It was late when the second movie ended and the last of the cars had left the drive-in theater. Uncle Flick had returned to the house, and all seemed quiet outside.
Watch stood at the door to the porch. He wanted to go for one last walk before bedtime.
“We’ll take him,” Jessie told Grandfather. The children put on their shoes and found their flashlights. Jessie picked up Watch’s leash. Then they walked across the lawn of the Fletcher house toward the theater. Everything was dark—except for the neon sign that read DUKE’S DOGS. It shone brightly in the distance.
“Look, Mr. Duke’s sign is fixed!” said Violet. “We were so busy tonight we didn’t even notice.”
The children and Watch walked towards the sign to get a closer look. When they had gotten as close as they could, they were behind the movie screen. They were close enough to the road to hear cars going by. Though it was night, the Aldens didn’t need their flashlights, because the pink and orange glow of the big neon sign was so bright. It lit up the back of the screen.
“Wow,” said Jessie. “The other day I thought that someone was hiding something back here. But it’s too bright to hide anything! You can see almost everything from the road.”
“But wait,” Violet said. “What if that’s why the sign was broken last night?”
Henry thought about this. “That’s possible. All along we’ve thought someone broke the sign to make Mr. Duke angry. But maybe somebody wanted it to be dark back here.”
“But why?” Jessie said. “There’s nothing here.” She looked on the ground by the screen. Nothing.
Violet wasn’t looking at the ground. She was looking up and she saw something along the top of the screen. Had that always been there? she wondered. It was high up and hard to see. She wanted to look closer. But then Benny made her forget what she was doing.
“Ghost!” he said, in a very loud whisper. “Ghost!” Watch started barking, too.
The children turned and saw the ghostly figure. It walked along a fence in the theater lot. The children hurried out to see it better. But while Jessie, Violet, and Benny raced towards the ghost, Henry did not. He turned and ran toward the projection booth.
“Hey!” he called. The others stopped and watched him as he ran up the steps of the booth and threw open the door.
“Henry, what are you doing?” Violet yelled.
Amy and Joey were in the booth. The film projector was on. Amy gasped and then reached over to turn it off. As soon as she did, the ghost disappeared.
“I knew it!” said Henry. The other children had run up to join him. “I knew the ghost had to be a movie of some kind.”
Jessie glared at Amy and Joey. “Why were you doing that? Why were you trying to make the theater seem haunted?” she said.
“I know why!” Benny said. But he wasn’t able to finish. Just then, Uncle Flick drove up in his golf cart with Grandfather.
“What’s all this about?” he said to Amy and Joey. “I heard voices out here, and I saw this ‘ghost’ of yours. What are you two up to?” he was very angry.
“We can explain,” said Joey.
“You’ll do no such thing!” growled Uncle Flick. “I’ve had it! You’re done here! You’re—”
“Wait!” Benny yelled. He turned to Joey and Amy. “Tell him!” he said. “Tell Uncle Flick about the haunted house!”
“What?” said Jessie.
“How did you know?” said Amy.
“Haunted house?!” said Uncle Flick. “What are you talking about?”
“I’ll show you!” said Benny. “Follow me!”
Benny led them all to the storage shed, where Amy had told the children not to go. Benny pulled open the door.
“Turn on the light!” he said to Joey.
Joey did. And the children couldn’t believe what was inside.
“Yikes! A huge spider!” Violet said. Then she laughed.
“Oh my gosh, look at that bat!” Jessie exclaimed. And she laughed, too.
“Wow, that mummy is amazing!” said Benny.
The shed was filled with all kinds of haunted house things—fake skeletons, cobwebs, and plastic bats hanging from the ceiling. There were spooky gravestones made from painted wood, and even a casket with a lid that lifted to show a mummy inside.
“This stuff is even better than the haunted house they have every year at the Greenfield Town Hall!” Henry said.
Amy grinned. “We’ve been working on it for two months,” she said.
“It’s very impressive,” said Grandfather. “But what’s it all for? And why were you keeping it secret?”
Joey pushed the hair out of his eyes. He turned to Uncle Flick. “Well, see, Amy and I had this idea to do a special event here at the theater this fall. We would call it ‘Haunted House Days’ and open the theater during the day.”
“And at night we would show monster movies. And have hayrides,” said Amy.
“And we’d decorate the whole theater with all this spooky stuff and special effects. But …” said Joey.
“Go on,” said Uncle Flick.
“We were afraid that you wouldn’t want to do it. We were worried you’d think it was too much work. So we decided to do it all by ourselves and surprise you,” Joey said.
“During the day, we worked on making things here in the shed,” said Amy “And at night, we tested out the ‘ghost’ special effect. I’m a film student at college, so I made a short movie of Joey walking around draped in a sheet. Then we projected it against the fence so that it looked like a ghost.”
“It really did look like one,” Jessie said. The other children agreed.
“But we never meant to scare anyone for real,” said Amy. “We’re so sorry about that.”
Joey looked down at his feet. “And we’re sorry we haven’t been keeping a better eye on things. If I hadn’t been here painting stuff maybe the snack bar wouldn’t have been vandalized.”
“It’s not your fault, Joey,” said Uncle Flick. He didn’t look angry now. He had a wistful smile. “I just wished you’d told me about your ideas. All along I thought you weren’t interested in helping run the Diamond Drive-in. I wish I’d known before I decided to sell it.” He sighed. “But this ‘Haunted House Days’ is a fine idea. It’ll be a good thing to do at the end of the season. It’ll be a great way to say good-bye to the theater.”
Joey and Amy looked at each other, and then at the Aldens. They were wistful, too.
“Yes,” said Joey. “It will.” |