Karen's Haunted House

by Ann M. Martin

  But I did worry about it. It is not good to be on the bad side of a witch. Even a witch-in-training.

  Spooky Plans

  On Saturday morning I ran to the abandoned house right after breakfast. Mrs. Papadakis was standing on the front porch, holding a clipboard. I would have been scared if I had not seen her. The house already looked spooky and creepy to me. Shutters sagged on their hinges. Vines grew up the outside of the house. It was perfect for Halloween!

  “Good morning, Karen,” said Mrs. Papadakis. “Ms. Colman’s class has been assigned one of the upstairs bedrooms. Some of your classmates are already here.”

  “Thank you,” I said. I stepped through the front door. Inside, the house did not look quite as scary. Mostly it just needed cleaning and painting. I saw a big staircase on the left, and I climbed it. It squeaked. I thought about the bats living in the chimney, and I shivered. I hoped they would not come out while I was there.

  Upstairs, many people were walking around. There were grown-ups from different groups, and lots of older kids. Both Sam’s and Charlie’s high-school homerooms had signed up to help, but my brothers were not there yet.

  At the end of the hall, a door stood open. I saw Ms. Colman through it.

  “Hello, Karen,” she said. “You are just in time. We are taking suggestions for decorating ideas.”

  The other two Musketeers were there. So were Terri and Tammy, Audrey, Chris, Bobby, Ricky, Pamela, and Sara. Ms. Colman held a notebook.

  “I will write down our ideas,” she said. “Then we will decide which ones we like best.”

  Our room faced the front yard. It had two windows and a fireplace. (I hoped there were no bats inside it.) A broken mirror hung over the fireplace. I saw a big closet. Flowered paper covered the walls. The wooden floor was scratched and dirty.

  “Let’s paint the walls black,” called out Bobby.

  “Let’s put a spiderweb over the mirror,” I said.

  “Rip some of the wallpaper,” said Audrey.

  “Hang more spiderwebs from the chandelier,” suggested Hannie.

  “Paint some skeletons on the walls,” I said.

  “Put spooky pumpkins in the windows,” said Pamela.

  Ms. Colman quickly wrote down our ideas. “All of these are very good suggestions,” she said. “I will need to make a list of supplies to buy. In the meantime, we could begin taking down some of this wallpaper.”

  Usually kids have to be careful not to mess up the walls. Parents do not want fingerprints or dirt or scratches all over everything. But in this house, the worse it looked, the better. So we started ripping off wallpaper! It was so much fun. We made a gigundo mess.

  Outside our door, I heard people talking loudly. Sam and some of his friends were standing in the hallway.

  “Sophomores rule!” Sam said loudly. His arms were crossed over his chest.

  Down the hall stood Charlie and a bunch of his friends. “Sopho-mores should be called sopho-less,” said Charlie. Some of his friends laughed. “Everyone knows seniors are best. We are going to have the scariest room in the house.”

  “No, we are,” said Sam. “Seniors are scared of everything. You will not know how to decorate your room.”

  “Look who is talking,” said Charlie.

  Just then their teachers came into the hall. They made Sam’s group go into Sam’s room, and Charlie’s group go into Charlie’s room. I went back into Ms. Colman’s room.

  Sam and Charlie were so silly sometimes. Lately it seemed as if they argued about everything.

  I gathered up a huge pile of torn wallpaper and stuffed it into a trash can. The room already looked awful! Our room was going to be much spookier than Sam’s or Charlie’s!

  Let the Decorating Begin!

  On Sunday our class met again at the haunted house. (Not everyone could be there.) Ms. Colman had brought some gray and black paint and other supplies.

  Several groups worked in their rooms. A group from the hospital had chosen one of the downstairs rooms. They had already started to paint the room black.

  The people from the grocery store were in charge of the front yard. They had left most of the weeds there, and they were putting in fake tombstones. The yard would look like a creepy graveyard when they were finished.

  Sam’s class would not let anyone look in their room. But I saw them carrying in buckets of red paint and a pile of white sheets. I hoped their room would not be too scary.

  Charlie’s room was going to be one gigundoly huge spiderweb. The whole house shook as they hammered in long black ropes from wall to wall.

