Claudia and the Lighthouse Ghost Read online

  As we walked into the hallway, Laura pulled a compact out of her bag and looked at herself in the mirror.

  “Gag me,” she said. “I’m going to the bathroom. Come with me.”

  As soon as we entered the girls’ room, Laura set some makeup out on the sink ledge. In her hurry, her sleeve brushed against an open tube of lipstick. It fell to the floor, jamming into a marble tile.

  “Ohhhh, look at that!” she said angrily.

  Have you ever seen a tube of lipstick splatted flat on a floor? It’s pretty funny. I couldn’t help laughing.

  “Some help you are!” Laura said, rummaging around in her bag again. “I feel like an alien here. I thought I’d be meeting people. I thought that by now people would at least know who I am!”

  “It’s only your first day,” I reminded her.

  “Yeah, but I have to stick with you, right? And you don’t know anybody. So how am I going to gashanomeboppy?”

  She said that last part while she was putting on lipstick from another tube. I never did find out what she said. Frankly, I didn’t care.

  “There!” she finally announced, appraising herself in the mirror. “I’m human!”

  I could have argued, but hey, a guest is a guest.

  Out into the crowded hallway we went. We stopped at our lockers for our coats and headed outside.

  During breakfast, Mr. Hatt had offered to pick us up from school. Sure enough, he and Caryn were waiting in the Hatt family minivan at the curb.

  Laura and I climbed into the backseat. “Thanks for picking us up,” I said.

  “Don’t thank me yet,” Mr. Hatt replied as he started up the car. “I’m going to drag you on some errands. Shouldn’t take too long. I need to pick up some exterior paint for the lighthouse.”

  “You decided to renovate it?” I asked.

  “Yup!” Caryn piped up. “Isn’t that cool?”

  “I spent most of the morning trying to get into the place,” Mr. Hatt said. “Between the rusted locks and chains, the fallen razor wire, the wooden planks, and the shutters, I thought I’d never see the inside.”

  “What was it like?” I asked.

  Mr. Hatt smiled. “I’ll let you see for yourself.”

  I gulped. “We’re going there now?”

  “O-o-oh, no! You’re not taking me to that old rat hole!” Laura declared.

  “Scared?” Caryn asked with a smile.

  Laura stuck out her tongue.

  “It’s in pretty good shape,” Mr. Hatt said. “I had a structural engineer look at it. Okay with you, Claudia?”

  “Uh, sure, but I have to be back by five-thirty for a Baby-sitters Club meeting.”

  “No sweat.”

  He drove us to the hardware store. When I heard him ask the clerk for ten cans of flat white, I almost gagged.

  “It’ll look like the abominable snowman!” I blurted out. “Do you have an old picture of the lighthouse?”

  Mr. Hatt shrugged. “Sure.”

  Claudia the Color Freak to the rescue. Mr. Hatt’s photo was black-and-white, but I noticed the lighthouse had trim around the middle. It cried out for two tones — a red-and-white motif, maybe. I looked at paint samples for a while and picked out a soft sand color for the top, a crimson for the bottom. Warm but vibrant. Soothing to the eyes but strongly attractive.

  “How do you know so much about color?” Laura asked as we loaded the cans of paint into the car.

  “Look into her room sometime,” Caryn said. “She’s a great artist.”

  At least I had one friend in the Hatt family.

  As Mr. Hatt turned onto Shore Drive, I heard the screech of a seagull. The sun was hanging low over the Sound, swollen and dusky orange in the mist. Birds flew across it, their silhouettes black as bats.

  Even with the windows closed and the car’s heater turned up, I could smell the salty air. As we pulled around a bend in the road, the lighthouse came into view, just north of us. In the dim rays of the setting sun, the jagged graffiti looked like snakes crawling up the walls.

  The lighthouse window faced south, looking out over the Sound. We could see it for a moment, before the road curved around the lighthouse to the north.

  In that moment I thought I saw movement through the window.

  “Is … anyone in there?” I asked.

  “Not that I know of,” Mr. Hatt replied.

  The radio was tuned to an all-news station, blathering on and on about hideous crimes and bad economic news. I desperately wanted Mr. Hatt to change the station, but I kept my mouth shut.

