“Please,” Andi repeated frantically, “may I be excused? Please, Mom, Aunt Alice — I’m really finished.”
“I am, too,” Bruce said. “I couldn’t eat another bite.”
“Oh, all right,” their mother said with a little laugh. “After all, it’s Thanksgiving vacation. Run along and play, and tomorrow you can stuff yourselves on turkey and —”
They did not stay to hear the end of the sentence. Her first words had hardly been uttered before both children were out of the house and running wildly down the street toward the hotel.
They had almost reached the ramp when they saw the figure of the boy standing near it. He had his head cocked to one side and was listening intently. Bruce stopped short, and Andi, who was right behind him, nearly ran into him.
“Not him again!” she breathed. “Not here! Not now!”
Jerry Gordon turned to face them. “What are you doing here?” he asked.
“We’re — we’re —” Bruce began haltingly. Then he stopped himself. Why should he make excuses? This wasn’t Jerry’s property, either. “We’ve got as much right to be here as you do,” he said.
“I heard a dog howling,” Jerry said. “It sounded like Red. Somebody in this neighborhood’s stolen my dog, and I’m going to find out who it is.”
“Well, you certainly can’t think we took him,” Andi said. “Where would we keep him? You know Aunt Alice is allergic to animals.”
“I do know that,” Jerry said. “If it wasn’t for that, I would think it was you. Things have been going funny ever since you two moved into this neighborhood.”
“What do you mean by ‘funny’?” Bruce asked uncomfortably.
From where he stood he could see the ramp leaning up to the window. It was half hidden by bushes, and the shadows of the trees fell across it, but it was still there, perfectly evident to anyone who knew where to look for it. Jerry’s back was toward it now, but if he should turn around —
“All kinds of things are funny,” Jerry said. “First Red disappears. Then Tim quits the gang. Then I see you guys walking across the street carrying lumber, the same boards Tim was going to contribute toward a clubhouse. Then your dorky sister comes by with five purebred Bulldales, and where are they now? She said she was giving them away. I can’t see that anybody in the neighborhood has one. And then the rest of the gang quits —”
“The rest of the gang?” Bruce repeated.
“Don’t pretend you don’t know about that. After Tim quit the gang, the rest of the guys, one by one, started falling out, too. What have you and Tim been bribing them with? Neither of you has anywhere near the cool stuff I have.”
“Bruce doesn’t bribe people!” Andi leapt to her brother’s defense. “He doesn’t need to. People like Bruce just because he’s Bruce. Did you ever think that maybe your gang just got sick of the way you treat people?”
“That dog howling —” Jerry began.
“You think it’s Red Rover?” Now that she had started, Andi could no more have stopped talking than she could have turned off a waterfall. All the anger she ever had felt at Jerry Gordon came pouring out. “Well, I think so, too. It is Red Rover. It’s his poor beaten-up ghost howling for revenge, that’s what it is. If I were you, I’d run home and hide in a closet and lock all the doors and windows, because the very worst ghosts in the whole wide world are dogs.”
Jerry’s face grew ashen.
“That’s a lie,” he said shakily. “Dogs don’t have ghosts. I wish you’d never come to Elmwood, you Walkers! Everything was great until you crashed in here. Why didn’t you stay out West where you belonged?”
“We belong in Elmwood,” Bruce said. “We like it here.”
To his amazement, he realized that what he was saying was true. He turned to Andi, and he could see by her face that it was true for her, too.
“Bruce is right,” she said. “We have friends here. It’s home. Even if you’re not born in a place, it starts being home as soon as you have friends.”
“You’re going to need every friend you’ve got,” Jerry said. “I got rid of one kid in this neighborhood that I didn’t like. I can get rid of two more just as easily. You wait and see.” Turning on his heel, he stalked away.
Bruce and Andi stood anchored in place until he had disappeared from view. Then, with one accord, they rushed for the ramp. A moment later, they were inside the hotel, hurrying down the hall toward the stairway.
