The Underground Ghosts #10--A Super Special

by Dori Hillestad Butler

  “We’ll help clean it up. Won’t we, Claire?” Maddie said.

  “Of course,” Claire said. She and Maddie started picking up books.

  “Put them in alphabetical order,” said a lady who was stacking books on a cart behind them.

  “We need to find out who did this,” Claire whispered to the ghosts. “I’m going to be busy here for a while. Can you guys go look for clues?”

  “C, K, and LJ Detectives to the rescue!” Little John said, punching his fist in the air.

  LJ Detectives? Kaz thought with a raised eyebrow. But he wasn’t going to argue.

  The ghosts wafted past the security guard, who stared intently at all three computer screens in front of her. Kaz circled back to see what was on those screens. It looked like several different views around the library.

  “Hurry up, Kaz,” Little John called from the dark auditorium.

  Kaz swam into the auditorium and followed his brother up over the rows of chairs to the third floor of the library. They floated past the checkout desk and above the escalator that had quit working yesterday. Kaz was glad to see that it was working again today.

  “Where are you, you ghost?” Little John called, looking all around.

  “We don’t know for sure that it’s a ghost,” Kaz pointed out. “It would take a lot of energy for one ghost to knock all those solid books on the floor. And even more energy to push keys on keyboards and type that warning on all those computer screens.”

  “If it wasn’t a ghost, who was it?” Little John asked.

  “Someone who doesn’t want the library to have a Halloween party,” Kaz replied.

  “Like who?” Little John asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe Lynette,” Kaz said. “You heard her. She was trying to get Andrea to cancel the party.”

  “You think a librarian would knock all those books on the floor?” Little John asked. “Librarians love books.”

  “Usually,” Kaz said.

  “I think a ghost did it,” Little John said. “Let’s go find that dumbwaiter and see if there’s a ghost in there today.”

  “Okay,” Kaz said. It was good to consider all possibilities. “I think the dumbwaiter was on the fifth floor.”

  They swam over to another yellow escalator and followed it up, up, up . . . past a strange cutout in the wall. There were three large white heads talking inside that wall. For a second, Kaz thought there were ghosts in there. But a sign said it was video art.

  When they got to the fifth floor, the ghosts swam over to the dumbwaiter. They shrank a little, then passed through the metal door. But this time there was no dumbwaiter inside. Kaz and Little John were alone inside an empty shaft.

  “Where’s the dumbwaiter?” Little John asked.

  “Shh!” Kaz said. “I hear something.”

  WAAAAAAAA!

  The ghosts looked at each other. “Someone’s crying!” Little John said in a low voice.

  The crying was coming from above them. Kaz and Little John followed the sound up, up, up. They passed headfirst through a metal ceiling and into the bottom shelf of the dumbwaiter compartment. That was where they found a tiny ghost boy sobbing in the corner.

  “Aha!” Little John cried. “Found you!”

  The ghost boy jumped when he heard Little John’s voice. He quickly darted through the back of the dumbwaiter and disappeared through the wall.

  “Little John!” Kaz exclaimed. “You scared him!”

  “I didn’t mean to,” Little John said. “Let’s go catch him!”

  They passed through the side of the dumbwaiter and looked around.

  “Where’d he go?” Kaz asked as he and Little John exp-a-a-a-a-a-nded. They swam to the railing and scanned the living room below.

  “There!” Little John pointed. The ghost boy hovered near a purple chair.

  “He’s fast!” Kaz said. They swam down to the living room.

  The other ghost glanced up with alarm, then dived headfirst through the carpet. Kaz and Little John followed him through the second-floor book-sorting area . . . through the first-floor world-languages area . . . all the way down to a dark parking garage.

  When the other ghost swam through the garage floor, Kaz and Little John followed him there, too.

  But the garage floor was different from the other floors. It was made of thick, heavy concrete that was hard to swim through.

