13 - Piano Lessons Can Be Murder by R.L. Stine - (ebook by Undead) Read Free Book Online

unearthly cold shot through my entire body.
    Uttering a terrified cry, I jerked away and spun around to face her.
    “Mom!” I cried, my voice shrill and tiny.
    “Sorry my hands are so cold,” she replied calmly, unaware of how badly she
had scared me. “It’s freezing out. Didn’t you hear me calling you?”
    “No,” I told her. My neck still tingled. I tried to rub the cold away. “I…
uh… was thinking about stuff, and—”
    “Well, I didn’t mean to scare you,” she said, leading the way across the
small parking lot to the car. She stopped to pull the car keys from her bag.
“Did you and Dr. Frye have a nice talk?”
    “Kind of,” I said.
    This ghost has me jumping out of my skin, I realized as I climbed into the
car. Now I’m seeing the ghost everywhere.
    I have got to calm down, I told myself. I’ve just got to.
    I’ve got to stop thinking that the ghost is following me.
    But how?
     
    Friday after school, Mom drove me to Dr. Shreek’s music school. It was a
cold, gray day. I stared at my breath steaming up the passenger window as we
drove. It had snowed the day before, and the roads were still icy and slick.
    “I hope we’re not late,” Mom fretted. We stopped for a light. She cleared the
windshield in front of her with the back of her gloved hand. “I’m afraid to
drive any faster than this.”
    All of the cars were inching along. We drove past a bunch of kids building a
snow fort in a front yard. One little red-faced kid was crying because the
others wouldn’t let him join them.
    “The school is practically in the next town,” Mom remarked, pumping the
brakes as we slid toward an intersection. “I wonder why Dr. Shreek has his
school so far away from everything.”
    “I don’t know,” I answered dully. I was kind of nervous. “Do you think Dr.
Shreek will be my instructor? Or do you think I’ll have someone else?”
    Mom shrugged her shoulders. She leaned forward over the steering wheel,
struggling to see through the steamed-up windshield.
    Finally, we turned onto the street where the school was located. I stared out
at the block of dark, old houses. The houses gave way to woods, the bare trees
tilting up under a white blanket of snow.
    On the other side of the woods stood a brick building, half-hidden behind
tall hedges. “This must be the school,” Mom said, stopping the car in the middle
of the street and staring up at the old building. “There’s no sign or anything.
But it’s the only building for blocks.”
    “It’s creepy-looking,” I said.
    Squinting through the windshield, she pulled the car into a narrow gravel
driveway, nearly hidden by the tall, snow-covered hedges.
    “Are you sure this is it?” I asked. I cleared a spot on the window with my
hand and peered through it. The old building looked more like a prison than a
school. It had rows of tiny windows above the ground floor, and the windows were
all barred. Thick ivy covered the front of the building, making it appear even
darker than it was.
    “I’m pretty sure,” Mom said, biting her lip. She lowered the window and stuck
her head out, gazing up at the enormous, old house.
    The sound of piano music floated into the car. Notes and scales and melodies
all mixed together.
    “Yeah. We’ve found it!” Mom declared happily.
    “Go on, Jerry. Hurry. You’re late. I’m going to go pick up something for
dinner. I’ll be back in an hour.”
    I pushed open the car door and stepped out onto the snowy driveway. My boots
crunched loudly as I started to jog toward the building.
    The piano music grew louder. Scales and songs jumbled together into a
deafening rumble of noise.
    A narrow walk led up to the front stoop. The walk hadn’t been shoveled, and a
layer of ice had formed under the snow. I slipped and nearly fell as I
approached the entrance.
    I stopped and gazed up. It looks more like a haunted house than a music
school, I thought with a shiver.
    Why did I have such a heavy feeling of