“Hello? Are there any other ghosts on this floor?” Kaz called as he drifted in and out of meeting rooms.
He didn’t see any ghosts on the fourth floor.
He came to another set of stairs and swam down to the third floor. This floor was a lot brighter than the fourth floor. The ceiling and slanted glass walls went up, up, up to the top floor of the library.
There was another outside entrance to the library on this floor. And another checkout desk . . . an information desk . . . bookshelves . . . a store that sold cards and bags and a bunch of other stuff . . . a planter with real plants . . . and lots of places for solid people to sit and read.
Words on a concrete wall told Kaz he was in a living room. There was a living room in the library back home, but that one was just for Claire and her family. It was in their apartment above the library. This living room looked like it was for everyone.
Kaz wafted past the living room, through a section marked Teen Area, and up over a wall. There were several librarians working at desks back here.
But no ghosts.
Kaz went all the way to the end of the office area and returned to the main part of the library. He wafted past the checkout desk and saw a bright yellow escalator going down. He followed it, expecting to come out on the second floor.
But somehow he was back on the first floor now. The door where they had come in was right in front of him. The elevators and children’s center were to his right. And the checkout and returns were to his left. Where is the second floor? Kaz wondered.
Well, he hadn’t searched this floor yet. Maybe he’d find another escalator that led to the second floor somewhere on this floor.
He continued past the checkout and returns area . . . past the reserves . . . and into the world languages area. There was writing on the wood floor here. Kaz couldn’t read any of it because it was written backward. Some of it was even in other languages.
He drifted in and out of small storage rooms, in and out of restrooms, and through a dark auditorium beside the children’s center.
Still no ghosts. No secret escalator to the second floor, either.
Kaz glanced over at the checkout and returns area. He stared at the strange machine that carried books up through an opening in the ceiling.
Wait. Maddie said that books were sorted on the second floor. Maybe you could get to the second floor by following that machine.
Kaz swam over. He sailed up, up, up along the conveyor belt and through the ceiling.
Aha! This was a new part of the library. This must be the second floor.
Kaz watched books move along several conveyor belts. Sometimes the books fell into bins. Sometimes they rode the conveyor belt to another bin. How do the books know where to go? Kaz wondered.
There were several solid people in here who watched computer screens, pushed buttons on machines, and wheeled carts in and out of the room. Kaz followed one of those people to some sort of loading area. There was a big garage door that was open to the Outside. Kaz quickly backstroked out of there. He didn’t want to get blown into the Outside.
He searched the rest of the second floor. There were no ghosts here, either.
* * * * * * *
“Hi, Kaz!” Little John waved from the back of the children’s center. “Did you find any ghosts?”
“No,” Kaz replied. “Did you?”
“No. But I found a secret room,” Little John said. “It’s in there.” He pointed at a slanted mustard-colored wall below him.
Kaz hadn’t noticed that room before. But as he wafted over, he realized it wasn’t totally secret. Not like the secret room in the library back home. Solid people could go inside this room, if they saw the entrance.
“Did you go in?” Kaz asked his brother. “Are there any ghosts in there?”
“I went in. There was a lady reading a Halloween book to a bunch of solid kids in there. But there weren’t any ghosts,” Little John replied.
Claire and Maddie came back a few minutes later. Solid children surrounded them as soon as they walked in. “Did you find the ghost? Did you find the ghost?”
One of those children zoomed right through Kaz.
“Ack!” Kaz shrieked. He didn’t like it when solid people passed through him.
“No,” Claire said. She raised an eyebrow at Kaz and Little John to see whether they had found any ghosts. They both shook their heads.
“We’ve searched this whole library,” Claire said to the other kids. “Any ghosts that were here before are gone now.”
“That’s right,” Maddie said. “So come to the Halloween party. There’s—” A strange clanging noise cut her off.
“What was that?” a girl asked, her eyes wide.
“Sounds like our ghost is back,” Lynette said.
Andrea nudged Lynette. “Careful,” she said. “We don’t want to scare the children.”
CREEAAAAAK! CREAK! CLANG!
“I bet it’s the ghost with the chains,” said the light-haired boy.
“Mommy, I’m scared,” said a young boy. He raised his arms, and a woman picked him up.
“It sounds like it’s coming from upstairs. Let’s go check it out,” Maddie said to Claire. The girls raced for the escalator. Kaz and Little John followed close behind.
But when they got about halfway up, the escalator suddenly stopped. Kaz and Little John hovered in place behind Claire and Maddie.
“What happened? Why did we stop?” Claire asked, looking down at her feet.
“I bet the ghost made the escalator stop working,” Maddie said. “He’s done that before.”
Kaz didn’t know how a ghost could make an escalator stop working. But maybe if he spent more time around escalators, he would know.
The girls scrambled up the rest of the escalator stairs, and the ghosts swam behind them. When they reached the third floor, they saw a crowd gathered near the big planter. Everyone stared up at the angled glass ceiling.
“What’s going on?” Claire asked from the back of the crowd.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
An older boy in front of Claire pointed. “They’re washing the windows.”
