The Haunted Library Read online

  FOR BOB

  BECAUSE ALL GOOD THINGS BEGIN WITH YOU—DHB

  I am so grateful to my agent, Sara Crowe, for coming into my life just when I needed her most, and to my editor, Jordan Hamessley, for taking a chance on an author she didn’t know, and for asking just the right questions to help me deepen Kaz’s world. I’d also like to thank Aurore Damant for bringing Kaz and his family to life, and everyone at Grosset & Dunlap for all their hard work on my behalf, especially Sara Corbett, Pieta Pemberton, and Sara Ortiz. When I told Sara Ortiz I wanted to do a school visit in all fifty states, she shrieked “THAT’S INSANE” in such a way that I know I’m going to love being a Grosset & Dunlap author.

  Finally, thank you to my husband, Bob, for always believing in me; my children, Ben and Andy (being your mom will always be my proudest achievement), and my dog, Mouse, who lies on my feet and keeps them warm while I write.

  GROSSET & DUNLAP

  Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Group (USA) LLC, 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

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  Text copyright © 2014 by Dori Hillestad Butler. Illustrations copyright © 2014 by Aurore Damant. All rights reserved. Published by Grosset & Dunlap, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. GROSSET & DUNLAP is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

  ISBN 978-0-698-18155-7

  Version_1

  Contents

  DEDICATION

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  COPYRIGHT

  TITLE PAGE

  GHOSTLY GLOSSARY

  LOST IN THE OUTSIDE

  A STRANGE NEW HAUNT

  SWIM!

  WOOOOOOOO!

  NO SUCH THING AS GHOSTS

  MORE SEARCHING

  THE LONG NIGHT

  THE GHOST RETURNS

  STAKEOUT!

  PARTNERS

  expand

  When ghosts make themselves larger

  glow

  What ghosts do so humans can see them

  haunt

  Where ghosts live

  pass through

  When ghosts travel through walls, doors, and other solid objects

  shrink

  When ghosts make themselves smaller

  skizzy

  When ghosts feel sick to their stomachs

  solids

  What ghosts call humans, animals, and objects they can’t see through

  spew

  What comes out when ghosts throw up

  swim

  When ghosts move freely through the air

  wail

  What ghosts do so humans can hear them

  Kaz floated nervously back and forth in front of the dusty classroom wall.

  His whole family was watching him. Mom. Pops. Little John. Even Cosmo, the family dog. They were all watching . . . waiting . . . and wondering: Would he do it this time?

  Kaz swam back away from the wall. “I don’t want to,” he said in a small voice.

  Everyone groaned.

  “Come on, son,” said Pops. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. All you have to do is take a deep breath and slide on through. Like this.” Pops stuck his foot through the wall first. Then his whole leg . . . his arm . . . and finally the rest of his body.

  Poof! Pops was gone.

  “Woof! Woof!” barked Cosmo. The dog’s tail swished from side to side as he dashed through the wall after Pops.

  “Passing through is easy, Kaz,” Little John said. “Watch!”

  Kaz watched his little brother turn cartwheels through the wall. Little John was only six. He had already mastered most of the basic ghost skills. He could glow, wail, shrink, expand, and pass through walls.

  Kaz was nine. He could shrink and he could expand. But he couldn’t glow, he couldn’t wail, and he didn’t like to pass through walls. He had tried it once. It made him feel skizzy.

  Cosmo poked his head back through the wall. He barked twice at Kaz, then disappeared again.

  “I think Cosmo is saying, ‘Follow me, Kaz. Follow me!’” Mom said in a pretend doggy voice.

  Kaz moaned.

  Mom reached for Kaz’s hand and led him toward the wall. “Let’s try it together.”

  A solid mouse skittered into a hole in the floorboard. A solid spider danced across her web in front of the window.

  “Here we go,” Mom said. “One . . . two . . . three!” She passed through the wall.

  Kaz yanked his hand out of Mom’s grasp. He couldn’t do it. He just couldn’t!

  Instead, he swam over to the door, sucked his body in, and shrunk down, down, down . . . until he was no larger than that old book in the corner and no thicker than one of the pages inside. Then he dived down and slid under the door. Blowing dust mites out of his way, he swam along the hallway and into the next classroom, where his family waited.

  Little John groaned as Kaz expanded to his normal size and shape.

  Mom and Pops shook their heads sadly.

  “You’ll never survive in the Outside if you don’t learn your basic ghost skills,” warned Pops.

  “We worry about you, Kaz,” Mom said, putting her arm around him. “There are solids in the Outside. You need ghost skills to protect yourself from solids.”

  There was also WIND in the Outside. Wind that could pick up a ghost and blow him away forever.

  “I’m never going to leave this old schoolhouse,” Kaz told his family. “And the solids hardly ever come in here, so I don’t really need ghost skills.” Kaz had never been outside his haunt before, but he was way more afraid of wind than he was of solids.

  “Sometimes things happen that we don’t expect,” Mom said. “Don’t you remember what happened to Finn?” Finn was Kaz’s big brother.

