BSC09 The Ghost At Dawn's House (10 page)

I took a deep breath and marched forward.

"Nicky!" I called. "I'm coming after you right now."

I heard footsteps then, far down the passage. With a pounding heart, I followed them.

Chapter 14.

The footsteps began to run, and I ran after them.

The footsteps thumped up the stairs. I thumped after them.

Then I turned the corner and shined the light ahead of me to the end of the passage.

Crouched in one corner was a small figure.

"Nicky!" I exclaimed. "So it is you, after all."

Nicky didn't answer. I ran to him.

"Nicky?" I said again.

"Oh, Dawn!" he burst out. "Why'd you have to find me?"

"Is this your secret place? Is this where you go when you disappear?"

He nodded. "Well, not right here. Usually I stop when I get to the stairs. I mean, this is your house. I didn't want to trespass or anything. . . . We are somewhere inside your house, aren't we?"

"Yeah. You don't know where the passage ends up?"

"Just in this dead end, I thought."

"Nope. Not quite. I'll show you." I was pretty sure my wall was unlocked, so I released the catch.

Nicky watched wide-eyed as the wall in front of him began to move back. Through the opening, my bedspread appeared, then the dresser, the curtains, and the armchair. Nicky found himself practically in my room.

He stood up and peered inside, then looked back at me. "Whoa . . ."

"My bedroom," I said. "Come on in."

Nicky followed me inside. I showed him how the wall dosed up.

"You can't even see a crack!" he exclaimed.

"I know," I said. "I looked for a secret passage in the house forever, and I never found this."

"I found the other end really easily," said Nicky in a small voice.

Nicky looked completely out of place in my bedroom. He was dirty and dusty (so was I, for that matter, but only slightly), he had chocolate cake mashed on one arm, and his cheeks were streaked with tears. Messy as he was, he was sitting on my clean white bedspread. I didn't care, though.

"You want to tell me about it, Nicky?"

He shrugged.

"How'd you find the other end?"

Nicky sighed. "One day Adam kept teasing me about this book I was reading. So I took the book — "

"Was it Great Dog Tales?" I interrupted.

"How did you know?"

"I saw it in the passage once. You must have left it there."

"Oh. Well, anyway, I took the book and I ran away. I didn't break the two-block rule, Dawn. I swear I didn't. The back of your barn is exactly two blocks from the front of our house. I didn't know if any of you guys were home, but I didn't think you used the barn, so I snuck inside. It's so quiet in there."

"I know."

"And I was looking for a place to read when I found the trapdoor instead. I opened it up and climbed down the ladder. And that's how I found the passage."

"And you started coming back?" I prompted him.

"Yeah. I kept a flashlight buried under some hay near the trapdoor, and I could go in the passage and think of mean things to say to the triplets or read or look at my coin collection."

"Your coin collection? Oh, boy. I have about a million questions to ask you."

"You do?" Nicky looked puzzled.

"Yeah. See, I thought the secret passage had a ghost."

"A ghost?" Nicky shrieked. "I've been going some place where there's a ghost?"

"No, silly," I said. "You were the ghost."

"Oh."

"I mean, I think you were. Do you have an Indian-head nickel in your coin collection?"

"Yeah."

"Did you lose it?"

"Yup. But I found it again."

"I found it too." I told him about the stormy night and the Trip-Man.

Nicky laughed.

"Did you ever bring snacks over here?" I asked.

"Lots of times," he replied. "Once, I even brought an ice-cream cone. The Frosty Treats truck drove by just as I got to the barn. So I bought a cone. It was called a Fancy Old-Fashioned Ice-Cream Parlour Cone and it cost a whole dollar."

"I found the end of the cone," I told him. "And some other things."

"Sorry," said Nicky. "I guess I didn't clean up too good."

"Too well," I corrected him, "and you cleaned up just fine. I only found a couple of things. I thought the ghost had a sweet tooth."

Nicky giggled. "I was here just this morning eating peanuts. That's why I wasn't hungry for lunch," he confessed. "You know," he went on, "now that I know you used the passage, you answered a question for me."

"What's that?"

"I used to see these old things in the passage."

"A key, a buckle, and a button," I said.

"Yes. Did you take them? I couldn't figure out what happened to them."

"I took them," I said. "They're in my drawer. Where'd you get that other key, though?"

