10 - The Ghost Next Door (6 page)

“Hey, I’ve got an idea, Danny,” Fred said. He stepped behind Danny and
started shoving him toward the mailbox.

“Whoa,” Danny protested.

But Fred pushed him up to the mailbox. “Let’s see how strong you are,” Fred
said.

“Hey, wait—” Danny cried.

Hannah leaned out from behind the low shrub. “Oh, wow,” she muttered to
herself.
“Now
what are they going to do?”

“Take the mailbox,” she heard Alan order Danny. “I dare you.”

“We dare you,” Fred added. “Remember what you told us about dares, Danny? How
you never turn one down?”

“Yeah. You told us you never turn down a dare,” Alan said, grinning.

Danny hesitated. “Well, I—”

A heavy feeling of dread formed in the pit of Hannah’s stomach. Watching
Danny step toward Mr. Chesney’s hand-carved mailbox, she suddenly had a
premonition—a feeling that something really terrible was about to happen.

I’ve got to stop them, she decided.

Taking a deep breath, she stepped out from behind the bush.

As she started to call to them, everything went black.

“Hey—!” she cried aloud.

What had happened?

Her first thought was that the streetlamp had gone out.

But then Hannah saw the two red circles glowing in front of her.

The two glowing eyes surrounded by darkness.

The shadow figure rose up inches in front of her.

She tried to scream, but her voice was muffled in its heavy darkness.

She tried to run, but it blocked her path.

The red eyes burned into hers.

Closer. Closer.

It’s got me now,
Hannah knew.

“Hannah…” it whispered. “Hannah…”

So close, she could smell its hot, sour breath.

“Hannah… Hannah…” Its whisper like crackling, dead leaves.

The ruby eyes burned like fire. Hannah felt the darkness circle her, wrap
around her tightly.

“Please—” was all she could manage to choke out.

“Hannah…”

And the light returned.

Hannah blinked, struggled to breathe.

The sour odor lingered in her nostrils. But the street was bright now.

Car headlights washed over her.

It—it’s gone, Hannah realized. The lights had chased away the shadow
figure.

But would it return?

As the car passed by, Hannah dropped to the ground behind the low evergreen
shrub and struggled to catch her breath. When she looked up, the boys were still huddled in front of Mr. Chesney’s hedge.

“Let’s get going,” Danny urged them.

“No way. Not yet,” Alan said, stepping in front of Danny to block his way.
“You’re forgetting about our dare.”

Fred shoved Danny toward the mailbox. “Go ahead. Take it.”

“Hey, wait.” Danny spun around. “I never said I’d do it.”

“I dared you to take Chesney’s mailbox,” Fred told him. “Remember? You told
us you never turned down a dare?”

Alan laughed. “Chesney will come out tomorrow and think his swan flew away.”

“No, wait—” Danny protested. “Maybe it’s a dumb idea.”

“It’s a
cool
idea. Chesney is a creep,” Alan insisted. “Everyone in
Greenwood Falls hates his guts.”

“Take his mailbox, Danny,” Fred challenged. “Pull it up. Come on. I dare
you.”

“No, I—” Danny tried to back away, but Fred held him from behind by the
shoulders.

“You chicken?” Alan challenged.

“Look at the chicken,” Fred said in a mocking, babyish voice. “Cluck cluck.”

“I’m not a chicken,” Danny snapped angrily.

“Prove it,” Alan demanded. He grabbed Danny’s hands and raised them to the
carved wings that stretched from the sides of the mailbox. “Go ahead. Prove it.”

“What a riot!” Fred declared. “The town postmaster—his mailbox flies away.”

Don’t do it, Danny,
Hannah urged silently from her dark hiding place
across the street.
Please—don’t do it.

Another set of car headlights made the three boys back away from the mailbox.
The car rolled past without slowing.

“Let’s go. It’s getting late,” Hannah heard Danny say.

But Fred and Alan insisted, teasing him, challenging him.

As Hannah stared into the white light of the streetlamp, Danny stepped up to
Chesney’s mailbox and grabbed the wings.

“Danny, wait—” Hannah cried.

He didn’t seem to hear her.

With a loud groan, he began to tug.

It didn’t budge.

He lowered his hands to the pole and wrapped them tightly around it just
below the box.

He tugged again.

