The Elevator Ghost Read Free Page A

just me.”



TWO
    The Bone Game
    The twelfth of November was a Saturday. It was a warm fall day. There was just enough breeze to send the last poplar leaves skittering across the hills and hollows of the park.
    Dwight and Dwayne spent all day in the park. There was plenty to do. They played Ante I Over the tea pavilion roof until their softball hit a gardener on the head and he chased them away. They dropped water bombs on joggers from a low-hanging branch on a chestnut tree.
    But the most fun was hiding in a culvert close to where Hubert and Hetty Croop were collecting leaves for a school project.
    Dwight and Dwayne knew how easy it was to frighten the living daylights out of the Croop kids. Their best prank had been scaring them with a fake rat. That still made them whoop with laughter. Dwight had taken Barkus’s favorite squeak-toy and tucked it inside an old moth-eaten fur muff he found in a garbage bin. While Dwight hid around a corner, Dwayne waited for Hubert and Hetty to get off the elevator on their way home from school.
    â€œYou guys seen that rat that’s been running loose on your floor?” Dwayne asked them.
    â€œRat!” Hubert clutched Hetty’s coat sleeve.
    Then Dwight came out and ran at them, hollering and waving the squeaking piece of fur. “Help! It’s got me! It’s chewing off my arm!”
    Hubert and Hetty ran away howling with fear, stumbling through the Exit door and down the fire escape.
    To find Croop kids in the park by themselves was almost as good as finding dropped money.
    Hetty was just reaching into the edge of the culvert to grab a red maple leaf when the boys let out roars that would have frightened a grizzly bear.
    Hetty screamed and Hubert yelped. Their leaves went flying as they raced for the park gate. Dwight and Dwayne burst out of the culvert and ran from tree to tree, hiding behind the trunks and roaring.
    Once the Croops were out of sight, the twins lay on the leaf-spattered grass and held their sides, laughing.
    They were still chuckling when they got home. With all the fun they’d been having, they’d forgotten that they were being left in the care of Carolina Giddle for the evening.
    â€œWhat the… ” Dwight choked on the laugh that had gurgled up again as he opened the apartment door.
    â€œHuh.” Dwayne shook his head.
    Carolina Giddle perched on a stool in the kitchen. Her flyaway scarecrow hair was caught up with a clip that looked like a coiled silver snake. She wore a shirt that seemed to be covered with little black lizards with sequin eyes.
    â€œHow lovely to see you two again,” Carolina Giddle said in that special way she had of talking. As if she were dragging her words through honey. “Dee-wight and Dee-wayne, isn’t it?”
    Dwayne glared. “We don’t need no babysitter.”
    Mr. Fergus rubbed his thumb against his belt loop and gave them his don’t-mess-with-me look.
    â€œYou be good for Ms. Giddle.” Mrs. Fergus blew kisses at the boys as they headed out.
    With their parents gone, the Fergus twins gave one another knowing looks. It was a ­silent signal to get busy with all of the tricks they’d played on babysitters over the years.
    When Carolina Giddle dished tomato soup for their supper, Dwight quickly splashed a big dollop of Louisiana hot sauce into her bowl when her back was turned. Enough to send her screaming for water.
    Carolina Giddle took a spoonful, then smiled and said, “I think I’ll just add a bit of hot sauce to mine.” She removed the cap, upended the bottle and said, “Mm…mm,” as it drizzled into her soup. “Where I come from, they say this will put curl into your hair! You boys care for some?”
    As Carolina did up the dishes, the boys lured Barkus, their pet sheepdog, into a bathtub laced with the contents of a full bottle of bubble bath. Soon there were bubbles oozing down the hall from the bathroom.
    But