by Tara Ellis
THE HAUNTING OF EAGLE CREEK MIDDLE SCHOOL
The Samantha Wolf Mysteries
#5
TARA ELLIS
The Haunting of Eagle Creek Middle School
Copyright © 2016 Tara Ellis
Cover art design Copyright © Melchelle Designs
http://melchelle.designs.com/
Models: Breanna Dahl, Janae Dahl, Chloe Hoyle
Photographer: Tara Ellis Photography
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Samantha Wolf Mysteries
Book 1. The Mystery of Hollow Inn
Book 2. The Secret of Camp Whispering Pines
Book 3. The Beach House Mystery
Book 4. The Heiress of Covington Ranch
Book 5. The Haunting of Eagle Creek Middle School
Book 6. TBA (coming this summer!)
Find these and Tara’s other titles on her author page at Amazon!
http://www.amazon.com/author/taraellis
CONTENTS
Samantha Wolf Mysteries
1
A HAUNTINGLY GOOD IDEA
2
A GHOSTLY STORY
3
THE PECULIAR MRS. POTTS
4
BENEFACTORS
5
A PIRATE COVE
6
THE GHOST OF EAGLE CREEK
7
FAMILY TIES
8
MOUNTING CLUES
9
HOW TO CATCH A GHOST
10
PHANTOM SECRETS
11
EVIDENCE
12
ROADBLOCK
13
GOOD DEEDS GONE WRONG
14
AYE, MATIES!
15
A HALLOWEEN TO REMEMBER
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
1
A HAUNTINGLY GOOD IDEA
Sam sits low in her seat at a small table, pushing at a corner of the handout until it’s no longer a sharp edge. It’s a colorful piece of paper, with fun fonts and a professional looking layout. Her Physical Ed teacher, Miss Covington, is good with a word processor. It’s their first official newsletter, highlighting the new school club missions and goals.
They’re gathered at the back of the school cafeteria. Miss Covington has finally started their first meeting after waiting for nearly an hour, and only three other students showed up. Although a big turnout wasn’t expected on a Monday afternoon after school, it’s still disappointing.
Wiggling a bit impatiently, Samantha Wolf then leans her head on Ally’s shoulder, who’s seated to her left. She notes the stark contrast between her own dark brown hair and Ally’s bright red curls, before exchanging a knowing look. They then both turn towards Cassy Sanchez on Sam’s right.
“What?” Speaking slowly and with an exaggerated drawl, Cassy bats her lashes at them. “I told you that this fundraising club would be for a good cause. I didn’t say anything about it being fun and games.” Crossing her arms, the olive-skinned girl narrows her eyes and presses her lips together, daring her two friends to disagree.
Sam studies Cassy’s dark eyes for a moment, still amazed at the change she’s witnessed in her friend. She went from being a shy, bullied girl, to someone who now rivals Sam’s stubbornness!
While Sam and Ally have been friends for years, they only started hanging out with Cassy a couple of months ago. But it’s the sort of friendship that feels timeless. The twelve-year-old girls all attend seventh grade together at Eagle Creek Middle school. Their first year at the new school has already proven to be exciting, with the three of them solving a generations-old mystery. Not only did it end up saving Miss Covington’s family ranch, but uncovered the truth that revealed their teacher and Cassy were half-sisters.
The past few weeks have been a whirlwind of changes for Cassy. She moved in with her newly found older sister, and is still waiting for all of the state paperwork to be filed. Her grandmother was raising her, but due to worsening dementia, isn’t able to care for her any longer. Now, Grams is in a wonderful assisted-living facility, and Cassy has never been happier.
Sam breaks into a wide smile, unable to hold up the charade any longer, and Cassy is quick to smile back. While the school club that Miss Covington created might end up being a tad boring, Cassy is right. It’s going to be all about raising money for local charities, not having fun. Unless…
“Oh!” Sam exclaims, surprising even herself with the outburst.
“You have something to share?” While the young teacher’s voice is somewhat stern, her face is soft, and she stares at Sam with a crooked grin. She’s used to her young student’s impulsiveness, and appreciates her spirit.
Blushing slightly, Sam gazes back down at the doodling she’s made in the margin of the handout. Charity club…after school…fundraising ideas. She writes out haunted house below it, and then looks back at Miss Covington, her short blonde hair a good match to a petite frame. “A haunted house!” she blurts out, getting more excited now. “Our church put one on a couple of years ago, and raised all sorts of money for the youth group. Halloween is in three weeks. We could make a haunted house here, at the school!”
Miss Covington taps at her lips with the eraser end of her pencil for a moment, contemplating the suggestion. “We’ll have to talk with our benefactor, Mrs. Potts, about it,” she finally says. “The afterschool program she funds is really struggling right now, which is why I chose it. Not only is the success of our first project important for that reason, but the school board has made it clear that the club will get shut down if we don’t prove it’s possible to raise more than we spend.”
