Ghost Invasion (3 page)

When Kate asked how many people had seen the ghosts, Bettina said, “I don’t want to go home today. And I wouldn’t have to if I didn’t have such geeky parents. It’s all their fault.”

And when Aurora asked her if she had ever seen the Addie ghost herself, she said only, “It’s my father’s fault, mostly. He’s the one who hates the Andersons. I’d get to come to California a lot more if it weren’t for him.”

Kate and Aurora raised their eyebrows at each other. Even though Bettina answered only questions nobody had actually asked, her answers were pretty interesting. For one thing, it was the first time they’d ever heard about anybody hating the Andersons. Most of the people at Castle Court thought the Andersons were great.

When they were almost to the house Bettina yelled good-bye and started running. Kate and Aurora gave up then and went home. The next day Kate called Aurora as soon as she got home from school.

“Hey,” she said when Aurora answered the phone. “Can you go? Can you go to the barn right now?”

At school that day she and Aurora had decided to go back to the barn at least once before Halloween to see if it seemed different—now that they knew about Addie and the bandit boyfriend. They’d even decided to go back that same afternoon if they could. But when Aurora came to the phone she said she couldn’t go unless they went right away.

“Nick and Diane are going out tonight,” she said. (The Pappas kids always called their parents by their first names.) “They’re leaving about five-thirty and I have to be home then to baby-sit Athena. I can go if we can get back before five-thirty.”

That was a problem because Kate’s mother wasn’t going to be home until after five, and Kate had promised to keep an eye on Carson until then.

“Can’t Carson look out for himself for a little while?” Aurora asked.

“Yeah, you’d think so, wouldn’t you?” Kate said bitterly. “I mean, he’s almost eight years old. But you know Carson. He’s weird. The last time he got left home alone Slinky got loose and almost ate Fifi.”

“How about Tiffany, then? Couldn’t she watch Carson for once?”

“No,” Kate said. “Tiffany’s not home either. In fact, that’s where Mom is. She had to take old Tiffany to a stupid baton-twirling competition.”

“Well,” Aurora said, “why don’t we just take Carson with us, then?”

“To the haunted barn?” Kate was amazed.

“Why not?” Aurora said. “He wouldn’t tell anyone, would he?”

“Hey,” Kate said after she’d thought it over for a minute. “You’re right. He probably wouldn’t.” That was one thing you could say for Carson, all right. He was certainly no blabbermouth. In fact, Carson rarely talked at all, except about bugs and snakes. “Yeah,” Kate said, “I guess we can just take old Carson along with us.”

But right at first Carson didn’t want to go.

“Why?” he asked.

“Because,” Kate said. “Because Aurora and I want to go to the barn and Mom said I have to keep an eye on you.”

“Why do you want to?”

“Why do we want to go there?” Kate didn’t think it would be a good idea to tell Carson too much about the ghosts. “Just because we do. We like it there.”

Carson frowned, which made his glasses slide down his pug nose. He pushed them up and said, “Why do
I
want to go?”

“Well.” Kate thought for a moment—and came up with a bright idea. “There are a lot of bugs and stuff there. Stuff like flies and termites and spiders. Lots of spiders.” She could see she was getting Carson’s attention so she went on. “And pigeons and bats and mice and—”

“Bats?” Carson asked.

“Sure. You can see them hanging down from the rafters at one end of the loft. I guess they fly away at night but during the day they’re usually just hanging around upside down.”

Carson nodded slowly and headed for his room. A minute later he came back wearing his jacket and carrying his biggest bug-collecting jar.

“Let’s go,” he said.

When they got to the barn that afternoon Kate took Carson all around and showed him all the stuff he’d be interested in. She took him through the stable area and showed him all the spiderwebs and sow bugs and termites. Then she and Aurora took him up the ladder to the loft and showed him the pigeons and bats up on the rafters and the mouse holes in the bales of straw. Then, after she’d pointed out the hay chutes and warned him not to fall down them, they left him in the loft while they went back down into the stables.

As always the stable was dark and quiet. Kate and Aurora walked up and down the two long aisles between the rows of stalls, peering over the stall doors and into all the storage rooms. Nothing moved in the dark shadows and, at first, Kate didn’t hear a sound except a few bumping noises from up in the loft, where Carson was probably prowling around looking for something to put in his collecting jar.

