Case of the School Ghost (3 page)

She isn’t alive anymore.

Here is what I don’t know about Agatha:

Is she really a ghost?

Did she make the lights flicker?

Is she banging around in the ceiling?

I know a lot of humans and animals who say they’ve seen Agatha. But I don’t know if any of them have really seen her. Sometimes humans think they’ve seen a ghost when they’ve really seen something else. Sometimes humans even lie about seeing ghosts. I don’t know why they do that.

Cat with No Name says he sees and talks to Agatha all the time. But you can’t believe everything a cat tells you.

You can believe dogs, though. Dogs never lie.

I know a dog who says she’s seen Agatha. The dog’s name is Jazzy and she lives right behind the school. I don’t know if Jazzy really saw a ghost or if she just thinks she saw a ghost. She definitely saw something, though. And I’m going to find out what.

Here is my plan:

Stay up all night and watch for ghosts!

I don’t know what I’ll do if I actually see one.

“Gather round, everyone.” Mrs. Warner claps her hands together as the storm rages outside. We are in the library now. “It’s time for the scavenger hunt!”

Oh, boy! A scavenger hunt! I LOVE scavenger hunts. They’re my favorite—wait. What’s a scavenger hunt?

Whatever it is, it must be fun because all the kids go zooming over to Mrs. Warner. They smell excited. So I zoom over, too. I nose my way into the circle between Connor and Michael.

Mrs. Warner holds up some papers. I sniff them. They don’t smell like the papers Connor found in the box with the flashlight.

“Each group will get a list of things to find around the school,” Mrs. Warner explains. “The first group that finds everything on their list is the winner.”

I wag my tail. I’m good at finding things.

“Can we pick our own groups?” Michael asks.

“No, we’re going to number off,” Mrs. Warner says. She points to each kid and says a number.

I sit up extra tall so Mrs. Warner sees me. But she doesn’t give me a number.

“Okay,” Mrs. Warner says. “Ones over here. Twos over there. Threes over there. And fours over there.”

“Whichever group finds all the items on their list first wins the scavenger hunt,” Mrs. Warner says. “Are you ready? Go!”

Go? I don’t know where to go. I see Connor and some girls hunched over their paper. I scamper over to them.

A girl who smells like pizza, cats, and nail polish reads from the paper. “A straw, a pink bead, a white rock, a left mitten, a lock of red hair, a book told from a dog’s point of view.” She looks up at the others in the group. “Where are we supposed to find all this stuff?”

“We can find the book here,” another girl who smells like pizza and different nail polish says. “Who knows a dog book?”

“
Shiloh
!” the first girl says.

Connor says, “That’s told from a boy’s point of view, not a dog’s point of view.”

“How are we supposed to find one from a dog’s point of view?” the second nail polish girl says.

“Aaaaaaaaaaa!” someone shrieks from the far book shelf. Several boys and girls run out from those shelves. “Mrs. Warner! Mrs. Warner!” they all cry. “There’s a ghost back there!”

What? Really?

“There are no such things as ghosts,” Mrs. Warner says.

“Yes, there are,” one of the girls insists. “We all heard it. It said, ‘Staaaaay out of the baaasement,’”

That’s the same as the message I got from Cat with No Name.

I hurry over to where all those kids came from. If Agatha is back in those book shelves, I want to meet her. I want to talk to her. A bunch of kids and Mrs. Warner all follow me.

Halfway down the aisle, I hear the ghostly voice, too. “Staaaaay out of the baaasement.”

Sniff … sniff … I smell something behind those books.

The last time I smelled something behind some books in the library, it was a blue-tongued skink! My friend Maya hid him and some other lizards in the school basement, but then he got loose! I found him in the library, but he escaped before any of the humans found him. It took a long, long, long, long time to find him after that. Now he lives in a glass cage behind Mrs. Warner’s desk. His name is Fluffy, but I call him Blue Tongue.

Whatever is back there today, it doesn’t smell like a blue-tongued skink. Whatever it is smells dusty and electrical. It’s making sort of a scratchy, whispery noise.

I stand up on my hind legs and nose some of the books out of the way.

“What’s Buddy doing?” one of the girls asks.

“Mrs. Warner,” another girl says. “Buddy’s knocking books on the floor.”

“He probably smells something,” Connor says.

“I do! I smell—hmm. What is that thing on the shelf?” Some sort of metal box. It’s small, so I pick it up with my mouth.

“What is it?” a girl asks. “What does Buddy have?”

Connor takes the box from me. It starts talking in Connor’s hand. “Staaaaay out of the baaasement.”

“It’s an old tape recorder,” one of the girls says.

Mrs. Warner holds out her hand and Connor gives her the tape recorder. Mrs. Warner presses a button on the recorder. There’s a loud click and the whispery noise stops.

“Whose is this?” Mrs. Warner asks.

All the kids look at each other, but no one raises a hand.

I sniff the recorder. It’s has Jillian’s scent all over it.

I turn to Jillian, but she is looking at the ceiling. Why doesn’t she tell Mrs. Warner that the recorder is hers?

Why would Jillian hide a tape recorder behind the books? Does she want people to think there’s a ghost in the library? Is she trying to scare people? Why would she do that?

“Fine. I’ll just keep this until someone claims it,” Mrs. Warner says. She brings the recorder over to her desk and puts it in the top drawer.

After the scavenger hunt is over, the kids scatter to different parts of the school. Some stay in the library and read or play board games. Others go to the gym. I follow Connor to the art room.

On most days, Mrs. Sobol is the alpha human in the art room. But she’s not here tonight.

Mom was here a little while ago. She set out some paper, pencils, and paints, but then she went to check on the kids in the gym. I don’t think there is an alpha human in the art room right now.

I guess that means I’m in charge.

I stroll around the tables and glance at everyone’s artwork. Michael is painting a school with ghosts coming out of it. A girl who smells like chocolate and mints is drawing the girl beside her. Connor is hunched over his paper, so it’s hard to see what he’s drawing. But I nudge my nose in anyway. It looks like letters. Just letters. No picture. A … B … C … D … E … F … G … H … I … J … K … L … M … N … O … P … Q … R … S … T … U … V … W … X … Y … Z.

That’s weird.

Do those letters spell any words when they’re spread out all over the paper like that?

Connor picks up his paper and walks over to the window. He peers out into the darkness. What? Is there something out there? I go over to the window and look. All I see is rain pouring down.

Connor grabs an empty jar from the shelf below the window, hides it under his paper, and scurries over to the door. He is acting very strange.

“Hey!” I say, trotting after him. “Where are you going?” The door starts to close on my face, but I push it back open.