Sam has continued to doodle, expanding to drawings of pumpkins and ghosts. She pauses, looking up at her teacher and friend. Sam knows that Miss Covington is donating her own money for the start-up funds. Although she has a large amount of cash coming to her as a result of the girls proving her entitlement to a family inheritance, it will be tied up in probate for several more weeks. Her teacher’s salary doesn’t go that far after the expenses of living on her old family farm, especially now that she’s also supporting Cassy.
“Since all of the local stores already have their decorations for sale, I’ll bet we could get some of them to donate stuff, if we explain what it’s for,” Sam presses, getting more excited about the idea. “And we can have the boys help us. I’m sure they’d love to dress up and scare kids!” ‘The boys’ are Sam and Ally’s older brothers, John and Hunter, who are both in high school.
“What if we made special coupons for the kids at the afterschool program?” Cassy suggests. “If they get to go through the haunted house for free, Mrs. Potts might be more likely to say yes. I know that when I used to go there, the most fun we ever had was going on field trips. The kids would love it!”
Miss Covington’s smile has been growing, and she’s started to write the thoughts down as the girls talk.
“My dad’s really into Halloween and all the decorating and stuff,” adds one of the boys seated at the other table. Sam doesn’t know him or the other two girls, but she’s seen them around. He scratches briefly at his blond head, and then turns in his seat to face M
iss Covington. “I’m pretty sure we have a bunch of extra skeletons. Probably one of those smoke machine things, too.”
“Thank you, Brian,” Miss Covington replies, making more notes. “How about all of you think about ways that you could contribute to putting on a haunted house,” she says, looking at each of them. “It would be a big project, and we don’t have a whole lot of time, but I like the idea! I’ll speak with the board tomorrow to see if we can use the gym, and then we’ll go talk with Mrs. Potts about it.”
Sam claps her hands together in excitement, and then jumps up from the table. “Come on!” she urges Ally, after they say goodbye to Cassy. “Let’s go find our brothers. This is going to be the best haunted house ever!”
2
A GHOSTLY STORY
“Stop trying to scare your sister.” Kathy Wolf points her fork at Hunter for emphasis, but the glop of mashed potatoes falling off the end of it causes smiles around the dinner table, instead of fear.
“But it’s true, Mom,” Hunter counters, his grin widening. He has the same dark eyes and hair of his father, but the short stature of his mom. Sam, on the other hand, is nearly as tall as he is already. Ethan Wolf constantly tries to convince his son that all of the Wolf men start to grow in their later teens, but Hunter believes he’s destined to be forever smaller than his friends. “Everyone knows that Eagle Creek Middle School is haunted. Right, John?” Nudging his best friend in the ribs, Hunter shovels more of his dad’s famous meatloaf into his mouth.
“Umm…sure,” John confirms, glancing briefly at a scowling Mrs. Wolf. His cheeks burning, he sets his own fork down, feeling a need to explain himself. At sixteen, he’s two years older than Hunter and has a greater sense of accountability than his friend.
“The story goes, that some fifty years ago, there was a horrible accident in the boiler room under the school.”
“Is that what they used for heat?” Ally asks, interrupting her brother.
“Yeah,” John confirms. “I think they converted the school to a regular furnace some time ago, but the boiler is still there, because it’s too expensive to remove it. Anyway,” he continues, looking around the table at his captive audience, “the janitor pretty much worked there his whole life. He knew what he was doing, but that night, something went terribly wrong and he died in the mishap. Ever since, on cold nights, you can hear the sounds of his ghost wandering the basement under the school, trying to fix the boiler.”
“Oh, please,” Sam laughs it off. “That’s not even all that impressive, as far as ghost stories go! But…” pausing with her glass of water halfway to her mouth, she slams it back down and spins towards Ally. “We should use that in the haunted house!” she shouts, bouncing in her chair. “Have John dress up in an old janitor suit, or something.”
“Uhhmm,” Ethan clears his throat loudly, while staring pointedly at his daughter. “Samantha, do you really think that would be in good taste?”
“Yeah, Samantha,” Hunter adds, not missing a chance to tease his sister. “Why would we want to waste our time running around in a stupid kid’s thing, anyway?”
“Because it’s for a good cause,” Ally argues. “And I agree with your dad,” she adds, turning back to Sam. “If someone really did die, I wouldn’t want to make light of it. There’s a ton of other things we can have them dress up as,” she quickly ads, seeing the defeated look on Sam’s face. “John would make a good Frankenstein!”
Sticking his arms out in front of him, John does a pretty good impersonation, groaning loudly and causing squeals of laugher from Abigail and Tabitha, Sam’s two-year-old twin sisters. Their blonde heads bob in unison, little miniature images of their mother.
Her brief moment of despair gone, Sam laughs along with her sisters at John’s antics. The large dining room table barely accommodates them all, but they recently fell into the habit of having Ally and John over for dinner on Monday nights. They live only two houses apart, so it’s a normal occurrence for the kids to be at one or the others home. Since John and Ally’s parents are often gone working, the Wolfs’ cozier house is usually the first choice. Her dad also prides himself for his cooking, and Monday is his night to show off.
