Boys Rock! (7 page)

“Well, we
won’t
unless we have to,” said Jake. “What
did you
say?”

“I just said that was our ace in the hole.”

“Arrrrrgggghhhh!” cried Jake. “Peter, we’re trying for once to get along with the Malloys because we need to get this newspaper out. That’ll just make them mad! We should never have let you out of the house.”

“We should never have let you be part of the newspaper,” added Josh.

Peter was on the verge of tears. “Well, I’m
not
a part of the newspaper!” he said. “You didn’t give me anything to do.”

Wally felt sorry for his brother. It was
Wally’s
fault that Peter had been left behind, and that Caroline had taken him up to the house.

“It’s okay, Peter,” he said. “I’m going to make you my assistant, as long as you don’t go back to the Malloys’ till after the newspaper comes out.”

“Okay,” said Peter. “So what’s my job?”

“You’re the ADM—assistant distribution manager,” said Wally.

Peter was happy.

The following day Josh himself turned in his cartoon, and Wally took Peter with him to Oldakers’
Bookstore. He didn’t tell Peter why he was going, though. He said they were going to look at comic books, but Wally wondered whether he would hear the thumps and scrapes and scratchings coming from the cellar, as he had before. And, if he did, whether he could figure out what they were. And whether Mike Oldaker could tell him now what it was all about.

“How are you doing, Wally?” Mike asked when the two boys walked through the door.

“Okay,” said Wally, alert for the slightest noise coming from below.

There was a story hour going on for younger children, however, and they were all hooting and laughing at the tale, which made softer sounds impossible to hear. While Peter went over to listen to the story, Wally moved slowly down the aisles, looking through books on survival and adventure.

Mike must have known that Wally particularly liked nonfiction. “We’ve got a new book in on early natives of North America, Wally,” he said. “And another one, on the top shelf there, on whales. Both of them are good.”

Well, maybe, thought Wally. But what about a book on
ghosts
of North America? That would be more like it. What about a story of the haunted bookstores of West Virginia? About owners who kept bones beneath the floorboards?

“By the way,” Mike went on. “Two other boys from your school were in here yesterday. They said they’re going to put out a newspaper too. Calling it the
Old
Times Tribune
. Just thought you’d like to know you’ve got some competition. Haven’t heard of anyone else doing a paper, though.”

“Are you going to keep a stack of their papers here too?” Wally asked.

“Sure. Why not? As long as they do a good job.” Then Mike winked. “Don’t worry,” he said in a low voice. “Your paper will still get the scoop when it’s time.”

But when would it be time? Wally wanted to ask.

Story hour was over, and the noisy children were spreading out all over the store. Peter came looking for Wally, and they browsed through the comic books, hunting for Peter’s favorites.

When most of the other children had left and the bookstore was quiet again, Wally listened, and sure enough, he heard a faint scratching and clawing from below.

He looked at Peter to see whether he had noticed. Peter had his nose buried in a book.

I know something else is down there, and it’s not just bones
, Wally told himself as they left the store and started for home. What if Mike was just feeding
him
a story—making him think that he’d tell Wally the secret when the time was right, and it turned out that the time would never be right? That he’d never planned to give their newspaper, or any other newspaper, “the scoop”? That when the secret
did get
out, it would be horrible, and it would also be too late?

Wally didn’t tell his brothers this, of course. He had
a different sort of news for them. “There’s another history newspaper now called the
Old Times Tribune
” he said. “Two guys from our school, Mike said.”

Jake thought it over. “Well, it’s no skin off our nose,” he said. “There could be a dozen newspapers for all we care. We just have to make sure ours is the best.”

“Why?” asked Wally

“Why?
Because
!” said Jake, as though that were the answer. With Jake, everything had to be a contest. There had to be a winner. And the only possible winner, as far as Jake was concerned, was Jake Hatford.

Wally wanted to tell him not to worry, because they were going to get a big scoop. They were going to get a story that not even the
Buckman Bugle
would report first. But he couldn’t say a word. About Mike Oldaker. About the scratching and clawing. About the bones in the cellar. Not a word.

Ten
Ghostly Gray

I
found one!”

Beth jumped off the bike, dropped it on the grass, and ran over to where Caroline and Eddie were taking turns on the rope swing. The large beech tree in the front yard provided a cool resting place between turns.

“One what?” asked Eddie.

“An old haunted house for my story!” said Beth. “Come and see. It’s just on the other side of the business district.”

Beth had been disappointed in her search for a haunted house. Everyone she had talked to seemed to know of some place that was haunted, but none of those places looked spooky enough, Beth had told her sisters. What was spooky about a bank building, a bookstore, a library, a small brick house? All it took, it seemed, for a place to be called haunted was for someone
to die there at one time or another. That hardly made it haunted. But now she’d found one.

