The Ghosts at the Movie Theater

by Dori Hillestad Butler

  “We’ll stay here in case Dave comes back,” George said.

  “Don’t worry. We’ll find him,” Little John said as Claire picked up the bottle.

  “And when we do, we’ll bring him back here,” Finn added.

  Would they? Kaz wondered. He thought they’d bring Dave to the library.

  “There are so many buildings,” Mom said as Claire walked the ghosts around the block. “Dave could be anywhere. I don’t know how we’ll ever find him.”

  “We don’t even know if the Dave from the movie theater is our Dave,” Grandmom said.

  “I think he is,” Finn said.

  Claire stopped in front of a dark store. “This must be the packing and shipping store you blew into, Finn.”

  “Yup,” Finn said. He read the writing on the front window out loud. “‘Pack Mack. You pack. We ship.’ This is the place. Let’s go in.”

  “There aren’t any lights on in there,” Kaz said. “Are they open?”

  “They should be. The sign says they’re open from nine until five on Saturdays,” Pops said.

  Claire tried the door. It was locked. “Oh, there’s a note on the door,” she said. “Closed today for family emergency. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

  “That is really inconvenient,” Finn said with a huff.

  “Well, Claire can’t go inside. But if she puts the bottle a little closer to the window, the rest of us can go in,” Little John said.

  “That’s true,” Finn said, looking more hopeful. “In fact, we can pass through the walls and search all the stores on this block.”

  “There’s a bakery at the other end of the block,” Claire said. “I’ll meet you down there.”

  “Are you sure the bakery is open?” Kaz asked.

  Claire craned her neck. “Yes, I can see lights on from here.”

  “Then let’s go!” Little John said.

  Claire held the bottle up against the window and one by one, the ghosts passed through the bottle and the glass window and went inside the packing and shipping store. Kaz and Cosmo were the last ones through.

  “See you in a little bit!” Claire waved good-bye, then skipped down the street.

  “Hello? Dave, are you in here?” Finn called as the ghosts spread out around the store. There was a large counter in the middle of the room. Brown wrapping paper, packing material, and boxes of all different sizes and shapes lined the shelves.

  Finn and Mom swam into a back room. Kaz, Cosmo, and Pops floated along the dimly lit shelves. Little John poked his head into several of the boxes. Grandmom and Grandpop passed through the cabinets that lined the back wall.

  None of them found any other ghosts.

  “Let’s try the next store,” Finn said when he and Mom returned from the back room. He led the others through the side wall and into a fancy restaurant with white tablecloths and gold candles on all the tables.

  There were no other ghosts in there, either, so Kaz and his family continued on to the hardware store. Then a bank. The last store on the block was the bakery. Claire was already there when Kaz entered through a side wall.

  Claire was talking to a man who wore a white apron around his thick middle and a tall hat on his head. He stood behind a glass case that was full of cookies, cakes, and donuts. A rack of cookies cooled on the counter behind him.

  “Oh, yes,” the man said in a serious voice. “We have a ghost in here. You bet we do.”

  Really?” Claire set her orange juice bottle on the floor while Kaz and his family looked around. They didn’t see any ghosts.

  “Have you actually seen this ghost with your very own eyes?” Claire asked the baker.

  “I sure have,” he replied. “Many times.”

  “Can you see us?” Finn asked.

  Little John wiggled his fingers and stuck out his tongue. Grandmom and Grandpop waved their hands in the baker’s face.

  The baker didn’t even blink. He picked up a towel and started wiping the counter.

  “He can’t see us,” Grandpop said.

  “That means Dave was glowing!” Little John said.

  “If Dave was actually here,” Kaz put in.

  “Why would Dave glow?” Mom asked. “Why would he want this solid man to see him?”

  “There are lots of reasons ghosts glow, Mom,” Finn said.

  Claire took out her notebook. “When did you see this ghost?” she asked.

  “This morning. Yesterday morning. I see him almost every morning,” the baker replied.

