The Underground Ghosts #10--A Super Special

by Dori Hillestad Butler

  But it had gotten noisy on the platform. Claire couldn’t hear Kaz calling to her.

  A bus stopped in front of Claire and Maddie, and this time they got on. They tromped to the back of the bus and plopped down in the middle of the last bench.

  Kaz thought about the ghosts that passed through the bus yesterday. If Little John was in the tunnel, maybe he’d pass through the bus like those other ghosts did. If he did, Kaz didn’t want Little John to miss him. He started to pass through Claire’s water bottle.

  “What are you doing?” Claire asked.

  “I’m not doing anything,” Maddie said.

  “I didn’t mean you,” Claire whispered as two ladies in front of them turned to look.

  Now that he had Claire’s attention, Kaz asked, “Do you know if this tunnel goes under the library? If so, Little John could be in the tunnel or on a bus.”

  “I don’t know,” Claire said. She turned to her cousin. “Do you know if the transit tunnel goes under the library?”

  Maddie shrugged. “No idea,” she said, pulling out her phone. “But we can look for a map on our phones once we’re through the tunnel.”

  “Can you look now?” Kaz asked. If the tunnel did run under the library, he would quickly get off this bus and go try to find his brother.

  Claire shook her head. “We can’t get online in the tunnel—only on the underground platform,” she said.

  Kaz groaned. He could see daylight up ahead. The bus was coming out of the tunnel. He wouldn’t be able to get off the bus now.

  Claire and Maddie bent over their phones, searching for a map of the transit tunnels.

  “Got it!” Claire said, zooming in with her fingers.

  Maddie leaned toward Claire, and Kaz tried to see between them.

  “Nope,” Maddie said. “They’re close. The library’s over here.” She touched a spot on Claire’s phone. “But the transit tunnel is over there. It’s, like, half a block away.”

  So much for that idea.

  * * * * * * *

  That night, Claire and Maddie carved pumpkins. Aunt Beth helped Claire carve a funny face in one of the pumpkins. Maddie used a pattern to poke holes and cut a design in the other one.

  Claire couldn’t tell what the design was until Maddie finished. It was a witch on a broomstick with a full moon behind her.

  “That looks nice,” Claire said.

  “Thanks,” Maddie said, picking up her pumpkin. “Let’s go outside and see how they look in the dark.”

  Not wanting to be left behind, Kaz shrank down . . . down . . . down . . . and passed through Claire’s water bottle. Claire grabbed her bottle and her pumpkin and followed Maddie out onto the front porch.

  Maddie lit the candles inside the pumpkins. Then the girls clomped down the steps so they could see them glowing from the sidewalk.

  “They look good!” Maddie declared.

  “Scary, but not too scary,” Claire said.

  Claire and Maddie sat down on the bottom step. Claire set her bottle down beside her.

  “I hope we can find Little John,” Maddie said, stretching out her legs on the sidewalk. “I hope you and Kaz don’t have to go back to Iowa without him.”

  Kaz felt something catch in his throat. He didn’t even want to think about that possibility.

  “I hope we can find him, too,” Claire said. “We’ve actually got two mysteries to solve. The mystery of who messed up the children’s center and the mystery of what happened to Little John. But I have a feeling those two mysteries are related.”

  “They both involve ghosts,” Maddie said.

  “Yes,” Claire agreed. “So let’s start at the beginning.” She didn’t have her notebook, so she just talked. “You heard a ghost crying in the library dumbwaiter before I ever got here. We found out there really was a ghost, but we never found out why he was crying.”

  “Your ghost friends found him and chased him through the floor in the parking garage,” Maddie said, picking up the story. “Then one of them got lost, too.”

  “So if we find the ghost from the dumbwaiter, we’ll find Little John,” Kaz said.

  “Not necessarily,” Claire said.

  “Not necessarily what?” Maddie asked.

  “Kaz thinks that if we find the ghost from the dumbwaiter, we’ll find his brother,” Claire explained. “But Little John may have lost that ghost somewhere under the parking garage.”

