Some people jumped up to look.
But most of the audience just stared as a small white doglike figure seemed to float through the dark shadows beneath the huge old trees at the far side of the clearing.
And then it was gone.
“Everyone stay calm,” said the storyteller. She raised her hands. “I’m glad you enjoyed the conclusion of our performance.”
“Oh, it was part of the act,” a man near the Aldens said in a relieved voice.
“I knew it wasn’t a real dog,” said a freckle-faced girl with wiry red hair.
An older woman began to applaud and the rest of the crowd did, too.
Benny, who had jumped up on the bench to see better, turned to Kate Frances. “It was part of the show?” he asked in a disappointed voice.
Kate Frances made a face. “If it was,” she said, “no one told me about it.”
“So it was real?” Violet gasped.
“I don’t know what it was,” she said. “But as soon as we have seen to it that all the guests have gone, I’m going to find out.”
Henry turned to Grandfather Alden. “We need to look into this,” he said. “We can get a ride back to Mrs. Wade’s house with Kate Frances.”
“That’ll be fine,” said Grandfather, his eyes twinkling.
“Good luck looking for clues,” Mrs. Wade added.
“Let’s go look for footprints,” Jessie said. “A ghost doesn’t leave footprints.”
They turned to walk to the dark trees at the edge of the clearing. Henry said, “Violet? Are you coming?”
Violet was looking up at the stage, where Kate Frances was talking to the storyteller. Lainey had joined them, as had several other people. They were all talking and several were holding out pens and paper for an autograph. Violet stared at one of the people in the group who seemed familiar somehow. ...
“Violet?” Henry said again.
“I remember now!” Violet said suddenly. “I remember where I’ve seen that woman!”
“Which one?” asked Benny.
“The one with the black hair and the red lipstick. I’m sure it’s her,” Violet said.
Benny, Jessie, and Henry studied the dark-haired woman. She was talking and waving her hands at the storyteller onstage. Then she held out a book and flipped open the pages.
Jessie said, “Oh. I remember her, too. She was one of the tourists who took Kate Frances’s photograph the first day we were here.”
“Well, it’s too bad she didn’t take a picture of the ghost dog,” Benny said. He paused, then added, “Of course, you can’t really take a picture of a ghost.”
“True. But you can look for footprints,” said Henry. “Let’s go.”
But although the Aldens searched all along the edge of the clearing, kneeling on the ground to brush away leaves and covering every inch of ground where the ghost dog had been, they didn’t find anything that would help them solve the mystery.
They didn’t find a single paw print.
“There was a dog,” Violet said. “We all saw it!”
“A glowing dog that floated along the ground and didn’t leave any footprints,” said Henry.
“And we heard it howl,” Jessie said. She stopped, frowned, and said, “No, we didn’t. The howling happened just as the dog was floating by here. But it seemed to be coming from somewhere else.”
“Another dog was howling?” asked Benny. “Well, it wasn’t Watch. He’s at Mrs. Wade’s. If he was howling, we couldn’t have heard him.”
“Hey! Time to go!” they heard Kate Frances call. She pointed in the direction of the car and then she, Lainey, and the storyteller began to walk up the path.
The Aldens followed. They talked about the case as they walked.
Jessie said, “We’ve heard dogs howling in town. And now we saw a ghost dog here and heard a dog howling,” she went on.
“And someone, or something, is digging holes where Dr. Sage and Brad are working,” Violet said.
“Someone has also tipped over garbage cans along trails,” Jessie said. “So it looks as if someone is working against the Elbow Bend State Park.”
“What’s that got to do with a ghost dog howling in town at midnight?” Benny asked.
“Maybe nothing. Maybe that isn’t part of the mystery, Benny. Maybe it’s just a coincidence,” Violet said. “And maybe there’s no ghost dog in the town of Elbow Bend. After all, we haven’t seen one there.”
Ahead of them, the others reached the parking lot.
“Look, there’s Joshua,” said Henry.
They watched as the grounds-crew chief picked up a piece of paper and put it into a nearby trash can, with a glare at the remaining people. He opened the passenger door of a station wagon and they saw another groundskeeper driving. “Thanks for the ride,” they heard Joshua say. “I don’t know when that car of mine will be fixed.”
Joshua slammed the door and the car drove away. Then the storyteller got into her car and drove away, too. Now only Lainey and Kate Frances and a few of the audience members were left.
“There is a ghost dog in Elbow Bend,” Benny insisted. “Even if we haven’t seen it, we’ve heard it!”
They’d reached the parking lot now, and everyone heard Benny’s words. Faces turned in their direction.
“Ghost dog in Elbow Bend?” the woman with the dark hair cried. “Did you say you’d seen it there?”
“No. I’ve just heard it. I only saw it tonight,” Benny said.
Some people stopped walking and turned to listen. The woman turned to Kate Frances and Lainey and said in a loud voice, “See? I knew it wasn’t part of the show. I knew the ghost dog was real! And you owe it to the public to tell the truth about what’s going on in this town, as well as everything that’s happened in this park!”
The woman looked from Kate Frances to Lainey. Kate Frances just shook her head. “There is no such thing as a ghost,” she said. “There’s a logical explanation for all of this, and we don’t need to frighten people with old ghost stories.”
“You have to tell people the truth,” said the woman, and marched away across the parking lot and down the road.
Kate Frances said, “Great. Why is this happening all of a sudden? I think she’s some kind of writer. Probably a reporter.
This’ll probably turn up in the news.” Brad, who was standing by Lainey said,
“Too bad Dr. Sage was at that dinner party.
She’d have been very interested in all of this.”
“Well, don’t worry,” Lainey said to Kate Frances. “We’ll just pretend none of this happened.”
