The Ghost Witch (6 page)

Jenny stopped. “I have to go to Mr. Barkin's haunted house first,” she said. “Just for a few minutes.”
Just long enough to be sure the ghost witch isn't there. She won't be
—
I know that
—
but I have to see for myself
.

Chris looked cross. “I told you—” she began.

A crowd of pirates and cowboys burst through the big front doors of the school. Bobby Strauss, with a black eye-patch and a painted black mustache, led the way.

“Come on, you guys,” he shouted, “race you to the haunted house!”

Chris tugged at Jenny's hand. “Let's go home,” she said loudly.

Bobby heard her and snickered. “Yeah, you'd better,” he scoffed. “Scaredy-cats don't belong in haunted houses.”

“I'm not scared,” Chris retorted angrily. “Neither is Jenny.”

Bobby grinned. “Prove it!” he taunted and raced down the street with his pirate-friends pushing and tumbling around him.

Jenny and Chris watched them go.

“Okay, I'll walk over there with you, Jenny,” Chris said finally, “but I won't go inside Mr. Barkin's house. I won't! And I don't see why you want to go there. I think you've seen enough ghosts.”

“I have,” Jenny said. But she started down the street as she said it.

Other boys and girls came out of the school, and soon a long straggling line of people was headed toward Mr. Barkin's haunted house. Parents were coming, too, on foot or in their cars.

“He wouldn't miss us if we just went home,” Chris grumbled. “He'll have lots of customers.”

Jenny kept on walking.

When they reached the end of the block and turned the corner, Chris gave a little gasp. Mr. Barkin's house was in the middle of the block, with empty lots on either side. There were candles flickering in every window, upstairs and down. Gloomy organ music filled the air.

Mr. Barkin, wrapped in a long white sheet, stood at the top of the porch steps. “Right this way, folks,” he shouted. “Line up to go through the haunted house. No more than four or five at a time—it's spookier that way.”

No one moved. Mr. Barkin reached down to the tape player on the steps and softened the music. “Come on, boys and girls!” he urged. “Don't be shy. Show us how brave you are!”

“Why doesn't Bobby go first if he's so brave?” Chris snorted.

Jenny looked around anxiously. She wanted lots of people to get in line so Mr. Barkin would earn plenty of money for his Christmas Fund. And she wanted them to be scared by what they saw inside.
Please
, she thought,
let the cardboard skeletons and bed-sheet ghosts be enough
!

Three fifth-grade girls ran up the front walk and dropped their money into the kettle at Mr. Barkin's feet.

“Good for you!” he exclaimed. “Just walk on through, girls. And remember, it's all in fun.” He opened the front door and closed it behind them. “Now the rest of you folks line up,” he shouted. “The next group can go in as soon as the girls come out.”

The crowd giggled and people poked each other, but they didn't get into line. Jenny realized they were all waiting to see what the first customers would say when they came out.

“I'm going in next,” Jenny whispered to Chris. “Somebody has to—”

“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEE!”

The scream was so loud and so unexpected that Mr. Barkin almost fell off the porch. Another scream followed, and another. Then the door flew open and the three girls came tearing out. Still screaming, they tumbled down the steps and landed in a heap on the walk.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The Worst Thing I Ever Saw

For a moment the people standing in front of the house were silent. Then everyone talked at once.

“WHAT HAPPENED?”

“WHY DID YOU SCREAM LIKE THAT?”

“WHAT DID YOU SEE IN THERE?”

The girls giggled and peeked over their shoulders.

“I couldn't help screaming,” Sue Bridge said. “It was so real!”

“What was real?” Bobby Strauss wanted to know.

“The worst thing I ever saw in my life,” Sue gasped. “A skeleton!”

“I thought that would scare you,” Mr. Barkin said. “There's nothing like a skeleton.”

“I started upstairs, and he came right down toward me,” Sue went on. “I could hear his bones rattling on every step!”

Mr. Barkin looked startled. “Now, wait just a minute—” he began. But then one of the other girls, Terri Euler, broke in. “And there was another skeleton in the living room,” she announced excitedly. “He was rocking back and forth in a rocking chair.”

“There was one in the kitchen, too,” Jean Dennison giggled. “He was stirring something awful in a big black pot.”

Mr. Barkin managed to look pleased and very puzzled at the same time. “Now, listen here,” he said, but no one heard him except Jenny and Chris. Everyone else was hurrying to get into line, with Bobby Strauss leading the way.

“I'm going in all by myself,” Bobby announced. “You can't scare
me
with a lot of make-believe skeletons. I'm not afraid of anything!”

“Good boy!” Mr. Barkin took Bobby's money and gave him a pat on the back.

“What's going on?” Chris muttered. “How could a bunch of cardboard skeletons do all that, Jenny?”

Jenny just shook her head. She watched the front door close behind Bobby and held her breath. “Wait,” she said.

They didn't have to wait long. Almost at once, the door flew open and Bobby hurtled out. He leaped off the porch without touching the steps and didn't stop running till he was on the other side of the street.

“What did you see?” Terri Euler shouted. “What are the skeletons doing now?”

Bobby's face was pale in the light of the streetlamp. “D-Didn't see any s-skeletons,” he stammered. “There's a CROCODILE in the front hall. He must be ten feet long!”

“A crocodile?” Someone chuckled, and then the whole crowd started to laugh.