  Kaz groaned.

  “So, what about the mess in the children’s center?” Maddie asked. “It could’ve been ghosts. But I have to tell you, Claire, I’ve been wondering if Lynette did it.”

  “Lynette?” Claire looked surprised. “She’s a librarian. Why would a librarian throw all those books on the floor?”

  Little John said the same thing when Kaz suggested that maybe Lynette did it. Kaz didn’t have an answer to that question.

  But Maddie did. “Maybe she did it to get Andrea to cancel the Halloween party,” she said. “Someone who works at the library might know where to stand so they don’t get caught on camera.”

  “Hmm,” Claire said thoughtfully.

  “I . . . can . . . think . . . of . . . another . . . suspect . . . ,” Kaz wailed inside the bottle. “Remember . . . that . . . guy . . . from . . . the . . . fish . . . market . . . ? He . . . was . . . in . . . the . . . library . . . today . . .”

  Claire picked up the bottle. “Why is he a suspect?” she asked as she and Maddie peered in at Kaz.

  “We . . . know . . . he . . . likes . . . to . . . play . . . tricks . . . on . . . people . . . ,” Kaz wailed. “Maybe . . . he . . . pushed . . . the . . . books . . . off . . . the . . . shelves . . . with . . . a . . . stick . . .”

  “Like how he used that stick to make the weird fish jump up?” Maddie asked.

  “Yes . . . ,” Kaz wailed.

  “How would he know where to stand so he wouldn’t be on the video?” Claire asked. “He doesn’t work at the library. Plus, wouldn’t you see the stick in the video?”

  “Depends on the stick,” Maddie said.

  “The . . . security . . . guard . . . could . . . have . . . told . . . him . . . where . . . to . . . stand . . . ,” Kaz wailed. “I . . . saw . . . them . . . talking . . . They . . . acted . . . like . . . boyfriend . . . and . . . girlfriend . . .”

  “Really,” Maddie said. “That’s interesting. Maybe they were in on it together?”

  “Why?” Claire asked. “Why would a library security guard and a guy who works at the fish market want to mess up the children’s center?”

  “I don’t know,” Maddie said. Kaz didn’t know, either.

  “But I don’t know why a ghost would mess up the children’s center, either,” Claire said, resting her elbows on her knees.

  The girls were quiet for a few minutes, each lost in her own thoughts.

  Then Maddie said, “Hey, Claire. If you looked at the video, would you be able to see a ghost on it?”

  Claire thought for a minute. “Maybe,” she said.

  “Then we should go back to the library and ask the security guard to show us the video,” Maddie said.

  “Good idea,” Claire said. “Ghosts or not, maybe we’ll see something on the video that everyone else missed.”

  “Sounds . . . like . . . a . . . plan . . . ,” Kaz wailed.

  Sorry,” the security guard said to Claire and Maddie the next afternoon. “I can’t let you see that video.” Rain plunked against the outside windows.

  “What? Why not?” Claire asked as Kaz passed through her water bottle and exp-a-a-a-a-a-nded beside her.

  The security guard laughed. “Because you’re kids!”

  “So?” Maddie said.

  “The video is not a toy,” the security guard said.

  “I’m going to see if Little John came back last night.
Okay, Claire?” Kaz said. She nodded slightly.

  Now, where would Little John be if he did come back? Kaz wondered. Probably the children’s center.

  Kaz swam up over the security guard’s head and through the glass wall behind her. “Little John?” he called, looking around. “Are you here, Little John?”

  Kaz didn’t see his brother. He drifted down through the short, slanted wall into the “secret room” that Little John had found yesterday.

  No Little John in there, either.

  Claire and Maddie were still arguing with the security guard when Kaz passed back through the wall. He searched the rest of the first floor, then sailed up along the conveyor belt that carried books from the book return to the second floor.

  “Little John?” he called again.