“It’s in really deep,” he told Alan and Fred. “I don’t know if I can get it.”

“Try again,” Alan urged.

“We’ll help you,” Fred said, placing his hands above Danny’s on the box.

“Let’s all pull together,” Alan urged. “At the count of three.”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you!”
exclaimed a gruff voice behind them.

They all turned to see Mr. Chesney glaring at them from the driveway, his
face knotted in a furious snarl.

Mr. Chesney grabbed Danny’s shoulders and pulled him away from the mailbox.

One of the wooden swan wings came off in Danny’s hands. As Mr. Chesney
wrestled him away, Danny let it drop to the ground.

“You punks!” Mr. Chesney sputtered, his eyes wide with rage. “You—you—”

“Let go of him!” Hannah screamed from across the street. But fear muffled her
voice. Her cry came out a whisper.

With a loud groan, Danny pulled free of the man’s grasp.

Without another word, the three boys were running, running down the middle of
the dark street, their sneakers pounding loudly on the pavement.

“I’ll remember you!” Mr. Chesney called after them. “I’ll remember you. I’ll
see you again! And next time, I’ll have my shotgun!”

Hannah watched Mr. Chesney bend to pick up the broken swan’s wing. He
examined the wooden wing, shaking his head angrily.

Then she began running, keeping in the dark front yards, hidden by hedges and
low shrubs, running in the direction Danny and his friends had headed.

She saw the boys turn a corner, and kept running. Keeping well behind, she
followed them through the town square, still deserted and dark. Even Harder’s
ice-cream parlor was closed now, the shop dark behind the red glare of the neon
window sign.

Two dogs, tall, ungainly mutts with thin, shaggy frames, crossed the street
in front of them, trotting slowly, out for their evening walk. The dogs didn’t
look up as the boys ran past.

Halfway up the next block, she saw Fred and Alan collapse beneath a dark
tree, giggling up at the sky as they sprawled on the ground.

Danny leaned against the wide tree trunk, panting loudly.

Fred and Alan couldn’t stop laughing. “Did you see the look on his face when
that stupid wing dropped off?” Fred cried.

“I thought his eyes were going to pop out!” Alan exclaimed gleefully. “I
thought his head was going to explode!”

Danny didn’t join in their laughter. He rubbed his right shoulder with one hand. “He really wrecked my shoulder when he
grabbed me,” he said, groaning.

“You should sue him!” Alan suggested.

He and Fred laughed uproariously, sitting up to slap each other high-fives.

“No. Really,” Danny said quietly, still rubbing the shoulder. “He really hurt
me. When he swung me around, I thought—”

“What a creep,” Fred said, shaking his head.

“We’ll have to pay him back,” Alan added. “We’ll have to—”

“Maybe we should stay away from there,” Danny said, still breathing hard.
“You heard what he said about getting his shotgun.”

The other two boys laughed scornfully. “Yeah. For sure. He’d really come
after us with a shotgun,” Alan scoffed, brushing blades of freshly cut grass
from his scraggly hair.

“The respected town postmaster, shooting at innocent kids,” Fred said,
snickering. “No way. He was just trying to scare us—right, Danny?”

Danny stopped rubbing his shoulder and frowned down at Alan and Fred, who
were still sitting in the grass. “I don’t know.”

“Oooh, Danny is scared!” Fred cried.

“You’re not scared of that old geek, are you?” Alan demanded. “Just because
he grabbed your shoulder doesn’t mean—”

“I don’t know,” Danny interrupted angrily. “The old guy seemed pretty out of control to me. He was so angry! I mean,
maybe he
would
shoot us to protect his precious mailbox.”

“Bet we could make him a lot angrier,” Alan said quietly, climbing to his
feet, staring intently at Danny.

“Yeah. Bet we could,” Fred agreed, grinning.

“Unless you’re chicken, Danny,” Alan said, moving close to Danny, challenge
in his voice.

“I—it’s getting late,” Danny said, trying to read his watch in the dark. “I
promised my mom I’d get home.”

Fred climbed to his feet and moved next to Alan. “We should teach Chesney a
lesson,” he said, brushing blades of grass off the back of his jeans. His eyes
gleamed mischievously in the dim light. “We should teach him not to pick on
innocent kids.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Alan agreed, his eyes on Danny. “I mean, he hurt Danny.
He had no business grabbing him like that.”