"What other key?"

"The really old one. The one at the bottom of the steps."

"I've never seen another key," replied Nicky. "So it can't be mine."

"Are you sure? I know it wasn't there a few days ago."

"It isn't mine. Honest."

"I believe you," I said, my skin crawling. If the key wasn't mine and it wasn't Nicky's, whose was it? Jared's?

"Whaf s the matter, Dawn?" asked Nicky.

I shivered. "Nothing. . . . I'm sorry I ruined your secret hiding place."

"That's okay," replied Nicky, but he didn't sound as if it were okay at all.

"I don't mind that you were coming to our passageway, Nicky/' I told him. "I really don't. But you do know that it wasn't quite right, don't you?"

Nicky looked worried. "What?"

"Well," I said, "technically, I guess you were trespassing, but that's not what I mean. What I mean is that, for one thing, you scared me. You made noises when you were in the passage. That was another reason I thought we had a ghost."

"I didn't mean to make any noise."

"I know you didn't. By the way, did you ever hide in the passage at night?"

"At night?" exclaimed Nicky. "No way."

"I didn't think so." I tried not to start shivering again. Who had been moaning and creaking around the passage during the night-time thunderstorms?

"I'm sorry I scared you," said Nicky.

"It's okay. Really. Let's go back to your house. Your mom's going to be home soon."

"All right." Nicky looked as if I were going to lead him into a pit of vipers.

We left my house and headed back to the Pikes'. "Another thing/' I added as we walked along. "I don't know how safe the passage is. Those stairs are old. So's the trapdoor." Nicky nodded glumly.

"Last thing," I said. "When your mother made up the two-block rule for you, I don't think she meant for you to go someplace where no one could find you. Thaf s just not a good idea. Okay?"

"Okay."

I took Nicky's hand. "Hey," I said. "Look at that. Your mom beat us home. Let's go tell her about your adventure."

Mrs. Pike had been surprised, to say the least, when she had come back and found that I wasn't there, but I explained the whole story to her, including the triplets' pranks. Mallory, luckily, had done just fine with her brothers. While I was chasing after Nicky, she had gotten them to clean up lunch and then had settled them into a game of Monopoly. They were extremely quiet and well-behaved when I returned. I was really impressed with Mallory.

Mrs. Pike and Nicky and I had a talk before I went home.

"I need a hideout," Nicky said, sounding the way people do when they talk about very important things, like food or money.

"I understand that, sweetie," said Mrs. Pike.

"Well," I spoke up, "I'll have to check with my mom, but it's all right with me if Nicky comes back to our passage."

"It's all right with me, too," said Mrs. Pike after a moment, "as long as you tell an adult where you're going first, Nicky. And maybe someone should check the condition of the passage."

"Yippee!" cried Nicky. "I just hope the triplets don't start going there."

"Believe me, they won't," said his mother.

"How do you know?" asked Nicky.

"Because I'm about to have a little talk with them."

Nicky turned to me, all smiles. "You," he said, "are my favorite baby-sitter in the whole wide world."

Chapter 15.

"So what movie do you guys want to watch?" I asked.

"Ghostbusters," said Kristy.

"Star Wars," said Claudia.

"Mary Poppins," said Stacey.

"Sixteen Candles," said Mary Anne.

"And I want to watch The Parent Trap," I said, looking woefully at the VCR.

It was Saturday night. The members of the Baby-sitters Club were crowded into my living room. We were having a slumber party. Upstairs, sleeping bags were spread over every inch of the floor of my bedroom. The bathroom was a disaster area. It looked like a makeup tornado had ripped through it. (But our faces looked great. Stacey and Claudia had practiced on all of us.) We had finished supper, and now we were settling in for a long night in front of the VCR.

"Maybe we could watch all of them/' suggested Claudia.

"Well," I said, "let's see. If each one is about two hours long — "

"Mary Poppins is longer, I think," said Stacey.

"But Sixteen Candles is shorter," Mary Anne pointed out.

"An average," I said. "Just an average. What I was going to say is that that comes to about ten hours of movies. It's nine o'clock now. That would take us right up to seven in the morning."

We laughed.

"Let's pick two," I said. "We'll vote on them."

Everyone voted for the movie she had suggested plus one other. We ended up with a five-way tie. In the end, Kristy drew two of the movies out of a hat. (After all, she's the club president.) The winners were Sixteen Candles and Ghostbusters.