  But Little John wasn’t on the second floor.

  Kaz searched the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh floors. He called Little John’s name on every single floor.

  No luck.

  The only place he hadn’t checked was the parking garage. Kaz floated down through all the floors, all the way to the parking garage. “Little John?” he called, looking both ways.

  Nothing.

  Kaz considered passing through the concrete floor. Maybe this time he would keep going without turning around.

  But without knowing for sure whether that would lead to Little John, or anywhere, he didn’t think he wanted to try it.

  He went back up to the main floor to see if Claire and Maddie had managed to talk the security guard into showing them the video. But the security guard was all alone at her table.

  Where were Claire and Maddie?

  “Over here,” Claire called as Kaz started to pass through the glass wall. He was going to search the children’s center. But Claire and Maddie were sitting by themselves in the front row of the dark auditorium. They looked as glum as Kaz felt.

  “That security guard wouldn’t let us look at the video,” Claire said. “We even tried to get Andrea to talk to her, but she wouldn’t. Andrea’s canceling the Halloween party.”

  “She is? Did something else happen to make her cancel it?” Kaz asked.

  Claire shook her head. “She just said that since a bunch of kids said they weren’t coming now, it made sense to cancel it.”

  “So, no Halloween party. We don’t know what happened to Little John. Plus, it’s raining outside,” Kaz said. This had turned into a really crummy visit to Seattle.

  “I’m really sorry about Little John,” Claire said.

  “Thanks,” Kaz said.

  “Hey, I just thought of something,” Maddie said, sitting up a little straighter. “People say there are ghosts in the Underground. The Underground tour is only a couple blocks from here. We could walk down there. It’s not tourist season, so we could probably get on the next tour. If there’s a ghost in there, maybe he can help us solve one or both of our mysteries.”

  “How would a ghost in the Underground be able to help us?” Kaz asked. “What would he know about ghosts in the library?”

  Claire shrugged. “It’s worth a try. Unless you’ve got a better idea?” she asked Kaz.

  Kaz didn’t. So he shrank down . . . down . . . down and went inside Claire’s water bottle.

  * * * * * * *

  The Underground tour began aboveground, in a building that looked like an old saloon. Claire and Maddie sat on hard wooden benches listening to their tour guide, Wendy, talk about the early settlers. Kaz stayed inside the bottle.

  Wendy led the group outside into the rain. Some people put up umbrellas as they tromped across Pioneer Square. They crossed the street and stopped beside a stairwell.

  “Be careful. The stairs might be slippery,” Wendy said as she headed down the stairs and unlocked a door. “And if you’re tall, watch your head.”

  Claire and Maddie held the railing as they followed the group down the stairs.

  “Oh, wow,” Claire said, stepping through the doorway. She went around a tight corner, and her water bottle bumped against a brick wall.

  Kaz passed through the bottle and followed Claire along a narrow wooden walkway. There was a lot of junk down here. Rusty old tools. Pieces of wood. Dirt. Rocks. Even a dusty sofa and part of a toilet.

  The tour group stopped beside some old pictures of the city and listened to Wendy talk more about Seattle in the late 1800s.

  Kaz looked around, but he didn’t see any ghosts down here.

  Wendy finished her story, then directed the group up some other stairs. Kaz saw the open door just in time to shrink down . . . down . . . down . . . and scurry back inside Claire’s bottle.

  Was the tour over?

  No. Once everyone was out in the alley, Wendy went around a corner and pointed out a section of sidewalk that had a bunch of purple squares in it. “Take a good look at these purple squares as you walk over them,” she said.

  Claire and Maddie walked over the squares, then followed the people in front of them down more stairs into another part of the Underground.

  It was brighter here than it was in the other section. Outside light filtered in through windows in the ceiling. Green plants grew through the dirt around the windows and hung down into the room.

  “Do those windows look familiar?” Wendy pointed at the ceiling.

  Everyone looked up. “Is that where we were standing outside?” one of the dads asked. He held a little boy on his shoulders.