  Go home.

  My brain shot me the message. I was suddenly cold, tired, and hungry. And the BSC meeting was only forty-five minutes away. What were we doing in this place?

  We pulled to a stop in front of the main gate.

  “Have fun,” Laura said sullenly, her arms folded.

  As Mr. Hatt, Caryn, and I climbed out, the wintry wind made me shiver. A distant buoy chimed dully over the water.

  Big wooden boards lay around the base of the lighthouse. The one window, on the second floor, was now a dark, square hole.

  “We have just enough light to see the inside, I think,” Mr. Hatt said, strolling up the front walkway.

  “There’s … no light in there?” I asked.

  Mr. Hatt chuckled. “Not until I call the electrical company.”

  My knees locked. What if rats lived in there? Or bats? Or worse?

  EEEEEEEAAAAAAGGGHH!

  I nearly jumped out of my skin at the noise.

  I spun around. A seagull was swooping down. Caryn was tossing pieces of a candy bar onto the ground.

  I swallowed. Bravely I turned and followed Mr. Hatt into the lighthouse.

  Something brushed against my eyebrows as I walked through the front door. I wiped my fingers across my face and peeled off a layer of cobwebs.

  Mr. Hatt was standing to my right. The first-floor space was huge, much larger than it looked from outside. In the middle of the floor, a wooden spiral staircase wound upward from a basement, right on through to the second floor and the roof. Although the lighthouse was round, the floor was an odd shape, because of a small room on the right.

  “Can Claudia and I explore?” Caryn asked.

  I looked up into the pitch-black hole of the stairwell. I gulped so loudly I sounded like a bullfrog.

  Me? Up there with the ghost?

  Uh-uh. Not in this life. (Or any other.)

  “Hang on.” Mr. Hatt disappeared into the room and emerged with two flashlights. “I stored these earlier.”

  He handed the flashlights to Caryn, then scurried downstairs to the basement.

  “Caryn,” I whispered. “I saw something move up there!”

  “Cool!” she exclaimed.

  “Cool?”

  But she was already heading for the stairs. And I was about to be alone.

  I ran after her. “Hey, give me one of those flashlights!”

  The old wooden steps creaked as we climbed. The frozen, rusty metal banister seemed to stick to my hand, and I wished that I’d worn gloves.

  “Creepy,” Caryn said, stepping onto the second floor.

  I climbed up beside her and shone the light around. Metal instruments like giant, petrified insects lay heaped against the wall. Above us, a lightbulb hung limply from a wire. Just beyond it, where the wall met the ceiling, our light beams made dancing patterns of the thick cobwebs.

  Through the square window I could see the sun flattening into a half circle against the horizon. I knelt by the sill and watched.

  Have you ever seen the sun set on the water? You can actually see it move. It’s hypnotizing.

  “I’m heeeeeere …”

  I clutched my flashlight at the sound of the voice. It was muffled and low-pitched. It sounded male, but it was not Mr. Hatt’s deep, gruff tone. It was the voice of a young man.

  Was it Steve? Had he walked over to see us?

  “Hello?” I called out.

  Clank! A metallic noise ans
wered, as if someone had bumped against one of the old contraptions.

  I shone my flashlight around. The entire second floor was empty. “Caryn, was that you?” I said. “Caryn, this isn’t funny!”

  “I’m up here!” she called from the roof. “Come see this light!”

  Funny. I hadn’t even heard her walk up there.

  I climbed the stairs through a trapdoor opening and onto the roof. The fresh air felt wonderful, and I could hear the water’s rhythmic lapping against the dock. Around us was a wall about four feet high. In the center of the floor was a huge cylindrical pivot that supported an enormous double light, like giant car headlights, back-to-back.

  “Did you just hear someone?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Caryn said. “You.”

  “But no one else? Not your brother?”

  A distant voice filtered up from outside. “What in Sam Hill are you doing here?”

  There was no mistaking that. Caryn and I clattered down the spiral stairs.

  Mr. Hatt was standing just outside the lighthouse. A craggy-faced man in a red-checked wool coat was walking across the small, scrubby lawn toward him.

