The Hide-and-Seek Ghost Read online

  “What did you say?” Kaz asked.

  “I told them you were safe and that you weren’t coming back until they said you could stay at the library,” Claire said. “Then your mom was all, ‘children don’t make the rules.’ ” She copied Mom’s voice.

  Kaz gulped. “On a scale of one to ten, how much trouble are we in?”

  “That’s the thing,” Claire said as she crossed the street. “I don’t think you are in trouble. After they talked to me, your mom and your grandparents had a big talk with Beckett—”

  “So Beckett is still at the library?” Little John interrupted.

  “Yes,” Claire said. “I wouldn’t say everything’s peachy between Beckett and your family, but things are better. They all want you to come home, so they made a deal. Beckett is going to live in the library. Your grandma and grandpa are going to go back to Valley View. But you and your parents are going to live above the library. Where my family lives. You don’t have to go to Valley View. And you can visit Beckett whenever you want.”

  “Hooray! We don’t have to go to Valley View.” Little John clapped his hands.

  Kaz wasn’t ready to celebrate just yet. Just because their parents had said he and Little John didn’t have to go to Valley View didn’t mean they weren’t in trouble. But maybe when their parents saw Finn, they’d forget all about whatever trouble Kaz and Little John were in. And they’d all live happily ever after.

  “There you are!” Kaz and Little John’s mom said when Claire walked into her living room. The ghosts passed through the water bottle and started to expand.

  “Don’t you ever—” Mom stopped midsentence.

  She blinked, then rubbed her eyes and blinked again. “Finn?” she said. She turned to Claire and Kaz and Little John. “You found Finn?”

  “MICHAEL! MOM! POPS!” Mom called. “YOU’LL NEVER GUESS WHO’S HERE!” She threw her arms around Finn.

  “Oh my goodness,” Grandmom said as she and the rest of the family wafted into the room. They raced toward Finn, hugging and kissing him.

  Woof! Woof! Cosmo barked.

  Finn expaaaaanded over his family’s heads. “Cosmo? Is that you?”

  His tail wagging, the ghost dog worked his way toward Finn and started licking him all over.

  Finn laughed. “I haven’t seen you in so long, old buddy!” he said, hugging his dog.

  “Thank you for finding Finn,” Mom said to Claire.

  “I didn’t find him,” Claire said. “Kaz and Little John did.”

  “Good thing we ran away from home, huh?” Little John said. “Otherwise, we wouldn’t have found Finn.”

  Mom frowned. “Yes, we’re going to talk about that.”

  “Don’t you boys ever run away again!” Pops said later, while Claire and her family were asleep. Grandmom, Grandpop, Pops, and Finn hovered nearby.

  “Do you have any idea how worried we were?” Mom added. “How could you run away when we only just found each other again?”

  “We didn’t want to live at Valley View,” Kaz said in a small voice.

  “And you weren’t listening to us,” Little John said.

  “Plus, we thought that if we had to leave the library, you should at least tell us why. What happened between you and Beckett that was so bad we couldn’t all live here together?”

  Mom glanced over at Grandmom and Grandpop. Grandpop nodded slightly.

  Mom turned back to Kaz and Little John. She took a deep breath, then said, “Okay, I’ll tell you.”

  Everyone gathered around Mom, and she began her story. “Beckett and I knew each other because he used to live with us when we were kids.”

  “He did? Why?” Little John asked.

  “Because he got separated from his own family. I’m not sure how or why. You’d have to ask him,” Mom said.

  That seems to happen to ghosts a lot, Kaz thought.

  “Have you ever seen Beckett glow?” Mom asked.

  “No,” Kaz and Little John said at the same time. Kaz added, “He told me he hasn’t glowed in, like, twenty years.”

  Mom looked a little surprised at first. Then she said, “That may be because of what happened when we were kids. You see, when Beckett glows, he doesn’t glow blue like we do. He glows red.”

  “He does?” Little John said, wide-eyed.

  “Cool!” Finn said.

  “No, Finn.” Mom shook her head. “It’s not cool. It’s not cool at all. You see, I used to have a brother. He would’ve been your uncle Dave. He was just a young ghost when Beckett lived with us. He’d never seen Beckett glow before. None of us had. But one day Beckett glowed . . . and it scared my brother so bad that he jumped right through the Outside wall and blew away. We never saw him again.”

  Grandpop cleared his throat. “We asked Beckett to leave after that,” he said. “We were so upset to lose our only son.”

  “And that’s what happened,” Mom said, wiping a tear from her eye. “Seeing Beckett again after all these years brought back all those sad memories. I know it was an accident. But I still lost my brother, because of Beckett.”

  Neither Kaz nor Little John knew what to say. They just felt bad, for Mom and for Beckett.

  “Wait a minute,” Finn said. “What did you say your brother’s name was?”

  “Dave,” Mom replied.

  “I met a ghost named Dave at the movie theater,” Finn said. “I wonder if he could be your brother.”

  Kaz could hardly believe it. Just when he thought he’d found his whole family, he learned about a brand-new family member.

  “Oh, I don’t know. There are probably lots of ghosts named Dave,” Mom said.

  “Still. It’s worth checking out,” Kaz said. What if Finn’s friend Dave really was Mom’s long-lost brother?

  “Let’s ask Claire to take us to the movie theater tomorrow!” Little John said.

  “Yeah, let’s!” Kaz said.

  The ghosts could hardly wait for Claire to wake up.

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