The Ghost Next Door Read online

  “It’s a cool idea. Chesney is a creep,” Alan insisted. “Everyone in Greenwood Falls hates his guts.”

  “Take his mailbox, Danny,” Fred challenged. “Pull it up. Come on. I dare you.”

  “No, I —” Danny tried to back away, but Fred held him from behind by the shoulders.

  “You chicken?” Alan challenged.

  “Look at the chicken,” Fred said in a mocking, babyish voice. “Cluck cluck.”

  “I’m not a chicken,” Danny snapped angrily.

  “Prove it,” Alan demanded. He grabbed Danny’s hands and raised them to the carved wings that stretched from the sides of the mailbox. “Go ahead. Prove it.”

  “What a riot!” Fred declared. “The town postmaster — his mailbox flies away.”

  Don’t do it, Danny, Hannah urged silently from her dark hiding place across the street. Please — don’t do it.

  Another set of car headlights made the three boys back away from the mailbox. The car rolled past without slowing.

  “Let’s go. It’s getting late,” Hannah heard Danny say.

  But Fred and Alan insisted, teasing him, challenging him.

  As Hannah stared into the white light of the streetlamp, Danny stepped up to Chesney’s mailbox and grabbed the wings.

  “Danny, wait —” Hannah cried.

  He didn’t seem to hear her.

  With a loud groan, he began to tug.

  It didn’t budge.

  He lowered his hands to the pole and wrapped them tightly around it just below the box.

  He tugged again.

  “It’s in really deep,” he told Alan and Fred. “I don’t know if I can get it.”

  “Try again,” Alan urged.

  “We’ll help you,” Fred said, placing his hands above Danny’s on the box.

  “Let’s all pull together,” Alan urged. “At the count of three.”

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you!” exclaimed a gruff voice behind them.

  They all turned to see Mr. Chesney glaring at them from the driveway, his face knotted in a furious snarl.

  Mr. Chesney grabbed Danny’s shoulders and pulled him away from the mailbox.

  One of the wooden swan wings came off in Danny’s hands. As Mr. Chesney wrestled him away, Danny let it drop to the ground.

  “You punks!” Mr. Chesney sputtered, his eyes wide with rage. “You — you —”

  “Let go of him!” Hannah screamed from across the street. But fear muffled her voice. Her cry came out a whisper.

  With a loud groan, Danny pulled free of the man’s grasp.

  Without another word, the three boys were running, running down the middle of the dark street, their sneakers pounding loudly on the pavement.

  “I’ll remember you!” Mr. Chesney called after them. “I’ll remember you. I’ll see you again! And next time, I’ll get you all!”

  Hannah watched Mr. Chesney bend to pick up the broken swan’s wing. He examined the wooden wing, shaking his head angrily.

  Then she began running, keeping in the dark front yards, hidden by hedges and low shrubs, running in the direction Danny and his friends had headed.

  She saw the boys turn a corner, and kept running. Keeping well behind, she followed them through the town square, still deserted and dark. Even Harder’s ice-cream parlor was closed now, the shop dark behind the red glare of the neon window sign.

  Two dogs, tall, ungainly mutts with thin, shaggy frames, crossed the street in front of them, trotting slowly, out for their evening walk. The dogs didn’t look up as the boys ran past.

  Halfway up the next block, she saw Fred and Alan collapse beneath a dark tree, giggling up at the sky as they sprawled on the ground.

  Danny leaned against the wide tree trunk, panting loudly.

  Fred and Alan couldn’t stop laughing. “Did you see the look on his face when that stupid wing dropped off?” Fred cried.

  “I thought his eyes were going to pop out!” Alan exclaimed gleefully. “I thought his head was going to explode!”

  Danny didn’t join in their laughter. He rubbed his right shoulder with one hand. “He really wrecked my shoulder when he grabbed me,” he said, groaning.

  “You should sue him!” Alan suggested.

  He and Fred laughed uproariously, sitting up to slap each other high fives.

  “No. Really,” Danny said quietly, still rubbing the shoulder. “He really hurt me. When he swung me around, I thought —”

  “What a creep,” Fred said, shaking his head.

