Megan Stine_Jeffery & the Third-Grade Ghost 02 Page 3

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” Ben said.

  “We’ll just go and look. That’s all,” Jeffrey said.

  And he kept saying it all the way over to the McGyver house. Soon the two friends were standing at the fence facing the spooky old mansion.

  Jeffrey opened the gate. He and Ben looked at each other. “We’ll just go and look,” Jeffrey said again. He took a deep breath and then took the first step. Ben followed.

  With each step, memories came back to Jeffrey about Halloween and the McGyver house. He remembered strange sounds coming from the top floor. He remembered the time Mr. McGyver had thrown a handful of black feathers at them as they passed the house.

  Finally, Jeffrey and Ben reached the front porch. Their hearts were pounding. The cold wind made their knees bang together and their teeth chatter.

  Jeffrey was about to put his foot on the porch step. “It doesn’t look so haunted, does it?” he asked.

  Just then they heard something break with a crash inside the house.

  “Okay, mission accomplished. We’ve checked the house,” Ben said quickly.

  With that, they turned and ran out of the yard. When they were halfway down the block, they turned around to look at the house again.

  “See? We did it,” said Jeffrey. “No problem.”

  Ben didn’t look like he agreed.

  “Well, that’s what I’ve got to do on Halloween,” Jeffrey said. “Except, I guess, I’ll go into the house that night.”

  Jeffrey and Ben started to walk down the street.

  “You mean we’ll go into the house,” Ben said.

  “We? You’re going with me?” Jeffrey said.

  “Have to,” Ben said, smiling. “I mean for scientific purposes. I have to be there to see what you look like when you turn into dead meat!”

  That night, Jeffrey was in his room not doing his homework when suddenly Max appeared.

  “What’s shaking, Daddy-o?” Max said.

  “Hi, Max,” Jeffrey said. “Where’ve you been?”

  “Like, I went back to that crazy house,” Max said.

  “You mean the McGyver house?” asked Jeffrey.

  “Yeah, man. They had a mirror in there about as big as a football field. It was a drag when I tripped and broke it. You should have dug the crash,” Max said.

  “I did dig—I mean, I heard the crash,” Jeffrey said. “Ben and I were there today. We both heard it.” He left out the part about being scared of the noise and running away. “But I didn’t know that was you.”

  “Nobody else,” Max said with a proud smile. “But no sweatski. I cleaned up the glass.”

  “Max,” Jeffrey said seriously, “I’ve got to know. Is that dagger really in the house? And does it have writing on it like you said?”

  “Sorry, cat,” Max answered. “The dagger’s there, but it’s forget-itsville on the writing.”

  Jeffrey sat down on his bed. “Oh,” he said disappointedly.

  “Yeah,” Max said. “It looked more like blood today.”

  Jeffrey’s eyebrows shot up. “Blood? Really?”

  “Like the bacon said to the skillet, ‘If I’m lyin’, I’m fryin’.’ ”

  Jeffrey stood up and grabbed Max by the shoulders. “Max, I’ve got to get that dagger on Halloween. And you’ve got to help me.”

  Max gently lifted Jeffrey’s hands from his shoulders. “Hey, don’t bend the fenders, man. I’ll help you,” he promised. “And, as an extra-added attraction, at no cost, I’ll even help you with your Halloween costume. I know your magic act won’t groove without me.”

  “Hey, thanks!” Jeffrey said.

  For the next two hours, Max and Jeffrey practiced their magic act together. Jeffrey was the magician, but Max was the magic. He made a stuffed rabbit float out of Jeffrey’s hat. He lifted Jeffrey’s black cape so that it seemed to fly. He made a pitcher of water disappear by invisibly grabbing it away. The living-hand trick was the most amazing of all. When Max wanted to, he could make any part of his body invisible. Now, all of Max disappeared—except for one hand. It was just like the first time Jeffrey saw Max—very creepy.

  “This is going to be dynamite,” Jeffrey said when they were done. “No one will believe their eyes.”

  “Yeah. It’ll be a surprise a minute, Daddy-o,” Max said with a strange laugh.

  Jeffrey looked at the ghost. But before he could ask Max what he meant, Max said, “See you later, alligator.” And then he was gone again.

