up with the rest of the
band. They were all laughing and shoving each other around, tossing cables back
and forth, tripping over their guitar cases. Acting like big shots because they
had a band.

A few other kids started to arrive. I recognized the two girls who were the
ticket takers. And a couple of kids from the refreshment committee, who started
complaining that somebody ordered only Mountain Dew and no Coke.

I scrambled around, snapping photos of the banners and the balloons. I was
setting up to shoot our bison poster—when a loud shout made me spin around.

I saw Greta and one of the guitar players pretending to have a duel with
guitars. The other band members were laughing and cheering them on.

Greta had picked up one of the guitars. She and the other guy raised their
guitars high over their heads and came charging at each other.

“No—
stop
!” I screamed.

Too late.

Greta’s guitar ripped right through the BELL VALLEY ROCKS! banner. Tore it in
two!

I let out a loud groan as the two halves of the banner drooped to the floor.
I turned and saw the unhappy faces of Thalia and Ben.

“Hey—sorry about that!” Greta called. Then she burst out laughing.

I hurried over to the wrecked banner and picked up one end. Thalia and Ben
were right behind me.

“What are we going to do?” I cried. “It’s ruined.”

“We can’t just leave it here hanging over the floor,” Thalia said, shaking
her head.

“We need it!” I declared.

“Yeah. It’s our best banner,” Thalia agreed.

“Maybe we can tape it back together,” I suggested.

“No problem. We’ll tape it together,” Ben said. “Come on, Tommy.” He grabbed
my arm and started to pull me.

I almost dropped Mrs. Borden’s Polaroid. “Where are we going?” I demanded.

“Up to the art room, of course,” Ben replied. He started jogging to the
double gym doors, and I followed.

It won’t take long to tape it together, I thought. Then I’ll get a ladder
from the janitor’s closet, and we’ll hang it back up.

We stepped out into the hall—and I stopped. Kids were arriving for the
dance, hurrying to the gym.

“We don’t have time to fix the banner!” I told Ben.

“We’ll hurry,” he said. “No problem.”

“But—but the art room is way up on the third floor!” I sputtered. “By the
time we get all the way back down to the gym…”

“Relax,” Ben said. “It won’t take that long—if you’d stop complaining. Come
on. Let’s go!”

Ben was right. I started running down the hall. Kids were pouring into the
gym. I knew we had to hurry.

“Hey—not that way!” I heard him calling. “You’re going the wrong way,
Tommy!”

“I know where I’m going!” I called back. “I went this way last time!”

I ran to the end of the hall and turned a corner.

“Tommy—stop!” Ben called.

“It’s up this way!” I called back to him. “This way is faster. I know it.”

But I was wrong. I should have listened to Ben. A few seconds later, the hall
ended at a boarded-up wall.

“See?” Ben cried breathlessly. “What is your problem? The stairs are back
there.”

“Okay. I made a mistake,” I told him. “I wanted to hurry, that’s all.”

“But you don’t know where you’re going!” he said angrily. “Remember, Tommy?
You need a road map to find your toes!”

“Very funny,” I muttered. I gazed around. “Where are we?”

“I don’t know! I can’t believe I followed you!” Ben was annoyed. He banged
both fists against the boarded-up wall.

“Hey—!”

We both cried out as the rotted, old boards broke away. Startled, Ben
stumbled forward—and crashed right through the boards.

They splintered and fell to the floor. And he fell on top of them.

“Oh, wow.” I bent to help him up. “Check this out!” I said, peering down a
dark hall. “This must be the old school building. The building they closed off.”

“Thrills and chills,” Ben muttered. He groaned and rubbed his knee. “I
scraped my knee on those boards. I think it’s bleeding.”

I took a few steps into the dark hall. “This school has been closed off for
fifty years,” I told him. “We’re probably the first kids in here since then!”

“Remind me to write that in my diary,” Ben growled, still rubbing his knee.
“Are we going to the art room or what?”

I didn’t answer him. Something on the wall across from us caught my eye. I
walked over to it.

“Hey, Ben. Look. An elevator.”

“Huh?” He hobbled across the hall to me.

