BSC09 The Ghost At Dawn's House (4 page)

"Hi, Dawn," Mrs. Pike greeted me. "Let's see. Mallory's going to sit with you today. I'm sure she's told you that."

"Yes," I said with a smile. I glanced at Mallory, who looked as if she wanted to dance around with excitement and pride, but was containing herself in the interest of appearing grown-up enough to baby-sit.

"The triplets are in their room, practically draped over the air-conditioner," Mrs. Pike went on.

I laughed. "Jeff's doing the same thing at home."

"Vanessa, Margo, and Claire are out in the

backyard, playing in the sprinkler. And Nicky is ... well, I'm afraid he's not in a very good mood today. He's in the rec room, sulking."

"Uh-oh," I said. "That's too bad." I thought about what Stacey and Mary Anne had told us at the meeting the other day — that Nicky wants to play with the triplets, but they won't let him.

"He's having a tough time," said Mrs. Pike, lowering her voice, "but he has to learn to deal with this."

"Tell Dawn about the two-block rule," Mal-lory spoke up.

"Oh, yes," said Mrs. Pike. "You know how we feel about rules around here, except where safety is concerned." (There are almost no rules at the Pikes'.) "Well, Nicky's been complaining that we treat him like a baby, so we told him that he's allowed to go off on his own during the day, as long as he stays within two blocks of the house. Two blocks is a rule for him."

"Okay," I said.

"So if he disappears, don't panic."

I knew Mrs. Pike was thinking of the time I'd been baby-sitting at the Barretts' and Buddy Barrett really had disappeared. We'd had to call the police and everything. So I was kind of touchy about little kids going off on their

own. I appreciated Mrs. Pike's understanding that.

Mrs. Pike left a few minutes later.

Mallory looked at me expectantly. "Well?" she said. "What do we do first?"

"At your house," I replied, "I usually check on everybody, just to make sure they're all accounted for. So why don't you go keep an eye on the girls, and I'll look in on the boys. Then I'll come outside with you. Maybe I can talk Nicky into playing in the sprinkler."

"Don't count on it," said Mallory darkly.

"Well, we'll see."

I went to the triplets' room first. Their door was closed to keep the cold air in. I knocked on it.

"Yeah?" called one of the boys. I wasn't sure which one.

"It's Dawn. Can I come in?"

"Okay."

I opened the door. The shades were drawn and the room was as dark as a room could be at two o'clock in the afternoon. The air-conditioner was going full-blast.

"What are you guys doing in the dark?" I asked.

"Playing with our glow-in-the-dark space creatures," whispered Byron.

"They're about to be attacked by the Wandering Frog People/' added Jordan.

"Oh," I said. "Well, I just wanted you to know I'm — "

"Shaof-shoof-shoof-shoof-BLAM!" Adam shouted suddenly. He thumped a Frog Person down on one of the space creatures.

" — here," I finished. I closed the door and left. The boys barely noticed.

Time to check on Nicky. I ran downstairs to the rec room. There he was, sitting in a ratty old armchair. A book was in his hands, but he wasn't reading it.

"Hi, Nick-O," I said.

"Hi "

"What are you reading?"

"Nothing."

"You want me to read to you?"

"Nah."

"Why don't you go out in the backyard? The sprinkler's on. You'll be much cooler there than you are inside. It's stuffy in here."

"Are the girls still out there?"

"Yes."

"I'm not playing with the girls. I'm a boy. I'm supposed to play with the boys."

"Not necessarily," I told him.

"I want to play with the triplets!"

"Well, then, come on. Let's go ask them."

Nicky looked at me with a hesitant smile. "Really?"

"Sure."

We were about halfway up the stairs when the triplets came stampeding out of their room. They were each wearing bathing trunks and carrying a towel.

"Dawn! Dawn!" cried Adam. "We're going swimming over at Joey's! We just called him. His mom said it was okay."

"She said we could bring a friend, too," Byron added.

"She did?" Nicky marveled. "Oh, boy! Thanks! I'll — "

But before he could finish, Jordan said, "We called your brother, Dawn. It's all right if Jeff comes, isn't it? We said we'd tell you where he's going to be."

"Yes," I said with a sigh. "It's okay. Thanks for asking him."

