Why I'm Not Afraid of Ghosts

  Shawn glanced up. He jumped to his feet and reached for the Frisbee. It soared just over his fingertips.

  “Oops!” Shawn shrugged and smiled. He raced to the side of the house to get the Frisbee out of the bushes. Then Oliver heard him yell.

  Oliver dashed over. Shawn was staring up at one of the attic windows.

  “What?” Oliver asked, joining him. “What’s the matter?”

  “I saw someone up there. In the attic window.” Shawn pointed.

  “Who?” Oliver stared at the windows. They looked dark and empty.

  “In the left window. A face. Watching us!”

  Oliver shaded his eyes with his hand, trying to see better. “There’s no one there now,” he said.

  “I saw someone,” Shawn insisted.

  “So? It was probably just snoopy Nell.” Oliver glanced sideways at Shawn. What’s the big deal? he wondered.

  “What if it wasn’t?” Shawn stooped and picked up the Frisbee. He handed it to Oliver. Oliver noticed Shawn’s hand trembling. “What if it’s something worse than Nell?”

  Oliver shook his head. Obviously, Shawn didn’t have an annoying younger sister.

  “What could be worse than Nell, the biggest brat in the universe?” he asked. “She snoops. She eavesdrops. She tags along. She bosses. She eats my desserts, and she steals my coolest stuff. She’s the worst!”

  “What if it were a ghost?” Shawn asked.

  Man, did Shawn have a one-track mind. “What is it with you and ghosts?” Oliver demanded.

  Shawn chewed on his lower lip. “Look, I have to ask you something, and this time I’m serious. Do you believe in ghosts, even a little bit?”

  Oliver frowned. “Why do you want to know?”

  “Because—” Shawn began.

  “Hey, Oliver!” someone yelled.

  Oliver turned to see Nell strolling up the sidewalk.

  “Don’t you think school is way easier here?” she shouted. “Aren’t you glad we moved here?”

  “I would be glad if we moved somewhere else and left you behind,” Oliver muttered so only Shawn could hear.

  But Shawn wasn’t listening. “Uh, Oliver?” he murmured. His pale blue eyes were wide. He sounded scared.

  “What’s wrong?” Oliver asked.

  “If Nell’s out here,” Shawn whispered, “then who was that in the window?”

  8

  Oliver stared up at the window. He still didn’t see anything. He glanced at Shawn. “Are you sure you saw something?” he asked.

  “I’m sure!” Shawn insisted.

  “Maybe it was just the curtain blowing around,” Oliver suggested.

  “It was a face,” Shawn sputtered.

  “I guess it could have been my dad,” Oliver offered. “He’s working in his home office today. I guess he might have gone up to the attic for something.”

  “No!” Shawn shook his head violently. “It was a girl’s face. I’m telling you!”

  Oliver tried to think of something to say to calm Shawn down. “The curtain could have looked like a girl’s face. People mistake things for other things all the time.”

  “But—”

  “Hey!” Nell interrupted, stopping in front of Oliver. “You’re supposed to fix me an after-school snack, Oliver!”

  Oliver flipped the Frisbee and caught it. Nell was right. Fixing her something to eat was his after-school chore.

  “I’m hungry! Feed me!” She tried to chomp Oliver’s arm.

  He yanked his arm away. She could be so annoying! Especially in front of his friends.

  “Feed me now!” Nell opened and shut her mouth, making smacking noises with her lips.

  “Quit it!” Oliver ordered. He bonked Nell on the head with the Frisbee.

  “I’ll quit it. But only if you make me cinnamon toast and spread the butter all the way to the edges and put lots of sugar on it. Or I’ll tell Mom about—”

  “Shut up,” Oliver snapped. He rolled his eyes. “Sorry, Shawn,” he apologized. Then he bonked Nell again with the Frisbee. “Come on inside and I’ll make you your stupid toast.”

  * * *

  “That’s your big idea?” Robbie asked Dora in the attic. “Appear in the window? What’s so scary about that?”

  “That wasn’t a scare, that was an accident!” Dora snapped. “I was watching for Oliver to come home so I could do my next scare. I didn’t mean Shawn to see me. I guess I slipped.”