Sam’s mood darkens again, as she watches her dad joking with Hunter. He’ll be leaving for Alaska next month, where he works as a commercial fisherman. The much-needed income is a necessity, especially since her mom quit her job as a teacher to stay home with the twins. Normally, he would have already left, going after halibut. But his role with his employer evolved over this past summer, and now he’s been put in charge of the big king crab run that begins November first. After that, he’s going to stay on to oversee some of the smaller shrimping operations, until the pacific cod season starts in January. He’ll be home for Christmas, but then he won’t come back until spring, and Sam always misses him so much when he’s gone.
The thought of spring pulls her reflections in a different direction, and Sam feels a small stirring of excitement. Miss. Covington has big plans for her old horse ranch, high on the hill not far from their home. Once she gets her inheritance, Lisa Covington can make some much-needed repairs to the estate. But that’s just the beginning. Sam, Ally, and Cassy have already agreed to help clear the miles of trails in the woods, in preparation for a summer riding school that Lisa wants to run.
It’s still weird to think of her as Lisa, Sam acknowledges. Her teacher insisted that the girls call her by her actual name when they’re not at school. It’s easy for Cassy to make the transition, since she’s her sister, but it’s harder for Sam and Ally to follow suit. However, the more time they spend together at the ranch, the more natural it becomes. They’ll be there a bunch this summer, since Sam gets to help take care of the horses that Lisa is going to be getting.
It’s always been Sam’s dream to have a horse of her own. They have an old barn back in the corner of their three-acre lot, but not the money needed to take care of a horse. Now, Sam will have a chance to spend a whole summer riding and training!
A light hand on her arm draws Sam from her daydreams, and she turns to find Ally studying her.
“What are you thinking about?” Ally asks, tilting her head slightly. “You look like you’re on another planet.”
“Horses.”
Sam and Ally are close enough that no further explanation is needed, and they simply exchange a knowing smile.
Sam then absently smears a chunk of meatloaf into some ketchup, but still fails to take a bite when she spots the pile of football gear by the backdoor. Although Hunter is a freshman at the high school and on the JV team while his older friend is on varsity, he and John still get to practice together.
“What if,” she says loudly, interrupting the current conversation about how to properly barbeque a salmon, “you guys wore your football gear?”
“Huh?” Hunter responds, clearly not following her line of questioning.
“In the haunted house,” Sam presses. “Do you think your coach would let you wear it? We could do your makeup to make you look like zombies!”
John runs a hand through his blonde hair, his blue eyes sparkling back at Sam. “That’s not a half-bad idea,” he states. “It might be kinda fun, Hunter,” he adds. “I think the coach would be okay with it. We do worse things to it every game.”
“Maybe.” Hunter hesitates, thinking about the possibilities. “I guess if I got to scare a bunch of kids it wouldn’t be too boring.”
“And you’d get all the candy you want!” Ally throws in, knowing the direct way to Hunter’s heart.
“Done!” he agrees, and then promptly goes back to cleaning off his plate.
3
THE PECULIAR MRS. POTTS
The elegant, cobblestone driveway is both long and steep, and as a light rain begins to soak into her sweatshirt, Sam wishes that they’d parked closer to the large estate on the top of the hill.
Even hunched over against the chilly fall afternoon, Sam is taller than both of her friends. Cassy is a close secon
d, but Ally is forced to take about two steps for each one of hers, unable to match her long stride. Lisa is pulling away from them all, having decided to jog to the base of the sweeping front steps.
Lisa finally got approval for the haunted house from the school, after three days of debating it with them. There was concern about damage to the newer gym flooring. After promising to put down tarps, they reluctantly agreed, but there’s even more pressure now to make it a success.
As soon as she got word from the school board earlier today, Lisa arranged to meet with Mrs. Potts. Once the benefactor says yes to the haunted house idea, they can then move forward with gathering donations and figuring out how they’re going to put it all together. Sam feels the first twinges of anxiety over the project. It is her idea, after all. If it fails, she’ll feel horrible about it.
Lisa is striking the large wooden door with an ornate metal knocker, which looks like an antique and something they could copy for the entrance to the haunted house. Sam grins when she realizes how the layout of the maze on the gym floor, which will be made of cardboard, is already beginning to form in her head. It will be good!
The knocking is answered almost immediately, as if the older woman were waiting on the other side of the door. Sam doesn’t know what she was expecting, but Mrs. Potts is not at all how she pictured her.
Dressed in pale pink slacks and a white silk blouse, she looks very trim and proper. Her white hair is done up in a large bun, small wisps of it escaping around her face. Although she must be in her late sixties, she has a much younger energy to her, and stands wringing her thin hands while shifting back and forth on the balls of her feet. Glancing briefly over her shoulder down a darkened hallway, she turns back with a small scowl on her otherwise pleasant face when she sees the cluster of girls standing behind their teacher.