A Gust of Ghosts by Suzanne Harper

Author:Suzanne Harper
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins

Chapter TWELVE

By morning, Poppy’s fears had vanished, as so many nighttime fears do. She bounded down the stairs to the kitchen, eager to head back out to the Shady Rest Cemetery and start gathering evidence that ghosts really exist, only to find that Mr. and Mrs. Malone’s plans had shifted again.

“But we have to go back,” Poppy said.

“We barely started our investigation,” Will added.

Even Franny, somewhat unconvincingly, chimed in, saying, “I thought you wanted us to help.”

Mr. and Mrs. Malone exchanged puzzled glances.

“Well, of course we’re glad to see this unexpected change in attitude,” said Mr. Malone. “But, as fate would have it, your mother and I have made other plans today.”

This met with a chorus of protest, which was only silenced by Mrs. Malone raising her hand.

“I’m sorry, but it’s impossible,” she said. “Henry’s aunt has invited us to dinner tonight.”

“So?” Will said. “We can go to the cemetery and be back in time for dinner.”

But Mrs. Malone shook her head firmly. “You three need to do some laundry so that you have halfway decent clothes to wear. And we really should take a dessert, which means your father will have to pick up something at the store. I certainly don’t have time to make anything, since it will take me at least an hour getting Rolly bathed and dressed—”

“And I need to try enhancing the video on my computer so we can see the manifestation more clearly,” Mr. Malone said hastily, before any more chores were assigned to him. “We’ll simply have to go to the cemetery tomorrow.”

“We’ve got to figure out a way to get to the cemetery on our own,” Poppy said as soon as she, Will, and Franny were alone together. “We’ll wait until Mom’s gone to the store and Dad’s got his headphones on. We can go to Shady Rest and be back before they know we’re gone.”

Unfortunately, the only way Poppy could get privacy to discuss this matter was by volunteering that she, Will, and Franny would do some weeding, an activity that allowed them to talk freely without being overheard by their parents or Rolly.

They quickly discovered, however, that the flowerbeds were choked with weeds. Poppy soon identified chickweed, bedstraw, and henbit (Will and Franny had not found this information as fascinating as she had), and doing manual labor in the hot sun had apparently revived bad memories for Will and Franny.

“Look, Travis isn’t going anywhere, is he?” said Franny, who was kneeling by a flowerbed, a floppy straw hat on her head. “I mean, it’s cool that we got to meet a ghost and everything, but we could go swimming at Barton Springs today and go back to the cemetery tomorrow. Or even next week.”

“Henry said the water at Barton Springs is always ice-cold,” Will said thoughtfully. “Even when the temperature is almost a hundred degrees.”

Poppy had introduced Will and Franny to Henry after Mr. Farley’s visit the day before. They had spent an hour in Henry’s tree house and learned many interesting things.

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