  “You have to be more careful,” Robbie warned. He enjoyed having a chance to nag her for a change. The way she usually nagged him. “You have to build your scare, not waste your time and talents on dumb not scary things that don’t work.”

  “Look who’s talking! Mr. Moan-athon! Mr. I’m-So-Scary!”

  “Shut up!” Robbie yelled. Sometimes Dora made him so mad, he wanted to push her through a wall!

  But if he shoved her, and she wasn’t solid enough to be shoved, they’d get mixed up again, and that hurt.

  “This scare of yours better be amazing,” Robbie challenged her. “Or I’ll spend the next ten years reminding you how you showed yourself to Shawn when you didn’t mean to.”

  “That’s all right,” Dora said. “I have a lot more memories I can use on you. Like when the dog popped up out of the laundry. What a scream!”

  Robbie hung his head.

  She was right! He was a sad excuse for a ghost sometimes.

  * * *

  Robbie watched Oliver slip a shiny disk into the CD-ROM drive of his computer. Shawn and Oliver sat on swivel chairs in front of Oliver’s desk.

  “I just got this game, Wild World Off-Road Super Rally,” Oliver told Shawn. “This one is supposed to be really great!”

  Robbie, hovering behind Oliver and Shawn, stared at the computer screen.

  He knew Dora was going to do her scare soon. She had told him she would do it during a computer game. Robbie wondered what kind of scare it would be.

  He concentrated on the screen. Maybe if he watched very carefully, he could figure out what Dora did and how she did it. Then maybe she wouldn’t tease him so much.

  Music came from the computer’s speakers as the screen went dark. Drums beat. Flutes played. Gradually a scene came up.

  Deep, dark jungle.

  Robbie shivered. He was getting creeped out already!

  A stream ran across the left corner of the screen. The water rushed and bubbled. A black panther crept along a wide branch. It growled, showing white teeth and a red tongue. Then a safari car drove in from the right, and the music cheered up.

  Words popped onto the screen one at a time in fat red letters shaded with orange and brown.

  A crowd of voices chanted the words as they appeared:

  OFF

  ROAD

  RALLY!

  “Yes!” Oliver cried, gripping the joystick. He clicked to start the game.

  The view switched to inside the safari car. The screen showed the top of the steering wheel, the dashboard with its dials, and just a little of the car’s front hood. The car sped along a rocky dirt road. Robbie could see jungle through the windshield.

  Long branches dipped down from trees on either side. Robbie saw a big green snake curled around one. He tried not to shudder. He thought snakes were almost as creepy as spiders.

  Oliver pushed the joystick forward. The car bumped over the rocky terrain, with happy music bouncing along. Banana tree branches thwacked the roof of the car, with sound effects.

  “Cool!” Shawn exclaimed.

  “So when is it going to start to get tough?” Oliver wondered.

  A girl suddenly appeared on the track in front of the car.

  “What?” Oliver yelped, jerking back on the joystick.

  The car slowed and stopped.

  Wow! Robbie wondered what would have happened if Oliver crashed the fake car into the fake girl.

  What kind of game was this, anyway?

  Wait a second. Wasn’t that—?

  Dora!

  This was it!


  This was Dora’s scare!

  9

  Robbie hugged his elbows and hunched his shoulders. What would she do? How had she gotten inside the computer?

  He wished he knew how to do stuff like that.

  Dora’s yellow dress billowed in the breeze. She looked almost alive.

  She stood motionless for a moment, then strolled right up to the windshield.

  “What? I don’t think this game is supposed to work like this,” Oliver muttered.

  Shawn slid his chair a foot away from the computer.

  Dora leaned forward until her face filled up most of the monitor. The car’s dashboard disappeared.

  She smiled. Slowly.

  Knowing Dora, Robbie flinched. He prepared himself to be scared. He knew to expect the worst.

  Skin melted off Dora’s face, sizzling away, leaving a skull behind.

  “Yow!” Shawn cried, backing up some more.

  Dora’s skull grinned. Then, somehow, she made the grin grow wider. Even without flesh.

  “Hello, Oliver,” the skull said, and clacked its teeth together. “How do you like this game?”

  It opened its mouth and flame roared out!

