Kaz wanted to interrupt him and ask about Little John, but he remembered how he felt when he saw each of his family members again. He could give Oliver a little time.
“Where are Owen and Olivia?” Oliver asked.
“Probably watching music videos,” his pops said. “Let’s go see if we can find them.” Oliver and his parents passed through the big, heavy door.
Trying to be patient, Kaz followed Oliver and his parents. They went into a huge, LOUD room with a ginormous screen. That screen was taller than their whole library back home.
“Oh, this is the sky church,” Maddie said as she and Claire walked in behind the ghosts. “See? It says so right here on the map.”
Two teenage ghosts, a boy and a girl, hovered above them, watching the booming videos.
“Owen? Olivia?” Oliver said.
The other ghosts turned. “Oliver?” said the girl.
“You’re back!” said the boy.
Then it started all over again: the hugging, the introductions, the explanation of how Oliver had found his way back.
Kaz was out of patience. “You said you’d tell me where Little John was if Claire found your family,” he said, wafting over. “She found your family, so . . . where’s my brother?”
“Oh. He went with the solid girl,” Oliver said like it was no big deal.
Kaz was confused. “What solid girl?”
“The one at the library,” Oliver said.
“Okay, why don’t you start at the beginning,” Kaz said, crossing his arms. “Tell me what happened when Little John chased you through the floor in the parking garage.”
“He caught me,” Oliver said as his family gathered around. “He told me about you and Claire. He said you’d help me find my family. We went back up into the library and looked for you guys, but we couldn’t find you. So we went back to the garage and he left with the solid girl. He said he always wanted his own solid friend.”
His own solid friend? Uh-oh. Kaz had heard Little John say that, too. Had Little John made friends with a solid girl like he had made friends with Claire? Was Little John gone for good?
Oliver didn’t know much about the solid girl that Little John had left with, just that she was around Little John’s age. And she carried a water bottle. That was how Oliver knew about water bottles. He’d seen Little John travel in one.
“Attention!” a voice came over the intercom. “The museum will be closing in five minutes.”
“We have to go,” Maddie said.
“Thanks for bringing my boy home,” Oliver’s mom said.
Kaz shrank down . . . down . . . down and went inside Claire’s bottle. Claire and Maddie walked back to the bus tunnel in the dark and the rain.
What was Kaz going to do? There had to be millions of girls in Seattle. How would he ever find the one that Little John had gone with? And even if he did find her and Little John, would Little John come with him?
How would Kaz ever explain all this to Mom and Pops?
* * * * * * *
That night, Claire and Maddie put the finishing touches on their Halloween costumes. Claire was going as a mermaid. Maddie would be a punk rocker. Since there wasn’t going to be a party at the library on Halloween, Maddie said she’d take Claire trick-or-treating instead.
Kaz hovered glumly in the corner.
“Maddie, your phone’s ringing!” Aunt Beth called from the kitchen.
Maddie raced out of the room. “Coming,” she called.
“Cheer up, Kaz,” Claire said. “We don’t know for sure that Little John is gone for good. We’ll go back to the library one more time tomorrow before trick-or-treating. Maybe he’ll be there.”
Kaz doubted it. “Little John said he always wanted his own solid friend,” he told Claire. “It sounds like he found one.”
Maddie rushed back in.
“Well, here’s some good news,” she said. “That was Andrea on the phone. She called all the kids who signed up for the Halloween party to let them know the party was canceled, and a bunch of moms got upset! When they heard there weren’t enough kids signed up, they got a bunch more kids to sign up. So the party is back on!”
“For real?” Claire said.
“For real,” Maddie said. “We get to skip our schoolwork again tomorrow morning so we can go to the library and help Andrea set up.”
“What about the underground ghosts?” Kaz said. When he remembered that Maddie couldn’t hear him, he wailed, “What . . . about . . . the . . . underground . . . ghosts . . . ? They . . . won’t . . . be . . . happy . . . Solid . . . people . . . aren’t . . . supposed . . . to . . . be . . . in . . . the . . . library . . . at . . . night . . .”
Claire and Maddie looked at each other.
“It’s only one night,” Maddie said. “Can’t we be in the library one night without a bunch of ghosts getting upset?”
“What if we invite the ghosts to come to the party, too?” Claire suggested.
“Oh, I like that,” Maddie said. “Real ghosts at a Halloween party!”
“How . . . will . . . you . . . invite . . . them . . . ?” Kaz wailed. “How . . . will . . . they . . . know . . . we . . . want . . . them . . . to . . . stay . . . ?”
“We’ll put up a big sign that says GHOSTS WELCOME!” Claire said.
Maddie grinned. “People will think we’re talking about costumes, not real ghosts.” Then her face clouded. “Oh, but what if some of the kids are scared of the ghosts?”
Claire shrugged. “It’s Halloween. You’ve got to expect a ghost or two to show up on Halloween.”
* * * * * * *
The next morning Kaz went to the library with Claire and Maddie. While they helped Andrea decorate and get set up for the party, Kaz searched all eleven floors of the library one more time.
Little John was nowhere to be found.
The party was going to be held in the tenth-floor reading room. Kaz watched Claire and Maddie move chairs and tables away from the carpeted area. Next they set up tables for food and games. Then they painted large signs that said: WELCOME TO THE SPL HALLOWEEN PARTY! REAL LIVE GHOSTS WELCOME, TOO!
Kaz watched his solid friends hang their signs on the tenth floor, outside the children’s center on the first floor, and down in the parking garage.
The parking attendant raised an eyebrow. “You two know you’re asking for trouble putting up a sign like that, don’t you?” he said.
“We don’t care. It’s Halloween!” Maddie said.
Maddie and Claire were really excited about the party, but Kaz wasn’t. It’s hard to get excited about a party when you’re not sure you’ll ever see your little brother again.