  Chapter Five

  On Halloween morning, Jeffrey looked at himself in the mirror. But it wasn’t Jeffrey Becker he saw. It was Jeffrey the Mysterioso. It even said that in dazzling sequins on the back of his flowing black cape. Under the cape, Jeffrey the Mysterioso wore a white shirt and black pants. He also had on a black top hat, a magic wand, and a look on his face that said anything might happen.

  “Jeffrey, you look like a total groove,” Max said. He sat on the end of Jeffrey’s bed.

  “Thanks,” Jeffrey said. “But just promise me one thing. You will show up on time at school today, won’t you?”

  “No sweat, Daddy-o,” Max said.

  “And you won’t try to mess up my act, will you? I mean, no tricks except the ones we planned. Right?”

  “That’s two things,” Max said. And with a wink, he faded away.

  A little while later, Jeffrey the Mysterioso sat in Mrs. Merrin’s classroom. The room was filled with ghosts, witches, ballerinas, and animals of all shapes and sizes. Everyone had worn a Halloween costume to class. But as Jeffrey looked around the room, he noticed that the real ghost—Max—was doing his usual disappearing act. Max was not there yet.

  “Good morning, class,” Mrs. Merrin said, walking into the room. Jeffrey looked up and saw that his teacher was dressed in a costume, too. She wore an old-fashioned, floor-length, fancy ball gown. Her hair was powdered white and she had lots of curls. She told the class that she was Martha Washington. “Everyone looks super,” said Mrs. Merrin. Then she looked right at Jeffrey. “Jeffrey, I got your note.”

  “Note? What note?” Jeffrey asked. “I didn’t write you a note.”

  “Your note saying you had a very special magic act to share with us,” Mrs. Merrin said.

  Jeffrey’s heart began to pound. Suddenly, he knew who had written the note to Mrs. Merrin. Max had written it. And that meant that Max had something special planned, too. What was the ghost going to do?

  “So,” Mrs. Merrin went on, “I want each person in class to show and tell what is special about his or her costume. And, Jeffrey, you can go first.”

  Jeffrey looked around the room quickly. Still no Max.

  “I’m not ready,” Jeffrey said, shaking his head. He couldn’t do his act without Max. The tricks wouldn’t work!

  Mrs. Merrin gave Jeffrey a funny look but just said, “Jeffrey’s trying to keep us in suspense, as every good magician should.”

  So Mrs. Merrin asked Ben to explain his robot costume instead. After that Melissa stood up. She was wearing her pink ballet tutu, ballet slippers, and a stethoscope around her neck. She was a famous ballerina-brain surgeon.

  Without looking up, Jeffrey could feel Mrs. Merrin’s eyes on him.

  “Good for you, Melissa,” Mrs. Merrin said. “Jeffrey?”

  Jeffrey looked around the classroom. Max still wasn’t there.

  “I’m, uh, not ready yet,” he said.

  “Well, get ready, please,” Mrs. Merrin said firmly. “In the meantime, we’ll move on to Ricky Reyes.”

  Ricky Reyes was dressed as a karate expert. He gave the class a martial-arts demonstration. While Ricky was splitting boards with his hands, a voice whispered in Jeffrey’s ear, “What’s shaking, Daddy-o?”

  “Max! It’s about time,” Jeffrey whispered back. He looked around, but Max was invisible, even to him.

  “Don’t get unwrapped,” said the third-grade ghost. “I’ve got everything under control.”

  “And now it’s time for Jeffrey,” said Mr
s. Merrin.

  Jeffrey nodded his head.

  “Excuse me, I mean, Jeffrey the Mysterioso,” said Mrs. Merrin.

  Everyone applauded.

  “Thank you, thank you,” Jeffrey said, walking to the front of the class. “My first trick will be the Floating Stuffed Rabbit trick.” He put his top hat on Mrs. Merrin’s desk. “Watch carefully,” Jeffrey announced, waving his wand over the hat. “You are about to see a rabbit float up from the hat.”

  Everyone watched carefully. All of a sudden, soap bubbles started to come from the hat. It was funny—but it wasn’t a stuffed rabbit. It wasn’t the trick Jeffrey and Max had rehearsed.

  The class started to laugh.

  “Uh, well, it looks like the rabbit is busy taking a bubble bath right now,” Jeffrey said.

  “Max, what are you doing?” Jeffrey whispered angrily. But he still didn’t see Max, so he didn’t know where to whisper.

