Ghouls Just Want to Have Fun by Kathleen Bacus Read Free Book Online Page A

first class is at ten. Besides, if something comes up, you can pretend to be my mom and call in sick for me."
    Yeah. Like that was gonna happen. No way was I gonna be called into the principal's office at my age.
    I pulled around the circle driveway, past the dark front of Holloway Hall, and headed for the dirt road at the end of the lane. I gave the house one more look in the rearview mirror as I prepared to pull out, my eyes drawn to the French doors on the second floor of the old house. You know, the doors that led to the small terrace. The doors that had been shut, drapes closed, when we'd pulled in. The doors that were now ajar, the curtains swaying in the suddenly chilly afternoon breeze.
    I quickly looked away, deciding that if a ghostly white apparition wearing a white gown and clutching red roses appeared, I didn't care to see it.
    Let's see. Just what does an ace cub reporter with a nose for news do when confronted with a seemingly newsworthy phenomenon? I hit the accelerator like someone had waved a green flag in my face--or a dozen krispy kremes with chocolate frosting and a gooey white center. The Plymouth skidded sideways out of the driveway and onto the road, gravel spraying and striking the hubcaps I had left and the wheel wells on the tires that went without, and we narrowly missed crashing into the ditch on the other side of the road.
    "What the--?" Shelby slid to the side, and her seat belt popped out of the catch and smacked the passenger window.
    "Guess I need to fill up the power steering fluid," I said, giving her a wobbly smile.
    "Power steering, like hell," Shelby Lynne said, righting herself. "Get rid of the lead foot, would you?"
    I nodded. And I'd do it, too. Right after I shed the yellow streak a mile wide running down my back.
    I don't believe in spooks. I don't believe in spooks. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't believe in spooks.

    "Are you sure you don't want something to eat, Tressa?" My mom was clearing the supper table when I popped my head into the kitchen over the bar that separated it from the dining room. "Meat loaf and cheesy potatoes," she added.
    I rubbed my stomach. "Who made the meat loaf?" I asked.
    My mom bit back a smile. "Your grandmother did the honors," she said.
    "Maybe later," I said, knowing my grandmother's love for green peppers and onions. "Where is Gram, by the way?" I asked, picking up the pan of potatoes and snitching some with a finger. My mother picked up the meat loaf pan and carried it to the kitchen. I followed.
    "She's getting ready to go out. Again," my mother said, setting the meat loaf pan on the stove with a loud thump. "Third night she's been out this week." My mother is a CPA and does bookkeeping and taxes in her basement office. She tends to lean toward economy in conversation.
    "Bingo?" I asked.
    My mother shook her head.
    "Funeral home visitation?"
    Another shake of the head.
    "Church? Water aerobics? Senior night at the VFW?"
    My mom grabbed the potatoes from me, stuck a plastic lid on them and shoved them in the fridge.
    "Joe Townsend," she said, and slammed the refrigerator door shut. "Every night for the past two weeks. Except for the nights she doesn't come home at all. Frankly, I don't see where the woman gets the energy." She shook her head. "I told your father he needed to have a talk with her. Her behavior seems a bit... obsessive."
    Obsessed was more like it. And with Ranger Rick's grandpappy, of all people.
    "You know Gram and her phases," I said, trying to comfort my mother, who, with my father at work all day, inherited the dubious honor of being my grandmother's keeper much of the time. "Remember the time she was bent on joining that commune?"
    "Nudist colony, you mean," my mother said.
    "Or how she had her heart set on auditioning for American Idol? "
    My mother shook her head. "How could I forget? It was just last season."
    "And the time she swore she'd contacted Clark Gable on her Ouija board and sat for two days straight in a turban