  “Mr. Langley!” Mr. Hatt said. “Long time no see —”

  “Not long enough!” the man retorted.

  “Well, uh, I was just — just opening up the lighthouse,” Mr. Hatt stuttered. “Trying to figure out what to do with it.”

  Even in the darkness I could see how red Mr. Langley’s face was. “I thought you’d at least have the decency to wait until I was six feet under before you showed yourself around here, Hatt.”

  “Perhaps I should have called —” Mr. Hatt began.

  “What do you think I’d have said?” Mr. Langley growled. “ ’Come on over, all is forgiven’? ‘Come peel the scabs off the wound’?”

  Caryn and I were frozen in the doorway. Laura was now standing by the car, watching.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Langley,” Mr. Hatt said. “I know how you must feel, but you have to understand that I do bear responsibility for the property and the —”

  Mr. Langley scrunched up his face and spat.

  Mr. Hatt jumped back as a plug of saliva hurtled through the air and landed at his feet.

  “Go back to where you belong,” Mr. Langley said, stalking away.

  I should explain something first. When Abby wrote “bahhhbie,” she meant barbie. No, not the doll. The grill.

  You see, the Hobarts are from Australia. “Shrimp on the barbie” is Australian for “Shrimp on the barbecue.” Abby was trying to imitate the Hobarts’ pronunciation.

  (Always the mimic, even on paper.)

  The Hobart boys love sports. That can make life a little tough for sitters like me, but they are probably Logan Bruno’s favorite charges. Kristy’s too. And since Abby joined the BSC, the Hobarts have been in baby-sitter heaven.

  All four of them — Ben, who’s eleven, James (eight), Mathew (six), and Johnny (four) — have bright, reddish-blond hair and freckled faces. If you morphed their faces, youngest to oldest, it would look like one boy growing up.

  Tuesday afternoon Abby was sitting for the three younger boys. In the late afternoon, Ben had returned home and joined them for a pickup football game.

  “Hoik!” Abby shouted to Mathew, who was holding the ball.

  He tossed it to her. Then he raced down Bradford Court with his brothers.

  Abby reared back to throw. “Go long!” she shouted. “Longer! Longer!”

  The boys were scrambling ahead, trying to outrace each other, looking over their shoulders.

  “Longer!”

  They were at the end of the block now.

  Abby tucked the football under her arm and yelled, “The quarterback fakes and goes for the run!”

  “HEEEYYYYY!” shouted the brothers.

  Abby took off. Giggling, the boys ran after her. She zigged onto the sidewalk and zagged left onto the Hobart lawn. “You’ll never catch Swift-Foot Stevenson!” she crowed.

  Fat chance. They surrounded her. Screaming, she disappeared under a pile of laughing Hobarts.

  “Hi, guys!” chimed Jessi’s voice from behind them.

  Abby looked out from under the boy mound and saw Jessi jogging across the lawn. Behind Jessi were the two kids she was baby-sitting for that afternoon, nine-year-old Haley Braddock and Haley’s seven-year-old brother, Matt. One of their friends, Buddy Barrett, had been dropped off at the Braddocks’ and was tagging along with them.

  Matt was wearing a strange pair of sunglasses. Each lens looked like a miniature comet, with a white, sparkly tail. Buddy had on a pair of antennae.

  Abby cracked up. “Who are you two?”

  “He’s the Beehive comet and I’m the creature who lives on him,” Buddy explained.

  “Veehoff,” Haley corrected him.

  Matt made a flying motion with his right hand and then began moving both hands in sign language. (Matt was born profoundly deaf, which means he can’t hear even the slightest sound.)

  “He says he was just passing by this planet and decided to stop in Stoneybrook,” Haley explained.

  “Yiiiiikes!” James shouted. “Here comes the comet! I’m — I’m dying!”

  “Ehhhhhhh!” Buddy cried. “The comet alien gives you life, but you must be on my side!”

  “Uh, very nice,” Abby said. “Now, who wants to play foot —?”

  “I want to do what they’re doing!” Johnny Hobart piped up. “How do you play, Buddy?”

  “Well, the Veehoff Comet is attacking,” Buddy explained, “and alien Veehoffs hop off to take over the world. The only people who can save the world are the Earthlings with super powers.”