“Do you believe it?” I asked. “They had an elevator in the old school.”

“Those kids were lucky,” Ben replied.

I pressed the button on the wall. To my surprise, the doors slid open. “Whoa—!” I peered inside. A dusty ceiling lamp clicked on, sending pale white light
down through the metal car.

“It’s on!” Ben cried. “It’s working!”

“Let’s take it to the third floor,” I urged. “Come on. Why should we walk up
all those stairs?”

“But—but—” Ben held back. But I grabbed his shoulders and pushed him
inside the elevator. And followed him in.

“This is great!” I exclaimed. “I told you I knew how to get there.”

Ben’s eyes darted nervously around the narrow gray elevator car. “We
shouldn’t be doing this,” he murmured.

“What could happen?” I replied.

The doors closed silently.

“Are we moving?” Ben asked. His eyes rose to the elevator ceiling.

“Of course not,” I replied. “We haven’t pushed the button vet.”

I reached out and pushed the button with a big black 3 on it. “What is your
problem, anyway?” I demanded. “Why are you so nervous? We’re not robbing a bank
or anything. We’re just riding an elevator because we’re in a hurry.”

“The elevator is fifty years old,” Ben replied.

“So?” I demanded.

“So… we’re not moving,” Ben said softly.

I pushed the button again. And listened for the hum that meant we were going
up.

Silence.

“Let’s get out of here,” Ben said. “It’s not working. I told you we shouldn’t
try it.”

I pushed the button again. Nothing.

I pushed the button marked 2.

“We’re wasting time,” Ben said. “If we ran up the stairs, we’d be up there already. The dance is starting, and the stupid
banner is trailing on the floor.”

I pushed the 3 button again. And the 2 button.

Nothing. No noise. We didn’t move.

I pushed the button marked B.

“We don’t want to go to the basement!” Ben cried. I heard a little panic
start to creep into his voice. “Tommy, why did you push B?”

“Just trying to get it to move,” I said. My throat suddenly felt a little
dry. I had a knot in the pit of my stomach.

Why weren’t we moving?

I pushed all the buttons again. Then I pounded them with my fist.

Ben pulled my hand away. “Nice try, ace,” he said sarcastically. “Let’s just
get out of here, okay? I don’t want to miss the whole dance.”

“Thalia is probably a little steamed by now,” I said, shaking my head. I
pushed 3 a few more times.

But we didn’t move.

“Just open the doors,” Ben insisted.

“Okay. Fine,” I agreed unhappily. My eyes swept over the control panel.

“What’s wrong?” Ben asked impatiently.

“I—I can’t find the door open button,” I stammered.

He shoved me out of the way. “Here,” he said, gazing over the silvery
buttons. “Uh…”

We both studied the control panel.

“There’s
got
to be a door open button,” Ben muttered.

“Maybe it’s this one with the arrows,” I said. I lowered my hand to a button
at the bottom of the metal panel. It had two arrows on it that pointed like
this: <>.

“Yes. Push it,” Ben said. He didn’t wait for me to do it. He reached past me
and pushed the button hard with his open hand.

I stared at the door, waiting for it to slide open.

It didn’t move.

I slapped the <> button again. And again.

Nothing.

“How are we going to get
out
of here?” Ben cried.

“Don’t panic,” I told him. “We’ll get the doors open.”

“Why shouldn’t I panic?” he demanded shrilly.

“Because I want to be the one to panic first!” I declared. I thought my
little joke would make him laugh and calm him down. After all,
he
was
always making jokes.

But he didn’t even smile. And he didn’t take his eyes off the dark elevator
doors.

I pushed the <> button one more time. I kept it pressed in with my thumb. The
doors didn’t open.

I pushed the 3 and the 2 buttons. I pushed the 1 button.

Nothing. Silence. The buttons didn’t even click.

Ben’s eyes bulged. He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Help us!” he
screamed. “Can anybody hear me? Help us!”

Silence.

Then I spotted the red button at the top of the control panel. “Ben—look,”
I said. I pointed to the red button.

“An emergency button!” he exclaimed happily. “Go ahead, Tommy. Push it! It’s
probably an alarm. Someone will hear it and come rescue us!”

