Scaredy Kat Read Free

but the phantom face didn’t appear in any of them, at least not
     that I could see. I sat back in my chair, arms folded, and scowled at the screen. Why would the boy show up in just one picture?
     I clicked on the e-mail icon so that I wouldn’t have to keep looking at the little images lined up on the screen like tiny
     Tarot cards. I e-mailed my tongue-sticking-out picture to Jac without examining it closely—I didn’t really need to know all
     the facial imperfections my high-tech digital camera could pick up.
    At that point, I should have just let the issue of the boy’s face go. The ghost at school had come to me—had worked to get
     my attention. This one was playing hard to get. Maybe it had been a mistake. Maybe my camera had captured him unaware. It
     shouldn’t matter. I was coming to know that the world was full of ghosts, every hallway and staircase a potential portal to
     another dimension. I had chanced upon a face looking out of the window of an empty house. Now it was gone. I should just leave
     it at that.
    But I couldn’t.
    I could hear the shower running. I walked down the hall to the bathroom, opened the door a crack, and called that I was going
     out for a little walk. A technical truth.
    I went downstairs and into the living room to retrieve my shoes. From his doggie bed, Max, my German Shepherd, raised his
     head and stared at me with huge brown eyes. His expression seemed concerned and slightly disapproving.
    “Don’t look at me that way,” I said to him. “It’s no big deal.”
    Max gave a knowing, weary sigh, and lowered his head back onto his paws. He continued to watch me as I laced my sneakers.
     In a house where people could see the dead, get messages from the underworld, and commune with plant life, it didn’t seem
     all that strange that Max seemed to know what I was about to do. Psychic German Shepherd. It would make a great reality show.
     Or a very good reason to lock me up in the nuthouse.
    I walked out of the living room without looking back at Max. I felt guilty enough about not being entirely truthful with my
     mother—I didn’t need Max’s Disney Eyes making me feel even worse. Anyway, I wasn’t really going to do anything all that wrong.
     I was working on a school project. There was no one living in the house. I was just going over to get some closer shots. It
     was all innocent enough.
    And if a door or window happened to be unlocked, what was the harm in having one little peek inside?

    Our backyard was separated from the yard next door by an old stone wall that I easily climbed over; my camera hung around
     my neck. Standing there, it was like I’d tumbled into another world. Nothing had been touched in this yard for several years.
     The grass came to my waist, and vines had crept up an old swing set and twined around its poles as if they intended to swallow
     it whole. The paint on the house was peeling off in large chunks, and the steps to the screened-in porch looked like they
     might be rotted. Our house and garden looked strange from this viewpoint—it was like peering back through the wardrobe from
     Narnia and catching a glimpse of the room back home.
    I was making my way carefully through the tangle of plant growth toward the back porch when my foot connected with something.
     I reached down and felt for it with my hand, my fingers touching something small and metal. I picked it up. It was a little
     armored vehicle, about the size of an old Hot Wheels car, army green with a white star. I turned it over in my hands, then
     without really thinking about it, I stuck it in my sweatshirt pocket.
    The steps leading to the porch were much more solid than they looked. The porch door was locked, but since the screen already
     had a huge hole in it, I just reached through and unlocked the door from the inside. There was nothing on the porch itself,
     except for an old set of wind chimes hanging from above. They were tangled, and I reached up and unknotted them so