  Kaz couldn’t see. He couldn’t hear. And he didn’t feel like he was getting anywhere. He was starting to feel skizzy. Really skizzy.

  He tried to turn around, but he had no idea where he was or how far around he’d turned. He flapped his arms and kicked his legs. He opened his mouth to scream, but nothing came out. If he didn’t get out of here soon, he was going to spew!

  Finally, Kaz popped back out in the parking garage. He breathed a sigh of relief.

  But now he was alone in the parking garage.

  * * * * * * *

  Where was Little John? Where was that other ghost? Did they get through all that concrete? Were they in some underground room?

  I better go back into that concrete and look for them, Kaz thought to himself.

  He saw a car coming. It was going pretty slow, but still Kaz didn’t want it to drive through him. He shot up to the ceiling and waited for the car to pass below him. Once it did, he floated back down to the floor.

  “Here goes nothing,” he muttered. He took a deep breath, then dived headfirst back through the concrete. He pumped his arms and kicked his legs, but it was just like before. The concrete was too heavy to swim through. Too thick.

  He couldn’t do it. He had to turn back. He swam and swam and swam until he was back in the parking garage.

  Now what? he wondered, his heart racing.

  Surely, Little John would come back. Kaz just had to wait for him.

  A bell dinged, and Kaz whirled around. It was the elevator. A solid lady stepped out. She stopped at a booth and gave a man some money. He stamped a card and handed it to her. Then she walked over to a silver car, got in, and drove away.

  Kaz floated around the parking garage, careful to avoid the ramp that led to the Outside. He didn’t want to blow away from the library.

  He watched people drive into the garage. And he watched people drive out.

  He saw a guy get out of a dirty green truck near the back wall. Hey, that guy looks familiar, Kaz thought. He watched the guy walk toward him. It was Bill, the guy from the fish market! The one who scared tourists by making that weird fish pop up.

  What’s he doing here? Kaz wondered. He wished he could follow Bill up into the library, but he needed to wait for Little John.

  Where was Little John? Was he ever coming back?

  How long had Kaz been waiting, anyway? What if Claire and Maddie were ready to leave the library? Claire didn’t know where Kaz was. What if they left without him and Little John?

  Kaz wondered if Little John could hear him. “Little John?” he called. Then he yelled: “LITTLE JOHN!!!”

  Nothing.

  Kaz waited a little longer. Finally, he decided to go find Claire.

  He swam up through the ceiling and came out between the first-floor elevators and the security guard’s desk.

  Kaz stared. Bill from the fish market was chatting with the security guard! They seemed awfully friendly, smiling and laughing with each other.

  “Okay, honey,” Bill said. “I’m going to go up to the fifth floor and see if I can get on a computer.”

  “I’ll go find you when I’m finished here,” the security guard replied.

  Just then, Claire-with-the-braids passed through Kaz. She shivered a little as she and her mom stepped into an elevator.

  “Hold the elevator, please,” Bill called to them.

  Kaz darted out of the way so Bill wouldn’t pass through him, too.r />
  “Are you going down?” Claire-with-the-braids’ mom asked from inside the elevator.

  “Oh. No, I’m going up,” Bill said. The next elevator opened. Bill turned and waved goodbye to the security guard as he stepped inside.

  Kaz continued into the children’s center. All the books were back on the shelves now. And his Claire was chatting with some adults near an empty library cart. Whew, Kaz thought. She’s still here.

  Claire looked happy to see him, too. “I need to go to the bathroom,” she told the ladies she was talking to. She motioned for Kaz to follow her.

  Claire pushed the restroom door open, and Kaz wafted in behind her. She checked all the stalls to make sure there was nobody in them. Once she was sure they were alone, she turned to Kaz. “What happened? You guys were gone a long time.” She leaned against the sink. “And where’s Little John?”

