Why I'm Not Afraid of Ghosts Read Free Page B

faster. Finally, he lifted it into the shriek of horror as the shadow catches up to the person.
    For a second Dora looked like she might say something nice. Then she said, “Not even a sick cow. Sick calf!”
    â€œOh, come on!” Robbie flopped to the floor in frustration.
    Dora took another turn moaning. It sounded to Robbie like the moan of someone whose body was covered with giant squirming, slimy slugs.
    She cut off the moan with a slippery gurgle. As though one of the slugs had crawled into her mouth!
    â€œPathetic,” Robbie sneered. He groaned and moaned the way he imagined someone would whose toes and fingers were being nibbled off by rats.
    Then he groaned louder, as if the rats were eating their way up his legs and arms.
    He ended with one of his trademark hair-raising shrieks.
    Dora started moaning again before Robbie even finished.
    Pretty soon they were both howling so loudly, they couldn’t even hear each other.
    Robbie didn’t care. It felt good to moan and groan and howl, even if no one was listening. It was fun. Sometimes it got very boring being a ghost.
    He and Dora stopped groaning. They grinned at each other.
    â€œI don’t know about you,” Robbie declared, “but I’m ready for tonight!”
    * * *
    Robbie wished bedtime would hurry up. He couldn’t wait to put his plan into action. But the evening seemed to drag on forever. After dinner Oliver and Shawn watched horror movies on TV. So Robbie and Dora watched them too—invisibly.
    On the TV set Frankenstein’s monster lurched toward terrified villagers in Transylvania.
    â€œHow come you like horror movies so much, when you don’t even believe in ghosts?” Shawn asked Oliver.
    Oliver shrugged. “They’re cool.”
    â€œI like pretending I’m the monster,” Shawn said. He hunched his shoulders, lifted his arms, let his hands flop down at the ends. Then he moaned.
    Robbie stared at the back of Shawn’s head. What an eerie sound the kid made! It was the sound of someone alone, scared, and in pain. The kid could go pro!
    Robbie sneaked around and peered at Shawn’s face.
    Shawn’s eyes glowed behind his red-framed glasses, and his jaw had dropped. He looked brainless and scary. And somehow bigger.
    Weird.
    Oliver studied his friend. “Awesome,” he murmured. Shawn looked pleased.
    The next movie, about a giant crawling eye, scared Robbie. He hid in the wall so Dora couldn’t see his knees knocking.
    â€œBuck-buck-buck-buck-buck,” Dora squawked.
    What is she doing? Robbie wondered. He peeked out from his hiding place.
    â€œBuck-buck!” Dora flapped her elbows like chicken wings. “You are such a chicken, Robbie! Look at these guys. They’re not scared at all!”
    Robbie glanced over at Oliver and Shawn. Oliver wolfed down microwave popcorn. Shawn snuck pieces of popcorn to Spooky, who was pretty sneaky about eating it.
    They all stared at the screen. Even Spooky.
    Occasionally Oliver or Shawn said, “That’s so dumb.” “That’s so stupid!” “No one would do that!” “This is the lamest movie on the planet!”
    But they didn’t turn off the TV until the very end of the movie.
    Shawn left after the eyeball movie. Then Oliver went upstairs, brushed his teeth, and climbed into bed.
    Robbie waited until Oliver’s breathing slowed into sleep.
    It was time to put his plan into action. He would use all his classics!
    First he tuned his voice so lifers could hear him.
    He coughed a couple of times to clear his throat. Then he launched into the groan of a man seeing a dead, rotting body for the first time. Kind of a this-is-so-horrible-I’m-going-to-barf groan.
    He thought about Spooky jumping right through him and groaned some more, remembering how much his stomach hurt.
    Oliver didn’t stir. His breathing stayed steady.
    Robbie moved closer to the bed.
    He moaned the moan of