  Shawn screamed.

  So did Robbie.

  Robbie clapped his hands over his mouth. Too late though. Dora heard him for sure!

  Oliver stared at the skull as it laughed and smacked its teeth together. Then he jumped out of his chair.

  He tore out of the room. “Dad! Dad!” he yelled at the top of his lungs.

  Robbie felt terrible. The game was over—and Dora had won.

  He watched Oliver run down the hall. Shawn must have ducked out, because he was nowhere in sight. Robbie hadn’t seen him leave. But then, Robbie hadn’t noticed much while Dora scared him silly.

  Dora popped out of the computer and floated around the room, her flesh back on her grinning face. “I win!” Dora announced. “I am the Queen of Fright!”

  “Come on,” Robbie muttered. Misery made him feel a little sick, but he had to see this through. He headed into the hall after Oliver. “We need to find out what Oliver is going to do.”

  “Do?” Dora repeated. “As if we don’t already know!” She was so happy, she floated on air instead of walking along the ground.

  Robbie tried to ignore her.

  It was tough to do.

  “Hah! Did you see the look on his face?” Dora growled like the panther in the opening sequence of Off-Road Rally. “I am the Scream Supreme!” she yelled.

  Oliver didn’t head for his parents’ bedroom this time. He ran to the big room downstairs, where his father had set up his office. It was filled with all kinds of weird electronic equipment. Robbie still hadn’t been able to figure out what Mr. Bowen did with his machines.

  Oliver burst into Mr. Bowen’s workroom. Robbie and Dora drifted in behind him.

  “Dad,” Oliver said. “Dad!”. Then he stomped around the room.

  “What’s the matter, son?” Mr. Bowen asked.

  “I . . . uh . . .I . . .” I

  “Say it,” Dora whispered. “ ‘I’m scared to death. We have to get out of this nightmare house!’ Say it! Say it!”

  Oh, please, Robbie thought, don’t act scared this time, Oliver. Give me another chance to scare you! Don’t give Dora the satisfaction!

  Mr. Bowen left the room for a minute and came back with a glass of water. He handed it to Oliver.

  “You okay?” he said.

  Oliver nodded, red-faced, and took a sip of water. “That new game you got me,” he began.

  “Yes?”

  “That dumb game! It started out being this cool off-road racing simulator, but then it went totally buggy. It’s all mixed up with some stupid haunted-house game!”

  “Huh,” Mr. Bowen grunted.

  “This girl turned into a skull and made stupid noises,” Oliver continued. “What kind of idiot game is that? We must have gotten a defective copy. It’s totally dorky.”

  Idiot game! Dorky! Robbie wanted to laugh out loud.

  Oliver wasn’t scared.

  He was annoyed!

  Sometimes Robbie really liked this kid.

  “So—can we return it?” Oliver asked.

  “Sure, Oliver,” Mr. Bowen promised. “I’ll take care of it tomorrow.”

  “Thanks, Dad.” Oliver drank the rest of the water and headed back to his room.

  “What is wrong with him?” Dora raged as she and Robbie followed Oliver back upstairs. “We knew he was going to be a tough scare, but this is ridiculous!”

  Robbie almost snickered. But that would have made Dora madder. She was already mad enough.

  “Shawn?” Oliver called as he entered his room. “Spooky?”

  The Doberman scrambled to his feet, his tongue lolling from his mouth. Robbie eyed the dog warily. He didn’t want to be jumped through again.

  Oliver patted the dog’s head. “Spooky, where’s Shawn?”

  “Ruff,” Spooky answered.

  “Yeah, right,” Oliver muttered. “I’m asking a dog. But still. Where did Shawn go? That skull face in the game must have spooked him.” He shook his head. “You know, he sure gets scared easy.”

  “Unlike some idiots,” Dora muttered.

  Robbie hid a smile. It looked as if Dora’s big scare had fallen pretty flat.

  * * *

  “Whatever you do, it can’t possibly be better than my scare,” Dora declared when they were back in the attic.

  “Your scare,” Robbie repeated sarcastically. “It worked so well. Hah.”

  “Hey. I heard you scream!”