I pushed the red button.

I didn’t hear an alarm.

But the elevator started to hum.

I heard the clank of gears. The floor vibrated beneath our feet.

“Hey—we’re moving!” Ben cried happily.

I let out a cheer. Then I raised my hand to slap him a high five.

But the elevator jerked hard, and I fell against the wall.

“Uh-oh,” I murmured, pulling myself up straight. I turned to Ben. We stared
at each other in wide-eyed silence, not believing what was happening.

The elevator wasn’t moving up. Or down. It was moving
sideways.

The elevator rumbled and shook. I grabbed the wooden railing on the side.
Gears clanked noisily. The floor vibrated beneath my shoes.

We stared at each other, realizing what was happening. Neither of us spoke.

Ben finally broke the silence. “This is impossible,” he murmured. His words
came out in a choked whisper.

“Where is it taking us?” I asked softly, gripping the rail so hard that my
hands hurt.

“It’s impossible!” Ben repeated. “It can’t be happening. Elevators only go up
and—”

The car jolted hard as we came to a very sudden stop.

“Whoooa!” I let out a cry as my shoulder slammed into the elevator wall.

“Next time, we’re taking the stairs,” Ben growled.

The doors slid open.

We peered out. Into total blackness.

“Are we in the basement?” Ben asked, sticking his head out the door.

“We didn’t go down,” I replied. A shiver ran down the back of my neck. “We
didn’t go up or down. So…”

“We’re still on the first floor.” Ben finished my sentence for me. “But why
is it so dark here? I can’t believe this is happening!”

We stepped out of the elevator.

I waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. But they couldn’t adjust. It
was too dark.

“There must be a light switch,” I said. I ran my hand along the wall. I could
feel the outline of tiles. But no light switch.

I swept both hands up and down the wall. No. No light switch.

“Let’s get out of here,” Ben urged. “We don’t want to get trapped here. We
can’t see a thing.”

I was still searching for the light. “Okay,” I agreed. I lowered my hand and
started back to the elevator.

I heard the doors slide shut.

“No!” I let out a sharp cry.

Ben and I banged on the elevator doors. Then I felt along the wall for the
button to open the doors.

Panicked, my hand trembled. I swept my open palm all along the wall on both
sides of the closed doors.

No button. No elevator button.

I turned and leaned my back against the wall. I was suddenly breathing hard. My heart pounded.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” Ben muttered.

“Would you
please
stop saying that!” I demanded. “It
is
happening. We’re here. We don’t know where. But we’re here.”

“But if we can’t call the elevator, how do we get out of here?” Ben whined.

“We’ll find our way,” I told him. I took a deep breath and held it. I decided
I had to be the calm one since he was being so whiny and scared.

I listened hard. “I can’t hear any music or voices or anything. We must be
far away from the gym.”

“Well… what do we do?” Ben cried. “We can’t just stand here!”

My mind whirred. I squinted into the darkness, hoping to make out the shape
of a door or a window.
Anything!

But the blackness that surrounded us was darker than the sky on a starless
night.

I pressed my back against the cool tile wall. “I know,” I said. “We’ll keep
against the wall.”

“And?” Ben whispered. “And we’ll do
what
?”

“We’ll move along the wall,” I continued. “We’ll move along the wall until we
come to a door. A door to a room with a light. Then maybe we’ll be able to
figure out where we are.”

“Maybe,” Ben replied. He didn’t sound hopeful.

“Stick close behind me,” I instructed him.

He bumped up against me.

“Not
that
close!” I said.

“I couldn’t help it. I can’t see!” he cried.

Moving slowly—very slowly—we started walking. I kept my right hand on the
wall, sliding it along the tiles as we walked.

We’d only taken a few steps when I heard a sound behind me. A cough.

I stopped and turned around. “Ben—was that you?”

“Huh?” He bumped into me again.

“Did you cough?” I asked softly.

“No,” he replied.

I heard another cough. Then a loud whisper.

“Uh… Ben…” I said, grabbing his shoulder. “Guess what? We’re not
alone.”

We both gasped as the lights came on. Dim and gray at first.

I blinked several times and waited for the light to brighten.