The Red Ghost (5 page)
Authors: Marion Dane Bauer
Quinn shook her head. She walked Shannon over to Barbie and sat her down at
the tiny doll’s side. “No,” she said. “She’s Shannon now. Hazel is gone.”
Jenna drew in her breath. She had never said anything to Quinn about Hazel. “Who told you that?” she asked. “About the girl? About Hazel?”
Now Quinn walked Raggedy Ann over to join the others. “Hazel did.” She said it in a voice that implied,
Of course!
or even,
Who do you think, dummy?
Jenna wanted to ask more questions. All kinds of questions. But she didn’t know where to begin. So she just stood there, watching Quinn play.
“She said, ‘Thank you,’” Quinn said finally.
What are you talking about
? Jenna
thought. But she asked, “Do you mean Hazel?” She said the name lightly. She tried to make it sound perfectly ordinary for little girls to get messages from other little girls who were long dead.
“Hazel,” Quinn agreed. “She wanted out. For a long, long time, she wanted out. So she said, ‘Thank you.’”
“Who was she thanking?” Jenna asked.
“You,” Quinn said. “Maybe Rocco, too. She was just happy. Happy to go, you know?”
Jenna nodded. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. Dallas was waiting for her. They were going to ride bikes this morning. But she had another question, just one more. She had to know.
“Where did Hazel go?” she asked.
“Away,” Quinn answered. She looked up from her dolls for the first time as she said it and smiled at Jenna. “She went away.” Somehow, she made “away” sound like a very pleasant place.
Jenna sighed. She didn’t know why she was relieved, but she was. She didn’t know why she trusted Quinn’s answer, either, but she did.
What she did know for certain was that she was happy for Hazel.
Very happy.
Should she tell Miss Tate?
No, she didn’t think so. There were some things it was probably better for grown-ups not to know.
“Well,” she said. “I’ve got to go.”
“Say goodbye to the dolls,” ordered Quinn.
So Jenna did. “Bye, Raggedy Ann. Bye, Barbie. Bye, Shannon.” And she wiggled her fingers at them in a tiny wave.
Bye, Hazel
, she added, though only in her thoughts.
Still, she couldn’t help but be relieved, all over again, when the doll in the red-velvet dress didn’t reply.
Marion Dane Bauer is the author of more than sixty books for children, including the Newbery Honor–winning
On My Honor.
She has also won the Kerlan Award for her collected work. Marion’s first Stepping Stone book,
The Blue Ghost
, was named to the Texas Bluebonnet Award 2007–2008 Master List. Marion teaches writing and is on the faculty of the Vermont College Master of Fine Arts in Writing for Children and Young Adults program.
Marion has two grown children and seven grandchildren and lives in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.
Peter Ferguson has illustrated such books as the Sisters Grimm series, the Lucy Rose series, and
The Anybodies
and its sequels, and he has painted the covers for many others. He lives in Montreal with his wife, Eriko, and cat, Yoda.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2008 by Marion Dane Bauer
Illustrations copyright © 2008 by Peter Ferguson
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
Random House and colophon are registered trademarks and A Stepping Stone
Book and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Visit us on the Web!
www.steppingstonesbooks.com
www.randomhouse.com/kids
Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at
www.randomhouse.com/teachers
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bauer, Marion Dane.
The red ghost / by Marion Dane Bauer; illustrated by Peter Ferguson. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
“A Stepping Stone book.”
Summary: When Jenna gives her little sister an old doll in red velvet as a birthday present, some very disturbing instances occur and Jenna begins to suspect that the doll might be haunted.
eISBN: 978-0-307-49751-2
[1. Dolls—Fiction. 2. Spirit possession—Fiction. 3. Supernatural—Fiction.
4. Sisters—Fiction.] I. Ferguson, Peter, ill. II. Title.
PZ7.B3262Re 2008 [Fic]—dc22 2007010354
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
v3.0
