Читать книгу The Ghost of Whispering Willow - Amanda M. Thrasher - Страница 7

Stewart lay in bed and ignored his mother’s voice, knowing that he had at least five minutes before she’d appear at the foot of his bed and force him to get up. He was tired – very tired. The night had been long, and his day was about to get longer. He was certain that he’d covered up his tracks, but for a split second, the thought of being caught crossed his mind. Knowing that he couldn’t afford to get busted for a third time, he glanced over at his shoes. No mud. Good! Tracks covered, he thought.

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, he counted down in his head.

“Stewart, don’t make me come back in there. Get out of the bed now!” his mom yelled from down the hall.

And yet, within seconds, there she stood with that look upon her face, and Stewart knew that he couldn’t afford to mess with her. Reluctantly, he crawled out of his nice warm bed. Hadn’t I just gone to sleep? he wondered. It sure felt that way.

Stewart walked into the bathroom, his brown hair sticking up every which way, and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. His mind was racing. Did I push record on Camera Three? He couldn’t remember. It was all a blur. He turned the shower on and let the water warm up as his mind ran through the events of the night before. It had been dark and late, and he had been scared, though he wouldn’t share that part with Andy. The most important detail of last evening was that he was certain that something or someone had watched him. Stewart grabbed his phone.

Andy, Stewart’s neighbor and his best friend since kindergarten, would know what time they had gotten back from the woods. Andy, blond hair and blue eyed, was always dressed nicely and neatly. In fact, Andy’s casual dress was always nicely done, ironed and everything. Stewart had often tried to wrinkle him up a bit, but it had never worked. Andy possessed another trait that stood out: he was always organized, a real detail freak. Stewart was actually glad about the last part. It made his role in the ghost investigation, the one that they’d just started, a whole lot easier. Every now and then, Andy would get a little adventurous and try to change up his look. He’d use product in his hair, spiking it slightly. But for the most part, Andy always looked the same. Because he loved to write, Andy was the official log keeper of the club that they’d started. Every shirt he owned had a pocket of some sort, even his t-shirts, which always held some sort of pen.

“Hey, it’s me,” Stewart said as soon as Andy picked up. “Were we out all night? Because I hardly remember making it to bed.”

“Nah,” said Andy, his voice muffled from just waking up. “It was late, but not that late!” he said.

Their conversation was very brief. The boys agreed that they would meet earlier than usual and catch up, compare their notes on the bus, and then log anything that they might have missed in the journal. The mission the night before had been a successful one; they hadn’t been busted and Stewart was sure that they’d collected some useful data. He threw on his usual attire: t-shirt, jeans, and sneaks.

***

The bus was never late, though Stewart often wished it were, but today was the exception to the rule. He ran down the street and caught the bus one stop before his regular bus stop. This would give the boys a little extra time to talk. Andy was already waiting for Stewart in their usual seat in the back of the bus, sitting next to the window with pen and log book in hand.

Stewart slid into the seat next to him and made sure that no one was listening. They weren’t. He pulled out a very crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Andy. “Here ya go,” he said, “Here’s my account for the log!”

“Seriously,” Andy said, “That’s your version of notes, for real?”

Stewart ignored the tone of Andy’s voice and asked if Andy had his notes, knowing full well that he did.

Andy rolled his eyes and pulled out a black leather-lined journal, then flipped through the pages to his latest entry. “You know I do,” he said. “Unlike you, I log everything nice and neat in my log book!”

Andy was being slightly sarcastic, but Stewart thought it best not to mention it. Andy was very serious about his notes. The details that he logged were crucial for their mission and Andy did a great job. Stewart thought he was overly sensitive about it, but thought that he should probably be a little nicer to him. He made a mental note: Be nicer to Andy!

“Hey, what’s going on?” a familiar voice asked.

The boys recognized the voice immediately. It was Maggie! She was nosy, with long auburn hair and green eyes, and was always giggling. Maggie wanted to know everything that everyone else was doing, and she always had stuff in her hair. Stewart often wondered why she was always putting puffy things in her hair. Andy swore that he had never noticed. Instinctively, the boys laid their notes down in their laps and concealed them with their hands, because Maggie was:

1 A girl and

2 She talked too much!

“What’s up?” Andy said, hoping that she’d just walk on by.

“Hey, Maggie,” managed Stewart, wondering why she was still standing there.