The ghosts swam up to get a closer look at the two solid men who dangled from ropes outside the building.
“That looks dangerous for solid people,” Little John said.
“Yeah, so don’t glow!” Kaz warned. “You don’t want to scare them and make them fall.”
The men on the other side of the glass were holding hoses and squeegees. Large hooks that were attached to their ropes clanged against the glass. That’s what made the strange noise, not a ghost.
Kaz and Little John floated back down to Claire and Maddie.
“I guess you’re right, Claire,” Maddie said as they moved away from the crowd. “The ghost is gone. Should we go back to my house?”
“Sure,” Claire said.
Kaz and Little John shrank down . . . down . . . down . . . and swam into Claire’s water bottle. Then they all left the library.
“Do you mind if we stop at Pike Place and get some flowers for my mom?” Maddie asked. “Her birthday was last week and I never got her a gift.”
“Sure. I love the market,” Claire replied. They walked down a very steep hill, crossed a couple of busy streets, then walked into a crowded open market.
“Fresh fish!” a man behind the counter yelled. He tossed a large package into the crowd.
A woman stepped up and caught it with both hands.
“Do you want to see a really weird fish?” Maddie asked. She grabbed Claire’s hand and wove through the crowd. Kaz and Little John stayed inside the bottle.
When they reached the case, Maddie pointed at a large fish with a wide, gaping mouth. It was right at Kaz and Little John’s eye level, and it looked big enough to swallow them whole—if it was stil
l alive.
A little sign stuck in the ice said LOOK OUT! I’M A MONKFISH!
Without warning, the monkfish popped up and LUNGED toward the ghosts. “AAAHHHHHHH!” they both screamed.
It’s alive!” a younger boy cried as Claire and Maddie leaped back from the monkfish.
“It is not,” said an older boy beside him.
“It is too,” the younger boy insisted.
The monkfish just lay there on the ice now. It didn’t look like it was alive. But Kaz couldn’t tell for sure.
“Can I help whoever’s next?” asked the man behind the counter. He wore a white apron and a name badge that said BILL.
The fish popped up again.
“AAAHHHHHHH!” Kaz and Little John grabbed on to each other inside the bottle. The solid people standing near the glass case shrieked.
“Is it alive?” the younger boy asked Bill.
“Is what alive?” Bill asked. “Oh. This fish? This one right here?” He poked it with his finger. “It feels dead. Would you like to touch it?”
“No way!” the boy shrieked.
Bill smiled. “Or maybe it is still alive.” The fish popped up again. But this time Bill let the crowd see that there was a stick attached to the back of the fish. He used the stick to make the fish pop up.
A bunch of people laughed.
“Told you it wasn’t alive,” the older boy behind Claire and Maddie said to the younger boy. “That guy’s just playing a Halloween trick on everyone.”
“He does that even when it’s not Halloween. I think he likes scaring the tourists,” Maddie said as she and Claire moved away from the counter. “Come on. Let’s get some flowers.”
The girls strolled past long tables of flower bouquets. Maddie chose one with a mix of large blue, yellow, and white flowers. Then they left the market.
They dashed down several flights of stairs to reach the underground transit station. A bus waited at the other end of the platform.
“That’s our bus,” Maddie said, running toward it. She and Claire got on, paid their fares, and sat down on the first open seat. The ghosts stayed inside the bottle.
“Do you think we’ll see those ghosts that we saw this morning?” Little John asked as the bus sped through a tunnel.
“I don’t know,” Kaz said.
They kept their eyes open, but no ghosts passed through the bus this time.
* * * * * * *
That night, Aunt Beth made spaghetti for dinner.
“I love spaghetti,” Claire said. She plopped a large serving of noodles onto her plate. Kaz and Little John hovered above the table.
“I like the noodles, but not the sauce,” Maddie said. “I’m a vegetarian, but Mom still tries to sneak hamburger in the sauce.”
“You need protein, Maddie,” Aunt Beth said.
“You can get protein without eating meat,” Maddie said. “Hey, Claire. The teen advisory board is going to have touch-and-feel boxes at the Halloween party. What do you think? Should we put cold spaghetti in one of them? We could tell kids it’s intestines. Or maybe brains.”
“Sure,” Claire said with a laugh.
Aunt Beth reached for a slice of garlic bread. “What else are you going to put in them?” she asked.
“Peeled grapes,” Maddie said. “Those will be eyeballs. Unpopped popcorn will be monster teeth. Sliced bananas will be witch’s tongues. Oh! We also talked about putting a box over a hole in the table and having one of us sit under it. When a kid puts their hand in that box, the person under the table will reach through the hole and grab the kid’s hand!”
Aunt Beth gasped.
“Now, that’s scary,” Claire said.
“Too scary?” Maddie asked.
“I don’t know,” Claire said, wiping her mouth. “Maybe.”
“Some kids like to be scared, though,” Maddie said. “Especially on Halloween.”
“Oh! We can scare them. Can’t we, Kaz?” Little John said. “We can glow and wail at the party. Should I tell Maddie that?”
“No,” Kaz said. “No glowing or wailing, remember?”
