Ghost Invasion (8 page)

“I know. They weren’t dressed like that before,” Aurora agreed. “But I’m pretty sure they are now. The big one—you know—the one with all the bloody bones? The one that said ‘Ghost’? I’m pretty sure that was Bucky Brockhurst.”

“How do you know?” Kate asked.

“I don’t know. I guess it must have sounded like him.”

They stared at each other for several seconds before Kate said, “Those crummy PROs. What were they doing out here? I thought they went off trick-or-treating with the rest of the Castle Court kids.”

Aurora nodded. “I thought so too.” She thought for a moment. “Why do you suppose Bucky said ‘Ghost’?”

“Yeah. I was wondering that too.”

They both turned then, toward the barn. “Ghost?” Kate whispered again and Aurora nodded. Then they both started walking swiftly toward the barn.

In the first passageway it was even darker than usual. Kate took out her flashlight and turned it on. “Okay?” she whispered. Aurora nodded.

As they approached the big stall across from the ladder, Kate found herself tiptoeing and holding her breath. They were almost there, the tiny spot of light was shining on the stall door, when they both stopped in midstep.

“Voices,” Aurora breathed.

Kate nodded. She had heard them too.

“In the loft,” Aurora said. “Someone’s in the loft.” They both turned toward the ladder.

“I’ll go first,” Kate said, but Aurora was already on her way up.

It was dark everywhere now, even in the loft. Almost as dark as down below. At first Kate could see nothing. She moved the narrow beam of her flashlight from side to side, watching the spot of light moving across familiar wooden walls and bales of straw.

But then suddenly she heard Aurora say something. What she said was “Ari?”

Kate brought the beam of her flashlight back to Aurora’s face and then followed her wide-eyed stare to where … to where it was shining on two small figures standing side by side in the middle of the loft—a small caveman and an even smaller astronaut.

“Ari?” Aurora said again. “What are you doing here?”

“Aurora.” Ari sounded a little bit frantic, but also relieved. “Come on, Web. It’s just my sister.”

As the two of them came toward Kate and Aurora, Kate shone her light on their faces. They looked nervous—twitchy-faced and jumpy.

“Was that you?” Ari asked. “Just a minute ago. Was all that noise just the two of you?”

“What noise?” Aurora asked.

“Running,” Ari said. “Running and shouting and a lot of bangs and thuds. Like somebody falling down the ladder. We heard all this noise coming from up here. It sounded like a lot of people, but when we got here we didn’t see anything. All we heard were footsteps—running away.”

Kate chuckled. “That,” she said, “was probably the PROs. We saw them just before we got here, and they were running, all right. Boy! Were they ever running.”

“Yes,” Aurora said. “I wonder what scared them. Do you know what scared them, Ari?”

“Well,” Ari said. “Hmmm. Well, I guess …” He paused and started over again. “Well, it might have been …”

While Ari was deciding what not to say, Kate had gone back to flashing her light around the loft. Across the bales of straw and up to where the pigeons were making their usual evening noises. The beam moved on across the ceiling, but all of a sudden it stopped and came back. Back to where …

“Carson!” Kate yelled. “You come down from there. This very minute.”

W
HEN KATE YELLED FOR
Carson to come down, the ghostly figure jerked, kicked, and twisted. And then Carson’s funny, squeaky voice floated down from way up above their heads. “I can’t!” he yelled. “I can’t find the button.”

“The button?” Kate yelled back. “What are you talking about? What button?” She turned to Ari and Web and her voice sounded super-angry.

Grabbing Web, Ari pulled him back out of reach of a karate chop. “Tell her, Web,” he said hastily. “Tell her about the escape button.”

“I made it special,” Web said quickly. “All you have to do is push it a little and the helium is released. You know. From the balloon. It’s released very slowly, so you just float down to earth.”

“Balloon?” Kate said. “What balloon?” She shone the beam of her flashlight up again to where the ghostly white figure seemed to be hanging in open space. And then on up to where, even in the direct beam of the flashlight, it was just barely possible to see a shiny black blob a couple of feet above the ghostly Carson’s head.

