Dunc and the Flaming Ghost

by Gary Paulsen

  Then the world went insane.

  The tiny room exploded silently in a green-blue light that seemed to come from inside everybody, shooting beams out of Larry’s eyes and mouth, out of Dunc’s ears and bouncing off the walls, into and out of the cages and sables, whipping back and forth and getting brighter and brighter until everything—people, walls, floor, everything—glowed and flowed.

  “What …?”

  Small things moved around the room, flying, zipping back and forth. They were tiny, and when one of them stopped on Amos’s shoulder, he turned to see a little fat person sitting there, not four inches high. It was dressed in a little pirate suit and carrying a little pirate sword, and it grinned and jumped at Larry and was gone before Amos really knew it was there.

  With other small figures it flew through the green light, around and around, unhooking all the cages and letting the sables loose, unbuttoning and unzipping the clothes on Bill and Larry so their pants dropped around their ankles. The sables exploded from the cages and were soon running around the room chasing the little zipping people.

  All in seconds, tiny seconds.

  “I don’t like this,” Larry said, as if by looking at his face no one could see that.

  “I had an uncle once,” Amos started, “who, before he overdosed, used to talk about things like this in the sixties …” It was as far as he got.

  The green light and all the little people vanished. It was dark for only a moment.

  “Who disturbs my sleep?”

  A new white flashing, searing light tore the room apart. Standing next to them, over them, towering so his head hit the ceiling, was Blackbeard.

  There were matches in his hair, in his ears, under his hat; his eyes were on fire, burning deep and intensely red. When he opened his mouth, flames shot out and streamed toward Larry and Bill.

  “Burn,” Blackbeard cried, a cry from all the dead who ever were. “You will burn forever.”

  He waved an arm, and when it came up Amos—who felt as if he had turned inside out—saw that the hand held a cutlass with a blade of fire.

  It cut through Larry and Bill and seemed to slice them in half. It threw them back out of the small room into the main part of the cellar and dumped them by the door in a heap.

  Then it was over.

  The room was again dark, totally dark.

  “Dunc?” Amos squeaked. “Are you there?”

  Silence.

  “Dunc? Dunc?”

  “Over here.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m trying to get the light to work.” He thumped it against his leg, and a flashlight beam filled the room.

  Larry and Bill were still on the floor in the other room. The sables were tearing around, in and out of the open door.

  “What happened?” Eddie asked.

  “Dunc—” Amos squeaked.

  “Come on,” Dunc said. “We have to tie those two up before they come around.”

  “Dunc—” Amos squeaked again.

  “What?”

  “I peed my pants.”

  Dunc looked at him. “Jeez, no kidding. What have you been doing, saving it up for a week?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “That’s all right. Sometimes even brave people pee their pants when they’re frightened.”

  “Aren’t you scared?” Amos asked. “Didn’t you see all that?”

  “Sure. But we still have to tie them up, then get the cops.”

  “It was ghosts,” Amos said. He swallowed loudly. “It was a whole bunch of ghosts, and one of them sat on my shoulder, and Dunc, you don’t even seem to care.”

  “Sure I care. But let’s tie these two guys up before they cause trouble, then get the cops. Then we can talk.”

  Amos still hadn’t moved. Dunc found some electrical cord and tied Larry and Bill hands to feet, and then back to back together, and Amos still hadn’t moved.

  “It was Blackbeard,” he said. “He was ten feet tall, and he had a sword a mile long.”

  Dunc came back. He took Amos by the hand and led him out into the main part of the cellar. “Yeah, it was Blackbeard.”

  Amos looked at Bill and Larry as if he were seeing them for the first time.

  “Their hair is white.”

  Dunc nodded.

  “Even their eyebrows.”

  “They were kind of scared. Now let’s get the police.”

  “Blackbeard could have done the same thing to us,” Amos said.

  “But he didn’t. He—” Dunc stopped, looking suddenly at Eddie. “Eddie, your feet are sunk into the floor.”

  Eddie looked down. “Oops.” Without appearing to move, he floated up a few inches. “You weren’t supposed to see that.”

  Dunc stuttered. “You—”

  Eddie sighed. “It just gets so tiring having to scare people away all the time. I wanted someone else to do it for a change. When I saw you wouldn’t be able to, I had to do something.”

  “Eddie,” Amos said. “Eddie the teacher. Edward Teach.” He swallowed. “B-B-B-B …”

  He stopped, caught his breath, and tried again. “B-B-B-B …”

  “Blackbeard,” Dunc completed for him. He took a step backward. “Why aren’t Amos and I scared stiff like these two are?”

  “I didn’t slice you with this.” Eddie took a four-foot flaming sword out from behind his back. “And I don’t want to. I do have a treasure to guard, though, and you are in my house. So if you don’t mind—” He waved the sword once through the air.

  “Enough said.” Dunc took Amos by the arm. “We’re on our way out.”

  “Have the police come pick these two up, if you don’t mind,” Eddie said.

  “No problem.”

  “B-B-B-B …” Amos repeated. He was too frightened to move.

  Dunc finally had to open the basement door and push Amos out—his feet leaving skid marks in the dust—before he could run next door and call the police.

  • 12

  Amos sat on the end of Dunc’s bed and rubbed his leg. “I almost broke it this time.”