Nicky watched the triplets run out the front door. He looked absolutely crushed. A few tears leaked out, which he tried to hide. After a few moments he said gruffly, "I'm going outside to play. By-my-self." He yanked the front door open.

"Two-block rule," I called after him.

"I know, I know, I know."

Nicky had been gone for about five minutes

when I began to feel really bad for him. I decided I should find him and talk to him. I went outside and shouted his name over and over, but he didn't (or wouldn't) answer.

At last, I called Mary Anne on the phone and explained the situation. "Could you come help Mallory so I can look for Nicky?" I asked her. "I'd really appreciate it. It would be a big favor."

Mary Anne arrived in a flash. I left her and Mallory playing barefoot in the wet backyard with the little Pike girls. Then I started my search for Nicky. A two-block limit, which works out to a four-block area, is bigger than you'd think. I walked all around, through the Prezziosos' backyard, around the Barretts' property, even around my own house, calling for Nicky, looking for possible hiding places — in bushes, up trees.

Nothing.

I kept telling myself there were an awful lot of places a boy could hide. And I remembered what Mrs. Pike had said — not to panic. But I couldn't help feeling just a little panicky. Why couldn't I find him? Maybe he wasn't within two blocks after all. If he was, surely he'd hear me calling.

"Nicky! NICK-EEE!" I shouted.

"Yeah?"

He'd appeared out of nowhere, looking dirty and sweaty.

I jumped a mile. "Nicky!" I exclaimed, half angry, half relieved. "Where were you?"

"Somewhere cool," he replied smugly. "The triplets didn't want me to come swimming with them, but I cooled off anyway. I showed them and 1 followed the rule."

I shook my head. "Come on. Let's go back to your house. You can shower off under the sprinkler. . . . And don't scare me like that again!"

"Sorry," said Nicky. He smiled at me. I smiled back, glad the crisis was over, but thoroughly mystified.

Chapter 6.

When I got home that afternoon, Jeff was still off swimming. I didn't like to admit it, but I was nervous about Nicky's disappearance. Things like that scare me to death. I'd never gotten over the time I couldn't find Buddy Barrett. Children do get kidnapped. And I'm afraid it's going to happen sometime while I'm baby-sitting. It's not impossible. In fact, it happens every day. You read about it in the papers or see it on the news. I heard that there are thousands and thousands of missing kids.

So could I help it if I panicked a little when I couldn't find Nicky?

I needed to relax. I took my library book out to the barn. Now, the barn is not the coolest place I can think of on a hot summer day — but it is the most relaxing. It's almost silent. There's not much in the barn that can make a sound, and the sounds outside are muffled.

Usually I climb up to the hayloft to find a comfortable spot to read, but heat rises, so there was no way I was going to be anywhere above ground on that day. I looked around for a place with enough light to read by. But instead I settled for a spot with a little dry hay scattered around that actually seemed cool.

I sat down, all prepared to open to "The Haunting of Weatherstaff Moor," but I had no sooner gotten into a comfortable position than I heard a crash.

The crash was me! I was falling.

I dropped down, down, like Alice through the rabbit hole.

"Help!" I cried.

Thump. I landed hard.

"Ow!"

I looked up. Although I'd only fallen about five feet, it felt like five thousand. I was in darkness, but above me I could see a square of light, and beyond that, the beams in the roof of the barn.

I stood up shakily.

I was in some kind of basement or tunnel. No wonder that spot I'd been sitting on had seemed cool. All that basement air was circulating underneath.

Wait a second. Barns don't have basements. Do they?

Maybe I was in — Nah. Impossible. Besides, what was I? Crazy? I was standing in a pitch-black hole. I had to get out.

I felt around gingerly. I was positive my fingers were going to touch spiders — fat, hairy spiders (possibly fat, hairy, biting spiders) — or slimy things.

But they didn't. Instead they touched a narrow wooden beam, and above that another, and another, and another. It was a ladder!

I climbed back into the barn and examined the top of the hole. I'd fallen through a trapdoor. It must not have been latched properly.

Okay, so in our barn was a trapdoor with a ladder leading down into . . .

I shrieked. I had found a secret passage! I really had! What else could it be?