Bobby looked angry. “There is, too!” he insisted. “I saw it.”

“Jenny,” Chris whispered, “did you hear that? A crocodile! That sounds like the ghost witch. But it couldn't be.…” She stared wide-eyed at Jenny. “Could it?”

Jenny nodded happily. The ghost witch was here in Mr. Barkin's haunted house. She had come after all. And she had scared the socks off Bobby Strauss!

“I invited her,” she whispered back, “but I didn't think she'd come.”

“Maybe I'd better go in and look around,” Mr. Barkin muttered. “I'm sure there's nothing there but—”

“Cardboard skeletons and bed-sheet ghosts,” Jenny finished the sentence. “Don't worry, Mr. Barkin. People want to be scared—that's why they came.”

Mr. Barkin looked doubtful, but before he could say another word, three pirates and two cowboys dropped their money into the kettle. From then on there was a constant stream of children and grown-ups waiting their turns. One group after another went in slowly and came out fast, to tell what they had seen. There were spiders as big as dishpans in the living room. Giant bats were dive-bombing the kitchen. Headless men were playing checkers at the dining-room table. There were huge snakes, and a gorilla so tall he filled a doorway. There was an elephant!

“I don't know how you do it, Mr. Barkin!” one father exclaimed. “I never saw anything like that dinosaur in the front bedroom.”

“Dinosaur!” Chris squeaked. “Did he say dinosaur?”

Mr. Barkin blinked. “Glad you enjoyed it,” he said, looking more confused than ever. “Makin' believe is fun, ain't it?”

“You bet it is,” the man said. “Especially when there's someone like you to figure out how to do all this great stuff.”

Jenny couldn't stop smiling. “Look at the people,” she told Chris. “No one wants to go home. They're all waiting to find out what other people see. And look at all the money in the kettle.”

Mr. Barkin heard her and grinned. “Gonna be a great Christmas for lots of kids this year,” he said. “There must be something mighty strange in the air tonight. I don't know what folks are seein' but it sure is good for business.”

A half hour later when the last customers came running out (they'd discovered a lion crouched in the bathtub), Mr. Barkin announced the haunted house was closed till next year.

“Now all I have to do is blow out the candles and lock up,” he said. “You girls want to help me?”

“Not me,” Chris said quickly. “I'm not going in there. I don't care who calls me a scaredy-cat.”

“I'll help,” Jenny offered. As she climbed the steps to the porch, she looked back over her shoulder and saw Bobby Strauss watching. His mouth opened and closed, but he didn't say a word.

It was just about the best part of the whole evening.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

A Very Important Difference

Going into Mr. Barkin's haunted house was like stepping into a candlelit cave. One of the homemade “ghosts” was propped in a corner of the entrance hall, and there was a skeleton dangling from a string just inside the living-room doorway.

Mr. Barkin flicked on a light.

“I'll blow out the downstairs candles and check the back door to make sure it's locked,” he said. “You can take care of the second floor—if you ain't scared, Jenny.”

“I'll be okay,” Jenny said. She ran up the stairs before she could lose her nerve.

The upstairs hall was another cave, lit only a little by the candles in the bedrooms on either side. Jenny darted down the hall to the room at the end and then started back, flicking lights on and off, blowing out candles. When she reached the last doorway, she held her breath. If anything were going to happen, it would happen now.

“Don't just stand there,” said a voice from inside the room. “Are you coming in or not?”

Jenny peered into the half-dark and then reached around the corner to switch on the overhead light. A small dark figure lay on the bed.

“Nice dress,” the ghost witch said sleepily. “But I think it looked better on me than on you. And don't expect me to stir up one more bat or spider or elephant tonight. I couldn't do it if you begged me.”

“I won't,” Jenny promised. “Did you have a good time?” she added politely.

The ghost witch smiled. She looked cozy and contented, curled up on the old-fashioned bed. “This was the most exciting night I've had in the last hundred years,” she said. “I've never heard so much screaming! It was wonderful!” She propped herself up on one elbow and looked at Jenny thoughtfully. “Do you really think all those people will come back next year?”

“Oh, yes!” Jenny exclaimed. “They'll come, and a lot more people besides. Tomorrow morning the whole town will be talking about Mr. Barkin's haunted house.”

“And they'll give him all the credit,” the ghost witch grumbled. “Well, it doesn't matter, I suppose. You and I know he had nothing to do with it. I was a great witch a hundred years ago—and guess what!”—her eyes sparkled and she pointed her stick at Jenny—“I'm even better now.” She leaned back on the pillows. “Run along and let me get some rest. I've certainly earned it.”

Jenny didn't move. “There's one more thing,” she said. “You
won't
ever haunt Miss Nagle's house again, will you? You promised.”

The ghost witch yawned. “Why should I go back there?” she asked lazily. “I'm going to be busy as a buzzard right here, young lady. It's going to take me a whole year to practice some extraspecial, better-than-ever tricks for next Halloween.”

“Jenny!” Mr. Barkin called from downstairs. “Are you ready to go home?”

The ghost witch vanished. Jenny crossed the room to blow out the candles in the windows. Then, after a last look at the empty bed, she switched off the overhead light and hurried downstairs.

Mr. Barkin was waiting at the front door. “You look as pleased as a mouse in a cheese factory,” he said. “What's up, Jenny? Why the big grin?”