  “I don’t know,” Kaz moaned. He told Claire how they’d found the sad library ghost in the dumbwaiter and chased him through the library and then through the floor of the parking garage. He told her how hard it was to swim through concrete. How skizzy it made him feel. And he told her how he’d waited and waited for Little John to come back.

  “I should never have turned back,” Kaz went on. “If I’d kept going all the way through the concrete, I wouldn’t have lost Little John.”

  “You don’t know that, Kaz,” Claire said. She tried to pat him on the back, but her hand went right through him. “You might have lost him anyway. And you might have lost yourself, too. I think you did the right thing turning back.”

  Kaz wasn’t sure he agreed.

  The bathroom door banged open, and Maddie poked her head in. “Claire?” she said. “Are you okay?”

  Claire shook her head. “We’ve got a problem,” she said. “Little John is lost.”

  Claire, Maddie, and Kaz took the elevator down to the parking garage. “Where did you last see him?” Claire asked as they walked past the parking attendant. The parking attendant watched them with concern.

  “I’ll show you,” Kaz said, swimming ahead. “It was somewhere around here.”

  “Is there another level to the parking garage?” Claire asked.

  Maddie shook her head. “No. It’s just one level.”

  The parking attendant came out of his booth. “Hey, you kids,” he said, walking toward them. “What do you think you’re doing down here?”

  “We’re”—Maddie glanced at Claire—“looking for something we lost.”

  Claire nodded quickly.

  “What did you lose?” the parking attendant asked.

  “A book,” Claire said at the same time that Maddie said, “Her brother.” They looked at each other with surprise.

  Now the parking attendant crossed his arms.

  “Have you seen anything . . . strange down here today?” Claire asked, changing the subject.

  “What do you mean by ‘strange’?” the parking attendant asked.

  “She means ghosts,” Maddie said as Claire shifted uncomfortably. “Have you seen any ghosts down here?”

  “Oh,” the parking attendant said. “Not today. I usually see them when I work the night shift. They come up through the floor when the library closes.”

  “They do?” Claire said.

  Kaz couldn’t tell if the parking attendant was telling the truth or not. The only way this guy would see those ghosts was if they were glowing.

  “Where do they come from?” Maddie asked. “What’s under here?” She tapped her heel against the floor.

  “I don’t know,” the parking attendant said. “Seattle Public Library Ghost Headquarters? All I know is, they come up when the library closes at night and they go back down when the library reopens the next morning.”

  How? Kaz wondered. How do they get through all that concrete?

  * * * * * * *

  “There isn’t anything under the library,” a reference librarian told Claire and Maddie a few minutes later. His name badge said DAVID.

  “Really?” Maddie asked. Kaz hovered above them.

  “Really,” David said. “This building opened in 2004. It was built on top of the old library, which opened in 1960. And that building was built on top of another old library. There have been three different libraries on this same spot. But there’s nothing under the library.”

  “Are you sure?” Claire asked, resting her elbows on the desk. “Maybe there’s a secret room left over from one of the old libraries.”

  “Like in the Underground,” Maddie said. “In fact, maybe part of the Underground is under the library!” She said “the Underground” like it was a place you could go.

  “No. The Underground is below Pioneer Square,” David said. “That’s where the original city of Seattle was. Did you know that?”

  “No.” Claire shook her head.

  David leaned back in his chair. “Well, back in the 1800s, the city of Seattle sat quite a bit lower than it does today,” he explained. “This was a problem because the area was prone to flooding. People who lived up the hill had flush toilets that emptied into the bay. But the toilets often backed up during high tide and spilled sewage into the streets.”

  “Ew,” Claire said as Maddie made a face.

  “In 1889, there was a big fire that destroyed much of the city,” David went on. “When they rebuilt, they decided to raise the city. There were ladders at all the street corners. You had to go down the ladder to get to the store entrance.”

  “You mean it was all open? Like a big pit?” Claire said. “Did anyone ever fall in?”

