by Gary Paulsen
“I was just thinking that if we found the treasure, we’d get our picture in the paper. Women always go for guys who get their picture in the paper.”
“Do they?”
“Sure. I know Melissa does, anyway. She cuts out pictures of one guy and puts them on her wall every time he’s in the paper.”
“Who?”
“Biff Fastrack.”
“Biff Fastrack?” Biff was the captain of the football team. He scored a million touchdowns a game or something. “Melissa likes Biff? He doesn’t have a neck.”
“The only reason she likes him is because he gets his picture in the paper.”
“It would have to be. How can a girl like someone who doesn’t have a neck? It would be like falling in love with Barney Rubble.”
“On the other hand, you have a neck …”
“And if I can get my picture in the paper …”
The bell rang. School was over.
“Let’s go,” Amos said.
“Where to?”
“Over to your house. We have to plan how we’re going to investigate the Rambridge house.”
• 3
“Listen,” Amos said. “I’m having second thoughts about this.”
He and Dunc were lying in the grass on top of a hill overlooking the back of the Rambridge house. Dunc had a pair of binoculars and was trying to look through a window.
“Think about your picture on Melissa’s wall,” he said.
Amos thought. “Well …”
“When we find this treasure, it will probably be the size of the whole front page.”
“Kind of like a poster, huh?”
“She could laminate it. That way she could kiss it without ruining the paper.”
“Let’s go,” Amos said.
“Go where?”
“Into the house. We’ll never see anything from up here. If you want to see ghosts, you have to go in and see them. I’ve been by this house a million times and never seen a thing.”
“What time of the day did you go by?” Dunc asked.
“All times of the day.”
“Ever watch it at night?”
“Yes. I ran by here last Halloween at the stroke of midnight, after I left your place. I didn’t see a single ghost.”
“Do you want to know why?” Dunc asked.
“I already know why. Ghosts don’t care what their neighbors are doing, so you don’t see them peeking out the windows.”
“That’s not the reason. The reason is that there are no such things as ghosts.”
“Tell that to the big white guy with the smoking ears.” Amos pulled up a blade of grass and chewed on it.
“What side of the house did you run by?” Dunc asked.
“The front side.”
“Ever watch the back?”
“Well … no.”
“Good. Then we’re not wasting our time.” He put the binoculars down. “I can’t see anything—”
“I told you.”
“—yet. We’ll just have to wait a little longer. Something’s bound to happen.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Look at the gravel road that runs along the back. See those tire tracks? Somebody must have been driving there not too long ago, or the rain would’ve washed the tracks away. Ghosts don’t drive vehicles.”
“Don’t be so sure. I heard a story once about a truck driver who ran himself off a cliff instead of hitting a school bus, and now hitchhikers on that road say they get picked up by a spooky trucker with big green eyes.”
“Look.” Dunc pointed down the hill. “I told you we wouldn’t have to wait long.”
A white van drove down the gravel road. It stopped behind the Rambridge house, and two men climbed out. One of them with a bottle in his hand unlocked the back door. The other walked to the rear of the van and took out a large box. He followed the first man into the house.
“I wonder what’s in that box,” Dunc said.
“A ghost cage.”
“How do you know that?”
“I’ve seen them on Saturday-morning cartoons. A box that size could hold a thousand ghosts. You can pack them in like sardines.”
“Let’s go down and find out.”
“Now? With those two down there?”
“We’ll wait a little while and see if they leave and, if they do, whether the box goes with them.” Dunc studied the house with the binoculars again.
Minutes passed. The minutes turned into an hour, then two hours. Dunc was still studying the house. Amos was watching the sun begin to set. The rays looked like the light in Melissa’s hair when the sun hit it. He tried to imagine the two of them running through the fields, romantic music in the air, their arms outstretched to each other. But every time he did, he saw himself tripping on something. Even his imagination was clumsy.
“This is boring, Dunc.”
“Have patience. Something will happen.”
“We’ve been waiting for two hours for something to happen. Nothing has. Nothing will.”
“Those guys went in. They have to come out again.” A bead of sweat rolled down Dunc’s face. He wiped it away without taking his eyes from the binoculars. He stiffened.
“Here they come,” he said.
The two men came out the back door. They climbed into the van and drove away.
Dunc stood up. “Let’s go.”
“Go where?”
“Down to the house.”
“They didn’t take the box with them. That means there’s a thousand ghosts in there, not to mention Blackbeard.”
“Well, I’m going.” Dunc jogged down the hill.
Amos didn’t move. He shook his head. “It isn’t worth it. No newspaper will put a picture on the front page of a guy with chewed-off cheeks. I don’t want to face a ghost.”
He was talking to himself. Dunc was already halfway down the hill. Amos stood and reluctantly followed.
• 4
“The door’s locked.”
Dunc scanned the back of the house. There were no other doors and no windows they could reach. “We’ll have to go in the front.”
Amos stared at him. “Don’t you remember the last time we tried going in the front? We ran into Blackbeard, and—”
“I already told you. One of those two guys in the van was Blackbeard.”