Tim was sitting on the steps with MacTavish on one side of him and Preston on the other.
“Hi,” he said. “I see you finally got here.”
“So, you’re the reason that idiot beagle stopped howling.” Bruce drew a long breath of relief. “We ran into Jerry out behind the hotel and got hung up talking to him. I was scared that dog would let out another blast right then.”
“And the people in the yellow house are back,” Andi added. “I was afraid they might have come over here and found Preston.”
“You mean the Smiths?” Tim grinned. “Don’t worry about them. They’re a nice old couple, but they’re both deaf as posts. They wouldn’t know if Preston was howling right in their bedroom.” Then his face sobered. “Other people would know, though. I could hear him all the way over at my house. Beagles don’t like being cooped up. We can’t risk this happening again. One of us is going to have to stay here all the time until we get him back to his owner.”
“At night, too?” Andi exclaimed. “How can we do that?”
“Bruce and I can trade off,” Tim said. “One night I’ll tell my parents that I’m sleeping over at Bruce’s house, and the next night he can tell yours that he’s spending the night with me. During the daytime you girls can take turns dog-sitting.”
“I don’t like to lie to my parents,” Bruce said worriedly. “Still, with Jerry snooping around like this —”
“I have an idea,” Andi said.
The boys turned to look at her.
“What kind of idea?” Bruce asked warily.
“An idea that will keep him from bothering us forever. An idea that will keep him from ever hurting any helpless animal again.” Andi’s face was aglow with delight. “It’s the best idea I’ve ever had in my life! Bruce, that picture you took of Red the day we arrived in Elmwood — did you get it made into a slide?”
“Sure,” Bruce said. “I do that with all my best digitals. I like to look at them blown up big with a projector. What does that have to do with anything?”
“It has everything to do with it,” Andi said. “Tim said the Smiths wouldn’t know it if a dog howled right in their bedroom. But Jerry would know it. There’s nothing deaf about Jerry.”
Her voice was squeaking with excitement.
“The ghost of Red Rover is going to get his revenge!”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
They planned it for midnight.
“After all,” Andi said, “midnight is the spookiest time. Besides, everyone will be asleep by then — Mom and Dad and Aunt Alice and all the Gordons.”
“Are you sure you can get the projector?” Tim asked.
“No problem,” Bruce told him. “Dad lets me use it whenever I want it. All I have to do is ask him to let me show some slides after dinner and then not return it until morning. What about an extension cord?”
“I can get that,” Tim said. “My parents have a lot of them.”
They grinned at one another excitedly, hardly able to believe the thing they were going to do. It was truly, as Andi had said, the best idea she had ever come up with.
“We’ll have to get Debbie,” she said now. “She should be in on it, too. Why don’t I invite her to spend the night? I know Mom will let me. Aunt Alice says she likes having children around.”
“I’ll tell my mom and dad I’m spending the night with Bruce,” Tim said. “Then I’ll go over to the hotel and dog-sit Preston. At a quarter to twelve, I’ll meet you in front of your house.” His blue eyes were sparkling. “Do you think it really will work?”
; “Of course it will work,” Andi said decidedly. “It has to!”
That evening was the longest that Bruce and Andi ever had sat through. Even the fact that Debbie was with them, having been given permission to eat dinner there and spend the night, did not make the hours move faster. After the dishes were cleared away, Bruce suggested showing slides, and Mr. Walker happily agreed. They spent an hour looking at pictures of the Southwest — of the big adobe house where they had lived, of the mountains stretching their purple tips into the sky, of aspen trees and tumbleweeds and arroyos. The last slide that Bruce showed was of a little brown dachshund with a pointed face.
“That’s Bebe,” Andi said softly to Debbie. Suddenly all the old homesickness for her pet flooded through her, as sharp and painful as it had been on the day she had said good-bye. “Oh, I wish she were here now — I miss her so much!”
“You’ll be seeing her soon, honey,” Mrs. Walker said, smiling. “Now that we know we’re in Elmwood to stay, we’ll find a place of our own and get settled and send for Bebe to be flown out on the very next plane.”