  By Sunday afternoon I was pretty tired. We had been slopping black and gray paint all over the walls. It did not matter if we spilled it on the floor. I had paint speckles all over me. But our room looked awful! And it was going to get worse!

  * * *

  “Please pass the skull stencil,” said Addie. She rolled her wheelchair closer to the wall. It was Tuesday afternoon after school, and our haunted-house room was beginning to look pretty haunted. (So far I had not seen any bats. Thank heavens.) Some of the high-school boys had carried Addie and her wheelchair up the stairs. Now she was painting the lower stencils, and other kids were painting the higher stencils.

  Our class had decided on a “skeleton party” theme. We had painted everything gray and black. The walls looked creepy, like old walls from a haunted mansion. Now we were painting white skeletons and skulls and other bones on the walls. We were using stencils that Ms. Colman had bought. Some of the stencils were taller than I am.

  Hannie and I taped our stencil to the wall. Then Hannie held some of the edges while I sponged white paint over the stencil. When we carefully took it off, voilà! A tall, dancing skeleton grinned eerily at us.

  “These things really work,” said Hannie.

  “I am glad they do not scare Jane,” I said.

  Jane is Ms. Colman’s baby daughter. Ms. Colman had brought her to the house this afternoon. Jane sat in her infant carrier in the middle of the room. She was enjoying watching us work. The skeletons did not seem to bother her at all. She clapped her hands and laughed a lot. She must be a very brave baby.

  “Oops, my dad is here,” said Hank. He put his stencil down on our worktable. “See you guys tomorrow morning at school.”

  “ ’Bye, Hank,” we all said.

  One by one our classmates left to go home for dinner. Nancy had to go home too. Since Hannie and I lived right down the street, we could stay a little later.

  Soon just the two of us and Ms. Colman and Jane were in our room. It was practically dark outside. The dingy chandelier overhead glowed with a dim light. I held a stencil while Hannie painted. (We were taking turns.)

  “I need to discuss something with Mrs. Papadakis,” said Ms. Colman. “If you need me, I will be downstairs.”

  “Okay,” said Hannie. “We will start to put our things away.”

  Ms. Colman picked up Jane’s infant carrier and left the room. I began putting caps back on cans. We put our paint sponges in plastic bags so we could use them again. Hannie laid the stencils carefully on the worktable so they would dry.

  All of a sudden I felt the little hairs on the back of my neck rise up. I looked around. It was dark outside, almost dinnertime. The house seemed very quiet.

  “Hannie, has everyone else gone home?” I asked.

  Hannie listened for a moment. “It sounds like it,” she said. “I do not hear anyone else.”

  I walked to the door and looked down the hall. It was dark and empty. Although Mrs. Papadakis and Ms. Colman were right downstairs, upstairs seemed very creepy and lonely.

  “Come on, Hannie,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Hannie and I were heading for the staircase when suddenly — “Awooo, awooo.” We heard a loud, scary howling sound! It sounded like a pack of wolves! I grabbed Hannie’s hand. Her eyes were big. She looked about as scared as I felt. Then, wham! A door slammed down the hall. But no one else was upstairs.

 
; “This house really is haunted,” I whispered.

  Save the Bats

  “How did the decorating go today?” asked Elizabeth.

  “Great,” said Sam.

  “Terrific,” said Charlie.

  I spooned some lima beans onto my plate. (Not too many. I am not crazy about lima beans.)

  “Karen?” asked Elizabeth.

  “Um, fine,” I said. I took a sip of milk.

  After Hannie and I had heard the howling and the door slamming, we had screamed and run downstairs. Outside we had found Ms. Colman and Mrs. Papadakis standing on the front porch going over our schedule.

  “Girls! What is wrong?” asked Ms. Colman.

  Hannie and I looked at each other. Now that we were outside, with grown-ups, it seemed pretty silly to say that we had heard weird noises. So we just shrugged. Then Sam walked through the front gate.

  “Hey, Karen,” he said. “Are you ready to go home? I told Mom I would walk you and Hannie if it was dark.”

  Since then I had thought some more about what Hannie and I had heard. We had both heard it. I had not imagined it by myself. (I have a big imagination.)