I flew into our house, grabbed a flashlight out of a drawer in the kitchen, and flew back to the barn. I was feeling pretty brave, especially considering what a chicken I'd been about exploring the attic the other day. But that day had been dark and gloomy. It was hard to feel frightened with the sun shining so brightly. Besides, I'd found what I'd been searching for so desperately. How could I not explore my own personal secret passage?

I shined the light down the hole. There was the ladder I'd climbed up. I backed down it

carefully, holding the flashlight in my left hand. When I reached the bottom, I examined the floor. It was hard-packed dirt. I shined the light around and saw that the passage veered off to the left — toward our house.

I began to walk. The passage sloped down slightly. I was moving through a tunnel of earth with a few support beams here and there. The only light was from my flashlight.

I edged forward for a good distance. I was moving slowly, and everything seemed sort of unreal. At long last, the passage began to slope upward.

I shivered. This was so exciting. If I were just a little older, I could be Nancy Drew. Wait until Claudia heard about this!

"Hey!" I exclaimed aloud. Ahead, my flashlight was shining on a dirt wall. After all this, had I come to a dead end?

No, the passage made a sharp right turn.

I rounded the corner — and drew in my breath.

I found myself facing a crude wooden staircase. My heart began to pound faster. I climbed the staircase slowly. Where was I? Somewhere inside our house? I felt like the mice in The Tailor of Gloucester, darting from house to house in their secret passageways.

At the top of the staircase the passage, which

was now very narrow, and all wooden (I was sure, somehow, that I was between the walls of our house) took another turn, and then, a few feet beyond, really did come to a dead end. I began feeling the walls around me, and suddenly something made a loud clicking noise and the whole wall to my right swung away from me.

I gasped.

I was looking into my own bedroom!

I stepped inside. The wall that had swung open was the one with the fancy molding that had sounded hollow the other day. The end of the passage was between my room and Mom's.

I was startled but immediately decided I wanted to explore the passage again more carefully. So I left the secret door to my room open (just in case), and stepped back into the passage. This time I kept the flashlight trained on the floor.

I blew up little flurries of dust bunnies as I made my way back to the staircase, crept carefully down the steps (who knew how sturdy they were?), and was soon back in the dirt tunnel.

And that was where I found it — the metal button. It looked positively ancient. I'd never seen one like it. It was sort of squashed in the

middle, but I could tell that a design like a shield had been stamped on it.

A few feet further along I found something else I'd missed. A large tarnished buckle. It was too big for a belt buckle, and not quite the right shape. A shoe buckle? People hadn't worn buckles that size on their shoes since . . . the eighteen hundreds?

I felt a chill begin at the nape of my neck and creep down my back.

A key was the last thing I found. It certainly looked old — very long and narrow with a large ring to hold it by. How many years had the key been in the passage?

How many years had all the things been in the passage? More importantly, why were they there? Maybe they were all that was left of someone who had died in the passage — or worse, someone who had been locked up there to die. Maybe the poor prisoner had been trying to escape using the key. But he hadn't made it and had died a lonely, bitter death.

I knew it. I just knew it: Our house was haunted. It was haunted by the ghost of the secret passage. No one was going to believe it, but it was true. I remembered the rapping noises I had heard the night of the storm. Now I knew what had really made them.

Chapter 7.

The nice weather didn't last very long. By Friday it was gloomy again, and that night, the skies let loose with a storm that my grandfather would have described as a "ripsnorter." I didn't know it then, but while Jeff and I were having a ghostly adventure in our old house, Kristy was having an adventure of her own in her new house.

Earlier that evening, she'd been left in charge of David Michael, and Karen and Andrew, who were visiting for the. weekend. Her two older brothers were at a party, and her mom and stepfather had gone to the theater in Stamford.

When everyone had left, the sky had simply been dark and threatening. An hour later, rain was falling, the wind was howling, thunder was crashing, and lightning was flashing.

Inside, Kristy was trying to interest the kids in a game of Chutes and Ladders, but it wasn't easy. Every time a clap of thunder sounded, David Michael shrieked, Andrew leaped into Kristy's lap, Louie the collie jumped (and skidded on the game board), and Karen looked disgusted and called everybody nitwits.