The Halloween Hoax (6 page)

“What if he goes farther than our five-block rule?” Bess whispered.

“Then we're out of luck,” replied Nancy.

The Clue Crew followed quietly. But when one of George's tin cans
clanged against a fence, the man whirled around. Nancy, Bess, and George froze in their tracks.

“Um . . . trick-or-treat!” George blurted.

The man smiled. He reached into his pocket, pulled something out, and tossed it at the girls. George reached out her hand and caught it.

“Have a groovy Halloween, kids!” the man said. He gave a little wave and kept on walking.

“What is it?” Nancy asked George.

George opened her hand and gulped.

It was a pack of Baxter's Licorice Gum!

“He
is
Dr. Funk-n-Stine!” Bess gasped.

“Come on,” Nancy said. “Let's not lose him.”

George dropped the pack of gum in her bag. Then the girls trailed after Dr. Funk-n-Stine.

“He's heading toward River Street,” Bess said. “Maybe he's going to haunt the TV station again.”

Dr. Funk-n-Stine stopped suddenly. The girls stopped too. They watched quietly as he opened a gate and walked into a front yard.

Nancy, Bess, and George took a few steps
forward for a closer look. The yard was overgrown with weeds and dotted with tombstones. Nancy saw a sign post but couldn't make out the words because they were covered with vines. Behind the sign was a house that looked even creepier than Dr. Funk-n-Stine's. Its windows were dirty and broken. A notice on the door read ENTER IF YOU DARE!

The door of the house opened. A green-faced ghoul wearing a black cape and hood stepped out. He smiled at Dr. Funk-n-Stine as he walked up the path.

“Happy Halloween, Artie,” said the ghoul.

“Thanks, Elliot,” Dr. Funk-n-Stine said back. He gave the ghoul a little wave as he entered the house.

Nancy was puzzled. Whose house was this?

“Look!” Bess said. She pointed to their classmate Kevin walking toward the house. Kevin was dressed as a pirate and held his mother's hand. “Kevin and his mom are going inside. What kind of a house could it be?”

The ghoul turned toward the sidewalk. He grinned at the girls with rotten teeth and said, “Come in. We've been
dying
to meet you!”

“Um, no thanks,” Bess squeaked. “We've got enough candy for tonight.”

The girls were about to run when they heard a scream.

A flurry of goose bumps raced up Nancy's arms and legs. She'd know that scream anywhere.

“Nadine Nardo! She's in that house and she's in trouble!”

“We have to help her,” George said.

“What about our rules?” Bess asked. “We don't know anyone in that creepy house.”

“We know Kevin and his mom,” Nancy reminded her.

Another scream.

“We know Nadine, too,” George said. “Let's go!”

The girls ran past the ghoul into the house.

“I knew you'd change your mind,” the ghoul said. “Have a frightfully good time.”

The girls followed the scream down a long dark hallway. As they swatted cobwebs aside, they didn't see Nadine or Kevin and his mom. But they did see skeletons and bats bouncing up and down from the ceiling, and portraits of people in old-fashioned clothes hanging on the wall.

Nancy glanced at a portrait of a man wearing a top hat. Suddenly the man reached up, tipped his hat, and said, “Happy Halloween!”

A grandfather clock gonged as they raced past it. A vampire popped out from behind the clock. He bared his fangs and growled, “Must be time for a snack!”

The hall led straight into a big room. The room was dark, but Nancy could see a suit of armor in the middle and a door in each of the walls.

“Nadine might be in one of those rooms,” Nancy said, her heart racing.

The girls inched toward the nearest door. It creaked as Nancy pulled it open. As they
looked inside they gasped. Inside the velvet-draped room were monsters popping spiders and worms into their mouths!

“You're just in time for dinner!” one roared. “I hope you like meatballs and earthworms!”

Nancy slammed the door. “No Nadine in there,” she said nervously. “Thank goodness.”

The girls heard music behind the next door. George pulled it open and they peered inside. A werewolf smiled at them from behind a piano. His hairy fingers flew across the keys as he sang, “Bluuuue Moooon!”

George slammed the door shut. “This place is too weird,” she said with a shudder. “Where is Nadine, anyway?”

“Maybe Dr. Funk-n-Stine has her!” Bess cried. “Maybe he's doing some weird experiments on her in a laboratory!”

“But where
is
Dr. Funk-n-Stine?” Nancy asked.

CREEEEAK!
The girls spun around. The suit of armor's arm clanked as it pointed to one more door.

“Th-th-thanks!” Nancy stammered.

A white mist floated out from beneath the door. Bess pulled the door open. The mist
swirled around their feet as they walked inside.

“Where are we?” asked Bess.

Nancy held her breath as she looked around. They were in another laboratory. This one had stone walls and all kinds of machines crackling with electricity. On a shelf stood glass jars filled with stuff that looked like brains. A raven sat perched inside a cage squawking, “Nevermore. Nevermore. Nevermore.”

“What's that for?” Bess asked. She pointed to a long table in the middle of the room. Next to it was a lever.

“That reminds me of a movie I saw,” said George.

