The Haunted Library by Dori Hillestad Butler

Author:Dori Hillestad Butler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2014-07-17T16:00:00+00:00

He didn’t hear anything.

Kaz stared at the bookcase. Passing through a wall was something almost every ghost could do. Even Little John could do it. There was no reason Kaz shouldn’t be able to do it, too.

He stuck out his finger and sloooowly moved it toward the bookcase.

No!

As much as he wanted to, he just couldn’t bring himself to step through that wall of books. Finn would have to come to him. If he was even back there.

The truth was, Finn could be anywhere. He could be hiding in some secret room behind the bookcase. He could be hiding someplace else in the library. Or he could be miles away from here.

The entryway seemed to be the exact center of the library, so Kaz swam back in there. Then he yelled as loud as he could so Finn would hear him no matter where he was. “NO GAMES, FINN! IF YOU’RE IN THIS LIBRARY, COME OUT! COME OUT RIGHT NOW!” He paused to take a breath, then added, “I HAVE TO TELL YOU WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR HAUNT! I HAVE TO TELL YOU ABOUT MOM, POPS, AND LITTLE JOHN! AND I HAVE TO TELL YOU ABOUT COSMO!”

Kaz waited.

And waited.

And waited some more.

Finn did not appear.

Kaz’s shoulders sagged.

Claire slowly walked over to him and tried to touch his shoulder, but her hand passed right through him.

“Aaaah!” Kaz darted away. “Don’t do that!”

“What?” Claire asked. “What’d I do?”

“You made your hand pass through me. I don’t like that. It makes me feel funny.”

“Huh,” Claire said. “It just makes me feel cold.” She pulled out her book and wrote that down.

While she was writing, Kaz said, “I guess you were right earlier. Finn’s not here. Beckett must be the ghost all those . . . kids saw earlier.”

“Probably,” Claire said. She strolled over to the big plant where the kids had said they’d seen the ghost. “But you know what? I’ve never actually seen him glow. I didn’t see him today. And I didn’t see him any of those other days, either.”

“So . . . ?” Kaz wasn’t sure what she was getting at.

“So, I can’t prove that it was Beckett,” Claire said. “A good detective doesn’t stop until she has proof. Maybe you and I should keep working on this case until we can prove that Beckett is the library ghost.”

“Okay,” Kaz said with a shrug. “What do we do?”

“I don’t know,” Claire said. She stared at the wall behind the plant as though she might find the answer there. After a little while, she turned back to Kaz. “Detectives like my parents look for fingerprints and stuff when they want to know who did something. Do ghosts leave fingerprints?”

Kaz looked at his fingers. “I don’t think so.”

“What about other evidence?” Claire asked.

“What’s ‘evidence’?” Kaz asked.

“Stuff that links a suspect to a crime,” Claire replied. “Fingerprints. Footprints. Clothing fibers. DNA. This is where the ghost was last seen, so this is our crime scene. Beckett is our number one suspect. So if we could find something that belongs to him, then we could prove that he’s the library ghost.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.