“Are those all the slides you have, son?” Mr. Walker asked as Bruce turned off the projector and reached for the light. “Haven’t you taken any pictures since we got to Elmwood?”
“Well, yes,” Bruce said. “But I thought we could look at those another time. It’s bedtime now, isn’t it?”
“Already?” His mother looked surprised. “Since Andi has a houseguest and tomorrow’s a holiday, I thought you might want to stay up a little later than usual and pop some corn and play games the way we used to do back in Albuquerque.”
“That’s okay, Mom,” Andi said hastily. “Debbie and I are tired, too. I think we should all go to bed now.”
“That’s a good idea,” Debbie agreed, giving a great yawn. “I’m awfully sleepy. I’m used to going to bed early.”
“All right,” Mrs. Walker said, looking more surprised than ever. “I know Bruce has been tired lately, but you girls, too? They must be working you terribly hard at school. I wonder if I should talk to your teachers.”
She was still worrying out loud to Mr. Walker when the three children left the room.
Any other night Bruce would have slept the moment his head touched the pillow. Tonight, though, things were different. He could hear the alarm clock ticking through the pillow right into his ear as it always did, but he was too keyed up to let it tick him into slumber. Instead, he lay there listening, wide awake and alert to everything around him.
He could hear his parents and Aunt Alice talking in the living room. How long, he wondered, were they going to stay up? He could hear the trees rustling outside his window. He could even hear his own heart beating strongly against his chest.
It seemed forever before he heard the adults’ footsteps on the stairs and their voices pitched low as they bade each other good night.
How long would it take for them to go to sleep? Huddled under a blanket, he counted the seconds, making them into minutes, sixty seconds to one minute, sixty minutes to one hour. Flicking on the light on the end table, he pulled the clock out from under his pillow and looked at the dial. Only a quarter to eleven. One whole hour to go.
He was sure that Andi and Debbie were lying awake in Andi’s fold-down bed in the sewing room, whispering together, too excited to sleep, just as he was. He wished they were here with him so they could at least share the waiting.
“It will never get there,” he told himself, looking at the minute hand that seemed solidly stuck in place against the face of the clock. “I’ll lie here the rest of my life, and it never, ever will move.”
But, as it turned out, at some time between then and a quarter to twelve, he fell asleep, and it took the muffled jangle of the alarm to bring him to.
He had been sleeping so hard that for a moment he thought it was five o’clock and time for Red’s dawn run. Then, almost immediately, he remembered. Getting quickly up from the sofa, he pulled on the clothes that he had laid out on the chair beside him.
The light was on in the front hallway, and the girls were already there, waiting for him.
“We never even took our clothes off,” Andi told him. “We just pulled the blankets up over them. We’ve been counting the minutes on Debbie’s watch.”
Bruce shushed her with a finger against his lips, and they put on their jackets in silence.
Debbie whispered, “The projector?”
It was standing by the front door where Bruce had left it. He drew a quick breath of relief that his father had not noticed it there and put it away.
Picking it up with one hand, he opened the door with the other, and the three slipped out into the night.
The moment the door was shut behind them, the darkness closed in from all sides.
Debbie gave a little gasp. “It’s so black! We’ll never find our way.”
There was a sudden burst of light, and Tim spoke. “I brought a flashlight. Are you all set?” His voice was gruff with suppressed excitement.
“Did you bring the extension cord?” Bruce asked him.
“Sure did. Where can we plug it in?”
“The Gordons have an outdoor outlet on the side of the house,” Bruce said. “I’ve seen Mr. Gordon plug in his electric grill there. Shine the light ahead of us and follow me.”
Moving quietly, they crossed the lawn and stepped into the Gordons’ side yard. The outlet was exactly where Bruce had thought it was. Tim plugged in the extension cord and attached the projector to the receiving end.
“I hope it’s long enough,” Debbie whispered.