  “Seventeen men fell to their deaths,” David said. “For a while there were two levels of town. Then in 1907, the bubonic plague hit and the whole lower level was closed off. It wasn’t reopened until the 1960s when people decided to clean up Pioneer Square. That’s where the Underground is. Under Pioneer Square. You can go down there on a tour and see all the old tunnels and storefronts. It’s pretty interesting.”

  “How do you know part of the Underground isn’t under the library, too?” Maddie asked. “Pioneer Square isn’t very far from here.”

  “Because we’re on a hill. Pioneer Square is down the hill. It doesn’t extend up this far,” David said. He studied the girls. “I’m glad you’re both interested in Seattle history. But why are you so interested? And why are you so concerned about what’s under the library?”

  Claire and Maddie looked at each other. “The guy in the parking garage said that ghosts come up into the library from under the floor,” Maddie said.

  David laughed. “Oh, he’s pulling your leg,” he said.

  But what if he isn’t pulling their leg? Kaz wondered. What if he really did see ghosts coming up through the floor? A lot of people have seen and heard ghosts in this library. Ghosts other than me and Little John.

  Claire and Maddie stepped away from the reference desk. “What do you think, Claire?” Maddie asked. “Do you think a bunch of ghosts came up through the parking garage and knocked all those books on the floor? Or do you think there’s some other explanation?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Claire said. “It’s a mystery!”

  Maddie pulled out her phone and checked the display. “Well, it’s a mystery we’ll have to solve another day,” she said. “If we don’t get home soon, my mom will freak.”

  “We can’t leave!” Kaz cried as Maddie headed for the door. “What about Little John?”

  Claire stopped.

  “What?” Maddie said. “What’s the matter?”

  “Kaz doesn’t want to leave without his brother,” Claire told Maddie.

  “Well, we can’t stay. My mom’s expecting us,” Maddie said.

  “Do you want to stay here by yourself tonight and wait for Little John to come back?” Claire asked Kaz.

  Kaz shook his head. He absolutely did not want to do
that.

  “We’ll come get you tomorrow,” Claire promised. “Plus you could also find out if ghosts really do come up through the floor during the night.”

  Kaz still didn’t want to stay. Not the whole night. Not all by himself.

  But what if Little John did come back?

  “It’s your decision, Kaz,” Claire said. “Whatever you want to do is fine.”

  It was a hard choice. In the end, Kaz decided to go with Claire.

  We forgot to ask Andrea whether or not she was going to cancel the Halloween party,” Claire said. She and Maddie stood on the underground platform waiting for their bus. Kaz hovered inside the water bottle that hung from Claire’s shoulder.

  “I didn’t forget to ask her,” Maddie said. “You know how sometimes you want to ask your parents something and you know that if you ask today, they’ll say no. But if you wait until tomorrow, they might say yes?”

  Claire nodded.

  “That’s how I felt about asking Andrea about the Halloween party,” Maddie said.

  Kaz was so worried about Little John, he’d forgotten all about the Halloween party.

  “Tomorrow might be a better day to ask,” Maddie said, “as long as nothing else happens at the library tonight.”

  A bus pulled up, but the girls didn’t get on it. Kaz watched it drive away into one of the tunnels.

  Wait, Kaz thought, peering into the tunnel. Where exactly does that tunnel go? He knew it went under a bunch of downtown buildings. But which ones?

  David, the reference librarian, told Claire and Maddie there wasn’t anything under the library. But maybe he meant there weren’t any buildings under there. Could there be a transit tunnel?

  “Hey, Claire!” Kaz called from inside the bottle. “Do you know where these tunnels go?”

  If there was a transit tunnel under the library, maybe a ghost could get to it if he swam all the way through the concrete. In which case, Little John might be in one of these tunnels!

  “CLAIRE!” Kaz called, louder this time. “WHERE DO THESE TUNNELS GO? DO THEY GO UNDER THE LIBRARY?”