After Kate and Aurora had been up and down both aisles for the second time, Aurora led the way back to the big stall by the ladder.

“Let’s go inside,” she said.

“You mean right inside that stall?” Kate asked uneasily. “Right there where—where it happened?”

“Where what happened?” Aurora asked.

“You know. Where they—died. Like Bettina told us.”

“Oh that,” Aurora said. She lifted the latch and led the way into the stall.

“Well, okay,” Kate whispered. “If you can, I can.” She wasn’t going to let Aurora go into a haunted place all by herself. Biting her lip and getting her karate chop ready, she inched her way into the stall.

It seemed even darker inside the stall. Darker and chillier, as if a cold breath were oozing up out of the ground. Standing just inside the gate, Kate stared down at the dirty straw that covered the floor, then all around at the bare wooden walls. Bare, except for a rusty bucket hanging below a water spigot, and the remains of a gnawed and splintered manger. There was something about the place that was making her feel more and more uneasy. The stillness, perhaps. A quiet that was heavy and deep and endless. Except for … except for the
voices
.

“Aurora,” Kate gasped. She grabbed Aurora’s arm and shook her. “I hear them. I hear Addie and the bandit.”

A
URORA HAD BEEN STANDING
perfectly still, her face dreamy and distant, but when Kate grabbed her arm she quickly came back to earth.

“Don’t you hear them?” Kate was saying. “Voices. Two voices.”

Pushing her hair away from her ears with both hands, Aurora tipped her head to one side and listened. After a moment she smiled and nodded. “Carson,” she said. “It’s just Carson.”

“But it can’t be just Carson. I heard two different voices. I know I did.”

Aurora shook her head. “I’m not sure,” she said. “Let’s go see.”

The moment Kate got to the top of the ladder Carson came running toward her across the floor of the loft. His big round eyes, behind his thick glasses, were stretched wide with excitement.

Kate grabbed him. “What is it?” she demanded. “What did you see?”

“Bats,” Carson said. “Lots of bats. I want one. I want a bat for my collection.”

Kate snorted. That was Carson for you. Just plain weird. Here he was right in the middle of a ghostly conversation and all he could think about was adding to his disgusting collection.

“But the voices?” Kate said. “We heard voices. We heard people talking.”

Carson seemed to freeze. He stared at Kate, and behind his thick glasses his round eyes went as flat and blank as two fried eggs. Blue fried eggs. “That was me,” he said in a high, squeaky voice. “That was just me.”

“But we heard two different voices,” Aurora said. “Who were you talking to?”

Carson blinked his fried-egg eyes solemnly. “The bats?” he said finally, making it sound like a question. “I was talking to the bats?”

Kate knew what the question was. The question was “Are they going to fall for this one?” She sighed. “That does it,” she said. “I should have known better than to bring this little creep along.” She grabbed Carson’s arm and pulled him toward the ladder.

“He’s ruined everything,” Kate told Aurora a few minutes later as they pushed the heavy barn door shut behind them. “We’ll just have to forget it and go on home. For now at least.”

“Yes,” Aurora said. “There’s no use staying any longer right now. Too many people around. Next time we come we’ll have to be more careful to come alone.”

Kate stared at Aurora in surprise. “Well, it was your idea,” she said. “I mean, who said it would be all right to bring this little dweeb? You did, didn’t you?”

Aurora nodded. “Yes,” she said. “I said to bring Carson.” She smiled at Kate. “Just Carson. I didn’t think anyone else would be here.”

“What do you mean—” Kate started to ask, but just at that moment they reached the edge of the pine grove. And, of course, a ball game was going on across the fence in Prince Field.

“Shh,” Aurora said. “Get down. Don’t let them see us.” By the time they’d crept along beside the fence and then dodged from bush to bush and finally climbed out through the hedge, Kate had forgotten what she’d been about to ask.

A few minutes later Carson suddenly jerked his arm out of Kate’s grip and stopped walking. They were in front of the Wongs’ house at the time, on their way around the cul-de-sac.

“Come on, Carson,” Kate said, grabbing at him. “We have to get home.”

Carson dodged away, shaking his head. “No. I want to see Web. I have to see Web first.”

“Web? What for?” Kate asked. Web and Carson visited each other’s collections from time to time but they weren’t exactly friends.