“So do I,” Tim said. “I didn’t realize the outlet would be quite so far from Jerry’s window. We’ll just have to see.”
With Bruce carrying the projector, they continued along the wall of the house. The ground-level window of Jerry’s room loomed ahead of him. When they reached it, they stopped.
“Are you sure this is his bedroom?” Andi asked doubtfully. “Does he really sleep in the basement?”
“If you could see the room, you’d forget it was part of a basement,” Tim told her. “It’s like a private rec room with a king-size bed in it.”
Dropping to his knees, he pressed his face close to the window. “It’s pitch black in there. He’s sure to be sleeping. Are you ready with the projector?”
“Ready,” Bruce said.
Crouching beside Tim, he set the machine in place and felt in his pocket for the slide. For a moment he was afraid that he had not brought it with him. Then his fingers closed around it, and with a sigh of relief he inserted it into the carousel.
“Okay,” he said tensely. “We’re ready. Let’s hear it, Andi — the ghost of Red Rover! Loud enough to reach Jerry but not his parents.”
Andi drew a deep breath. Then she opened her mouth and let out a howl. She started low, just as Preston had, and let the long, mournful wail rise in her throat, higher and higher. The result was so weird and chilling that Bruce felt shivers go up his spine even though he knew it was only his sister.
“Lean closer,” he whispered. “The window is open about halfway. Let him have it full blast. He’s got to be an awfully heavy sleeper to sleep through that.”
Crowding in between the two boys, Andi howled again, her mouth close to the opening in the window.
From inside the room came a muffled, sleepy voice.
“What the heck — that crazy noise again —”
“He’s awake!” Debbie whispered excitedly. “Now, Bruce! Now!”
Bruce pressed the button to turn on the projector. The beam of light shot through the window above Jerry’s bed and fell upon the wall directly across from them. At first it was just a blur of light and color. In the reflected glow, they could see Jerry directly beneath the window, sitting up in bed.
“What’s happening?” he demanded, the sleep gone from his voice. “What’s that? Who — where —?”
“Howl!” Bruce whispered, and Andi howled. It was the best howl so far. It rose and rose in a
frightful wail and ended with a wild, tearing sound, like an animal in agonizing pain.
At the same instant, Bruce brought the projector into focus. The blur of light steadied, and into the middle of it, sharp and clear, came the face of Red Rover.
Bruce had snapped the picture with the dog looking straight into the camera lens. His proud head was lifted into the sunlight; his mouth was open slightly, showing straight white teeth. To Jerry it must have seemed as if Red’s huge brown eyes were staring directly into his very soul.
For a long moment there was no sound from the room in the basement. Then suddenly there was a great shriek. It was so loud and terrified that the four listeners, crouched on the ground outside the window, nearly jumped out of their skins.
“Mom!” Jerry yelled. “Dad! Help! Help! Come here quick!”
The windows of the front room on the second floor went bright with lights.
“Hurry, Bruce,” Tim whispered frantically. “His parents are up!”
Bruce flicked off the light of the projector.
“Run!” he whispered. “Run!”
No one had to be told twice. The girls were already at the boundary line that separated the Gordons’ house from Aunt Alice’s. Tim was close behind them. Jerry’s voice filled the darkness in frantic shouts for his parents.
Scrambling to his feet, Bruce started after the others. He had almost caught up with them when he felt the projector jerked from his hands. To his horror, he heard it go crashing to the ground.
“Oh, no!” With a gasp of dismay, he knelt down and began groping about in the darkness. His hands closed upon the machine. He lifted it, and it rattled in his hands. A dark shape appeared beside him. Tim had come back to help.
“What happened?” he asked.
“I forgot to unplug it,” Bruce told him. “It was stupid, but when Jerry started yelling, I just ran. When I came to the end of the cord, the projector snapped out of my grip. I’ve smashed it.”
“Well, there’s no sense worrying now,” Tim said. “If it’s broken, it’s broken. Come on, let’s get a move on! They’ll be out here any minute to investigate.”