  “Has anyone ever heard of a real haunted house?” I asked. “I mean, could the house on the corner really be haunted?”

  My big-house family laughed.

  “You wish, Karen,” said Charlie. “Then Morbidda Destiny could move in there, instead.”

  “Her name is Mrs. Porter,” Daddy said sternly.

  “Karen, you are such a kidder,” said Kristy. She smiled at me. “You really know how to enjoy a holiday, especially Halloween.”

  I smiled weakly. But I had not been kidding. I was starting to worry about the haunted house.

  “Speaking of Mrs. Porter,” said Daddy, “she has begun a save-the-bats campaign.”

  “Eww,” I said. I wrinkled my nose.

  “The city has had a pest-control company examine the bats,” said Daddy. “They are clean and free of diseases. So we have two choices: Either exterminate them, or listen to Mrs. Porter. She wants people to put up bat houses in their yards. Then when the bats are chased out of the haunted house, they will be able to find new homes.”

  “I do not think they should be exterminated,” said Elizabeth. “They have not done any harm.”

  “But no one wants a bat house in their yard,” I said. “Who would want a yucky creepy bat living so close by? It is just like Morbidda Destiny to come up with such a witchy plan. I bet once people have bats in their yard, Morbidda will use them to cast spells — ”

  “Karen, would you like to be excused?” asked Daddy.

  “No,” I mumbled.

  “Bats are not bad,” said Elizabeth. “They are actually very good for the environment. They eat tons of insects. That means we can use fewer pesticides.”

  “Bats pollinate plants and scatter seeds,” said Daddy. “Just like birds and bees do.”

  “Bats are kind of cute,” said Kristy.

  I stared at her.

  “I think Mrs. Porter is right,” said Daddy. “I think we should try to save the bats. Tomorrow I will buy some bat houses for our yard.”

  I wondered where he could get a bat house. Bats ‘R’ Us?

  “Good idea,” said Elizabeth. “I have seen bat houses at the gardening store.”

  Oh.

  “They will help keep the mosquitoes and flies from bothering us in the summer,” said Nannie.

  Next summer is a long way away, I wanted to say. But I did not. I wanted to say that we did not need any yucky flying-rat bats in our yard. I wanted to say that this was just a bad, witchy plan. But I kept my mouth shut. I did not want to be sent to my room. Not when we were having apple pie for dessert.

  Prime Suspect

  “No, no, Natalie,” I said on Wednesday afternoon. “These are supposed to be spooky skeletons.” Natalie Springer kept trying to paint nice smiles on the skeletons in our room at the haunted house. I had to watch her like a hawk.

  “But they are at a party,” said Natalie. She leaned over and pulled up her socks. “They should be having a good time.”

  “They are having a spooky time,” I told her. “They are at a haunted party. They should not look too friendly.”

  “Karen is right,” said Nancy. “We are trying to make our room look scary. Cheerful skeletons are not what we need.”

  “For once I agree with Loudmouth Karen,” said Pamela. “Make our skeletons mean-looking.”

  I narrowed my eyes at Pamela. I wanted to say, Just make them look like Pamela. But I could not, because she had agreed with me. (Although she had called me a loudmouth.)

  “Okay, okay,” said Natalie. “I will make them look mean.”

  I stood back and looked around at our room. We had made a lot of progress. There were still many things left to do, though. On Halloween night we planned to have a refreshments table covered with yucky, spooky skeleton food. We would serve witch’s brew, and worm-covered mud pies, and rotten apples. We would play scary music on a hidden tape player. Ms. Colman was going to make a game and hang it on the wall. It would be Pin the Skull on the Skeleton.

  Our room was going to be fabulous.

  “Pamela, your mother is honking her horn out front,” said Ms. Colman.

  So Pamela and Jannie Gilbert left. Then Chris Lamar left. And so did Tammy and Terri. Soon it was just me, Hannie, Nancy, and Ms. Colman.

  “Have we put skeletons in the closet yet?” asked Ms. Colman. “We want them to jump out when someone opens the door.”

  “Bobby was working on it,” I said. “Let me check.” I walked over to the closet and opened the door. A huge, hairy spider leaped out at my face! Its awful little legs scrambled against my hair!