  “We’ll have to pay him back,” Alan added. “We’ll have to —”

  “Maybe we should stay away from there,” Danny said, still breathing hard. “You heard what he said about getting us.”

  The other two boys laughed scornfully. “Yeah. For sure. He’d really come after us,” Alan scoffed, brushing blades of freshly cut grass from his scraggly hair.

  “The respected town postmaster, chasing after innocent kids,” Fred said, snickering. “No way. He was just trying to scare us — right, Danny?”

  Danny stopped rubbing his shoulder and frowned down at Alan and Fred, who were still sitting in the grass. “I don’t know.”

  “Oooh, Danny is scared!” Fred cried.

  “You’re not scared of that old geek, are you?” Alan demanded. “Just because he grabbed your shoulder doesn’t mean —”

  “I don’t know,” Danny interrupted angrily. “The old guy seemed pretty out of control to me. He was so angry! I mean, maybe he would attack us to protect his precious mailbox.”

  “Bet we could make him a lot angrier,” Alan said quietly, climbing to his feet, staring intently at Danny.

  “Yeah. Bet we could,” Fred agreed, grinning.

  “Unless you’re chicken, Danny,” Alan said, moving close to Danny, challenge in his voice.

  “I — it’s getting late,” Danny said, trying to read his watch in the dark. “I promised my mom I’d get home.”

  Fred climbed to his feet and moved next to Alan. “We should teach Chesney a lesson,” he said, brushing blades of grass off the back of his jeans. His eyes gleamed mischievously in the dim light. “We should teach him not to pick on innocent kids.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” Alan agreed, his eyes on Danny. “I mean, he hurt Danny. He had no business grabbing him like that.”

  “I’ve got to get home. See you guys tomorrow,” Danny said, waving.

  “Okay. See you,” Fred called after them.

  “At least we got some free ice cream tonight!” Alan exclaimed.

  As Danny walked quickly away, Hannah could hear Alan and Fred giggling their gleeful, high-pitched giggles.

  Free ice cream, she thought, frowning. Those two guys are really looking for trouble.

  She couldn’t help herself. She had to say something to Danny. “Hey!” she called, running to catch up to him.

  He spun around, startled. “Hannah — what are you doing here?”

  “I — I followed you. From the ice-cream store,” she confessed.

  He snickered. “You saw everything?”

  She nodded. “Why do you hang out with those two guys?” she demanded.

  He scowled, avoiding her eyes, picking up his pace. “They’re okay,” he muttered.

  “They’re going to get in big trouble one of these days,” Hannah predicted. “They really are.”

  Danny shrugged. “They just talk tough. They think it’s cool. But they’re really okay.”

  “But they stole ice-cream cones and —” Hannah decided she’d said enough.

  They crossed the street in silence.

  Hannah glanced up to see the pale crescent of moon disappear behind black wisps of cloud. The street grew darker. The trees shook their leaves, sending whispers all around.

  Danny kicked a stone down the sidewalk. It clattered softly onto the grass.

  Hannah suddenly remembered going over to Danny’s house earlier to get him. In all the excitement of the stolen ice-cream cones and Mr. Chesney an
d his mailbox, she had completely forgotten what had happened on his back stoop.

  “I — I went over to your house tonight,” she started reluctantly. “Before I went into town.”

  Danny stopped and turned to her, his eyes studying hers. “Yeah?”

  “I thought maybe you’d want to walk to town or something,” Hannah continued. “Your mother was home. In the kitchen.”

  He continued to stare hard at her, as if trying to read her thoughts.

  “I knocked and knocked on the kitchen door,” Hannah said, tugging a strand of blond hair off her forehead. “I could see your mother at the table. She had her back to me. She didn’t turn around or anything.”

  Danny didn’t reply. He lowered his eyes to the pavement and started walking again, hands shoved in his pockets.

  “It was so strange,” Hannah continued. “I knocked and knocked. Really loud. But it was like — like your mother was in a different world or something. She didn’t answer the door. She didn’t even turn around.”