“It’s too hot to look at houses now, Beth, and it’s getting hotter,” said Eddie. “Wait till the sun goes down. We’ll walk over after dinner.”

“All right. I’m taking my camera, too. I’d love to get a really spooky picture. Will you put it on the front page?”

“Depends,” said Eddie. “I want to read your story first. Did someone tell you a story about a ghost in that house or something?”

“No, but I’m working on it,” said Beth.

“Well, make sure the house is
old
. This is supposed to be a newspaper about houses that are
historical
, not
haunted
. But of course, if they could be both …”

The girls went over to sit on the porch steps.

“Let’s figure out what we have for the newspaper so far,” Eddie continued. “I’m doing a story on the swinging bridges of Buckman; you’re doing old houses, Beth; Caroline’s doing the Bessie-Tessie Crane story; Jake’s writing up an old college football game; and Josh is doing a cartoon about what Buckman was like before air-conditioning. We’re going to need more, you know, if we expect to fill up three issues.”

“I know!” said Caroline. “I could do a story on the first theater in Buckman, and then tell how a future actress is living here right this very minute!”

“You, of course. Yeah, right,” said Eddie.

“Really, Eddie! I could do a good job with it! We could tie in past and present and future, all in the same
article!” Sometimes Caroline was so precocious she surprised even herself.

“Well, go ahead and write it, Caroline, but I won’t promise to print it. Let’s see how it turns out.”

“Eddie!” Mrs. Malloy called from inside. “Jake’s on the phone.”

The girls scrambled up and went indoors. All three listened in.

“Just thought you’d like to know we’ve got some competition,” Jake said. “Wally was at the bookstore and found out that some other guys are doing a newspaper. They’re calling it the
Old Times Tribune
.”

“So?” said Eddie. “Maybe everybody in the whole class will do newspapers. What do we care?”

Caroline and Beth grinned at each other. The reason Jake cared was that everything he did had to be a contest.

“Listen,” Eddie went on. “Forget the other newspaper. I read your write-up of the football game, and it’s pretty good. You guys want to go with us to see a haunted house after dinner? Beth’s doing a story on old houses of Buckman and she thinks she’s found one that’s haunted.”

“How would you know whether it’s haunted or not?” Jake asked.

“I don’t know. I guess that’s up to Beth. You want to go or not?”

“Yeah, we’ll go.”

“Meet us at the drugstore at eight,” Eddie said.

Caroline had found a picture of the actress Shirley Temple. She had dimples and very curly hair, and she was wearing a necklace of tiny stones. Caroline put on a necklace, unfastened her ponytail, and tried to twist her long hair into curls. She stuck a finger in each cheek to see how she would look with dimples. She didn’t look much like Shirley.

“Caroline, are you coming or not?” Beth called from the front hall.

The haunted house!
Caroline put down her brush and clattered downstairs. She wasn’t trying to
look
like Shirley Temple, exactly. She was just trying to figure out what helped make an aura. Dimples didn’t seem to help.

“So what are you all fixed up for?” Eddie asked, noticing Caroline’s attempt at curls. “Trying to make yourself look good for
Walll-ly
?”

“Bleagh!” said Caroline, pretending to throw up.

“Josh? Jake?” Eddie teased. “Or is it
Peter?
”

“A
house
won’t care how you look, Caroline,” said Beth.

“None of the above,” said Caroline. “I was just trying on a new look.”

At eight o’clock, the three girls walked up the sidewalk to the drugstore, where the four boys were waiting. Peter was leaping over cracks in the sidewalk, first one way, then the other. From a distance he looked like a jumping frog.

“Wally said I could come too,” Peter told them. “I’m his assistant.”

“Good for you,” said Eddie.

It seemed strange to be going somewhere with the Hatfords, Caroline thought as they all crowded onto the sidewalk and started toward the other end of town.

“The house is perfect!” Beth was saying. “It looks spooky even in the morning in the bright sun.”

“So how do you know it’s haunted?” asked Wally

“I’ve talked with the family next door,” said Beth. “They don’t know who the house belongs to. They’ve never seen anyone go in or out. It’s obviously abandoned, so it
might
be haunted.”

Caroline could understand her sister’s logic. When Beth got going, she had a wild imagination too, and if there wasn’t a story to go along with that house, she’d
make
one!

“Wow!” said Peter.

“The grass is unmowed, the windows are dirty! I’ve got fast film in my camera, and hope I can get a good picture,” Beth said. “It sure looks a lot more haunted than some of the other stuff people told me about.”

“
What
other stuff?” asked Wally.

“The library, the bank building, the bookstore …,” said Beth.

“The
bookstore
?” Wally said, turning in her direction.

“Don’t get your pants in an uproar,” said Beth. “Some people think that almost anything over fifty years old around here is haunted.”

“But how do you know it’s really old?” asked Eddie.