“There. That black plastic thing,” Web said. “It’s a weather balloon. It’s full of helium.”

Kate grabbed Web by the shoulder. “Look,” she said. “What do you think you’re doing? Using Carson for one of your crazy experiments. I ought to—”

“It wasn’t my idea,” Web said quickly. “All I asked Carson was if he wanted to help me with my atmospheric studies. It was his idea to use the balloon for bat catching.” Web squirmed in Kate’s grasp and tried to look up to where Carson was still twisting and kicking beneath the black balloon. “Tell her, Carson,” Web called. “Tell her it was your idea.”

Suddenly Kate began to get it.
Bat catching.
Yeah, she should have guessed. She should have remembered how Carson had freaked out the day she and Aurora took him to the barn. He’d gotten the same look in his eyes that he’d had when he’d first seen Slinky in the pet shop. So it really wasn’t entirely Web’s fault. She knew from experience that arguing with Carson when he got that look in his eyes was about as useful as trying to argue a bone away from a pit bull.

“Okay,” she said. She turned loose of Web’s shoulder and lowered her karate-chopping hand. “So it was Carson’s idea. But it’s your balloon. You got him up there so you get him down. And I mean
right now
!”

Just at that moment Aurora gasped—and then giggled.

“What?” Kate said. “What’s funny?”

“That’s why they were running,” Aurora said. “The PROs. I’ll bet they saw Carson floating up there and—”

Ari started to laugh too. “Yeah,” he said between snickers. “And it must have been them we heard yelling and falling down the ladder. They must have been up here in the loft when Carson came floating up the hay chute and—”

“The hay chute?” Aurora asked.

“Yes. Not this one. That one over there. Web and I were going to launch Carson from up here in the loft, but we couldn’t get the helium tank up the ladder. So then I thought of inflating the balloon down there in the stable and letting Carson float right on up the chute. It worked great too. Didn’t it, Web?”

Ari stopped and thought for a minute and then chuckled. “The PROs must have seen him come floating up out of the chute and—”

They all cracked up then, even Kate. And when Aurora told how Bucky had pointed back over his shoulder and gasped, “Ghost!” they broke up all over again. Kate laughed as hard as anybody, but after a minute she stopped and said, “Yeah. And now all we have to do is find a way to get him back down. Preferably in one piece.”

For a minute they all stood looking up to where Carson was still twisting and squirming in the beam of Kate’s flashlight.

“Come on, you guys,” Kate said. “You better put your heads together and come up with something. And I mean fast!”

So they tried. Standing around in a circle, they all scratched their heads and chewed on their fingernails, but for several minutes no one had anything to say. At last Web said, “My dad has this really tall painter’s ladder in our garage. Maybe we could bring it over here and climb up and—”

“Sure,” Kate said. “It would be morning by that time. And what are you going to tell your dad when he hears us opening your garage door?”

Web shrugged and nodded. “Yeah. You’re right, I guess.”

Then Ari had an idea. “Hey,” he said. “I could go to the Brockhursts’ and ask Bucky for …” He stopped and considered and went on, “I could go find Athena”—Athena was the only Castle Court kid whom Bucky had never slugged—“and get
her
to go to the Brockhursts’ and ask Bucky for his BB gun. And then I could bring it back here and shoot—”

“And shoot Carson?” Kate finished for him. “Because that’s what you’d probably do. No thanks, Pappas. Any other good ideas? Because I’m about to run out of patience.”

Just then there was a soft thud only a few feet away. As they all whirled around, Kate’s flashlight beam shone right on a short white ghost. It was Carson, back on the loft floor, safe and sound, still wearing his ghost costume and clutching his butterfly net.

“I found the button,” he said. “Can we do it again? I didn’t catch anything.”

W
HEN CARSON SAID, “CAN
we do it again?” Kate grabbed him by the back of his sheet and began to shove him across the loft floor, trailing leather straps and the big black balloon behind them. “You’re going right home, Carson Nicely. Right this minute.”

“Hey, wait a second,” Web said. “I want my balloon back.”