Mary Anne was jubilant. She'd brought two copies of Sixteen magazine with her, and there was an article about Cam Geary, the love of her life, in it. Cam Geary and Sixteen Candles created a really prime evening for Mary Anne.

We watched Ghostbusters first. Much as I like The Parent Trap, I have to admit that Ghostbusters is pretty funny. My favorite part is when that

giant marshmallow guy bursts. I think it's Kristy's favorite part, too. As soon as he exploded, she said, "I'm starving! Let's toast marshrnallows, Dawn. Or make s'mores."

"Kristy, we don't have stuff like that at my house. It's junk food."

Kristy and Claudia glanced at each other. "Be right back," they said, and ran upstairs.

They returned holding a bag of marshrnallows, some candy bars, a box of graham crackers, a bag of potato chips, a supply of M&M's and some crackers.

"Pig-out time!" said Kristy. "I hope you don't mind, Dawn. We can't have a slumber party without this stuff. It isn't normal." She tossed the crackers to me. "Those are for you and Stacey," she said.

Stacey and I looked at each other. We made faces. But then we couldn't help laughing. It was kind of funny.

"Where'd you get all that?" I asked.

"Mary Anne and Claudia and I bought it this afternoon," said Kristy. "We thought it might be a good idea to come prepared. Don't worry, we paid for it ourselves, not out of the club treasury."

Kristy pressed the pause button on the VCR and Bill Murray froze in action. "Quick! Let's

make the s'mores before the movie comes back on!" she cried.

Kristy grabbed the marshmallows.

Mary Anne grabbed the graham crackers.

Claudia grabbed the Hershey's bars.

The three of them tore off, leaving Stacey and me behind in a trail of dust (so to speak).

"Boy," I said, "Just because we don't eat that junk of theirs."

"Really," agreed Stacey. "I feel like a leper."

"I feel like a nerd."

"We shouldn't, though," said Stacey. "They're the ones who're going to end up with pimples/'

I giggled. "Let's get them."

"Pimples?"

"No! I mean, I have a plan. We'll get back at Kristy and the others. Remember our search for a secret passage?"

Stacey nodded.

"Well, I found one."

"No."

"Yup."

"Honest?"

"Cross my heart. So here's what I think we should do."

I leaned over and began to whisper to Stacey. We had just finished planning, when Kristy

and Claudia and Mary Anne came back. They were eating these gooey concoctions and had chocolate all over their fingers. Every time they took a bite of their s'mores, the melted marsh-mallow would string out between their mouths and hands.

Stacey and I had a hard time keeping straight faces. Somehow, though, we made it through the rest of Ghostbusters without giving anything away.

As soon as the movie was over, Mary Anne dove for the rewind button. "Time for Sixteen Candles/' she said.

"Why don't we watch it later?" I suggested casually. "Wouldn't it be fun to watch it at, like, one or two this morning?"

"Yeah!" said Kristy enthusiastically. (I knew I could count on her. She loves to stay up late.)

Mary Anne looked disappointed, but she didn't want to argue with the rest of us.

"Let's go up to my room for awhile," I said. "You know Cam Geary's girlfriend, Mary Anne?"

"Come Lalique?" she replied immediately.

"Yeah. I bet with a little more make-up I could make you look just like her."

"Really? Oh, hey, great!"

Mary Anne was the first one upstairs. The

rest of us followed. After we'd worked on her for awhile, I said, "Boy, am I thirsty."

"Oh, me, too," chimed in Stacey.

"So am I," said the others at once. (It figured, after all that sugar.)

"I'll go get some sodas," I said. "Come with me, Stace. Okay?"

"You have soda?" asked Claudia skeptically. "Or do you mean Perrier or sparkling, saltless mineral water from an artesian well or something?"

I tried not to sound sarcastic. "Yes, we have soda. Real soda. Mom bought it for the party. One hundred percent sugar."

"Good," said Claudia, not cracking a smile.

"Come on, Stace."

We ran downstairs. It was time to put our plan into action.

"What's your mom going to say?" asked Stacey nervously.

"Nothing," I replied. "I warned her when we went upstairs before. And Jeff's already in bed, so we don't have to worry about him. Unless the screaming gets too loud."