“Look! It looks just like a dinosaur!” Six-year-old Benny Alden pointed out the window of the car.
Henry, Jessie, and Violet Alden looked where their younger brother was pointing, and Watch, their dog, sat up and put his paws on the edge of the window. Only Grandfather Alden didn’t look, because he was driving.
“You’re right, Benny,” said Henry, who was fourteen. “It does look like a dinosaur.”
“I think it’s an old house that’s falling down,” said Violet, who was ten.
“Or being mashed by all those green vines that are covering it,” Jessie said, who was twelve and often acted motherly toward her younger sister and brother.
“Those green vines are everywhere!” Benny exclaimed. “What are they?”
“The vines are called kudzu,” Grandfather Alden told him. “It’s considered a weed in the South. People have to fight to keep it from covering everything. I’ve read it can grow up to four inches a day.”
“A monster vine that eats everything,” said Jessie.
Benny shivered and pretended to be afraid. He leaned over and said, “Watch, be careful! You don’t want to get eaten by the monster vines!”
Watch, a small dog who acted as if he were much bigger, peered out the window and cocked his head. He wasn’t sure what Benny was talking about, but he was ready to face it.
Henry, who was sitting in the front seat next to Grandfather, looked up from the map he held. “It looks like we’re almost there,” he announced. “According to the map, we’re only about twelve miles from Elbow Bend, Alabama.”
“We are?” Benny asked. “Good. I’m hot. And thirsty!” he said.
“Not hungry, too?” Henry teased Benny.
Benny thought about that for a moment. “Maybe,” he said. “I could be hungry, too.”
“Don’t worry, Benny,” Grandfather Alden said. “I’m sure Sally Wade will have a nice cold drink and something waiting for us to eat.” Mrs. Sally Wade was an old friend of Grandfather’s who had invited the Aldens to visit.
“Oh, good.” Benny bounced a little on the seat with excitement. “Then the only other thing we’ll need is a good mystery to solve. Let’s ask Mrs. Wade if she has a mystery for us when we get there.”
“We’ll do that,” Grandfather agreed. “Although it’s a small town, Elbow Bend is famous for its fine old houses. It was one of the first settlements in the state. It’s bound to have at least one haunted house.”
“Not Mrs. Wade’s house?” Benny asked, sounding half afraid and half hopeful.
“No, probably not the Wade house,” Grandfather said, smiling.
Benny looked relieved. “Look out, ghosts, here we come!”
With Henry reading the directions, Grandfather had no trouble finding Mrs. Wade’s house. Like many of the houses they passed, it was a big old house with a wide front porch. Mrs. Wade’s house had a porch upstairs and down and was painted white with dark green shutters. An old oak tree draped with moss shaded the front yard. Flower beds bloomed along the front walk and around the house.
“It doesn’t look haunted at all,” Benny said. “None of the houses we’ve passed look haunted.”
“Maybe that’s a ghost!” said Jessie as the front door of the house opened and a small silver-haired woman stepped out. She shaded her eyes with her hands to see the Aldens better.
Grandfather laughed. “That’s no ghost. That’s Sally Wade.”
Mrs. Wade waved at them. “Y’all are just in time for iced tea and cookies,” she called. “Come on in.”
Benny and Watch ran up the front walk, while the others followed more slowly.
As Benny got closer, Mrs. Wade smiled. Lines crinkled at the corners of her brown eyes. “I think you must be Benny,” she said.
“You’re right!” Benny cried. “How did you know? Did Grandfather tell you?”
Before Mrs. Wade could answer, he went on, “And this is Watch. And here comes Jessie—she’s twelve—and Violet—she’s ten. Henry’s fourteen, and we don’t know how old Watch is, because we found him. I’m not sure how old Grandfather is, either.”
“Old enough,” said Grandfather, smiling. He came up the steps and gave Mrs. Wade a hug.
“It’s so good to see you, James,” Mrs. Wade said. “It’s been much too long.”
Just then, the door opened and two girls of about eighteen or nineteen came out.
“Hi,” said Benny. “Did you bring the cookies?”
The taller of the two girls, who wore her dark brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, said calmly, “Not yet. We’ll help you bring your luggage in and show you your rooms first. I’m Kate Frances Wade. Mrs. Wade is my grandmother.”
She motioned to the girl next to her, who had curly red hair and green eyes. “And this is Elaine Johnston. She’s a real practical joker. You have to keep an eye on her!”
“Call me Lainey,” the girl said with a warm smile.
“I’m Benny,” Benny said. After everyone had been introduced, Kate Frances and Lainey helped the Aldens bring in their suitcases and showed them to their rooms.
Benny especially liked his room, which was across the hall from Henry’s. It was small and fitted neatly under the sloping roof at the back of the house. It had a window with a window seat. Benny and Watch knelt on the pillow there and peered out the window. They saw a big backyard with a garden in it.
“It’s nice, Watch. But no boxcar,” Benny said.
“Boxcar?” asked Kate Frances, who had taken Benny to his room.
“We have a boxcar in our backyard in Greenfield,” Benny explained. “We used to live in it when we were orphans.”
“You did?” Kate Frances raised her eyebrows in surprise.
“Yes. Before Grandfather found us and we went to live with him,” Benny said.
Henry had come into the room and he and Benny told the story of how the Aldens thought the grandfather they didn’t know would be mean so they found the old boxcar in the woods and decided to live there.
“That’s where we found Watch,” Benny put in.
“Then Grandfather found us,” Henry explained. “And we went to live with him.”
“And he moved the boxcar. It’s behind our house in Greenfield now so we can still visit it whenever we want,” Benny concluded.
“That’s quite a story,” Kate Frances said. “I’m sorry we don’t have a boxcar of our own.”
“If you had a ghost, it would be almost as good,” Benny said hopefully.
“A ghost? Hmmm. Why don’t we go have some tea and cookies,” suggested Kate Frances.
They went back downstairs and found Grandfather, Jessie, Violet, and Lainey gathered on the porch. Benny spotted the plate of cookies and the pitcher of iced tea on the porch table.
Lainey poured him a glass of iced tea and he took a cookie and went to sit on the porch swing with Jessie.
“I was talking about our jobs at Elbow Bend State Park,” Lainey told them. “Kate Frances and I are working there and staying with Mrs. Wade this summer. We just finished our first year at the state university.”
Mrs. Wade pushed open the screen door and came out with a bowl of water, which she put in the corner of the porch in the shade. “For you, Watch,” she said.
Mrs. Wade sat down. Kate Frances poured her some iced tea and said, “Benny’s been telling me that he wishes we lived in a haunted house.”
“Benny!” said Jessie.
“Well, maybe next door to a haunted house,” said Benny. “I guess I wouldn’t want to live with a ghost.”
Everyone laughed, and Benny laughed, too.
“I hate to tell you, Sally,” Grandfather said, “but I did say that there might be a haunted house in an old town like Elbow Bend.”
Mrs. Wade’s eyes sparkled. “Now, how did you guess?” she said. “We have a town full of ghosts! And even better, Kate Frances is a very good ghost finder!” |