Maggie continued down the aisle of the bus and sat down next to Kendall. Kendall had dark hair and dark eyes that were gentle and kind. She loved people and animals, and she always smiled. She was talking to Krista and Ally. Krista had blondish-brown hair and brown eyes. She always had a soccer ball in her hand. Next to her was Ally, the little redhead, who loved to laugh and play jokes. She loved soccer, too. The girls appeared uninterested in what the boys were talking about, but that wasn’t the case at all. The girls were very interested in what the boys were discussing; the only problem was that the boys didn’t know it!

“What do you think that they’re talking about? It?” Kendall asked the girls. “They’re always acting so secretive.”

The girls turned and stared at the boys. To their disgust, they were met with very unsightly images. Stewart was pulling his eyes down with his fingers while pressing his nose up with his thumb and sticking his tongue out to one side. Adding insult to injury, he was drooling at the same time.

“Gross!” whined Maggie, “Grow up, Stewart, that’s so stupid!”

Andy looked ridiculous, too. Cross-eyed and slumped over, his body bobbed up and down each time the bus hit a bump on the road; not once did he change the expression he wore on his face. Even when Stewart looked at him and cracked up, Andy didn’t laugh, not one time.

The girls turned back around and started to talk amongst themselves again. Clothes appeared to be the topic, though Stewart wasn’t trying to terribly hard to listen to the details of what they were saying. Andy pulled out his notes and grabbed Stewart’s piece of paper. He tried to flatten it and smooth it out so he could read it. He wasn’t impressed with what he saw.

“You know, I really wish you wouldn’t do this,” he said as Stewart looked on. “It’s such a pain trying to read your notes on wrinkled paper.”

“Look, let’s get on with it; we’ll be at school soon,” Stewart replied, with a slight grin that played across his face.

Andy checked his log. The boys met at 11:45 p.m., give or take forty-five seconds.

Stewart shook his head. “Seriously?” Stewart asked.

“Is that an actual question?” asked Andy. “Or are you being sarcastic?”

“Seriously!” Stewart said again. This time, his voice was slightly elevated.

“Okay, gotcha,” Andy continued. “Moving on, then, we arrived at the Whispering Willow Woods at exactly 12:05 a.m.,” he said, glancing at his log and grinning. “I specifically logged that, too!”

Stewart knew it had been late, but he’d had no idea it was that late. A text message from Andy had alerted him. Time was all it had said. He hadn’t looked at the clock. He’d been too busy stuffing his bed, making sure the house was quiet and everyone was asleep.

Andy glanced at Stewart’s notes. It’s late, it’s dark, going to the woods, hope I don’t get busted! He laid the piece of paper back down. “That’s it?” Andy said as he read Stewart’s notes. “That’s the best you could do?”

“What?” Stewart said defensively. “It was late, it was dark, and I didn’t want to get busted. Besides, you’re the writer!”

Andy did want to write and report stuff someday, although he wasn’t sure what kind of stuff. Besides, he had plenty of time to figure it out. Seventh grade, no worries, he thought.

Stewart swore he’d work on his note-taking skills but suggested that they lower their voices so that the girls wouldn’t hear them.

Andy lowered his voice. At 12:10 a.m. they’d set up the equipment after having left the mini DVR recorder in the usual spot. The EVR recorders were placed where they always left them, and Andy had even written out the words: electronic voice recorder. He continued to scan over his notes but stopped when he realized that Stewart was staring at him rather oddly. “What now?” Andy asked. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I know what DVR and EVR recorders are,” Stewart said. “Why would you write that down?”

Andy didn’t respond. He kept reading the notes that he compared to Stewart’s, noting that they matched. The temperature gauges, electrical gauges – all of them had been reset in the hope of capturing fresh data. They had both logged this independently. Suddenly, Andy said, “Knocked stuff over?” in disgust. “You knocked my stuff over?” He repeated the words that he had just read on the crumpled piece of scratch paper.

Stewart snatched the piece of paper out of Andy’s hand and turned it over. “Read on. The equipment is fine. Look, it says so right here. Look right there!” He pointed to the next line for Andy to read. Picked it up and I think it still works was what Stewart had written down.

Andy wasn’t convinced as he read it. “Not cool. I borrowed that equipment and I use the term borrowed lightly, Stewart, lightly!” Andy looked at his notes and scanned through the pages again.

Once all of the equipment had been set up, they had hidden in the woods. The wind had picked up and the willow trees long branches were blowing back and forth, whipping in and out of each other, and from time to time actually wrapping around the trunks, as some of the branches were that long. A few times, the gusts had been so strong that they had freaked the boys out. They’d thought that maybe a storm was about to blow through, and they hadn’t prepared for one. The notes read that the DVR might or might not have picked something up, since something weird appeared to be happening by Camera Three. That was the data that the boys would check first. They had been hopeful that it had recorded something, but it hadn’t been the camera that they had wanted to use in the first place.

