Griffin spread out his bedroll and lay back, standing his flashlight on its base like a miniature floor lamp. “Let’s try to get some sleep. The sooner the sun rises, the sooner we can get out of this rat trap.”
“Maybe we can leave now,” Ben suggested hopefully. “Since nobody else came, they’ll never know that we weren’t here all night.”
Griffin was horrified. “You mean back down?” These two words were not in his vocabulary.
“I don’t want my years sucked away by some baby’s ghost!”
“There’s no such thing!” Griffin exclaimed.
“Who says you have to believe in ghosts to be afraid of them?” Ben challenged. “All right, fine. I’ll sleep.” He rolled over onto his side, pulling his knees to his chest. “But if I wake up eighty-five years old, you owe me twenty bucks.”
“Deal.”
They lay there in silence for what seemed like a long time, listening to the machine-gun rhythm of rain on the ancient slate roof.
Griffin stared up at a gaping hole in the ceiling that had once held a chandelier. “I hope you know how much I appreciate this. You’re the only kid who had the guts to see it through.” His friend said nothing, so Griffin went on. “I mean it, man. The others — they talk a good game, but where are they? Darren dared half the sixth grade to come. He even made fun of us, said we’d wimp out. But who’s the real wimp, huh, Ben?”
Ben’s reply was slow, steady breathing. Almost like . . . snoring?
“Ben?”
Griffin sat up and peered at his friend. Ben was curled into a ball on his bedroll, fast asleep.
Griffin let out a low whistle of admiration. Creepy house, creepy night, and Ben was relaxed enough to doze off. He came off as a big chicken sometimes, but when it really counted, he was too cool for school.
It was harder for Griffin to settle down. Not because he was scared. Not at all.
Griffin stayed up because he was mulling over the reason he and Ben were camping out with dust bunnies and a century of supernatural speculation.
He was thinking about the last plan.
About the Author
GORDON KORMAN is the #1 bestselling author of three books in The 39 Clues series as well as five books in his Swindle series: Swindle, Zoobreak, Framed, Showoff, and Hideout. His other books include This Can’t Be Happening at Macdonald Hall! (published when he was fourteen); The Toilet Paper Tigers; Radio Fifth Grade; the trilogies Island, Everest, Dive, Kidnapped, and Titanic; and the series On the Run. He lives in New York with his family and can be found on the web at www.gordonkorman.com.
Look for more action and humor from GORDON KORMAN
The Swindle series
Swindle
Zoobreak
Framed
Showoff
Hideout
The Titanic trilogy
The Kidnapped trilogy
The On the Run series
The Dive trilogy
The Everest trilogy
The Island trilogy
Radio Fifth Grade
The Toilet Paper Tigers
The Chicken Doesn’t Skate
This Can’t Be Happening at Macdonald Hall!
Copyright © 2013 by Gordon Korman
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, SCHOLASTIC PRESS, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Korman, Gordon.
The hypnotists / by Gordon Korman. — 1st ed.
p. cm. — (The hypnotists ; bk. 1)
Summary: Twelve-year-old Jackson Opus is descended from two powerful hypnotist bloodlines, but he has just begun to realize that he can control other people’s actions with sometimes frightening results — especially when the head of the Sentia Institute plans to use Jackson for his own benefit.
ISBN 978-0-545-50322-8 (jacketed hardcover) 1. Hypnotism — Juvenile fiction. 2. Conspiracies — Juvenile fiction. 3. New York (N.Y.) — Juvenile fiction. 4. Paranormal fiction. [1. Hypnotism — Fiction. 2. Conspiracies — Fiction. 3. Supernatural — Fiction. 4. New York (N.Y.) — Fiction.] I. Title. PZ7.K8369Hyp 2013
813.54 — dc23
2012040458
First edition, August 2013
Jacket illustration by Tim O’Brien
Jacket design by Nina Goffi
e-ISBN 978-0-545-50327-3
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
Gordon Korman, The Hypnotists
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