The Ghost at the Fire Station

by Dori Hillestad Butler

  “Get out your ghost-hunting equipment,” RJ said. “The ghost is here. We all heard it.”

  “No, Claire,” Kaz cried in his normal voice. “We don’t have time for that. We have to look for Little John. Where’s your water bottle?” It was usually on her shoulder. Or in her hand. But Kaz didn’t see it.

  “My stuff is out in the garage,” Claire said. “But . . . I don’t know what you’re talking about, RJ. I don’t know what you guys heard that makes you think there’s a ghost in here. I didn’t hear anything. And look at Sparky. I don’t think he heard anything, either.”

  Sparky was curled up on the red pillow next to Brynlee and RJ’s dad’s desk. Chasing fire trucks was exhausting.

  “Huh,” Brynlee said. “She’s right. Sparky isn’t upset. Maybe we just thought we heard something.”

  “But we both heard it. Even if Claire didn’t,” RJ said.

  Brynlee shrugged. “Must have been another one of those weird twin things. We imagined the same thing.”

  “I really have to go,” Claire said.

  The twins led Claire down the hall and out to the garage. Kaz followed close behind.

  There were a lot of firefighters bustling around in the garage, cleaning equipment, winding hoses, and shining the trucks.

  Claire grabbed her bag and water bottle from the bench where she’d left them. Kaz shrank down . . . down . . . down . . . and passed through the side of the water bottle.

  “Come back and see us again.” David waved as Claire opened a small door at the front of the garage.

  Once they were safely outside, Claire said to Kaz, “You wailed in there! You figured out how to wail.”

  “Sort of,” Kaz said. “But I don’t want to talk about that. We have to find Little John!”

  “I don’t know where he could be,” Claire said as she started down the street. “I saw him go inside the ladder truck before the alarm sounded. But I don’t know if he was still in there when the fire fighters drove away. What if he blew out when they opened the doors?”

  If that was the case, they might never find Little John. The wind would have blown him away.

  But they had to try.

  “We should go to where the fire trucks went,” Kaz said. “Maybe we’ll see him blowing around there.”

  Claire stopped walking. “But we don’t know where they went.”

  “Yes, we do,” Kaz said. “I heard it in the radio room. They went to 1024 Elm Street.”

  “Okay,” Claire said. “Let’s find Elm Street.” She pulled out her phone to get directions and started walking again.

  Along the way, Kaz turned all around inside Claire’s water bottle. If Little John was out there somewhere, Kaz didn’t want to miss him.

  It didn’t take long to reach 1024 Elm Street. There were no signs of a fire. No signs that fire trucks had even been there recently.

  “Do you see Little John?” Kaz asked, squinting.

  “No,” Claire replied. “Do you?”

  “No,” Kaz said glumly.

  They walked all around the building. No luck.

  “Which direction is the wind coming from?” Kaz asked. “Maybe we could follow the wind to see where it might have blown him.”

  “We can try,” Claire said, but she didn’t sound hopeful. “I think it’s blowing behind us.”

  Claire walked and walked . . . all the way to the edge of town. Kaz gazed out over an empty field. Little John, where are you? he wondered.

  “I’m sorry, Kaz,” Claire said softly. “It’s almost dinnertime. We have to go home. We can look for Little John again tomorrow.”

  Kaz’s throat felt tight. “Okay,” he choked. But he had a bad feeling about this. Little John was gone. Maybe forever this time.

  “I miss the little guy, too,” Beckett said later that night. Claire and the ghosts had gathered in the library turret room.

  Kaz hugged Cosmo and peered out the window into the darkness. Little John had to be out there somewhere. Somewhere.

  “We shouldn’t have brought him,” Claire said. “We should’ve left him here with Beckett and Cosmo.”

  They should have, Kaz agreed.

  “What’s going on in here?” Claire’s dad asked from the doorway.

  Claire’s mom peered over his shoulder. “You look upset, honey,” she said to Claire.