  “Then it’s not Dave,” Finn said. “Dave’s only been missing since yesterday.”

  “The Dave from the movie theater has only been missing since yesterday,” Little John pointed out. “This ghost could still be our Dave.”

  Kaz scratched his head. They were looking for a ghost named Dave. But was there one ghost named Dave or were there two? Was the Dave from the movie theater and Mom’s long-lost brother, Dave, the same ghost? This was confusing.

  Little John cupped his hand around his mouth and called, “Hello, Ghost? Where are you? Come out, come out wherever you are!”

  “There’s another room back there,” Finn said, straining to see through a small window in a door behind the baker. “It looks like a kitchen.”

  “Let’s go see if Dave is in there,” Mom said as she and Finn sailed up and over the baker’s head.

  “Wait for me!” Little John cried. He followed Mom and Finn through the door.

  Kaz and the others stayed where they were.

  Claire opened to a new page in her notebook. “So, it’s a boy ghost,” she said as she started to draw a ghost.

  “Yes,” the baker said.

  “Can you describe him?”

  “Sure,” the baker said. “He looks like a ghost!”

  Grandpop snorted. “That’s helpful.”

  Claire looked up from her drawing. “Is he young or old?”

  “Youngish,” the baker replied.

  “What was he wearing?” Claire asked.

  The baker laughed. “Silly. Ghosts don’t wear clothes!”

  “We don’t?” Grandpop said, snapping the straps on his suspenders. “Since when?”

  Mom, Finn, and Little John returned from the kitchen. “We didn’t find any ghosts in there, either,” Little John said.

  “Can you describe the ghost’s hair?” Claire asked the baker. “Is it long? Short? Curly? Straight?”

  The baker laughed again. “You have some funny ideas about ghosts,” he said as he folded his towel and set it on the counter. “They don’t have hair!”

  Finn clucked his tongue. “This guy doesn’t think we have hair?”

  “He doesn’t think we wear clothes, either,” Kaz said.

  Claire tipped her head to the side. “Are you sure you’ve seen a ghost in here?” she asked.

  “Yes!” The baker picked up a pan of cookies and a spatula and started putting the cookies in the display case. “But I don’t think you’ve ever seen one, young lady.” He waved the spatula at Claire. “So let me tell you about them. First, ghosts don’t look anything like us. They look like floating white sheets with black holes for their eyes, noses, and mouths.”

  Pops crossed his arms. “There’s no way this man has seen a ghost.”

  “We could change that,” Little John said, rubbing his hands together.

  “I think we should change that,” Finn said.

  “Oh, no,” Kaz said.

  “On three,” Finn said with a grin. “Ready? One . . . two . . . three!”

  The whole family (even Cosmo!) started to glow. Everyone but Kaz.

  The pan of cookies slipped from the baker’s hand and clattered to the floor. His face was as white as his apron and his hat. “Wh-wh-what’s happening?” he stammered, his eyes flicking from ghost to ghost to ghost.<
br />
  “What do you mean?” Claire asked innocently. She acted as though she couldn’t see the glowing ghosts in front of her.

  Kaz had never wanted to glow so badly as he did that second. He tightened his hands into fists and gritted his teeth—even though he knew that was wrong—and he tried, tried, tried to glow with the rest of his family. But as usual, nothing happened.

  “I-I’m not feeling so good,” the baker moaned. Leaving the pan and broken cookies scattered on the floor, he backed through the swinging door behind him and disappeared into the kitchen.

  “Should we follow him?” Little John asked.

  “No,” Pops said as the glow faded from his body. “I think we’ve made our point.”

  The other ghosts stopped glowing, too.

  “Let’s go back to the library and figure out what our next step should be,” Kaz said.

  “If you don’t mind,” Grandpop said to Claire, “perhaps you could drop Eva and me at the nursing home on your way.”

  “You don’t want to come back to the library with us?” Mom asked.