“You don’t know that.”
“One of them had to be.” Dunc walked around the side of the house. Amos could see there was no point in trying to stop him.
It was already dark inside. The house looked almost the same as it had the night before, except there was no ghost at the top of the stairs.
Yet, Amos thought.
There wasn’t a ghost there yet. To make him blow bubbles with his cheeks. Or worse. Yet.
He stopped just inside the door. “I don’t see anything, do you? Good. Let’s go.” He took two steps, then Dunc grabbed him by the back of his collar.
“You’re choking me, Dunc!”
“Sorry.” He let go. “I didn’t mean to. It’s just that we’ve come too far to give up now.”
“That’s a matter of opinion.”
Dunc ignored him. “That box must be upstairs.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s where the ghost tried to keep us from going last night.”
“There”—Amos nodded—“you called him a ghost. Right there. You actually did it. Let’s go. Now.”
“Come on.” Dunc moved toward the staircase. Halfway across the living room, Amos stopped him.
“What?”
“Do you smell something burning?”
Dunc sniffed. “No.”
“I do. It smells like matches. Ghost matches.”
“Amos, don’t be ridiculous. I already told you—”
They heard footsteps on the landing above them.
“Run!” Amos gasped.
“No. Let’s wait a minute.”
Amos wanted to run, but he stopped, waiting. He put his hands over h
is eyes—he’d read that you turned to stone or salt or mayonnaise or something if you looked directly at them. But he couldn’t keep from peeking between his fingers. He saw a glow coming from the door.
Suddenly the ghost stepped onto the landing, the two sides of his head burning ghastly white. He saw them and raised his lantern.
“Get out.”
Amos grabbed Dunc’s shoulder. “That’s a good idea, Dunc. Let’s go.”
“This isn’t possible,” Dunc said. “He can’t exist.”
“I don’t care. I’m taking his advice.” Amos tried to run, but his knees wouldn’t bend. Neither would his fingers. Or his tongue. He was scared stiff.
“Get out,” the ghost repeated. He trudged down the creaking stairs.
Amos tried to oblige him, but he couldn’t lift his feet off the floor. He ran his tongue along the inside of his cheek.
It was a little gummy, he thought. Maybe with some sugar …
He finally forced his feet to move, just barely. But as he dragged them toward the door, his heel caught on a loose floorboard. He fell, dragging Dunc down with him. The ghost was halfway down the stairs.
“Kill …” Amos groaned, trying to crawl out from beneath Dunc. “Dead … us …”
“No, he won’t.”
“Pirates, broadswords, cuts,” Amos hissed. “Torture, bubbles, big red bubbles.”
“Why would he kill us? What have we—”
At that moment the step underneath the ghost’s right foot caved in. He hung in the air for a moment, teetering, then fell forward with a sound like a tree coming down. He landed in a heap at the foot of the stairs.
• 5
“Why me? Why always me?”
The ghost climbed to his feet and sat on the bottom stair. He pulled the matches out of the brim of his hat and held his head in his hands.
“Are you all right?” Dunc asked. He and Amos still sat in the middle of the floor, watching him.
“I just fell down the stairs, and my knee hurts, and I bruised my elbow and singed my ear with a match, and you ask me if I’m all right?”
“Who are you?”
“Who do I look like?”
“You look like Blackbeard.”
“I do?” The ghost’s face brightened. “Thank you. That’s who I was trying to look like.”
“Trying to? You mean you’re not?”
“Me—Blackbeard?” The ghost laughed. “Of course not! Blackbeard would never have fallen down the stairs. He would have been able to scare people out of his home. Any ghost should be able to do that, don’t you think?”
“I think so.”
“Of course! But I can’t. I’m a failure.” He shook his head again.
“What’s your name?” Amos asked.
“Eddie.”
“Eddie?” He looked at Dunc.
“Is there something wrong with that name?” the ghost asked.
“I thought ghosts were supposed to have big, evil-sounding names. Eddie is kind of, well … tame.”
“It’s not my fault. That’s what my parents named me. And I never said I was a ghost.”
Dunc climbed to his feet. “You’re not?”
“Don’t be silly. Of course not. There’s no such things as ghosts.”
Amos stood up, too. “You look like a ghost.”
“Don’t try to flatter me.”
“I mean it.”
“Really?” His face brightened again. “Thank you.”
“Why are you doing this?”
Eddie sighed. “I found this nice old house to live in that nobody wants, and to keep people from constantly bothering me, I decided I’d play ghost until everyone was scared away. But you can see how good I am at that. No, I can’t do anything right.” He put his head in his hands again.
Eddie looked a little more human up close than he did at the top of the stairs.
“How’d you get so white?” Amos asked.
“Makeup.”
“Why would you want to live in an old rickety house like this?” Dunc asked.
“I can afford it.”
“What do you do for a living?”
“I used to be a schoolteacher, but they fired me for whispering and passing notes in class.” He stuck his chin out. “Now,” he said with dignity, “I am a gentleman of leisure.”