  “We lost Little John at the fire station,” Claire said. “There was a fire call, and when the big garage doors went up, Sparky ran out. In all the excitement, we somehow lost Little John. We don’t know what happened to him.”

  “Oh, dear,” said her mom.

  “That’s the little brother, right?” Claire’s dad asked.

  Claire nodded.

  Her dad stepped into the room. “I’m sorry,” he said, resting a hand on Claire’s back. “And tell your friend, the big brother ghost, that I’m sorry, too. Okay?”

  If Kaz wasn’t so upset, he’d try and wail back to Claire’s dad. But he couldn’t gather the energy to try right now. He just couldn’t.

  “He knows,” Claire told her dad.

  “Did you find the ghost at the fire station?” Claire’s mom asked.

  Claire shook her head. “We didn’t find the ghost we were hired to find. And we lost Little John. Today was a bad day,” she said glumly.

  “Well, tomorrow’s a new day,” Claire’s mom said, trying to sound hopeful. “Maybe things will look better in the morning.”

  Kaz didn’t see how they could.

  You can’t just mope around the library all day,” Claire told Kaz as she packed her bag the next morning. “Come to school with me.”

  “I don’t want to,” Kaz said.

  “We’ll look for Little John after school,” Claire said. “We should go over to the fire station and look for that ghost again, too.”

  “I said no!” Kaz snapped. The last thing he wanted to do was search for the ghost at the fire station. That was how they’d lost Little John in the first place.

  “Kaz,” Beckett said, closing the book in his hand. “You should go to school with the solid. This isn’t the first time you and Little John have been apart. I’m sure your brother is fine.”

  They didn’t understand. They couldn’t understand. Beckett didn’t have a family. And Claire had never been separated from hers. They didn’t know how it felt to lose someone, then find them, and then get separated again. It felt worse than being apart the first time.

  “I know you think I don’t understand,” Beckett said. “But I do. I lost my family years ago.”

  “You have a family?” Claire said with surprise.

  Beckett scowled. “Of course I have a family. Everyone has a family.”

  “Where are they? What happened to them?” Kaz asked.

  “They blew away. Just like your family,” Beckett said. “But I didn’t search for them. I didn’t make friends with a solid girl who wanted to form a ghost detective agency and help ghosts. I stayed here in the library and felt sorry for myself.”

  Claire walked over to Beckett. “It’s not too late,” she said softly. “You can make friends with me right now. You could even join C & K Ghost Detectives if you want.”

  “I don’t think so,” Beckett said. “Not at my age. But, Kaz, you should go with Claire.” It was the first time Kaz had heard Beckett call Claire by her name.

  Kaz had to admit that sitting around the library feeling sorry for himself wasn’t going to accomplish anything. He and Claire still had a case to solve. He didn’t want Sparky to be afraid of a room just because he’d seen a ghost in there. Kaz wanted to find that ghost and tell him to be nice to Sparky. It’s what Little John would want him to do.

  “Okay, I’ll come to school with you, Claire. And then we can go over to the fire station after that,” Kaz said. He shrank down . . . down .
. . down . . . and swam into the water bottle.

  “Good,” Claire said, hoisting the strap from the bottle onto her shoulder. “See you later, Beckett.”

  When they got to school, Brynlee and RJ were waiting for Claire by her locker.

  “Guess what?” Brynlee said.

  “What?” Claire asked as she opened her locker. She set her water bottle on the shelf inside.

  Brynlee and RJ glanced over their shoulders, then put their heads close to Claire’s. “Last night our dad slept over at the fire station,” Brynlee said in a low voice. “When he came home for breakfast, he said he saw the ghost during the night. It even talked to him.”

  “What did the ghost say?” Claire asked.

  “It said, ‘Tell RJ and Brynlee to bring Claire to the fire station. Tell her to come as soon as possible,’” RJ said.

  Kaz passed through the side of the water bottle and swam into the middle of their circle. “Why would the ghost ask for you?” he asked Claire. “How does he or she even know your name?”

  “Did your dad say anything else about the ghost?” Claire asked the twins.