“I’ve got to get home. See you guys tomorrow,” Danny said, waving.

“Okay. See you,” Fred called after him.

“At least we got some free ice-cream tonight!” Alan exclaimed.

As Danny walked quickly away, Hannah could hear Alan and Fred giggling their
gleeful, high-pitched giggles.

Free ice-cream, she thought, frowning. Those two guys are really looking for trouble.

She couldn’t help herself. She had to say something to Danny. “Hey!” she
called, running to catch up to him.

He spun around, startled. “Hannah—what are
you
doing here?”

“I—I followed you. From the ice-cream store,” she confessed.

He snickered. “You saw everything?”

She nodded. “Why do you hang out with those two guys?” she demanded.

He scowled, avoiding her eyes, picking up his pace. “They’re okay,” he
muttered.

“They’re going to get in big trouble one of these days,” Hannah predicted.
“They really are.”

Danny shrugged. “They just talk tough. They think it’s cool. But they’re
really okay.”

“But they stole ice-cream cones and—” Hannah decided she’d said enough.

They crossed the street in silence.

Hannah glanced up to see the pale crescent of moon disappear behind black
wisps of cloud. The street grew darker. The trees shook their leaves, sending
whispers all around.

Danny kicked a stone down the sidewalk. It clattered softly onto the grass.

Hannah suddenly remembered going over to Danny’s house earlier to get him. In
all the excitement of the stolen ice-cream cones and Mr. Chesney and his
mailbox, she had completely forgotten what had happened on his back stoop.

“I—I went over to your house tonight,” she started reluctantly. “Before I
went into town.”

Danny stopped and turned to her, his eyes studying hers. “Yeah?”

“I thought maybe you’d want to walk to town or something,” Hannah continued.
“Your mother was home. In the kitchen.”

He continued to stare hard at her, as if trying to read her thoughts.

“I knocked and knocked on the kitchen door,” Hannah said, tugging a strand of
blonde hair off her forehead. “I could see your mother at the table. She had her
back to me. She didn’t turn around or anything.”

Danny didn’t reply. He lowered his eyes to the pavement and started walking
again, hands shoved in his pockets.

“It was so strange,” Hannah continued. “I knocked and knocked. Really loud.
But it was like—like your mother was in a different world or something. She
didn’t answer the door. She didn’t even turn around.”

Their houses came into view ahead of them. A porchlight sent a yellow glow
over Hannah’s front lawn. On the other side of the driveway, Danny’s house
loomed in darkness.

Hannah’s throat suddenly felt dry. She wished she could ask Danny what she
really wanted to ask.

Are you a ghost? Is your mother a ghost, too?

That was the real question in Hannah’s mind.

But it was too crazy. Too stupid.

How can you ask a person if he is real or not? If he is alive or not?

“Danny—why didn’t your mother answer the door?” she asked quietly.

Danny turned at the bottom of her driveway, his expression set, his eyes
narrowed. His face glowed eerily in the pale yellow light from the porch.

“Why?” Hannah repeated impatiently. “Why didn’t she answer the door?”

He hesitated.

“I guess I should tell you the truth,” he said finally, his voice a whisper,
as soft as the whisper of the shuddering trees.

Danny leaned close to Hannah. She could see that his red hair was matted to
his forehead by perspiration. His eyes burned into hers.

“There’s a good reason why my mother didn’t answer the door,” Danny told her.

Because she’s a ghost, Hannah thought. She felt a cold shiver roll down her
back. A tremor of fear.

She swallowed hard.
Am I afraid of Danny?
she asked herself.

Yes. A little,
she realized. Her scary dream about him flashed into her
mind.
Yes. A little.

“You see,” Danny started, then hesitated. He cleared his throat. He shifted
his weight nervously. “You see, my mom is deaf.”

“Huh?” Hannah wasn’t sure she had heard correctly. It wasn’t at all what she
was expecting.

“She got this inner-ear infection,” Danny explained in a low voice, keeping
his eyes trained on Hannah. “In both ears. A couple of years ago. The doctors
treated it, but the infection spread. They thought they could save one ear, but they couldn’t. It made her
completely deaf.”

“You—you mean—?” Hannah stammered.

“That’s why she couldn’t hear you knocking,” Danny explained. “She can’t hear
anything at all.” He lowered his eyes to the ground.