“Not even on Halloween?” Little John asked.
“Not even on Halloween,” Kaz said.
“But you heard Maddie. Some kids want to be scared. They might want to see a real, live ghost on Halloween,” Little John argued.
“NO!” Kaz said again. “How many times do I have to say it? NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!”
* * * * * * *
That night, Claire and Maddie stayed up to watch scary movies. Kaz and Little John watched, too.
“Look at that ghost riding in the car with the top down.” Little John pointed at the TV. “That wouldn’t really happen. The ghost would blow away.”
“I know!” Kaz laughed. “I don’t think moviemakers know anything about ghosts. Do you, Claire?”
But Claire didn’t answer. She had fallen asleep.
Kaz and Little John watched the rest of the movie with Maddie. When it was over, Maddie turned off the TV. “Claire?” she whispered.
Claire didn’t answer. So Maddie draped a blanket over her, then got up to leave. She paused in the doorway. “Are you ghosts still here?” she whispered, looking around.
“Can we answer her?” Little John asked.
“I guess. She already knows about us. And no one else is here,” Kaz said.
“We’re . . . still . . . here . . . ,” the ghosts wailed at the same time.
Maddie sighed. “Claire’s so lucky she has ghost friends to watch over her,” she said, leaning against the doorjamb. “I wish I had a ghost friend to watch over me.”
“I’ll . . . be . . . your . . . ghost . . . friend . . . ,” Little John wailed.
“Me . . . too . . . ,” Kaz wailed.
“You will? Both of you will?” Maddie grinned. “That’s so nice, you guys. Thanks!” Then Maddie turned out the light and went up to her room.
“You already have a solid friend, Kaz,” Little John grumbled as they watched Claire sleep. “You have Claire.”
“So?” Kaz said. “You do, too.”
“She’s more your friend than mine,” Little John said. “I want my own solid friend.”
“Fine. You can be Maddie’s friend,” Kaz said.
Little John shook his head. “You already said you’d be her friend, too. I want a solid friend who’s all mine.”
“Well, maybe one day you’ll have one,” Kaz said, though he didn’t see what the big deal was.
* * * * * * *
In the morning, Maddie came back. “Claire, wake up!” she said, shaking Claire’s shoulder.
Claire yawned and stretched. “Did I fall asleep during the movie?”
“Yes,” Maddie said. “But you have to get up now. We have to go to the library.” She wore a yellow T-shirt that said TEEN ADVISORY BOARD on the front.
“Now?” Claire said, sitting partway up. “Don’t we have to do our schoolwork first?” She glanced over at Kaz and Little John. But they didn’t know what Maddie’s big hurry was, either.
“Mom said we could go now. The library needs our help,” Maddie said. “The ghost is back!”
What happened?” Maddie asked as she and Claire moved slowly through the children’s center. Kaz and Little John drifted above them. They all stared at the floor in dismay. There were hundreds, maybe even thousands, of books strewn around.
“It looks like there was an earthquake,” Claire said.
“This wasn’t an earthquake,” said Lynette.
“Did someone break into the library?” Maddie asked.
“We don’t think so,” Andrea replied. “There’s no sign of forced entry. Nothing seems to be missing. Nothing is out of place anywhere else in the building. But for some reason, most of the kids’ books were on the floor this morning.”
A light-haired boy pulled on Claire’s shirt. “It was a ghost,” he said. “Probably the same one who was here yesterday.”
Little John gasped. “Is he talking about me?” he asked. “Does he think I made this mess?”
Kaz remembered that boy from yesterday. He saw Little John. He also said he saw a ghost with chains in the library once.
“It wasn’t the ghost from yesterday,” said a girl with long braids. She’d been here yesterday, too. She was the one Little John wanted to play with.
“How do you know, Claire?” the light-haired boy asked the girl with the braids.
Kaz, Little John, and Claire all exchanged looks. The girl with the braids was named Claire, too?
“Because he was a nice ghost,” Claire-with-the-braids said.
Little John beamed.
“I don’t think it was a ghost,” Andrea said.
“Don’t be too sure about that,” Lynette said. “The security guard showed us video footage from last night. We could see books falling off the shelves on the video. But there wasn’t anyone there knocking them off. How do you explain that if it wasn’t a ghost?”
“I don’t know,” Andrea said. “But there’s got to be another explanation.”
“Maybe whoever did it knew where to stand so they wouldn’t get caught on camera?” Claire suggested.
“It’s not just all the books on the floor,” Lynette said. “The ghost is trying to communicate with us. Look.” She pointed at a row of computers.
The same message appeared in large letters on each screen: Cancel the Halloween party. Or else! It was signed The Library Ghost.
“This is a very dangerous ghost,” Lynette said. “We need to cancel this party, and we need to cancel it now. Otherwise there could be trouble.”
Maddie looked worried. “We’re not going to cancel the party, are we?” she asked Andrea.
Andrea rubbed her forehead. “I don’t know yet,” she said in a tired voice. “First we need to clean up this mess. Then we’ll decide what to do about the party.”
The Underground Ghosts #10--A Super Special Page 3