“Pull me up,” she said.
I tightened my fingers around her hand and tugged. I expected her to be light. I’m not sure why. I guess because she was a ghost.
But she had the weight of all the water soaked in her clothes.
She wrapped her fingers around my wrist and held tight. I tugged again. Leaned farther. Pulled with all my strength.
“Whoa.” I lost my balance. Tumbled forward.
“NOOOO!” My scream echoed off the well walls as I started to plunge headfirst.
“Flora! Let go of me!” I shrieked. “Let go! You’re pulling me down!”
Her hand slipped off mine.
I gaped in horror at the black pool below. I pushed my hands forward frantically — and pressed them to the wall.
I heaved myself backward, out of the well. My shoes thudded the ground. I felt my breath escape in a loud whoosh.
I bent over, hands on my knees, struggling to breathe.
A close call. A very close call.
Before I could turn back to the well, I heard Flora’s muffled cry: “Pull me up. Hurry. Pull me up.”
I peered into the well. She hadn’t fallen back into the water. She clung to the side with both hands. Once again, she raised a tiny white hand toward me. “Pull me. Please. Don’t leave me here.”
“But I can’t reach you!” I cried.
“Pull me. Pull me up.”
“My arm — it isn’t long enough,” I said. “And I’m not strong enough, Flora. You’ll pull me into the well.”
“Pull me up. Pull me up.”
I stood hunched over the side, peering down at her. The red cap tilted over her hair. Her long dress limp and wet. Her tiny hands pressed against the stones.
What can I do?
Her family hovered beside me. Their faces were tense and angry.
“Pull her up,” Aaron ordered. “Now! Don’t disappoint us again.”
I stood frozen, listening to the little girl’s frantic cries. And then I heard a shout. A girl’s voice coming from the other end of the yard.
I spun away from the well. And watched the figure running toward me.
“Courtney!” I cried.
“I thought I saw you out here, Kate,” she said breathlessly. “What are you doing here? Why are you back at the well?”
She didn’t see the ghost family. Of course she didn’t see them. I knew I didn’t have time to explain to her. Besides, what was the point?
“Courtney — please help me,” I pleaded.
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Are you okay? You look totally weird.”
“I … I’ll explain later,” I said. “I need your help. Really.”
She scrunched up her face. “What kind of help?”
“It’s going to sound crazy,” I said. “I’m going to lean over the side of the well, and I need you to hold my feet.”
“No way!” she cried, taking a step back. “Are you crazy?”
“Please,” I begged. “I need to reach something in the well. Just do this one favor for me.”
She eyed me suspiciously. “This has something to do with ghosts — doesn’t it.”
“Yes,” I said. “But there’s no time to explain. Please. It’s a matter of life or death.”
She laughed. “Life or death for a ghost? You need help, Kate. I mean, like, a head doctor. Seriously.”
“Pull me up,” Flora called from inside the well. Aaron and Peg moved toward me menacingly.
I had to act. I couldn’t wait for Courtney to agree. I spun back to the well. I lowered my head, leaned over far … reached my hand toward Flora’s hand.
I grabbed it.
Once again, I tried to pull her up. And once again, I felt the tug of her weight. Felt my feet leave the ground … felt myself start to drop headfirst into the well.
Please, Courtney. Please grab my shoes. Please … do the right thing — for once.
She did.
I felt her hands wrap around my ankles.
“Pull!” I shouted to her. “Pull!”
In my tight grip, Flora began to slide up the side of the well.
Yes. Yes!
Her hat appeared over the top. And then her pale, smiling face, her dark hair dripping with water. I grabbed her around the waist. Squeezed tight. And hoisted her onto the ground.
Courtney shook her head in confusion. “What’s going on here, Kate? This is nuts. What are you trying to prove?”
I didn’t answer. I watched Flora’s family rush to hug her. They were together again after more than one hundred years. I felt tears running down my cheeks. It was such an amazing, wonderful moment.
I turned to see Mr. P and the other kids come out of the house. Seeing Courtney and me, they started running to us.
Flora pulled herself from her family and floated over to me. She covered me in a wet hug. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you for rescuing me.”
And then she turned to Courtney. “I have to thank her, too,” she said to me. “I’m going to let her see me.”
Flora walked up to Courtney. I saw a flash of light.
Courtney’s eyes bulged.
“Thank you for rescuing me,” Flora told her.
Courtney opened her mouth in a shrill scream. “A ghost! It’s a ghost!” she shrieked.
Mr. P and the other kids stopped and stared.
“A ghost!” Courtney screamed. “I see her. I see a ghost!”
Kids began to laugh and hoot. They saw nothing but air.
“Whoa, Courtney,” Jack called. “You’re the new Ghost Girl!”
That made kids laugh even harder.
I had to smile. In a strange way, I had my revenge.