  Ben was howling. “Nobody lives on comets! They’re made of ice and rock!”

  Abby let out a loud whistle. “Okay, football players to the street, comet people to Jessi!”

  James hesitated, then ran off to comet land.

  “I guess it’s just you and me, huh, Ben?” Abby asked.

  “Uh … later, Ab.”

  Zoom. It was a lost cause.

  Jessi and Abby watched the war unfold. They died a few times, knocked off a couple of aliens, and before they knew it, it was growing dark.

  Johnny sidled up to Abby and said, “I’m c-c-cold.”

  “Okay, aliens and Earthlings!” Abby called out. “Report inside the Hobart module for hot chocolate!”

  Everyone ran into the house. Abby and Jessi heated up a kettle of hot water and poured nine cups of steaming hot chocolate.

  As they sat around the kitchen table, crowded onto chairs and a piano bench, the sky slowly darkened.

  “I think I see the comet!” Mathew bolted up from his chair and ran to the window.

  “You always think you see it,” James scoffed.

  “Sit down,” Ben ordered. “It’s not coming for another week.”

  Mathew slumped back to the table. “Rats, I missed it.”

  “Don’t worry,” Haley reassured him. “We’ll probably have the comet party at our house, and I’ll let you use our telescope.”

  “Your house?” Buddy piped up. “No way! My mom just bought a telescope, too. Ours is bigger.”

  “How do you know?” Haley asked.

  “Well … we have a better view,” Buddy muttered. “Our house is on a hill.”

  “That’s not a hill!” James scoffed. “It’s a bump.”

  “Bring both your telescopes to our house,” Ben suggested. “We have the best view.”

  “Whoa, easy, guys,” Abby said. “Talk to Kristy about this. She’ll make the final decision.”

  “How about the old lighthouse?” Mathew asked. “We could have a spooky party and turn into bats at the stroke of midnight!”

  “No way!” Buddy replied. “That place is haunted.”

  “I’m not allowed to stay up until midnight, anyway,” James said.

  Ben shrugged. “Too bad, because that’s when the comet’s supposed to come.”

  James looked horrified. “It is
?”

  “The newspaper said between eight and midnight,” Jessi said. “By midnight it’ll be barely visible.”

  “You know, we’re lucky,” Mathew spoke up. “If we were back home in Australia, we wouldn’t see the Veehoff Comet.”

  “Maybe you should go back,” Buddy said. “You might be safer there.”

  “Safer?” Mathew asked.

  “Sure,” Buddy replied. “It won’t crash in Australia.”

  “It’s going to crash?” Johnny said.

  “Absolutely not!” Jessi replied. “We’re nowhere near its path. All the newspapers and TV reports say that.”

  “When I went to the Museum of Natural History in New York, I saw a car that was smashed by a comet,” Haley reported.

  “I think that was a meteor,” Jessi said.

  “You know what I learned in school?” Jessi went on. “The word ‘comet’ comes from the Greek word for hair. The ancient people thought the comet’s tail was white hair.”

  “Is it?” Johnny asked.

  “No way!” Buddy replied. “It’s made of fire and germs. In school we saw this picture of a forest — totally burned up by a comet that exploded in the air! Also, a famous astronomer says that comets sprinkle flu germs.”

  Mathew was on the verge of tears. “Then we’ll all get sick!”

  “Only if it passes too close,” Buddy explained. “Of course, if it’s way too close, we die.”

  “Buddy …” Jessi said warningly.

  Haley was signing all this to Matt, who looked very skeptical.

  “I heard that a comet caused Noah’s flood,” Ben said. “It killed the dinosaurs, too. You know what happens? When it passes across the sun, it cuts off all the light. The world goes dark for thirteen days, and all the plants die. Then the plant eaters die, then the meat eaters. That would be us, in modern times.”

  Johnny put his hands over his ears. “I’m not going to listen.”

  “On the thirteenth day,” Ben continued, “rats run in the streets and dead people rise up from their graves and turn into ghosts and haunt the world —”

  “Stop!” Johnny cried, then jumped into Abby’s lap.

  “Ben, if these kids can’t sleep tonight, I’m telling their parents to call you,” Abby said.