“He wants to see me,” Carson said.

Kate laughed. “What makes you think Web wants to see you?”

Carson’s frown wrinkled his forehead and twitched his pug nose. “He does,” he said. “Somebody told me.”

Kate looked at her watch. “Well, all right. Just for a few minutes, though. I’ll wait for you at Aurora’s on the front lawn. You better hurry. We have to get back before Mom gets home.”

While they were waiting for Carson, Kate and Aurora talked about Addie and the bandit boyfriend and about how Bettina had said that the two ghosts came to the barn only on Halloween. That was a problem. It was going to take some careful planning to be there at the barn when the ghosts showed up.

“It’s not going to be easy,” Aurora said. “You heard what we’re all supposed to do on Halloween, didn’t you?”

Kate shrugged angrily. “I know. Wouldn’t you know our parents would have to mess everything up.”

What the Castle Court parents had done was to get together and plan a nice, safe, boring Halloween for all the kids who lived in the court. They’d decided to have all the kids go around trick-or-treating together. All of them. Teenagers too. And the teenagers were going to be in charge. Supposedly to see that nobody got kidnapped or poisoned, or any of the things parents worried about these days. And after they were finished trick-or-treating they were to come back and have a party at the Garcias’. And it actually seemed as if the teenagers were all for it. At least Kate’s sister, Tiffany, certainly was.

“Of course she’d be for it,” Kate said. “Because Rafe will be there. She’ll get to spend a whole evening with Rafe. Or at least close enough to look at him.”

Tiffany had had this mad crush on Rafe Garcia ever since she was in sixth grade. Even though Rafe, who was a high-school senior now and a big football star, never seemed to notice she was alive. And now she’d get to spend a whole evening more or less with him, or at least a part of the same mob scene. And it would be a mob. Counting the four teenagers, there were fifteen kids who lived in the Castle Court cul-de-sac.

“Can you imagine going around trick-or-treating with a weird bunch like that?” Kate snorted. “I mean, all the way from old glamour-boy Rafe to little old Athena.”

“Well,” Aurora said, smiling the dreamy-eyed smile that usually meant she was having a mysterious feeling, “maybe having so many people will help. I have a feeling that …”

“Yes,” Kate prompted her. “A feeling that what?”

“Maybe in a mob like that no one will notice when we”—she rolled her eyes meaningfully—“disappear.”

“Yeah,” Kate said. “I see what you mean. Maybe you’re right.” Actually, now that she thought about it, she was certain Aurora was right. She almost always was when she got mysterious feelings. Kate was still thinking about Aurora’s mysterious feelings when she looked up and saw her mother’s car turning in to Castle Court. They’d been so busy talking about Halloween she’d forgotten to keep track of the time. “Hey,” she said, jumping to her feet. “There’s Mom. I’ve got to get Carson.”

“I’ll go with you,” Aurora said.

When they finally found Carson he was in the Wongs’ backyard with Web and they were doing something with a big blob of black plastic. Kate didn’t wait for an explanation. Grabbing Carson by the arm, she headed for home.

“Wait,” Carson kept saying. “I’m talking to Web. I’ve got to talk to Web some more.”

But Kate was too angry to listen. “You promised to just be a minute,” she said, “and now we’re in trouble. I told Mom we’d stay home.”

As he stumbled along behind her, Carson kept muttering something about “helping Web” and “Web helping me” and some more stuff about bats and balloons—of all things. “Bats and balloons,” Kate repeated. “That’s old Carson for you. Batty and loony.”

But as soon as they got to their own front door Carson quit saying anything, and that was the last Kate heard about bats and balloons.

T
HAT DAY, AFTER KATE
and Aurora and Carson left the barn, Ari waited for several minutes before he climbed out of his observation post in the hay chute. Carefully. He wasn’t going to risk another painful slide into the wheelbarrow. It wasn’t until he was back in the loft sitting comfortably on a hay bale that he took his notebook out of his fanny pack and began flipping through it. The last long story he’d written was all about Bettina and how she’d suddenly appeared in the loft and all the exciting stuff she’d told Kate and Aurora about the ghosts. The last few lines that he’d written were:

And so
—
will Kate and Aurora be in the haunted barn on Halloween night? This reporter thinks so. Don’t forget to read the next issue of
Aristotle’s Journal
to find out.