Ann Martin - The Ghost At Dawn's House

Nicky might be in the passage now . . . and he might not. I decided to take a chance.

I eased myself through the trapdoor again and jumped onto the dirt floor. Now there was something that had always bothered me. Why was the dirt floor so hard-packed? Simple, I answered myself. Because it had been walked on a lot, even before I found it. Someone had been using the passage frequently — and it wasn't Jared, since ghosts don't weigh anything.

I took a deep breath and marched forward.

"Nicky!" I called. "I'm coming after you right now."

I heard footsteps then, far down the passage. With a pounding heart, I followed them.

Chapter 14.

The footsteps began to run, and I ran after them.

The footsteps thumped up the stairs. I thumped after them.

Then I turned the corner and shined the light ahead of me to the end of the passage.

Crouched in one corner was a small figure.

"Nicky!" I exclaimed. "So it is you, after all."

Nicky didn't answer. I ran to him.

"Nicky?" I said again.

"Oh, Dawn!" he burst out. "Why'd you have to find me?"

"Is this your secret place? Is this where you go when you disappear?"

He nodded. "Well, not right here. Usually I stop when I get to the stairs. I mean, this is your house. I didn't want to trespass or anything. . . . We are somewhere inside your house, aren't we?"

"Yeah. You don't know where the passage ends up?"

"Just in this dead end, I thought."

"Nope. Not quite. I'll show you." I was pretty sure my wall was unlocked, so I released the catch.

Nicky watched wide-eyed as the wall in front of him began to move back. Through the opening, my bedspread appeared, then the dresser, the curtains, and the armchair. Nicky found himself practically in my room.

He stood up and peered inside, then looked back at me. "Whoa . . ."

"My bedroom," I said. "Come on in."

Nicky followed me inside. I showed him how the wall dosed up.

"You can't even see a crack!" he exclaimed.

"I know," I said. "I looked for a secret passage in the house forever, and I never found this."

"I found the other end really easily," said Nicky in a small voice.

Nicky looked completely out of place in my bedroom. He was dirty and dusty (so was I, for that matter, but only slightly), he had chocolate cake mashed on one arm, and his cheeks were streaked with tears. Messy as he was, he was sitting on my clean white bedspread. I didn't care, though.

"You want to tell me about it, Nicky?"

He shrugged.

"How'd you find the other end?"

Nicky sighed. "One day Adam kept teasing me about this book I was reading. So I took the book — "

"Was it Great Dog Tales?" I interrupted.

"How did you know?"

"I saw it in the passage once. You must have left it there."

"Oh. Well, anyway, I took the book and I ran away. I didn't break the two-block rule, Dawn. I swear I didn't. The back of your barn is exactly two blocks from the front of our house. I didn't know if any of you guys were home, but I didn't think you used the barn, so I snuck inside. It's so quiet in there."

"I know."

"And I was looking for a place to read when I found the trapdoor instead. I opened it up and climbed down the ladder. And that's how I found the passage."

"And you started coming back?" I prompted him.

"Yeah. I kept a flashlight buried under some hay near the trapdoor, and I could go in the passage and think of mean things to say to the triplets or read or look at my coin collection."

"Your coin collection? Oh, boy. I have about a million questions to ask you."

"You do?" Nicky looked puzzled.

"Yeah. See, I thought the secret passage had a ghost."

"A ghost?" Nicky shrieked. "I've been going some place where there's a ghost?"

"No, silly," I said. "You were the ghost."

"Oh."

"I mean, I think you were. Do you have an Indian-head nickel in your coin collection?"

"Yeah."

"Did you lose it?"

"Yup. But I found it again."

"I found it too." I told him about the stormy night and the Trip-Man.

Nicky laughed.

"Did you ever bring snacks over here?" I asked.

"Lots of times," he replied. "Once, I even brought an ice-cream cone. The Frosty Treats truck drove by just as I got to the barn. So I bought a cone. It was called a Fancy Old-Fashioned Ice-Cream Parlour Cone and it cost a whole dollar."

"I found the end of the cone," I told him. "And some other things."

"Sorry," said Nicky. "I guess I didn't clean up too good."

"Too well," I corrected him, "and you cleaned up just fine. I only found a couple of things. I thought the ghost had a sweet tooth."

Nicky giggled. "I was here just this morning eating peanuts. That's why I wasn't hungry for lunch," he confessed. "You know," he went on, "now that I know you used the passage, you answered a question for me."

"What's that?"

"I used to see these old things in the passage."

"A key, a buckle, and a button," I said.

"Yes. Did you take them? I couldn't figure out what happened to them."

"I took them," I said. "They're in my drawer. Where'd you get that other key, though?"

"What other key?"

"The really old one. The one at the bottom of the steps."

"I've never seen another key," replied Nicky. "So it can't be mine."

"Are you sure? I know it wasn't there a few days ago."

"It isn't mine. Honest."

"I believe you," I said, my skin crawling. If the key wasn't mine and it wasn't Nicky's, whose was it? Jared's?

"Whaf s the matter, Dawn?" asked Nicky.

I shivered. "Nothing. . . . I'm sorry I ruined your secret hiding place."

"That's okay," replied Nicky, but he didn't sound as if it were okay at all.

"I don't mind that you were coming to our passageway, Nicky/' I told him. "I really don't. But you do know that it wasn't quite right, don't you?"

Nicky looked worried. "What?"

"Well," I said, "technically, I guess you were trespassing, but that's not what I mean. What I mean is that, for one thing, you scared me. You made noises when you were in the passage. That was another reason I thought we had a ghost."

"I didn't mean to make any noise."

"I know you didn't. By the way, did you ever hide in the passage at night?"

"At night?" exclaimed Nicky. "No way."

"I didn't think so." I tried not to start shivering again. Who had been moaning and creaking around the passage during the night-time thunderstorms?

"I'm sorry I scared you," said Nicky.

"It's okay. Really. Let's go back to your house. Your mom's going to be home soon."

"All right." Nicky looked as if I were going to lead him into a pit of vipers.

We left my house and headed back to the Pikes'. "Another thing/' I added as we walked along. "I don't know how safe the passage is. Those stairs are old. So's the trapdoor." Nicky nodded glumly.

"Last thing," I said. "When your mother made up the two-block rule for you, I don't think she meant for you to go someplace where no one could find you. Thaf s just not a good idea. Okay?"

"Okay."

I took Nicky's hand. "Hey," I said. "Look at that. Your mom beat us home. Let's go tell her about your adventure."

Mrs. Pike had been surprised, to say the least, when she had come back and found that I wasn't there, but I explained the whole story to her, including the triplets' pranks. Mallory, luckily, had done just fine with her brothers. While I was chasing after Nicky, she had gotten them to clean up lunch and then had settled them into a game of Monopoly. They were extremely quiet and well-behaved when I returned. I was really impressed with Mallory.

Mrs. Pike and Nicky and I had a talk before I went home.

"I need a hideout," Nicky said, sounding the way people do when they talk about very important things, like food or money.