  “What about Dave?” Finn said. “Don’t you want to help us find Dave?”

  “You have to understand,” Grandmom said, squeezing Finn’s arm, “Dave has been gone a long time.”

  “That’s right,” Grandpop said. “It’s nice to think that your friend Dave might be our long-lost son, but we don’t know that. All we know is now he’s gone, too.”

  Grandmom nodded. “We’re too old for all this running around,” she said. “If you find your friend, or any other ghost named Dave, you’ll come to the nursing home and let us know, won’t you?”

  “Of course,” Claire replied.

  “Then we’d like to go back to Valley View,” Grandmom said.

  “I don’t blame you,” Mom said, patting Grandmom’s arm. “You’ve been away from your friends there for a long time.”

  Grandmom and Grandpop had only come to the library for a visit after Claire and Kaz had found Mom and Pops. They never planned to stay permanently.

  “I’ll take you back to Valley View right now,” Claire said.

  The ghosts shrank down . . . down . . . down . . . and swam inside her empty orange juice bottle.

  “Um, good-bye!” Claire called to the baker in the kitchen. “I hope you feel better soon.” She grabbed her bottle of ghosts and left the bakery. She walked Grandmom and Grandpop back to Valley View. Then she took everyone else back to the library.

  Claire hugged her orange juice bottle of ghosts with one arm while she opened the door to the library with her other hand.

  Beckett hovered in the library entryway, close to the front door, but not so close that he might blow into the Outside. “Well? Did you find Dave?” he asked hopefully.

  “No,” Claire said, kicking the door closed behind her.

  “What happened?” Beckett asked as Kaz, Cosmo, Finn, and Little John passed through the bottle and expanded to their normal sizes. He backed away when Mom and Pops passed through.

  “We met some of Finn’s friends,” Little John said. “But not Dave. Dave’s gone.”

  “Gone!” Beckett said.

  “Yeah. No one knows what happened to him,” Kaz said. “We looked for him in a bunch of stores and restaurants downtown. So did the other ghosts at the movie theater—”

  “Wait, there are other ghosts at the movie theater?” Beckett said, scratching his head.

  “Yes,” Finn said. “Jessie, Conrad, George, and Dave. Dave used to be there. I just don’t know what could have happened to him.”

  “It’s a mystery all right,” Little John said.

  Beckett peered into the empty orange juice bottle. “Where are your grandparents?” he asked. “Did something happen to them, too?”

  “No. I took them back to Valley View,” Claire said as she wiggled out of her jacket.

  “They’re old. And tired,” Mom said. She sounded pretty tired herself. “They don’t think we’ll ever find my brother. Frankly, I don’t think we will, either.” With that, she and Pops drifted up through the ceiling.

  “I’m so sorry,” Beckett said, hanging his head.

  “Come on,” Claire said to Kaz, Finn, and Little John as she headed for the craft room. Kaz picked up Cosmo, and the ghosts followed Claire.

  “We will find your Uncle Dave!” Claire declared. She pulled out a chair and sat down.

  “How?” Kaz asked. “He’s been gone forever!”

  “We can start by finding my friend, Dave,” Finn said. “He’s only been gone a day. If we can find him, we can at least find out whether he’s our Uncle Dave.”

  “How are we going to find him?” Kaz asked. “Have Claire knock on every door in this whole town until we find him? There are too many.”

  “He may not even be in this town anymore,” Little John said. “The wind may have blown him to a whole different town.”

  “You sound like you’re giving up,” Claire said to Little John. “I’ve never known you to give up before.”

  Little John bit his lip. “Well, it does seem kind of impossible,” he said in a small voice.

  Claire leaned back in her chair. “You guys! We found your whole family! You thought that was impossible, too. But we did it.”

  “I’m not giving up,” Finn said, folding his arms. “If they want to give up, maybe you need to change the name of your little detective agency to C & F Ghost Detectives.”