  Their houses came into view ahead of them. A porchlight sent a yellow glow over Hannah’s front lawn. On the other side of the driveway, Danny’s house loomed in darkness.

  Hannah’s throat suddenly felt dry. She wished she could ask Danny what she really wanted to ask.

  Are you a ghost? Is your mother a ghost, too?

  That was the real question in Hannah’s mind.

  But it was too crazy. Too stupid.

  How can you ask a person if he is real or not? If he is alive or not?

  “Danny — why didn’t your mother answer the door?” she asked quietly.

  Danny turned at the bottom of her driveway, his expression set, his eyes narrowed. His face glowed eerily in the pale yellow light from the porch.

  “Why?” Hannah repeated impatiently. “Why didn’t she answer the door?”

  He hesitated.

  “I guess I should tell you the truth,” he said finally, his voice a whisper, as soft as the whisper of the shuddering trees.

  Danny leaned close to Hannah. She could see that his red hair was matted to his forehead by perspiration. His eyes burned into hers.

  “There’s a good reason why my mother didn’t answer the door,” Danny told her.

  Because she’s a ghost, Hannah thought. She felt a cold shiver roll down her back. A tremor of fear.

  She swallowed hard. Am I afraid of Danny? she asked herself.

  Yes. A little, she realized. Her scary dream about him flashed into her mind. Yes. A little.

  “You see,” Danny started, then hesitated. He cleared his throat. He shifted his weight nervously. “You see, my mom is deaf.”

  “Huh?” Hannah wasn’t sure she had heard correctly. It wasn’t at all what she was expecting.

  “She got this inner-ear infection,” Danny explained in a low voice, keeping his eyes trained on Hannah. “In both ears. A couple of years ago. The doctors treated it, but the infection spread. They thought they could save one ear, but they couldn’t. It made her completely deaf.”

  “You — you mean —?” Hannah stammered.

  “That’s why she couldn’t hear you knocking,” Danny explained. “She can’t hear anything at all.” He lowered his eyes to the ground.

  “I see,” Hannah replied awkwardly. “I’m sorry, Danny. I didn’t know. I thought … well, I didn’t know what to think.”

  “Mom doesn’t like people to know,” Danny continued, backing toward his house. “She thinks people will feel sorry for her if they know. She hates to have people feeling sorry for her. She’s a really good lip-reader. She usually fools people.”

  “Well, I won’t say anything,” Hannah replied. “I mean, I won’t tell anyone. I —” She suddenly felt very stupid.

  Her head lowered, she made her way up the driveway toward her front walk.

  “See you tomorrow,” Danny called.

  “Yeah. Okay,” she replied, thinking about what he had just told her.

  She looked up to wave good-night to him.

  But he had vanished.

  * * *

  Hannah turned and began jogging around the side of the house toward the back door. Danny’s words troubled her. She realized all of her thoughts about ghosts may have been a big mistake.

  Her parents were always predicting that someday her imagination would run away with her.

  Now maybe it has, Hannah thought unhappily.

  Maybe I’ve totally lost it.

  She turned the corner of the house and started toward the back door, her sneakers squishing on the soft, wet ground.

  The light over the porch sent a narrow cone of white light onto the concrete stoop.

  Hannah was nearly to the door when the dark figure, wrapped in black shadow, its red eyes glowing like hot coals, stepped into the light, blocking her path.

  “Hannah — stay away!” it whispered, pointing menacingly at her with one long, shadowy finger.

  Gripped with horror, Hannah thought she saw the shadow of an evil grin inside the deeper shadow that hovered over the stoop. “Hannah, stay away. Stay away from DANNY!”

  “Noooooooooo!”

  In her panic, Hannah didn’t even realize that the howl came from her own throat.

  The red eyes glowed brighter in reaction to her scream. The fiery stare burned into her eyes, forcing her to shield her face with both hands.

  “Hannah — listen to my warning.” The dreadful dry whisper.

  The whisper of death.

  The sinewy black finger, outlined in the white porchlight, pointed to her, threatened her again.