“Well, come and get it, then,” Kate said, and she stopped long enough for Web to unbuckle the leather straps. But when Web said, “Carson promised to help me. Can’t he help me get my helium tank home?” Kate only grabbed Carson again and pushed him toward the ladder.

“Not a chance,” she said over her shoulder. “This kid is through with helium forever. I mean, he is a
reformed
helium user.”

“I’ll help you, Web,” Ari said. “We got it over here by ourselves. We can get it back.”

So Web followed Kate and Carson down the ladder and Ari followed Web. Aurora came last.

Ari and Web disappeared into the second row of stalls and Kate was pushing Carson out through the barn door when she suddenly realized that Aurora wasn’t right behind her. Pulling Carson to a stop, she went back into the barn and shone her flashlight all around the dark passageway—but still ho Aurora.

“You stay here,” she told Carson. “I’m going back to get Aurora. I’ll be right back.”

“Where is Aurora?” Carson asked.

“I don’t know,” Kate said, but she really did. At least she had a pretty good idea.

Sure enough, there Aurora was, standing on tiptoe peering over the door of the big box stall. When the beam of the flashlight found her she turned to face Kate.

“I’m coming,” she said, and then turned quickly back toward the dark stall.

“Good-bye,” Kate heard her whisper. “Goodbye, Liza.”

Turn the page to continue reading from the Castle Court Kids series

K
ATE NICELY CHECKED HER
watch for the umpteenth time and then twisted around to look out the back window of the car. And for the umpteenth time Fifi had to look too. Standing on her skimpy hind legs, she shoved a face full of apricot-colored fuzz under Kate’s nose and yipped mournfully. “Cool it, you dumb poodle” Kate told her. “Whining isn’t going to help.”

Kate looked at her watch again and frowned—a fierce Karate Kate scowl. She was getting more frustrated by the minute, and having a frantic poodle whining in her ear wasn’t helping any either. Fifi always hated it when Kate’s mom went off and left her in the car, but this time she seemed more hysterical than usual. And, to make matters worse, Carson, Kate’s eight-year-old worrywart of a brother, had been slightly hysterical too—at least until a few minutes ago.

“Where’s Mom, Kate? Where’s Tiffany?” Carson kept saying. “I bet the terrorists got them.” (Carson had been worrying a lot about terrorists lately.) “Do you think the terrorists got them? Do you, Kate?”

But then, all at once—silence. Carson was like that. He could be right in the middle of a major anxiety attack and suddenly—
clunk!
Sound asleep.

Kate leaned over to check and, sure enough, he was still conked out in the front seat. She checked the time again and snorted. Then, in a very refined, adult-sounding voice, she said, “We just have to pick up Tiffy’s new skirt, dear. Would you mind staying in the car to keep an eye on Carson and Fifi? We’ll be back in ten minutes.” And then in her own voice she added, “Gimme a break, Mom!”

Gimme a break, for sure! How could anybody in their right mind believe that it was possible to take a teenager like Tiffany Nicely into a clothing store and be out again in ten minutes?

Putting her hand on the door handle, Kate considered—also for the umpteenth time—going into Macy’s to look for them. She’d have gone a long time ago, except that would have meant leaving Fifi and Carson alone in the car. And a public parking lot didn’t seem like a particularly good place to leave a hysterical poodle and an unconscious kid. Peeking over the front seat again, Kate nodded. Yep.
Unconscious
was the only word for it. She sighed and sank back on the seat.

Fifi was pawing at the window now and her yips were getting louder. In desperation Kate grabbed the poodle around the middle, flipped her over, and began to scratch her stomach. Stomach scratching usually took Fin’s so-called mind off her problems, at least for a while. It worked. Fifi’s lips pulled back in a doggy grin and one hind foot began to twitch. Kate sighed. Long-term scratching could get pretty boring, but anything was better than long-term yipping. So Kate went on scratching—and Fifi went on twitching.

Several more minutes had passed when, so suddenly that it scared Kate half to death, the peacefully twitching poodle exploded into a yapping tornado, ricocheting joyfully from one side of the car to the other. And sure enough, there they were, the long-lost Nicelys—Mom and Tiffany.