  “Just that it was a young boy,” RJ said.

  Kaz blinked. A young boy?

  “We’ll check it out after school,” Claire said as she closed her locker door.

  Kaz swam next to Claire’s ear. “Little John is a young boy. The ghost must be Little John. That’s how he knows your name,” he said. “The ghost is Little John!”

  Claire veered into the girls’ bathroom. She motioned for Kaz to follow.

  Kaz felt a little funny about that. He wasn’t a girl. But Claire clearly wanted him to come, so he darted in behind her just before the door closed.

  “That ghost could be Little John. But remember, there’s another ghost at the fire station, too. A ghost that Sparky doesn’t like for some reason. That’s why we were at the fire station to begin with.”

  Kaz suddenly felt worried for Little John. “Do you think the other ghost is a bad ghost?” he asked. “Like the one your mom knew when she was a kid?”

  Claire’s mom had a ghost friend named Molly when she was Claire’s age. Back then, the library was all apartments. Claire’s mom, Grandma Karen, and Molly lived in one of the apartments. One day a mean ghost named Annie came. She took things that belonged to Claire’s mom and to people who lived in the other apartments and made Molly transform them. She wanted people to be afraid and move out so she could have the whole house to herself. She even pushed Molly through a wall into the Outside, and Claire’s mom never saw Molly again!

  What if the ghost at the fire station was like Annie?

  What if Little John was at the fire station with a very mean ghost, and that mean ghost pushed him into the Outside?

  “We’ll go over to the fire station after school,” Claire said.

  The kids stopped at Brynlee and RJ’s house to pick up Sparky. Their dad had brought Sparky home from the fire station in the morning because the dog had been barking and howling all night.

  “Why was he barking and howling so much?” Kaz asked from inside Claire’s water bottle. “He likes Little John. He wouldn’t bark at Little John. Not in a mean way, anyway.”

  But Claire couldn’t talk to Kaz because Brynlee and RJ were there.

  “Woof! Woof!” Sparky barked cheerfully when the kids went inside the house.

  “Hey, boy,” RJ said, patting his head. Brynlee and Claire stopped to pet him, too.

  Sparky sniffed at Claire’s water bottle. “Woof! Woof!” he barked again, his tail wagging. Then he licked the outside of the bottle.

  “Hi, Sparky.” Kaz waved at the dog.

  “Sparky must be really thirsty,” Brynlee said.

  “Over here, Sparky,” RJ said, pointing to a full bowl of water.

  But the dog wasn’t thirsty. “Woof! Woof!” he barked. He licked Claire’s water bottle again. He wanted to play with Kaz!

  “Sparky can get water at the fire station,” Brynlee said. “Let’s go. I want to find out why this ghost wanted us to bring Claire as soon as possible.” She snapped Sparky’s leash to his collar, and they all trooped over to the fire station through the backyard. Just like they’d done the day before.

  As they got close to the fire station door, Sparky pulled on the leash and started barking again. But this time it was NOT a friendly bark.

  “WOOF! WOOF! WOOF!” he said. His ears and tail stood straight up.

  RJ tried to pull the dog through the door, but Sparky dug his paws into the grass and refused to go inside. “Ar-ar-arooooooooo!” he howled.

  “What’s the matter with him?” Brynlee asked.

  Kaz was wondering the same thing. “What’s the matter, Sparky?” he asked from inside Claire’s water bottle.

  Sparky turned to lick Claire’s water bottle right. Then he howled some more. “Aroooooo!”

  It wasn’t just the TV room anymore. Now Sparky didn’t want to go inside the fire station at all!

  Was the other ghost in the garage now? Was that the problem?

  Kaz couldn’t see the whole garage from inside Claire’s water bottle, but he could see a lot of it. He didn’t see any ghosts in there.

  “Maybe we should take Sparky around front and see if he’ll go in the main door,” Claire suggested.

  “That’s a good idea,” Brynlee said.