  “It is,” Wendy said. “Do you recognize the squares?”

  Kaz passed through Claire’s water bottle to get a closer look.

  “Hey, who are you?” said a ghostly voice.

  Kaz and Claire both whirled around.

  A ghost with a set of chains hovered in a curved brick entryway behind them.

  I’m Kaz. Who are you?”

  “Howard,” the other ghost replied. He looked older than Mom and Pops, but not as old as Grandmom and Grandpop.

  “I want to show you how much light comes through those squares in the ceiling,” Wendy told the tour group. “Does anyone mind if I turn out the lights? No one here is afraid of ghosts?”

  “WOOOOOOO!” several college students said from the back of the group.

  Howard rolled his eyes.

  Wendy went around a corner and flipped a switch. The light went out, but the tunnel was still as light as it was before Wendy flipped the switch.

  “Huh. Look at that.” The solid people looked around in amazement.

  Wendy turned the light back on, then launched into another story about old Seattle. How many stories does she have, anyway? Kaz wondered.

  “Where’d you come from, Kaz?” Howard asked. “I don’t think I’ve seen you down here before.”

  “I came with her.” Kaz pointed to Claire, who nodded slightly at Howard.

  “You came with a solid girl,” Howard said. “Can she see us?”

  “Yes,” Kaz replied.

  Howard peered at Claire with suspicion. “Is she a ghost hunter?”

  “More like a ghost helper,” Kaz said. “Her name’s Claire. She’s my friend.” Kaz gave Howard a brief history of his relationship with Claire. Then, as the tour group moved to a new part of the tunnel, he told him how Little John had gotten lost when they followed a sad ghost boy through the floor in the library parking garage.

  “You haven’t, by any chance, seen my brother, have you?” Kaz asked. “Or the other ghost?”

  “Not in the last day or two. I haven’t seen any ghost kids who were on their own since last week. Well, except for you,” Howard said, his chains rattling as he drifted beside Kaz.

  But Kaz wasn’t really on his own. He had Claire.

  Kaz took a closer look at the chains in Howard’s hands. “Hey, why do you have those chains?” he asked.

  Howard gr
inned. “I like to mess with the tour groups that come down here. Watch this.” He waited for most of the group to walk past them. Maddie stayed with the group, but Claire hung back by the ghosts.

  “What?” Kaz asked Howard. “What are you going to do?”

  Howard swam up behind some college students at the back of the line. “Look . . . behind . . . you . . . ,” he wailed softly.

  When two of them turned to look, Howard glowed. He made the chains glow, too, as he rattled them.

  “AAAHHHHHHH!” one of the students shrieked.

  Claire covered her mouth.

  Howard quickly stopped glowing before Maddie and a bunch of other people turned around.

  “Did you see that? What was that? I don’t know!” The college students talked over one another.

  “I warned you about the ghosts,” Wendy said from the front of the group. “Let’s keep moving, please.”

  Maddie let the rest of the group walk past her while she waited for Claire to catch up.

  “Have you ever done that in the Seattle Public Library?” Kaz asked Howard as they followed Claire. He remembered the light-haired boy who said he’d seen a ghost with chains.

  “Sometimes,” Howard admitted.

  “You mean you can get to the library from here?” Kaz said. “Through the tunnels?”

  “Of course,” Howard said. He seemed surprised that Kaz didn’t know that.

  “What’s happening?” Maddie asked Claire.

  Claire put her finger to her lips.

  “How? The librarian told us there aren’t any tunnels under the library,” Kaz said to Howard.

  Howard laughed. “The librarian is wrong,” he said. “There are all kinds of tunnels under the city. The solid people know about some of those tunnels, but not all of them. There are a lot of tunnels that only the underground ghosts know about.”

  So maybe Little John and that other ghost are somewhere in this underground tunnel system, Kaz thought. “Can you show Claire and me how to get to the library?” he asked. Maybe they’d find Little John along the way.