  “And your grandparents?” Pops added.

  How could Kaz forget?

  Finn, Kaz, and Little John had been playing Keep Away one day last spring. Finn often pushed his arm or leg through the wall to the Outside because he liked to hear Kaz and Little John squeal. But that day he stuck his head a little too far through the wall . . . and the wind pulled him all the way into the Outside.

  Kaz and Little John had heard Finn screaming for help, but all they could do was yell for their parents and grandparents.

  Grandmom and Grandpop charged through the Outside wall and tried to rescue Finn, but the wind was too strong. Finn, Grandmom, and Grandpop were all lost in the Outside. Nobody knew what had become of them.

  “That won’t happen to me,” Kaz said now. How could it? He never went near the Outside walls.

  All of a sudden, there was a loud CRASH! above them. The whole building shook, and bits of ceiling rained down around Kaz.

  The ghosts looked up. “What was that?” asked Little John.

  “You kids stay here,” Pops ordered. He and Mom swam to the ceiling and passed through to the upstairs.

  Little John never liked to be left out of
anything, so Kaz wasn’t surprised when his brother followed Pops and Mom through the ceiling. And Cosmo followed Little John.

  Kaz swam to the dirty window and peered outside. He saw several big, yellow trucks parked in front of their haunt. One of them had a tall arm on the back. Kaz watched the arm raise a large, heavy ball into the air.

  CRASH! The ball banged against the top of their haunt, and the whole building shook again.

  Kaz heard Mom moan. He heard Pops groan.

  “Mom? Pops?” called Kaz. “What’s happening?” When they didn’t answer, he swam along the rickety staircase to the second floor.

  “No, Kaz!” Pops yelled back. “Don’t come up here!”

  Too late: Kaz was already at the top of the stairs.

  He could hardly believe his eyes. Part of the ceiling had caved in. A huge chunk of the side wall was gone. And Mom, Pops, Little John, and Cosmo were all floating in the Outside.

  Kaz tried to backstroke away from the hole in the wall. But the wind was even stronger than he expected it to be. It pullllllled him into the Outside and flung him head over heels.

  Above him, Mom, Pops, Little John, and Cosmo drifted higher and higher, each one moving in a slightly different direction.

  Below him, the heavy wrecking ball banged into the old schoolhouse again. Kaz watched in shock as the walls of his haunt crumbled into a pile of rubble.

  He pumped his arms, kicked his legs, and tried to swim toward his mom. But the wind held him back.

  He tried swimming toward his dad.

  It was no use. He was powerless in the wind. They all were.

  Mom cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled, “You can’t fight the wind, Kaz. Just let it carry you to a new haunt. I love yooooou!” At least that’s what Kaz thought his mom had said. She was so far away now that it was hard to hear.

  The wind carried Kaz farther and farther away from what was left of his haunt. And farther away from the rest of his family.

  Tears dribbled down Kaz’s cheeks. “Mom . . . Pops . . . Little John . . . Cosmo . . .”

  He couldn’t even see his haunt anymore. Or his family.

  He was all alone in the Outside.

  It was so bright. The sun felt warm on Kaz’s head, arms, and back. Too warm.

  The wind tossed and blew him over fields . . . trees . . . houses . . . a lake. Then more trees . . . a city with tall buildings. Fields again. Lots and lots of fields.

  Kaz rode the wind all afternoon. Would it ever let him go?

  Finally, the wind slowed and Kaz drifted down . . . down . . . down.

  A big white house with a wraparound porch loomed ahead. The wind thrust Kaz straight toward the house and in through an open window.

  Now that he was away from the Outside wind, Kaz could swim again. He paddled hard to the far corner of the room. As far from that open window as he could get. His whole body trembled in fear.

  Once he was sure the wind wouldn’t pull him back into the Outside, Kaz slowly turned and looked around. Where am I? he wondered.

  He was in a brightly lit room. It was almost as bright as the Outside. The room was full of bookshelves. Rows and rows of tall bookshelves, just like the library in his old haunt. Except these bookshelves didn’t have any dust, and they held way more books.

  Kaz swam to the next room. A sign on the door read: NONFICTION ROOM. There were more books in there. Books . . . magazines . . . newspapers . . . tables . . . chairs. And solids. Real, live solids.

  Kaz had never seen so many solids all at once, and he’d never been this close to them before.

  Some of them walked around with their feet actually touching the floor. When they walked, their feet made noise.

  Other solids sat on chairs. They sat there without floating away.

  What would it feel like to walk on the floor or sit on a chair? Kaz wondered.

  He didn’t notice the solid woman walking toward him until it was too late. “Aaaaaaah!” he shrieked as she walked right through him. Passing through any solid object felt strange to Kaz. But passing through a solid person, or having one pass through him, felt even worse than passing through a wall or a door. It felt like the person was swimming around inside of him. Ick. Ick. Ick.