  C & F Ghost Detectives? No way, Kaz thought. “I’m not giving up, either,” he said. “I just don’t know what to do.”

  “Same,” Little John said.

  “Well,” Claire said as she unzipped her bag and pulled out her notebook and pen. “I like Finn’s idea of looking for his friend, Dave. It’s a lot easier to find someone who’s only been missing for a day rather than someone who’s been missing for years and years. If he’s your long-lost uncle, the case is solved. If he’s not, well . . . then we’ll have to figure out what to do next.”

  Kaz wasn’t sure he agreed that it was any easier to find someone who’s only been missing for a day. “So how do we find him?” he asked again.

  “We could put up flyers like people do when they’re trying to find a lost dog,” Claire suggested.

  “Woof! Woof!” Cosmo barked when he heard the word dog.

  “It could say, ‘Have you seen this ghost? If so, call C & K Detectives,’” Claire went on.

  “Who’s going to call and say ‘yeah, I saw that ghost’?” Finn asked. “Most solids aren’t like you. They can’t see ghosts.”

  “They can if the ghost is glowing,” Claire reminded him.

  “That boy Eli called Claire because you kept glowing around him,” Little John pointed out.

  “True,” Finn said.

  Claire turned to a clean sheet of paper in her notebook and said, “What does your friend Dave look like, Finn?”

  “I bet he has hair and wears clothes,” Kaz said.

  Finn snorted. “He definitely wears clothes. I can’t say much about his hair. It’s covered up by a baseball cap.”

  “What else?” Claire asked as she drew a man with a baseball cap.

  Finn peered over Claire’s shoulder. “Oh, he’s bigger than that. His stomach is like this.” Finn cupped his hands around his own stomach to show Claire how big Dave’s stomach was. “And he wears a T-shirt and jeans.”

  Claire kept drawing.

  “That’s good!” Finn said. “It really looks like Dave.”

  Claire ripped the page from her notebook, then pushed back her chair. “Let’s go make copies of this. Tomorrow we can put them up around town.”

  The next day, Kaz, Finn, and Little John traveled with Claire inside her water bottle. Their parents stayed at the library with Cosmo.

  Claire pinned flyers to bulletin boards inside grocery sto
res and coffee shops. She stapled them to trees and utility poles. She taped them to windows and mailboxes.

  “Who knew this town was so big?” Finn said, drifting to the bottom of Claire’s water bottle. “I’m exhausted!”

  “You’re exhausted?” Claire said to Finn. “You’re not the one who’s been walking all over.” She set her water bottle down on the sidewalk outside the movie theater while she taped another poster to a large mailbox by the window.

  “If you’re so tired, maybe we should go inside and watch a movie,” Little John said.

  “That’s actually a good idea,” Finn said. “We could find out if Dave came back!”

  “Why not?” Claire said. She picked up her water bottle and went inside the movie theater.

  The doors to the movie theater stood wide open, so the ghosts didn’t dare pass through Claire’s water bottle until they were farther into the lobby area.

  “Excuse me, Miss?” A solid lady at the ticket counter called to Claire. “Do you have a ticket?”

  Claire stopped. “Oh. Yes, I do,” she said. She opened the front pocket of her bag and pulled out a paper ticket.

  The lady looked at it over the tops of her glasses. “Thank you,” she said.

  There were no ghosts in the lobby today. And the only solid people were the guy behind the snack counter and Irwin, the man who had told Claire to save her ticket when she left yesterday.

  “Looks like you’re feeling better today.” He smiled when Claire approached.

  “Yes, much better,” Claire said as she handed him her ticket.

  Irwin tore it in half. “Enjoy the show!” he said.

  The ghosts passed through the bottle and followed Claire down a dim hallway. Little John hovered beside a poster of a five-eyed monster on the wall. He gulped. “Is that the movie that’s showing?”

  “You’re not scared to see that movie, are you, Little John?” Finn asked.

  “No!” Little John said right away. “Are you scared to see it, Kaz?”