I ran after the “ghost” as it made for the window, the floor boards shuddering with its heavy steps. Not very wraithlike. It slung a leg over the sill and I lunged. My fingers brushed what felt like cotton. Definitely not ectoplasm or slime or whatever spirits were supposed to be made of. I stuck my head out the window. At the back of the house, the room faced the garden and cemetery. The roof sloped gradually beneath the window and a heavy drainpipe three feet to the left would provide a reasonably strong and agile teen with all the help he needed in shinnying to the ground. I looked out across the landscape. Heavy clouds blotted out the moon and stars, but I could vaguely make out a dark form sprinting toward the cemetery. He—I was darn sure it was Lonnie—must have shucked the sheet in order to run faster.
I had no chance of catching Lonnie, even if I’d been willing to risk climbing out on the roof, so I pulled my head in and returned to the landing. Spaatz had joined Tyler and one of them had shut off the boom box. Thank goodness. The eerie wailing was giving me a headache. I hoped the pranksters hadn’t tortured cats to record such hideous yowling.
“Did you catch Cyril?” Tyler asked when I reappeared. He was shorter than Lonnie but bulky through the shoulders, and had straight black hair and a few acne scars low on his cheeks. His look of affected innocence made me want to smack him.
“Hardly,” I said in as damping a tone as I could manage with my breaths coming a bit faster than usual and my heart pounding extra hard in my chest. From running up the stairs, of course. “And I didn’t catch Lonnie, either. He was headed for the cemetery last I saw him.”
“Where else would you expect a ghost to go?” Tyler asked with a smart-ass grin.
Tyler’s smirk vanished when Spaatz grabbed him by the upper arm. He quickly let go as visions of lawsuits, I assumed, raced through his head. He folded his lips together, as if to keep hasty words from spewing out, took a deep breath, and said, “I’ve taught sixth graders with more sense.” His gaze raked Tyler.
“Hey, it was just—”
Spaatz cut him off with a sharp movement of his hand. “Where’s Coach Peet? I hope he’s not counting on having you buffoons in the starting lineup next Friday.”
The front door cracked open, letting in a gust of wind and a scattering of dead leaves. Everyone’s heads swiveled and a couple of people flinched as the door gaped wider. Coach Peet stepped in. He glanced around at the crowd, his brows drawing together over his beaky nose.
“Wally.” Spaatz spoke from the landing, bringing Peet’s head up. “Take this miserable prankster and park him on the bus.” He gave Tyler a light shove toward the stairs. “Then go find his partner in crime and lock him up, too. He was last seen heading for the cemetery.”
“What happened? Tyler, get—I want to know—” The coach broke off and settled for glaring as Tyler clomped down the stairs. Coach Peet held the door wide and gestured the youth out. He followed, slamming the door so the portraits on the walls shook.
The fog machine was still spewing and I bent to turn it off as the kids dispersed again. The boys’ flattened backpacks lay beside the machine.
“Are all your classes this exciting?” I asked Spaatz, trying to lighten the mood.
“Fortunately, no. Mostly it’s just dry old stuff out of the textbook. Boring.”
“Somehow, I doubt that,” I said. I was sure the high school girls, at least, weren’t bored in his class.
His smile reached his eyes this time and he studied me with awakening interest.
“Hey, Mr. Spaatz, can we be on the landing now?” Rachel called from the foot of the stairs.
Spaatz shook his head. “No, I think we’ll leave the landing open. After all this activity, I can’t imagine old Cyril would want to show up here.”
Residual adrenaline from my ghost chase had me hyped up and I decided to check on the students posted in the outbuildings, including the kitchen, stable, and carriage house museum. The fresh air felt cool against my heated skin, and I dawdled along the oyster shell path hooking the buildings together. An owl whoo-whooed from a stand of trees to my left and I looked for her but couldn’t spot her. Three or four minutes spent with the pairs in the outbuildings convinced me that not even a science experiment involving ghost hunting could hold students’ attention forever. The kids in the museum were still zealous about the mission, recording readings from their EMF monitors every few minutes, but the other students seemed bored and ready to call it quits.
Reminding the girls in the kitchen that there was only fifteen minutes to go, I headed back outside. The air seemed heavier, pressing on my skin in a palpable way. Or maybe it was just my mood. Lonnie and Tyler’s escapade had left me unsettled and I was wishing I’d stayed home with Julia Roberts. I had almost reached the front door of the mansion when a loud explosion made me jump. What in the world—? A shreee split the night and then a burst of green and gold broke over the cemetery, showering the darkness with colored light. I laughed with relief. Fireworks. Someone was shooting off fireworks. My money was on the erstwhile ghost, Lonnie.