  “Aiieegghh!” I screamed, batting at it. “Get it off, get it off!”

  Hannie and Nancy ran to me. I was spinning in a circle, clawing at my hair.

  “Hold still,” cried Nancy.

  “Get it off!” I yelled.

  “Okay,” said Hannie. She peered at my hair. “Oh. It is plastic.”

  “Whaaaat?” I shrieked.

  “It is a fake spider,” said Nancy, picking it out of my hair. She showed it to me.

  “Get it off, get it off!” said a high-pitched voice from inside the closet. Bobby Gianelli stepped out of the darkness, laughing. “That was great!” he said loudly. “You should have seen your face!” He pretended to pat his hair, jumping up and down and squealing.

  I put my hands on my hips. “Bobby, that was not funny,” I said angrily. “Playing tricks is mean.”

  “Besides, we have too much work to do to play tricks,” said Ms. Colman. “Now, I think your mother just arrived. Please do not play any more tricks.”

  “Okay,” said Bobby. But he grinned as he walked past me.

  “Boys are so stupid sometimes,” I said. My cheeks burned. I had screamed and jumped around. But the spider really had been gross. I shuddered again, just thinking about it crawling on my hair. (It had not really crawled. But it had felt like it.) And what if it had been a real spider? Or a bat?

  I sighed. “I am ready to go home now too.”

  Ms. Colman turned off our light and closed the door to our room. Hannie, Nancy, Ms. Colman, and I started to walk toward the stairs. The hallway was empty and dark. Then a spooky laugh floated down from the ceiling. “Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-haaaaaa!” It sounded just like a ghost laughing.

  We stopped where we were. I looked up, but did not see anything. Ms. Colman said, “Bobby?”

  There was no answer.

  Another door opened, and Charlie and some of his classmates stepped out into the hall.

  “What was that?” asked Charlie. “Did you guys hear something?”

  “It is just someone playing a trick,” said Ms. Colman calmly. “Come, girls. Let’s go downstairs.” With Ms. Colman leading the way, Hannie and Nancy and I slunk downstairs, looking over our shoulders the whole time.

  * * *

  I asked Elizabeth if I could call Han
nie that night after dinner. She said I could.

  “Hannie, what is going on with the haunted house?” I said.

  “I do not know,” said Hannie. “It is very creepy. I wish we did not have to go back.”

  “But we do,” I said. “Our room is not finished.”

  “Maybe it was Bobby again,” said Hannie. “It probably was.”

  An idea came to me in a flash. “Maybe it was Druscilla,” I said. “Maybe she is trying to get back at me for what I said. Did you notice how her nose twitched the other day?”

  “Um, no,” said Hannie.

  “Well, it did. Just like the witch on that old TV show. Her nose twitched whenever she cast a spell. Now Druscilla’s nose is twitching, and the haunted house is really haunted. It is very clear to me.”

  “Hmm,” said Hannie.

  “We have to get to the bottom of this,” I said. “We cannot be chased out of our own haunted house.”

  “You are right,” said Hannie. “But how?”

  “I will think of something,” I said.

  Dueling Cinderellas

  On Friday afternoon I did not go to the haunted house to decorate. Kristy and Charlie had offered to take me to Pembroke’s Party Store downtown. It is a very cool store with all kinds of things for holidays. They have costumes too.

  “Hurry up, Karen,” said Kristy. “I have a Baby-sitters Club meeting soon.”

  Kristy and a bunch of her friends run a baby-sitting business. She goes to meetings three times a week.

  “Okay, I will hurry,” I said. Since I was going to be Cinderella, I planned to look through Pembroke’s princess supplies.

  At Pembroke’s I found some clear plastic slippers that looked like real glass. I also found a silky cape with white fake fur around the edges. It was perfect. (I already had a fancy dress at home.)

  I bought those things, and Charlie drove us home.

  “I am going to be a great Cinderella,” I told Kristy as Charlie parked in our driveway. “I have the right hair color. And Elizabeth is helping me with the fancy ball gown. It is an old dress of hers that she is shortening for me. It is shiny and blue and silky — ”