  And again Hannah cried out in a voice hoarse with terror: “Nooooooo!”

  The dark figure swept closer.

  Closer.

  And then the kitchen door swung open, throwing a long rectangle of light over the yard.

  “Hannah — is that you? What’s going on?”

  Her father stepped into the light, his features knotted with concern, his eyes peering into the darkness through his square eyeglasses.

  “Dad!” Hannah’s voice caught in her throat. “Look out, Dad — he — he —” Hannah pointed.

  Pointed to empty air.

  Pointed to the empty rectangle of light from the kitchen door.

  Pointed to nothing.

  The shadow figure had disappeared once again.

  Her mind spinning in confusion, feeling dazed and terrified, she hurried past her father, into the house.

  * * *

  She had told her parents about the frightening dark figure with the glowing red eyes. Her father carefully searched the backyard, his flashlight playing over the lawn. He found no footprints in the soft, wet ground, no sign at all of an intruder.

  Hannah’s mother had gazed intently at her, studying her, as if trying to find some kind of answer in Hannah’s eyes.

  “I — I’m not crazy,” Hannah stammered angrily.

  Mrs. Fairchild’s cheeks turned pink. “I know that,” she replied tensely.

  “Should I call the police? There’s nothing back there,” Mr. Fairchild said, scratching his thinning brown hair, his eyeglasses reflecting the light from the kitchen ceiling.

  “I’ll just go to bed,” Hannah told them, moving abruptly to the door. “I’m really tired.”

  Her legs felt trembly and weak as she hurried down the hall to her room.

  Sighing wearily, she pushed open her bedroom door.

  The dark shadow figure was waiting for her by her bed.

  Hannah gasped and started to back away.

  But as the hall light fell into the bedroom, she realized she wasn’t staring at the frightening figure after all.

  She was staring at a long-sleeved, dark sweater she had tossed over the bedpost at the foot of her bed.

  Hannah gripped the sides of the doorway. She couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry.

  “What a night!” she exclaimed out loud.

  She clicked on the bedroom ceiling light, then closed the door behind her. As she made her
way over to the bed to pull the sweater off the bedpost, she was shaking all over.

  She pulled off her clothes quickly, tossing them onto the floor, and put on a nightshirt. Then she climbed under the covers, eager to get to sleep.

  But she couldn’t stop her mind from whirring over all that had happened. She couldn’t stop the frightening pictures from playing in her head, over and over.

  The shadows of tree limbs from the front yard shifted and bobbed across the ceiling. Normally, she found their silent dance soothing. But tonight the moving shadows frightened her, reminded her of the menacing dark figure that had called her name.

  She tried to think about Danny instead. But those thoughts were just as troubling.

  Danny is a ghost. Danny is a ghost.

  The phrase repeated again and again in her mind.

  He had to be lying about his mother, Hannah decided. He made up the story about her being deaf because he doesn’t want me to figure out that she’s a ghost, too.

  Questions, questions.

  Questions she couldn’t answer.

  If Danny is a ghost, what is he doing here? Why did he move in next door to me?

  Why does he hang out with Alan and Fred? Are they ghosts, too?

  Is that why I’ve never seen them at school or in town before? Is that why I’ve never seen any of them? They’re all ghosts?

  Hannah shut her eyes, trying to force all the questions from her mind. But she couldn’t stop thinking about Danny — and the dark shadow figure.

  Why did the dark figure tell me to stay away from Danny? Is it trying to keep me from proving that Danny is a ghost?

  Finally, Hannah fell asleep. But even in sleep, her troubled thoughts pursued her.

  The sinewy black shadow followed her into her dreams. In the dream, she was standing in a gray cave. A fire burned brightly, far in the distance at the mouth of the cave.

  The black figure, its red eyes glowing brighter than the fire, moved toward Hannah. Closer. And closer.

  And when the black figure came so close, close enough for Hannah to reach out and touch it, the shadow figure reached up with its sticklike arms and pulled itself apart.

  It reached up with its ebony hands and with bonelike fingers, pulled away the darkness where its face should be — revealing Danny underneath.