* * * * * * *
Kids started arriving for the party a little before seven. They came dressed as pirates, vampires, skeletons, characters from popular children’s books, even a ghost. The one who was dressed like a ghost had put a white sheet over his head. He doesn’t look anything like a real ghost, Kaz thought.
The real ghosts started to arrive, too. One by one they drifted slowly up through the floors. “Is it true?” a lady ghost asked Kaz. “Are we really invited to this party?”
Claire adjusted her mermaid costume and walked over. “Yes!” she said to the ghosts. “Welcome! This party is for ghost people and solid people!”
“Hooray!” said the ghosts. They came up through the floor, the elevator shaft, and the open part of the library. There seemed to be more ghosts than solid people at this party.
But the one ghost Kaz most wanted to see wasn’t there.
“I’m glad we decided to go ahead with the party,” Andrea said as she helped Maddie pour glasses of punch. She was dressed as a cat.
“Me too,” Maddie replied. “Hey, where’s Lynette?”
“I told her she could take the night off,” Andrea said. “She doesn’t l
ike big parties. And I think you and I and all the teen advisory board members have it covered.”
“I think so, too,” Maddie said.
The elevator dinged, and a girl skeleton walked out. It was Claire-with-the-braids. She held a water bottle in her hands.
Kaz stared at the water bottle. Was there someone inside?
“Hi, Kaz,” Little John said as he passed through the water bottle.
“Little John!” Kaz exclaimed. “You’re back! You’re really back.”
“Wow, Kaz! Look at you!” Little John gaped.
Maddie pulled on Claire’s arm. “That’s your other ghost friend, isn’t it?” she said.
Claire nodded as she grinned at Kaz. In fact, all the solid people in the room were looking at Kaz. They were looking at him as though they could actually see him.
Kaz looked down at himself and gasped. “I’m glowing!” But he had no idea how or why he was doing it.
This had happened to him once before. Claire had taken him and his family to visit Grandmom and Grandpop at the nursing home, and Petey, the bird who lived there, squawked and scared him. Kaz had thought glowing had something to do with being scared. But he wasn’t scared now. He was happy. Happy to see his brother.
“Yay, Kaz!” Little John exclaimed as Kaz’s glow started to fade.
Kaz took a deep breath and willed that glow to come back.
It did! Kaz felt a glow bubbling up inside his body and flowing out through his skin. It was like moving an arm . . . shrinking . . . expanding . . . he could do it now. He could glow.
And everyone could see him glowing. He quickly stopped.
“What was that?” a girl dressed as a pirate asked. She stared, but she couldn’t see Kaz anymore.
“Just one of your friendly neighborhood library ghosts,” Maddie said.
The pirate looked a little worried, like she wasn’t sure whether or not to believe Maddie.
“Don’t worry, Tasha,” Claire-with-the-braids said. “She said friendly. All the ghosts in the library are friendly.”
Kaz wondered whether Claire-with-the-braids had any idea just how many ghosts there were in the library. His Claire knew how many there were. She could see them. But Claire-with-the-braids could only see them when they glowed.
All of a sudden, Claire-with-the-braids looked worried. “Where are you, Little John?” she asked. She peered into her water bottle. “Are you still in there?”
“No . . . ,” Little John wailed. “I’m . . . over . . . here . . .” He glowed and waved at her.
Now all the solid people were staring in disbelief at Little John.
Claire-with-the-braids grinned and waved back.
Kaz’s Claire went to introduce herself to Claire-with-the-braids. While they were getting acquainted, Kaz led Little John away from the crowd.
“Where have you been?” Kaz asked. “What were you thinking, going home with a solid girl! Do you have any idea how worried I’ve been?”
“You sound like Mom and Pops,” Little John said.
“Do you have any idea what Mom and Pops would have said if I’d gone home without you?” Kaz asked.
“Why would you go home without me?” Little John asked.
“BECAUSE I THOUGHT YOU WERE LOST!” Kaz shrieked.
“I wasn’t lost,” Little John said. “I thought you were lost. I looked all over for you. When I couldn’t find you, I decided to go home with my friend, Claire.”
“Just like that?” Kaz asked. “What if your friend Claire hadn’t come tonight? You might never have seen your family again. We could’ve been separated forever.”
“I knew she was coming tonight,” Little John said. “I watched her sign up for the party!” He didn’t know that Andrea had actually canceled the party. If the party had stayed canceled, Little John would never have found his way back to Kaz.
But he had found his way back. That was what was important, Kaz realized.
“You are coming back home with me and Claire, aren’t you, Little John?” Kaz asked.
“Yes,” Little John replied. “But I want to come back and visit my Claire. Do you think we can do that?”
“Of course you can do that,” Claire said, walking up behind them. Claire-with-the-braids was right beside her.
Claire put her arm around Claire-with-the-braids. “Claire and I are going to keep in touch,” she said. “I’ll come back to visit Maddie and Aunt Beth. You and Kaz can come, too. And you can go stay with Claire sometimes if you want, Little John.”
Claire-with-the-braids nodded eagerly.
A girl behind them looked at them curiously. “Who are you guys talking to?” she asked.
“Our ghost friends,” Claire-with-the-braids said, as though it was obvious.
The other girl narrowed her eyes. “Are there really ghosts in here?” she asked. “I thought it was a trick.”
Kaz’s Claire shrugged. “Maybe it’s a trick, maybe it’s not,” she said. “Do you really want to know?”
“No. Not really,” the girl said as she skipped away.
“Happy Halloween, Kaz,” Claire said, raising her hand.
Kaz touched his ghostly hand to her solid hand. “Happy . . . Halloween . . . Claire . . . ,” he wailed.
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The Underground Ghosts #10--A Super Special Page 7