  They all ran up the grassy hill behind the fire station and around to the front of the building. RJ pushed open the main door, and Sparky ran through it with his tail wagging. He charged into the office and went from one desk to another, greeting all the firefighters.

  “Weird,” Brynlee and RJ said.

  “What’s weird?” Dick asked. “The fact that you two have this twin thing where you say the same thing at the same time?”

  “No,” Brynlee said as Kaz passed through the water bottle and expanded to full size.

  “You know how Sparky won’t go in the TV room?” RJ said. “He was like that with the back door just now, too. He wouldn’t go into the garage. We thought maybe he didn’t want to go into the fire station at all anymore. But he didn’t mind coming in this door.”

  “That’s a funny fire station mascot,” David said with a laugh. “A dog who refuses to go into the fire station.”

  Several of the other firefighters nodded in agreement.

  “Let’s see if he’ll go into the garage from inside the fire station,” RJ said as he headed for the back hallway. “Come on, Sparky!”

  Kaz would’ve preferred to look for Little John, but he followed Sparky, RJ, Brynlee, and Claire down the hall. When they reached the door to the garage, RJ pulled it open.

  Sparky sat down and let out a low growl.

  While RJ held the door open, Brynlee walked through and turned around at the top of the stairs. “Come here, Sparky!” she said, patting her legs.

  RJ tried to nudge Sparky through the doorway from behind, but the dog refused to go. “Arooooooooooo!” he howled.

  Little John wafted into the hallway behind them. “There you guys are!” he said to Kaz and Claire.

  “Little John!” Kaz cried. He swam to Little John and threw his arms around his brother. “You’re here! You’re safe. You’re not blowing in the wind somewhere.”

  Sparky leaped up and wagged his tail at Little John.

  “Now what’s that dog doing?” Brynlee asked. “Why is he so excited all of a sudden?”

  “Of course I’m not blowing in the wind,” Little John said. “Were you worried, Kaz? I told those firefighters last night to tell you I was here.”

  “Yeah, but we didn’t get the message until this morning,” Kaz said, finally letting Little John go. “And we didn’t know for sure it was you.”

  “Who else would it have been? Who else would have asked for Claire?” Little John asked as he tr
ied to pet Sparky. But Sparky swam right through his hand.

  “Where were you?” Kaz asked. “Last I saw, you were inside that fire truck when the alarm sounded. But when the fire truck came back, you were gone.”

  “I was still inside the fire truck,” Little John said. “When the firefighters opened the doors to the truck, I was afraid I was going to get sucked into the Outside. So I shrank and hid inside the glove box. I didn’t know when it was safe to come out, so I stayed there for a long, long time. When I came out, the truck was back in the garage. It was nighttime, and everyone was gone.”

  “Hiding in the glove box was a smart idea,” Kaz said.

  “I know,” Little John replied.

  “I’m glad we found you,” Claire accidentally said out loud.

  “Who are you talking to, Claire?” RJ asked.

  “Is it the ghost?” Brynlee asked.

  “Uh . . . yeah,” Claire said quickly. “Let me get out my equipment and I’ll catch it.” She unzipped her bag and pulled out her ghost glass and her ghost catcher. She aimed them both at Little John.

  Kaz gasped. “No!” he cried, swimming between Claire and Little John. “You can’t suck my brother into that machine!” Claire’s ghost catcher was really just a handheld vacuum that she’d covered in foil. She hadn’t turned it on yet, but Kaz knew it was LOUD. And strong. Much stronger and scarier than any outside wind.

  “Relax, Kaz. We’ll be safe inside Claire’s water bottle,” Little John said.

  Oh, Kaz thought. Of course. After all, Claire never planned to use her ghost catcher on any real ghosts. She just needed it so other solids would think she’d caught a ghost.

  Kaz and Little John shrank down . . . down . . . down . . . and passed through the side of Claire’s water bottle. Once they were safe inside, Claire turned on her ghost catcher. It made a terrible noise.

  Claire aimed the ghost catcher at the wall across from the radio room as the twins stared in amazement.

  “Got it,” Claire said, turning off the machine.