Scaredy Kat by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel Read Free Book Online

often as you want,” I said. “Come over every day.”
    “It’s going to be tough,” Jac said, shaking her head ruefully. “I’m telling you, Kat. She is on the
warpath.
I skipped out this morning, but it’s not going to be that easy every day.”
    There was another clap of thunder outside. Max gazed up at me unhappily.
    “It’s okay, Max,” I said, scratching his head between his ears. “It’s only a storm. It’s not going to hurt anything.”
    Max didn’t look convinced.
    “Hey, Jac, what about the basic communications project? What if we paired up and worked on it together?”
    “Are we allowed to do that?”
    “Definitely,” I said. “As long as we both do the minimum amount of pages.”
    “Have you started?” Jac asked.
    I nodded.
    “So what’s it about? What have you . . . what have
we
done so far, partner?”
    She grinned at me, and I was relieved to see her looking marginally happy again.
    Then I remembered Tank. And the spirit orbs.
    I sighed.
    “It’s kind of complicated.”
    “Complicated in a way I’m going to like?” Jac asked.
    I thought about Jac’s strange serenity when it came to encounters in the spirit realm.
    “Actually, Jac, it’s complicated in a way that probably only you alone would like. But it’s a long story.”
    Jac leaned back regally on my pillows and got comfortable.
    “Maestra is all ears, Voodoo Mama.”

Chapter 7
    I started with how I’d inadvertently caught Tank’s face in a photo of the old house next door. Then I recounted my little
     trespassing venture, describing my experiences inside room by room. When I got to the part about the old man, Jac’s eyes grew
     wide.
    “Maybe he was possessed, you know, like in
The Exorcist,
” Jac said. “Or maybe he murdered someone, and he doesn’t want you to find out. Or maybe someone murdered him!”
    This was another funny aspect about Jac’s character. There was a whole realm of things that terrified her, mostly in the insect
     world. But with stories like this, Jac actually seemed to relish being scared. The creepier, the better.
    “I got out of that room pretty fast, so I don’t know,” I said.
    “Well, we’ll have to go back,” Jac said. I arched an eyebrow at her. Really? Go back?
We?
    “So you never found the boy in the picture?”
    “No, I did find him. Sort of,” I added. I explained how the boy had seemed completely unaware of me, despite my best efforts
     to get his attention. Then I described finding the message in the window—
help me.
    Jac clapped her hands together.
    “Awesome! It’s like that movie where the guy gets accidentally turned into a fly!”
    I don’t know where Jac found the time to watch these ancient horror films, but she certainly had a commanding knowledge of
     them.
    “And you came back here after that? Nothing else happened?” Jac asked.
    I glanced over at my computer, thinking of the photograph of those spirit orbs clustered around me that had caused me to take
     to my bed with panic.
    “Kat?”
    I looked at my friend.
    “What? Did something else happen?”
    Max made a little whimpering noise in his throat. My mom and I call it sleep barking. He makes woof sounds, but without opening
     his mouth. And his feet twitch like he’s running.
    “Kat?”
    “The picture I e-mailed you. You asked about the light show.”
    Jac nodded.
    “Those are spirit orbs, Jac. Like, dozens of them.”
    “But you took that picture —”
    “Here. In this room. And I have to tell you, I’m pretty freaked out about it.”
    “So your room is, like, outrageously haunted.”
    “I don’t get the sense those orbs came with the room, Jac. I’ve never sensed anything in my room. I think they’re attached
     to me. I think when I got the sight on my birthday, all of a sudden I kind of sent a signal to the underworld that I’m open
     for business. And they’ve flocked to me. It’s me that’s outrageously haunted. I’m pretty sure that these spirit orbs follow
     me wherever I