I enjoyed the rest of our stay in the old house. The play rehearsals were fun. There were no more visits from ghosts. Everyone kept teasing Courtney and calling her Ghost Girl.
Trust me, I hated to see the weekend end.
But Sunday night, we said good-bye to the haunted house, piled into the school bus, and bounced our way home.
Courtney wasn’t in a great mood. She was finally seeing how it felt to be teased and made fun of all the time. I felt totally relieved. Like a new person. I couldn’t have been happier to pass the title of Ghost Girl on to her — forever.
We sang the songs from the play all the way home …
“Have a haunted haunted Christmas,
And a scary New Year’s, too.
Have a haunted haunted Christmas,
And to one and all say, BOO.”
The bus stopped at my house. I grabbed my bag and ran up the driveway. Mom and Dad met me at the door. “How was it? How was the old house? How did rehearsal go? Did you have fun?”
They had a million questions.
By the time I’d answered them all — leaving out the ghost part, of course — I was ready for bed. I dropped my bag on the floor in my room. I felt too tired to unpack it.
I yawned. “It can wait till morning,” I said aloud.
“What can wait till morning?” a voice asked.
I turned to the door — and saw a floppy, red cap. It tilted up and I saw Flora’s face beneath it. She floated into my room, all dry now.
“Huh?” I gasped. “Flora? What are you doing here?”
She offered a sweet smile. “I decided to stay with you,” she said.
“No — wait a m-moment,” I stammered. “Flora — your family? What about your family?”
“I like you better,” she said. “They left me in the well for over a hundred years. What kind of family is that?”
“But — but —”
She smiled again. She had tiny dimples in her cheeks when she smiled.
“We’ll have such good times together,” she said. “When do we go to school? I can’t wait to meet your friends.”
“No. Flora, bad idea. Wait —”
She tossed the red cap onto my bed. “But, Kate — there’s only one bed. Where will you sleep?”
Heather and I sat across from each other
at my kitchen table. We had a bowl of nacho chips and a bowl of pretzels in front of us.
I could hear voices down the hall. My parents’ book club was meeting in our den.
We couldn’t agree on what our science project should be. I said we should do a study on invisibility and bring in an invisible project to school. That would be totally easy.
Heather rolled her eyes. She didn’t like that idea.
I said, “We could do some experiments with different liquids. See which ones your dog Clyde will drink.”
Heather hit the tabletop with her fist. “No way. I’m not giving Clyde weird things to drink.”
“Even for an A in science?” I said.
“Shut up, Ray,” she replied. “I think we should do something with soil.”
“Huh? Soil? You mean like dirt?”
“We could get different kinds of soil and try to grow stuff in them,” Heather said.
“You’re kidding, right? Gardening? Why don’t you just kill me now?” I groaned.
This was going nowhere. I had an idea that was better than working on this project. Actually, I’d been planning it all day.
I pushed my chair back and stood up. “Follow me,” I said. I waved her toward the kitchen door.
Her green eyes flashed. “Where are we going?” she demanded.
I raised a finger to my lips. “Ssssh.”
I could hear a woman reading something out loud in the den. I didn’t want my parents to know Heather and I were going out. It’s no fun to sneak out if people know about it.
I pulled open the kitchen door. The warm evening air blew in. “We’ll have an adventure,” I said.
“No. Really,” Heather said. “We have to stay and work on this project. We’re already late, and we don’t have a clue.”
But I stepped out into the backyard. I knew Heather would follow me.
The air felt hot, as if I’d stepped into an oven. My parents keep the air conditioning cranked up pretty high. The sun had just gone down. The sky was streaked gray and purple. A bird cooed from somewhere in the lemon tree at the back of the yard.
Heather bumped me from behind. “Where are we going, Ray?”
“It’s a surprise,” I said, moving along the side of the house toward the street.
“And we’re doing this because?”
I turned back to her and whispered, “Because we’re going to join the circus.”
R.L. Stine’s books are read all over the world. So far, his books have sold more than 300 million copies, making him one of the most popular children’s authors in history. Besides Goosebumps, R.L. Stine has written the teen series Fear Street and the funny series Rotten School, as well as the Mostly Ghostly series, The Nightmare Room series, and the two-book thriller Dangerous Girls. R.L. Stine lives in New York with his wife, Jane, and Minnie, his King Charles spaniel. You can learn more about him at www.RLStine.com.
Goosebumps book series created by Parachute Press, Inc.
Copyright © 2014 by Scholastic Inc.
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, GOOSEBUMPS, GOOSEBUMPS HORRORLAND, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
First printing, October 2014
Cover design by Steve Scott
Cover art by Brandon Dorman
e-ISBN 978-0-545-75407-1
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
R. L. Stine, The 12 Screams of Christmas
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