  “What happened?” Dunc was working on a scale model of a diplodocus. He was painting the skin to match the color on the box the model came in.

  “It’s because of Eddie,” Amos said.

  “But Eddie made you famous—at least for a day.”

  “I just wish the TV people had delayed the interview until after I had changed my pants.”

  “Yeah. Too bad.” He flicked his paintbrush. “This diplodocus will look great next to my triceratops.”

  “When we were in the paper,” Amos said, “and they took my picture, I was sure Melissa would call.”

  “Especially after you dedicated the smugglers’ capture to her,” Dunc said, nodding. “That was almost perfect.”

  “It wasn’t much of a capture. It’s been three weeks, and I heard a cop at the drugstore say they still haven’t moved. They have them propped in a corner of the cell, and they just stand there.”

  “They were pretty scared.” Dunc pointed a paintbrush at Amos’s leg. “You still haven’t told me about the leg.”

  “Oh. After the story was in the paper and on television, I was sure Melissa would call, and I was dead right. Friday night I was sitting alone in my room when I heard the phone downstairs. So I made my move. You know, you have to hit by that all-important second ring, or they lose interest.”

  “Lose interest.” Dunc nodded.

  “So I cleared my room in record time and hit the stairs with good form—almost classic.”

  “Good form.” Dunc used two hands to steady the brush. There was a tiny part around the diplodocus’s eyes where it was hard to paint.

  “I had it. It was a straight shot down the stairs, two jumps across the living room—that’s all I had to make.”

  “And then?” Dunc said, nodding.

  “And then my sister’s gerbil—”

  “Gerbil?”

  “Yeah. It escaped from its cage somehow, and when I s
tepped on it at the top of the stairs—”

  “You stepped on a gerbil?”

  “Sort of. When I felt something soft, I tried not to step on it, but that threw my pace off. I dived over the railing on the landing. I thought I was a goner, but luckily I had my shoes double-tied. My shoelace loop caught on the ornamental ball at the top of the staircase as I flew over, and I wound up hanging upside down from the railing until Mom came home from work.”

  “How long was that?”

  “About two hours.”

  “You hung upside down for two hours?”

  “That’s how I hurt my leg.”

  “So you never reached the phone.”

  “No. But it was Melissa—I could tell from the ring.”

  “Amos …”

  “I’m going to take it easy,” Amos said, leaning back against the wall. “Not push it and ask her to marry me right away.”

  “Amos …”

  “I should try to buy a home first, don’t you think?”

  “Amos …”

  “Or maybe a trailer house.”

  “Amos …”

  Be sure to join Dunc and Amos in these other Culpepper Adventures:

  The Case of the Dirty Bird

  When Dunc Culpepper and his best friend, Amos, first see the parrot in a pet store, they’re not impressed—it’s smelly, scruffy, and missing half its feathers. They’re only slightly impressed when they learn that the parrot speaks four languages, has outlived ten of its owners, and is probably 150 years old. But when the bird starts mouthing off about buried treasure, Dunc and Amos get pretty excited—let the amateur sleuthing begin!

  Dunc’s Doll

  Dunc and his accident-prone friend, Amos, are up to their old sleuthing habits once again. This time they’re after a band of doll thieves! When a doll that once belonged to Charles Dickens’s daughter is stolen from an exhibition at the local mall, the two boys put on their detective gear and do some serious snooping. Will a vicious watchdog keep them from retrieving the valuable missing doll?

  Culpepper’s Cannon

  Dunc and Amos are researching the Civil War cannon that stands in the town square when they find a note inside telling them about a time portal. Entering it through the dressing room of La Petite, a women’s clothing store, the boys find themselves in downtown Chatham on March 8, 1862—the day before the historic clash between the Monitor and the Merrimac. But the Confederate soldiers they meet mistake them for Yankee spies. Will they make it back to the future in one piece?

  Dunc Gets Tweaked

  Best friends Dunc and Amos meet up with a new buddy named Lash when they enter the radical world of skateboard competition. When somebody “cops”—steals—Lash’s prototype skateboard, the boys are determined to get it back. After all, Lash is about to shoot for a totally rad world’s record! Along the way they learn a major lesson: Never kiss a monkey!

  Dunc’s Halloween

  Dunc and his best friend, Amos, are planning the best route to get the most candy on Halloween. But their plans change when Amos is slightly bitten by a werewolf. He begins scratching himself and chasing UPS trucks: he’s become a werepuppy!

  Dunc Breaks the Record

  Best-friends-for-life Dunc and Amos have a small problem when they try hang gliding—they crash in the wilderness. Luckily Amos has read a book about a boy who survived in the wilderness for fifty-four days. Too bad Amos doesn’t have a hatchet. Things go from bad to worse when a wild man holds the boys captive. Can anything save them now?

  Amos Gets Famous

  Deciphering a code they find in a library book, best-friends-for-life Amos and Dunc stumble on to a burglary ring. The burglars’ next target is the home of Melissa, the girl of Amos’s dreams (who doesn’t even know that he’s alive). Amos longs to be a hero to Melissa, so nothing will stop him from solving this case—not even a mind-boggling collision with a jock, a chimpanzee, and a toilet.