  “I’m just making with the magic, man,” Max whispered back.

  Jeffrey tried to smile at his audience. He pretended nothing was wrong.

  “And now Jeffrey the Mysterioso will try another trick. I call this trick: The Amazing Flying Cape!” Jeffrey waved his magic wand twice. “Keep your eyes on my cape. Watch it lift into the air—all by itself!”

  That was the way the trick was supposed to work. But Max changed things around again. He untied the cord that held Jeffrey’s cape around his neck. Suddenly, the cape fell to the floor.

  There were screams of laughter. But Jeffrey’s face was turning red.

  “Sorry, I forgot,” Jeffrey said. “It’s one wave of the wand to make the cape fly. Two waves to make it fall onto the floor. Never mind. Now for my third trick—and this one is really going to work,” Jeffrey said, hoping Max would get the point.

  But he heard a familiar voice say, “Like, man, they’re all working right on the money, if you ask me.”

  Jeffrey cleared his throat and announced, “The Disappearing Pitcher of Water.” This trick had to work because Jeffrey had set it up himself. Before class he had put a pitcher of water on Mrs. Merrin’s desk. Then he’d covered it with a large black handkerchief.

  “For this trick we need an ordinary pitcher filled with ordinary water,” Jeffrey said. He walked over to Mrs. Merrin’s desk. But the pitcher of water was gone! Max had taken it away. Only the black handkerchief was there, lying flat on the desk.

  Jeffrey thought quickly. Then he picked up the black handkerchief with a quick jerk of one hand.

  “There you have it. I’ve already made the pitcher of water disappear! How about that?” Jeffrey said. “I knew it was going to work.”

  “Hey, I know how you did that. The pitcher was never there,” Ricky Reyes said. “That’s no trick.”

  At that moment, Jeffrey wished he could make himself disappear.

  “Okay,” Jeffrey said. “Now for the hard part. To make the pitcher reappear.” Jeffrey waved the black handkerchief in the air. Then he spread it on the desk and waved his wand. Secretly, he crossed his fingers. “Come on, Max,” Jeffrey said under his breath.

  And when he lifted the handkerchief, there was … a baseball?

  “Well, looks like the pitcher’s in the dugout! But here’s his ball,” Jeffrey said, trying to laugh. Everyone roared at the joke. They were having a good time. Max was having a great time. But Jeffrey was a nervous wreck.

  “Now for my last trick. The Living Hand. Watch carefully as—”

  Jeffrey had no more than announced the trick when a large can appeared on the desk. Jeffrey picked it up and read the label: Canned Ham.

  “I said hand. Not ham!” Jeffrey told Max. But the ghost was laughing too hard to listen. And so was everyone else in the class. Jeffrey went back to his desk and sat down gloomily.

  “Thank you, Jeffrey,” Mrs. Merrin said. “It may not have been much of a magic act, but it was a very funny comedy act.”

  “I didn’t see anything funny about it,” Jeffrey muttered to Max under his breath. He wished Max would appear so that he could—as Max would say—make with a strangling scene! But how could you strangle a ghost?

  After school, Jeffrey went home as fast as he could. He went to his room and locked the door. The whole day had been a disaster. Why had he ever trusted Max in the first place? And what was Max planning to do at the McGyver house tonight? Turn the dagger into a lemon cream pie? Forget it! There probably was no dagger. And Ricky Reyes wouldn’t be Jeffrey’s friend because he’d be too busy laughing.

  There was a knock on Jeffrey’s door.

  “Yo, Jeffrey,” said Mr. Becker, “I feel the urge for a warmhearted father-son talk. How about you?”

  “Can’t handle it now, Dad,” Jeffrey called through the door.

  “It’s about your allowance,” said Mr. Becker.

  Jeffrey opened the door in two seconds flat.

  “I’ve been thinking very carefully about your request to increase your allowance,” Mr. Becker said. He walked into the room slowly.

  Too slowly for Jeffrey. “Dad, could we bottom-line this? Yes or no?” he asked anxiously.

  “I prefer to drag it out and keep you in suspense,” his father said with a laugh. “Seven dollars and thirty-five cents is a lot of money. But your mom and I have decided to raise your allowance to five dollars.”

  “Great!” Jeffrey shouted. Something was actually going right for a change.

  “Well, we know that you’re a responsible kid,” Mr. Becker said.