“Yes,” said Kate Frances. “But somehow, I don’t think ignoring it is going to make our troubles go away.”
“OOOOooooohhhh! OOOOooooohhh!” Loud howls sounded in the night.
Benny sat up. He grabbed for the lamp on the bedside table and flicked the switch. Light flooded his bedroom as Watch answered the ghostly noise with a howl of his own.
The door opened and Henry came in. “Are you okay, Benny?”
Before Benny could answer, more howls rose up from all around the neighborhood. Dogs all over Elbow Bend were joining in the ghostly chorus.
“Twelve midnight exactly,” Jessie said, coming in behind Henry, with Violet on her heels.
Suddenly Watch flattened his ears and barked.
Benny ran to the screen and tried to see out.
“Turn out the light,” Henry said. “We can see out better without it.”
Violet switched off the light.
Almost at once Watch barked again, a short warning bark. At the same time, Benny cried, “There it is! The ghost dog!”
The Aldens crowded around the window. Sure enough, at the foot of the lawn, a small white figure was floating along the ground, rising and falling.
“Come on! We can catch that dog!” Jessie said. She turned and ran out of the room.
“Get your flashlight, Benny,” Henry said. “Let’s go.”
The Aldens thundered down the stairs of the old house, through the hall, and out the kitchen door into the backyard.
Behind them, they heard Grandfather call, “What’s wrong?”
“The ghost dog!” Benny called over his shoulder.
With their flashlights crisscrossing the night, they ran across the long sloping lawn.
The dog was nowhere to be seen.
Watch barked again and raced into the woods.
“Watch! Wait for us!” Benny called. He ran after the small, brave dog, wondering what he would do if he and Watch actually caught the ghost.
They thrashed through the trees, ran through the backyard of another house, and came out on a street. Watch stood under a dim streetlight, staring up the road. He was growling in a soft disapproving way when the Aldens reached him.
“Did you see the ghost?” Benny asked. He dropped to his knees and hugged Watch. “Good dog!”
Violet said, “Why would a ghost run out to a street and then disappear?”
“I have a better question,” said Jessie.
“How could Watch smell a ghost to track it this far? Only a real dog would have a smell!”
“The howling has stopped,” Violet said. “Listen.”
It was true. Now the night sounds of crickets and the wind in the trees were all they could hear.
“I guess we’d better get back,” Henry said. “But this time, we’ll use the street instead of cutting through someone’s backyard!”
As they walked back, Jessie said, “It’s definite. The ghost dog is part of the mystery at Elbow Bend State Park.”
“Trash cans tipped over, holes dug, dogs howling, and a glowing white dog that doesn’t leave footprints.” Violet reeled off the list of events.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Henry said. “Why would the dog appear at the park, and here, in town, in our backyard?”
They’d almost reached the house when Jessie stopped. “Let’s go take another look in the woods,” she said. “I have an idea. But first ...” Untying her bathrobe, she took the sash and looped it through Watch’s collar.
“What’re you doing that for?” asked Violet.
“You’ll see,” said Jessie mysteriously.
Once more, but at a slower pace, Jessie led the way across Mrs. Wade’s big backyard on the trail of the ghost dog. “Here, Watch,” she said when they’d reached the trees at the foot of the yard. “Find the dog. Find the dog.”
Watch immediately began to tug on the sash. He pulled Jessie along through the woods, his nose to the ground. He zigzagged in and out among trees and through bushes.
Suddenly Jessie hauled back on the makeshift leash. “Whoa, Watch,” she said. Turning her flashlight slightly to one side of where Watch stood expectantly, she said, “There. See it?”
“It ... glows,” Violet said.
“What is it?” Benny asked.
Henry bent over the dash of white on the rough trunk of a tree. He touched it and pulled back a finger. “It’s wet,” he said.
“It’s paint,” said Jessie.
“Glow-in-the-dark paint!” Violet explained.
“That’s why we saw a dog that glowed in the dark,” Jessie said. “Someone had put paint on part of its coat.”
“It’s not a ghost?” Benny asked.
“Not at all. This is proof,” Henry answered, holding up his paint-dotted fingertip.
“But how could whoever did this make the dog float?” Violet asked. “And why? And why dig the holes and turn over the trash cans? Why would they want everyone to believe that a ghost dog is haunting Elbow Bend?”
“I don’t know,” said Henry.
The Aldens began to walk back toward the house.
“It could be Joshua, trying to scare tourists away from Elbow Bend,” said Jessie. “He was at the storytelling session, but we didn’t see him when the ghost dog appeared. And it would be easy for him to sneak into the park and turn over trash cans and dig holes.”
“Yes. He’s a very good suspect. But it does seem as if the appearance of a ghost dog would bring more tourists, rather than fewer,” mused Henry.
“Maybe.” Jessie thought for a moment. “And don’t forget Joshua’s car is broken. He couldn’t drive here in the middle of the night without a car that worked.”
“Unless someone was helping him,” said Violet.
“Maybe ... but what about Lainey? She could be playing a practical joke.”
“Yes. We didn’t see her tonight at all, until after the ghost dog had come and gone,” agreed Violet reluctantly. She didn’t want it to be Lainey. She liked her.
“Or Dr. Sage, to raise money for the park and her digging project,” Henry said. “She wasn’t even at the storytelling session. But maybe she didn’t come so she could sneak up and make us believe we’d seen—and heard—a ghost dog.”
“Don’t forget Brad,” Benny said. “He was there, too.”
“Yes. But again, we didn’t see him until after the ghost dog had appeared and then disappeared,” Violet said. “He could be helping Dr. Sage—or Lainey.”
“We have lots of suspects,” Benny said. “How do we pick out the person who did it?”
“That’s the mystery, Benny,” said Henry. “And I’m not sure how we’re going to solve it.” |