Amos looked at Dunc. “A bum.”
Eddie stood up and paced back and forth across the floor, testing his knee. He limped a little.
“All I wanted was a place where no one would bother me. Now everyone in town will know about the old crazy guy at the Rambridge house pretending to be Blackbeard’s ghost. I’ll never have a moment’s peace.”
“We won’t tell anyone,” Dunc said.
“You won’t?”
“No. If no one else is using this place, why shouldn’t you?”
“That’s the problem.” Eddie sat back down on the stair. “Somebody else is using it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well—” The stair groaned loudly once, then snapped in half. Eddie fell through. He looked like a white pretzel with two ends sticking in the air, wiggling. Amos and Dunc had to help him up.
Eddie clenched his teeth, reached behind, and jerked. “Splinter,” he said, his breath whistling. “I hate this—if I’m not falling down the stairs, I’m getting splinters in my butt. I’m just not having a very good day.”
“What do you mean, somebody else is using the house?” Dunc repeated.
“I can hear them prowling around in the cellar.” He rubbed his behind. “I don’t know what they’re doing.”
“Why don’t you try to scare them off?”
“Because they aren’t two boys frightened of their own shadows. They’re big, rough men. They have to be.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because they go down in the cellar.”
“So?”
“There are … things down there.” Eddie shuddered.
“What kind of things?” Dunc asked.
“Things that make noises in the night. Big noises. Clunking and pulling and dragging and rattling noises.”
“And you still want to live here?”
“I live upstairs. They stay in the basement and don’t bother me.”
“That wouldn’t be a good enough reason for me to live here,” Amos said. “In fact, I might just leave the city—even the state. I’m going to grow up, buy a car, marry Melissa, and leave. Tomorrow.”
“Amos—”
“Or maybe the whole country. I’ll have to find another one. Do they have ghosts in England?”
“Millions,” Dunc said. “That’s the worst place for them.”
“Then I’ll go to Antarctica. The worst thing there would be ghost penguins.”
Dunc shook his head. “First of all, we don’t know if the noises are really ghosts—”
“I do,” Amos said. “I know it.”
“—and if the men can go down in the cellar, they can’t be all that scary. Let’s have a look.”
“You’re nuts.”
“Amos, the men brought the box down there. Don’t you want to find out what’s in it?”
“Not if it means running into dead things that still move around.”
“Noises,” Eddie corrected. “Dead noises.”
“Okay. Dead noises that still move around.”
But Dunc was gone, headed for the back of the house where a stairway led down from the kitchen.
“I hate that,” Amos said to Eddie.
“What?”
“When he just leaves like that. I hate that. He knows I’ll follow him and I always do follow him, and I just hate that.”
He followed Dunc.
• 6
From the top of the stairs the cellar looked like a bottomless pit. The light from Eddie’s lantern didn’t seem to illuminate very much.
“Do you see anything?” Dunc asked.
“Nothing,” Amos said, “and I prefer to keep it that way.”
“Go down the steps a little farther.”
“Are you crazy?”
Dunc sighed. “I guess I’ll have to find the box myself. I’ll get all the credit, all the glory. My picture will be on Melissa’s wall.”
Amos led the way down the stairs.
The lantern light showed what looked like a typical cellar. All the walls were made of brick except the far wooden one. There were shelves filled with old boxes, jars, and wine bottles. Everything was dusty. It looked as if no one had been down there in fifty years.
“Look at the floor,” Dunc said.
There were footprints in the dust leading to the wooden wall.
“The two men in the van. It’s their tracks. See how they lead from the door to the wooden wall and back again?” He rapped the wood with his knuckles. It sounded hollow.
“I bet it’s a secret door,” Eddie said.
“I think you’re right.” Dunc pressed his ear to the wood. “I wonder how they opened it.”
“Maybe they have a key.”
“There’s no keyhole. There must be a secret latch or something.” He ran his hands lightly back and forth across the wood. “See if you can find anything.” Amos and Eddie began searching.
Amos looked through the wine shelves that ran perpendicular to the wall. He ran his fingertips along the little lip on the bottom shelf that kept the bottles from falling off. Nothing.
He did the same with the other shelves. He had to stretch himself out to reach the top. As he did, he smacked something with his leg.
“Ouch!”
He searched the bottom shelf again, more carefully this time.
“It’s a faucet.”
Dunc knelt down. “Eddie, have you seen any other plumbing in this house?”
“Only in the kitchen.”
“Then what’s a faucet doing down here?” He turned it on. No water came out.
“Look underneath it,” Amos said. “All the dust has been washed away.”
Dunc touched the floor. “It’s even a little damp. There was water coming out of this not too long ago.”
“Why doesn’t it work now?” Amos asked.
“I don’t know.” Dunc turned the faucet handle to off. He sat back and thought hard. After a minute he shrugged his shoulders.
“I can’t figure it out. Maybe there’s another valve somewhere that you have to turn on first.” They looked around for fifteen more minutes. They didn’t find anything.