  The solid woman shivered, then turned to her friend. “I just felt a sudden chill. Do you feel it, too?”

  “Everyone says this library is haunted,” said the friend.

  Haunted? Does that mean other ghosts live here? Kaz had never met any ghosts outside of his family.

  “There are always strange things going on around here,” said a third solid woman. “I’ve heard about books opening and closing by themselves. Lights blinking on and off. And some people have even seen and heard the library ghost.”

  None of those solids could see Kaz.

  Kaz glided into the next room. It wasn’t really a room; it was more of an entryway. It had a bench in the middle and a large sprawling plant in the corner, and every wall had one or two doors. Most of those doors stood wide open, and there were signs in front of them: FICTION ROOM. NONFICTION ROOM. CHILDREN’S ROOM. CRAFT ROOM. The one door that was closed appeared to be a door to the Outside. Across from it was a wide staircase that spiraled as it went up. A black cat sat on the fourth step.

  “Meow,” said the cat, gazing up at Kaz through strange yellow eyes.

  Finn had told Kaz that solid animals could see ghosts when they weren’t glowing, but Grandpop said that was an old ghosts’ tale.

  The cat meowed again, then scuttled past Kaz. It certainly acted as though it could see Kaz.

  THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD!

  Kaz jumped. What is that? he wondered, raising his eyes to the ceiling.

  The thudding grew louder as an entire family of solids appeared at the top of the stairs above Kaz: a mother, a father, and a girl about Kaz’s age. They made a terrible racket as they thundered down the stairs.

  Kaz darted out of the way before any of them could pass through him.

  The girl carried a green bag on her shoulder. She seemed to glance briefly at Kaz, but he was sure it was his imagination. Everyone knew that solids couldn’t see ghosts unless they were glowing. Kaz couldn’t glow even if he wanted to.

  The girl followed her mom and dad to a small closet under the stairs. “But why can’t I come with you?” she asked.

  “Because we’re going to be out most of the night,” the mom replied as she grabbed a light jacket from the closet.

  “So?” said the girl. “It’s summer vacation. I can stay up. I can help you with your case.” She opened her bag and pulled out a bunch of objects. “I can take pictures. I can dust for fingerprints. I can look stuff up for you on my phone. I can take notes—I’m really good at taking notes!”

  The girl held up a book of some kind. Two other books fell to the floor beside her. Those books were the only things Kaz recognized in that whole pile of stuff.

  “I’m sorry, Claire,” her dad said firmly. “But an overnight stakeout is no place for a young girl.”

  “That’s why we moved in here with Grandma Karen,” Claire’s mom said. “Grandma needs help running the library, and we need someone to take care of you when we’re out on a case.”

  “I don’t need to be taken care of,” Claire grumbled.

  A grandmother solid walked into the entryway behind Kaz. She sort of reminded Kaz of his own grandmom, except this grandmom had a pink stripe in her white hair. Kaz had never seen hair like that before.

  “Why don’t you come with me, Claire,” the grandmother said. “You can help me put away some books, and then we can decorate the children’s room for Reptile Day. Won’t that be fun?”

  Claire did not look like she thought that would be fun at all. “I don’t want to be a librarian,” she said. “I want to be a detective.”

  “Unfortunately, you’re
not old enough to be a detective,” Claire’s dad said.

  Claire’s mom blew her a kiss, then opened the door to the Outside.

  Kaz felt the wind and quickly backstroked away. The wind stopped as soon as Claire’s parents closed the door.

  “If you change your mind, I’ll be in the children’s room,” Claire’s grandma said, walking away.

  Claire plopped down on the bottom step. “I’m not going to change my mind,” she said as she slammed all those strange objects back into her bag. Then she turned her head and looked straight at Kaz. “I hate being treated like a little kid! Don’t you?”

  Kaz looked around. Who is this solid girl talking to? Certainly not . . . me?

  The solid girl looked right at Kaz, as though she could actually see him.

  Kaz glanced down at himself. Was he glowing?

  No.

  Then there was no way this girl could see him.

  Could she?

  Kaz swam to the right. Claire’s eyes followed him to the right.

  He swam to the left. Claire’s eyes followed him to the left.

  He waved his hand in front of Claire’s face and she blinked.

  Kaz stared, wide-eyed. “C-can you see me?” he whispered.

  “Yes.”

  Kaz gasped. “And you can hear me, too?”

  “Of course.”

  “Aaaaah!” Kaz shrieked. He’d never heard of a solid who could see ghosts when they weren’t glowing. He’d never heard of a solid who could hear ghosts when they weren’t wailing.

  This girl could do both. Was she some sort of magical solid girl?

  Whatever she was, she scared Kaz. He turned and swam away as fast as he could.

  “Where are you going?” Claire called as she held tight to her green bag and ran after him. She chased him into the nonfiction room and followed him up one row of bookshelves and down another. She could run almost as fast as Kaz could swim.

  “Young lady!” An older solid lady tapped her cane on the floor. “Does your grandma let you run in the library?”