White House White-Out (12 page)

• • •

Later, just as Dink was falling asleep, Josh poked him.

“What?” Dink asked.

“I heard something funny,” Josh said.

“Josh, it’s almost two in the morning,” Dink said. “I don’t want to hear any of your lame jokes.”

“I heard something weird,” Josh insisted. “A voice out in the hall.”

Marshall was sleeping on the sofa. “What’s going on?” he asked, sitting up.

“Josh is hearing things,” Dink said.

“I’m not hearing things!” Josh said. “Someone is out there!”

“And I know who it is,” Marshall whispered. “It’s KC pulling her Lincoln’s ghost joke again.”

“I’ll bet Ruth Rose put her up to it!” Josh said.

Marshall slipped off the sofa and wrapped his sheet around himself. “Get
your sheets and follow me,” he whispered to Dink and Josh.

Marshall led the two boys to a small door behind the sofa.

“Where does this go?” Dink asked.

“You’ll see.”

They entered a bathroom. Marshall pointed to a tall cupboard near the bathtub. “It leads to a secret passageway.”

He opened the cupboard, revealing a hallway. At the end was another door. “That goes to the main hall,” he whispered. “Don’t let the girls see us.”

Marshall opened the door as quietly as he could. He stuck his head out, then motioned to Dink and Josh.

The boys saw two figures covered in sheets. They were crouched outside the door to the Lincoln Bedroom.

Dink saw Ruth Rose’s red sneakers sticking out from under one of the sheets.

“Let’s get ’em!” Marshall whispered. “Cover up.”

The three boys draped the sheets over their heads, leaving room to see where they were walking. They crept up behind the girls, waving their arms like flying ghosts.

“Good evening,” Josh said in his deepest, spookiest voice.

The two crouching figures jumped up. Ruth Rose screamed. KC shoved open the door to the Lincoln Bedroom and they both ran in.

Dink, Josh, and Marshall went right in behind them, still waving their arms in the air and making ghost noises.

“I know it’s you, Marshall Li!” KC said, whipping off her sheet.

“And I recognized your voice, Joshua,” Ruth Rose said. She yanked off her sheet.

“Gotcha!” Josh said.

They all started to laugh.

Dink heard knocking behind him and turned around.

A tall man wearing a black suit stood in the doorway. He had a black beard and a tall black hat on his head.

The five kids froze as if turned to ice.

Dink gulped. He could hardly swallow. He was staring at the ghost of Abraham Lincoln!

“I hope you enjoy sleeping in my room,” the figure of Abe Lincoln said. “Don’t forget to make the bed tomorrow. Good night.”

The man closed the door and walked away.

As the man walked down the hall, he heard screaming from the room behind him. Smiling, he pulled off the fake beard and top hat.

“Boy, I love doing that,” President Zachary Thornton said to himself.