59 - The Haunted School Read Online Free Page A

down at her. She seemed a lot
calmer now that she had her lipstick back.
    Meanwhile, my heart was pounding like crazy.
    “Get back to your seats, everyone,” Mr. Devine ordered. “I should be able to
leave the room for two minutes without everyone going berserk.” He turned his
stare on Greta.
    “Just goofing around,” she muttered. She tossed back her white-blond hair and
dropped heavily into her seat.
    I slumped back to my desk and took deep breaths. I wanted to ask Thalia what
the big deal was about her lipstick. But she didn’t turn around.
    It took a few more seconds for Mr. Devine to get everyone calmed down. Then
he glanced up at the clock above the chalkboard.
    “We have twenty more minutes until the bell rings,” he announced. “I have to
take care of some paperwork at my desk. So I’d like you to use the time for
quiet reading.”
    He pulled off his glasses and blew a speck off one of the lenses. His eyes looked like tiny marbles when he took the glasses
off.
    “Your book reports are all due on Monday,” he reminded us. “So this would be
a good time to do some reading.”
    There was a lot of chair scraping and book bag thudding and thumping as we
all pulled out our reading books. A few seconds later, the room fell silent.
    I was reading a book of short stories by Ray Bradbury for my book report. I’m
not a science-fiction freak or anything. But these stories were really good.
Most of them had surprise endings, which I really like.
    I tried to concentrate on the story I was reading. It was about these kids
who live on a planet where it never stops raining. A very sad story. They never
ever see the sun shine. And they can never go outside to play.
    I read a couple of pages. And then I nearly dropped the book when I heard a
voice. A girl’s voice. Very soft—but very near.
    “Please help me,” she cried. “Help me….”
    Startled, I slammed the book shut and glanced around.
    Who said that?
    My eyes landed on Thalia. Was she calling to me?
    No. She had her face buried in a book.
    “Help me—please!” I heard the girl plead again.
    I spun around. No one there.
    “Did anyone hear that?” I asked, more loudly than I’d planned.
    Mr. Devine raised his eyes from his papers. “Tommy? What did you say?”
    “Did anyone hear that girl?” I asked. “Calling for help?”
    A few kids laughed. Thalia turned and frowned at me.
    “I didn’t hear anything,” Mr. Devine replied.
    “No. Really,” I insisted. “I heard her. She said, ‘Please help me.’”
    Mr. Devine tsk-tsked. “You’re too young to start hearing voices.”
    Some more kids laughed. I didn’t think it was very funny.
    I sighed and picked up my book. I couldn’t wait for the bell to ring. I
really wanted to get out of that classroom.
    I thumbed through the book, trying to find my page.
    But before I found it, I heard the girl’s voice again.
    So soft and near. And so unhappy.
    “Help me. Please. Please, somebody—help me.”

 
 
9
     
     
    On the night of the school dance, Ben, Thalia, and I got to the gym early.
With only an hour to go, we were busily putting the finishing touches on the
decorations.
    I thought it all looked pretty great.
    We had banners strung out in the hall outside the gym. And two big banners in
the gym, proclaiming BELL VALLEY ROCKS! and WELCOME, EVERYONE!
    We tied huge bouquets of helium balloons to the two basketball hoops. The
balloons were all red and black, of course. And we had red and black crepe-paper
streamers on the walls and over the bleachers.
    Thalia and I had spent days painting a big poster of a bison giving the
thumbs-up sign. Underneath the bison, it read BISONS RULE! in red and black
letters.
    Thalia and I aren’t very good artists. The bison didn’t really look much like
the photos of bisons we’d found in books. Ben said it looked more like a cow that had been sick
for a long time. But we hung the poster up, anyway.
    Now, the three of us were arranging a