“What movie?” Nancy asked.

“
Frankenstein
,” George replied. “It was about a mad scientist who built a monster right in his lab!”

George hopped up on the table. She lay down flat.

“George!” Nancy said. “Don't touch anything—”

“The monster was dead at first,” George said.
“But then Dr. Frankenstein pulled a lever. And the table rose all the way to the ceiling.”

“You mean like this?” Bess asked. She grabbed the lever and pulled it all the way back.

The table and George began to rise.

“Not funny, Bess!” George called down. “You can stop this thing now.”

The table rose higher and higher—too high for George to jump. Bess gripped the lever with all her might.

“I can't stop it!” Bess cried. “It's stuck!”

Write Away

Nancy and Bess both grabbed the lever and pulled hard. But it was no use. The lever didn't budge!

“Get me down!” George shouted.

Suddenly another pair of hands grabbed the lever. Nancy spun around. It was Dr. Funk-n-Stine!

Nancy and Bess stepped aside as Dr. Funk-n-Stine pulled the lever back. The table began to drop slowly.

“Sorry,” George said, hopping off the table.

“It's not your fault,” Dr. Funk-n-Stine said. “If my boss found out I left this room, I'd be toast!”

“Ghost?” Bess gasped.

“Not ghost—toast!” Dr. Funk-n-Stine said. He unwrapped a piece of licorice gum and popped it into his mouth.

“Then you're not a ghost?” George asked.

“Nope,” Dr. Funk-n-Stine replied. “My career may be dead—but not me.”

“But your website said you went to the Great Beyond,” Nancy said.

“And I did!” Dr. Funk-n-Stine said with a smile. “Welcome to the Great Beyond Haunted Halloween House!” Then he leaned over and whispered, “And it's not really haunted.”

Nancy smiled. Dr. Funk-n-Stine had just answered a very important question. But she still had more.

“Why did Dudley's studio look like your Groovy Mad Lab?” Nancy asked. “Are you having a Halloween party?”

Dr. Funk-n-Stine shook his head. “The station decided to have a Dr. Funk-n-Stine reunion show,” he said. “I knew I'd be back someday.”

“Is that why we heard your music?” asked George.

“Probably,” Dr. Funk-n-Stine said. “I was trying out my old music tapes in the back.”

Nancy, Bess, and George traded smiles.

“So that's why all those old clothes were in that room,” Nancy said. “And why those test tubes fizzled over last Saturday.”

“What test tubes?” Dr. Funk-n-Stine asked. “I wasn't at the TV station last Saturday.”

Nancy stared at Dr. Funk-n-Stine. “You weren't?” she asked. “Then how . . . what . . . ?”

George grabbed Nancy's arm. “We'd better go,” she said. “We have to be home before it gets dark, remember?”

Bess twirled on her toe. “Can you guess what we're all dressed up as, Dr. Funk-n-Stine?” she asked.

“Sure!” Dr. Funk-n-Stine said. “I see a ballerina, a dragon, and . . . a recycling machine!”

George sighed. “I'm a robot.”

The girls thanked Dr. Funk-n-Stine for his help. Then they walked out of the lab and into the hall.

“So Dr. Funk-n-Stine isn't a ghost!” Bess declared.

The girls stopped short at the sound of a scream.

When Nancy whirled around, she saw Nadine running down the hall in her old-fashioned dress.

“Help!” Nadine shouted. “I've been bitten by a vampire!”

“Hi, Nadine,” said Nancy.

Nadine stopped running. “Oh . . . hi,” she said.

“What are you doing here?” George asked.

“I won a screaming contest at the mall last week,” Nadine answered. “The prize was a chance to work at the Great Beyond.”

“Why didn't you tell us?” Bess asked.

“I had to keep it a secret,” Nadine said with a shrug. “Or no one would be scared when they saw me.”

“We
were
scared, but not anymore,” Nancy
said. “Dr. Funk-n-Stine told us all about the Great Beyond.”

“It's not that great,” Nadine whispered. “Truth . . . I'd rather be trick-or-treating.”

Nancy, Bess, and George dodged dancing skeletons, falling cobwebs, and a zombie cheerleader as they made their way to the main door. They even ran into Kevin and his mom and some other classmates.

When they were finally outside, Bess sighed with relief. “Now we know Dr. Funk-n-Stine is not a ghost!” she said.

“But we still don't know why those beakers bubbled,” Nancy said. “Or who wrote the formula that disappeared. Or who messed up Dudley's experiments last Friday.”

“Maybe we'll never know,” George said. She knelt down to tie her sneaker lace. Suddenly her eyes widened.

“What's wrong?” said Bess.

“Do you remember that Dudley and Kirby both signed my sneaker?” George asked.

“Sure,” Nancy said.

George pointed to her right sneaker. “Dudley's autograph is still here,” she said. “But Kirby's autograph . . . has disappeared!”

Monster Bash!

Nancy looked to see where George was pointing. Sure enough, Kirby's autograph was no longer where he'd written it.

“It disappeared just like the science formula disappeared,” said George. “How did that happen?”