  Robbie felt as if he were turning red, even though ghosts can’t blush. “Well, you just surprised me, that was all.”

  “You were scared,” Dora said. “Admit it.”

  Robbie gazed at his big sister. “Okay. I was scared. But so what? Oliver wasn’t. Not even for a second!”

  Dora frowned. “For my next scare, I’ll try something bigger.”

  “No fair,” Robbie protested. “It’s my turn next!”

  Dora crossed her arms and smirked at him. “You might as well give up and let me take the next turn. You know you can’t come up with anything better than my amazing computer glitch.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Robbie yelled. “Just wait! Just wait until tonight! I’ll give him nightmares so bad, he can’t wait to wake up, and when he wakes up, it’ll be worse!”

  Dora shook her head. “You pale excuse for a ghost! What happened last night? “My little sister is having nightmares!’ What makes you think tonight is going to be different?”

  “You’ll see,” Robbie countered. He was so mad at Dora, he wanted to spit. But ghosts can’t do that either. “Just you wait. You’ll see!”

  He didn’t know yet exactly what she would see.

  But he was going to come up with something huge!

  10

  Robbie never prepared more carefully for a haunt in his whole afterlife.

  But it would be worth it. He had plans. Big plans!

  He wished he knew some of Dora’s special tricks though. He’d feel more sure of himself.

  Never mind. He had plenty of his own tricks up his sailor-suit sleeves!

  From his perch on top of Oliver’s dresser, Robbie watched Oliver turn out the light and pull up the covers.

  Spooky strolled over to the desk. He turned around three times and then lay down.

  Robbie didn’t start his scare right away. It was always better to begin haunting when people were shaken up and confused.

  Waking them out of a sound sleep with wild noises was one of the best ways to shake them up!

  Robbie thought over his stunts, rehearsing them in his mind while he waited for Oliver to fall asleep.

  This kid sure tossed and turned a lot!

  Why did he keep fiddling with his sheet?

  Maybe I should go ahead and start now, Robbie thought. Maybe Oliver would be scared enough.

  No. Stick to the plan! Robbie scolded h
imself. He forced himself to wait.

  Finally Oliver was breathing long and slow. Robbie drifted above Oliver’s bed. Yup! He could hear soft snores. Time for the scare to begin.

  Robbie tuned his voice and his sound effects so that only Oliver could hear them. Then he groaned.

  Just a little groan to start out. To kind of ease into it. Sneak into Oliver’s dreams.

  Robbie curled his fingers into claws. He floated over to Oliver’s closet and scraped his nails across the wood, making skritching noises. The sound of skeletons trying to dig through your closet door to get you.

  Robbie touched the door hinges with ghost fingers. Creak! Creeeek! Rusty hinges, opening slowly . . . slowly . . .

  To let in the night things!

  Robbie called up footsteps—to run around Oliver’s bed.

  Then whispers! The sizzling whispers of creatures planning mischief! Plotting near the bed where a sleeper could almost understand what they were talking about—but not quite!

  Oliver turned over and sighed in his sleep.

  Fine. Robbie was just warming up!

  Hmmmm. What next? Ah! Owl hoots. First far away, then coming closer.

  Now heavier footsteps. Clomp clomp clomp clomp! The Frankenstein monster, stomping and stumbling his way here.

  Then a frightful, long moan.

  Oh, yes! All the good stuff!

  The howls of a whole pack of wolves under a full moon.

  Just setting the scene!

  Robbie summoned ghost chains. He shook them once and listened to the sound they made, links hitting each other. Clash, jingle, clink!

  Nice.

  Robbie rattled the chains harder! He imagined something chained up because it was too wild and bad to be loose. It ached to escape! It struggled against the chains.

  Rattle, clang . . . snap!

  One chain broke!

  Rattle snap snap snap!

  All the chains burst open!

  Thump! Thwop! Something coming! Something with two legs, and . . . swish, swish . . . wings wide enough to brush the ceiling!

  It muttered and snorted. “Tasty,” Robbie growled in his best monster voice. “Tasty boy! Nice nibbleicious fingers and toes! Nice munchy nose! Yuuuuum!” He tweaked Oliver’s nose.

  If Robbie had been in the bed, he would have woken up screaming!