  “Right, Dad,” agreed Jeffrey.

  “And you’re not a kid who would just go out and blow money on some off-the-wall kind of thing,” said Jeffrey’s father.

  “Absolutely, Dad,” agreed Jeffrey.

  “So … what are you going to buy with the money, Jeffrey?”

  Jeffrey thought for a minute and remembered that he had to go into the McGyver house later that night. “Well,” he said, “right now what I really need most in the whole world is a dagger.”

  Mr. Becker’s face froze.

  “Just kidding, Dad,” Jeffrey said quickly. “It was a joke—honest.”

  “Jeffrey,” his father said as he stood up. “Next time you want a raise in your allowance, could you do me a favor?”

  “Sure, Dad. Anything. What is it?”

  “Ask your mother,” Mr. Becker said with a sigh.

  Then he went out and closed the door.

  Chapter Six

  The moon was full that night. But there were clouds in the sky. Sometimes the clouds covered the moon. Sometimes the moon peeked out and made strange shapes. It was a cold and spooky Halloween night.

  Ben and Jeffrey were out trick-or-treating. They tried to pretend that it was just like every other Halloween. But they knew this year was different. This year the McGyver house would be their last stop of the night.

  “Okay, the Parkers are next. They’re a Code Three,” Ben said as they left one house and walked to another.

  “Check,” said Jeffrey.

  Jeffrey and Ben had a code system for each house in the neighborhood.

  At Code One houses, people always gave out great candy. These were the best houses.

  At Code Two houses, people always gave out weird candy. It was either something that nobody had ever heard of or something nobody wanted to eat.

  At Code Three houses, the people answering the door either pretended to be afraid of the trick-or-treaters or took so long guessing who was wearing which costume that they forgot to hand out the candy.

  And a Code Four house meant that lots of kids lived there. Ben and Jeffrey had to be on the lookout for booby traps: eggs dropped from the second floor or strange sticky things that didn’t come off your shoes after you stepped on them.

  They knocked on the Parkers’ door, and Mrs. Parker answered it. She was a friendly woman who sold houses and always wore different-colored running suits.

  “Trick or treat,” said Ben.

  “Well, who can this be? Let me just guess,” Mrs. Parker said. />
  “It’s Ben and Jeffrey,” said Jeffrey, opening his bag for the goodies.

  “Don’t give me any hints. Let me just guess.” Mrs. Parker tapped her cheek with her finger as if she were making an important decision.

  “He’s Ben and I’m Jeffrey. Honest.”

  “Well, I just give up. Your costumes are too good for me,” said Mrs. Parker, shaking her head.

  Jeffrey thought Mrs. Parker was ready for an Academy Award.

  Finally, she gave them some candy and closed the door.

  “Let’s wear name tags next year,” Ben suggested.

  “Or T-shirts with our names and faces on them,” Jeffrey said.

  “Hey, Jeffrey, you did it again,” Ben said. “Cut it out, okay?”

  “Huh?” said Jeffrey.

  “Look, my bag is empty,” Ben said. “You’ve got all my candy. Twice is enough. It’s not funny anymore.”

  “I didn’t do it, Ben. It’s a Code Ten,” Jeffrey said.

  “There is no Code Ten,” Ben said.

  “It’s a Max attack,” Jeffrey explained.

  “I don’t want to hear about your make-believe ghost,” said Ben. “Just give me back my candy.”

  Jeffrey poured half of his bag into Ben’s bag. But he thought to himself, It’s not safe to go trick-or-treating—not when Max is around.

  They kept running into problems with Code Tens. At the Dracket house, the doorbell somehow got stuck and wouldn’t stop ringing. And Mr. Dracket blamed Jeffrey and Ben.

  “I suppose you think this is funny?” said Mr. Dracket, who was usually a Code One. He was quickly turning into a Code Five—a person who hated kids. He pounded on his doorbell, trying to get it to stop.

  Then at the Carusos’ house they found a hand-painted sign that said: MEASLES, THIS HOUSE IS QUARANTINED! STAY AWAY!

  Jeffrey could tell that Max had been there, too—and not just because the sign was hand-painted.

  “Quarantined? What a dumb joke,” Ben said with a laugh. “Doctors haven’t done anything like that in thirty years.”

  “I guess some jokers are still living in the past,” Jeffrey said. He shook his head at his ghost friend from the 1950s.