Andy’s dad had always been very generous with his equipment, but he was away training and he had taken some of the stuff with him. The night-vision recorders and goggles had not been available, and they’d had to use their own older camera. It had been secured in a makeshift camera box. Luckily, the camera was waterproof, but nowhere near the quality of the water digital one that they were sometimes able to use. Andy had highlighted a sentence. Note to self: good camera not in use; backup camera is on site in the Willows!

“Hey, Stewart, got a question for you. Did you have a personal experience this time? By Camera Three, I mean?” Andy asked, pen in hand, not looking up at Stewart.

Stewart thought about the question for a moment. He’d had experiences before, including an actual sighting of a shadow figure. It was that sighting, after all, he thought, that started the search for the ghosts in the first place. The boys had started an investigation club, and had even given it a name: The Ghost Hunters of the Whispering Willows Club. This was very serious stuff! But last night, during their investigation, it was safe to say that Stewart had not experienced a personal experience by Camera Three. He shook his head, “No” he said, “I didn’t have a personal experience . . . except that I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being watched.” Stewart looked at Andy and asked, “You? Did you have a personal experience?”

He hadn’t expected Andy to say yes, but to his surprise, Andy nodded his head and whispered, “Just one – or at least, I think I did.”

Stewart’s eyes grew huge. “No way! What happened?” he asked, his mouth dropping open.

Andy looked around and lowered his voice. Barely whispering, he said, “Well, I’m pretty sure it was a personal experience. In fact, the more I think about it, I’m positive it was. You know what I mean?”

Stewart knew exactly what Andy meant. “What happened?” Stewart asked. “Think about the facts and tell me exactly what happened!”

Andy laid the logbook down in his lap. It was all in there, but he didn’t need his notes to explain what had taken place, not this time. He took a deep breath, and his voice quivered as he started to speak. “It was creepy,” he said. “It happened just as we were setting up the last camera. I wanted to say something, but I didn’t dare scare it off, so I kept working. But it’s safe to say that I was freaking out inside!”

Stewart nodded and motioned with his hands for Andy to continue. He knew Andy’s recollection of the event would be accurate and a good one. He wasn’t disappointed.

“I was about to check the battery because it was getting so late, so I bent down and hit the record button and made sure the camera was rolling. Here’s the good news: it was!” Andy took a deep breath and said, “I was squatting down on my knees, positioning Camera One, when it happened!”

“What happened?” whispered Stewart. “Come on, tell me.”

Andy looked down at his arm. There were goose bumps forming as he talked. “I got really chilled, cold, and I suddenly shivered.” He looked about him to make sure that no one was listening. “Like the temperature dropped or something,” he said.

Stewart knew exactly what Andy meant. A drop in temperature was a good sign, indicating the presence of something. “Did anything else happen?” Stewart asked, “Anything at all?”

“Yep. My hair – I mean, all of my hair – stood on end!” Andy ran his hand up and down his arm as he spoke, demonstrating what he was talking about.

Stewart had goose bumps himself just listening to him. This definitely sounded like a personal ghost experience. Stewart waited patiently for Andy to spill the rest. He was dying to know what had happened.

“It touched me or, more like, brushed past me. Whatever it did, I felt it!” Andy whispered.

Stewart’s mouth dropped open. He looked around the bus to make sure no one else was listening to his conversation. With eyes wide open, he waited for all of the details.

“I, too, felt as if someone or something was watching me, but then it just brushed right past me and touched my arm!” Andy said.

Andy stopped talking as the other kids got on the bus. He waited patiently for them to sit down and for the bus to start moving again. Then he dropped another bombshell. “And then that thing, well, it brushed right past me for a second time, as if on purpose, and I felt it again!” Andy pointed to his arm. “I’m not gonna lie. I was so scared. I wanted to scream, but I didn’t,” he said.

This was definitely a fantastic personal experience, thought Stewart, as he pointed to the notebook. Andy grinned.

“Already in there. I stayed up and logged every single detail that I could remember as soon as I got home last night. I swear, I think I’ve slept five minutes.”

“Wow!” said Stewart “You realize what this means, don’t you? We’re getting closer to finding out what’s really going on in the Willows. This is great stuff!”

Andy closed the logbook just as the bus pulled up to the school and shoved it into his backpack. The boys agreed to meet after school and go over the data from the cameras in the woods. Maybe the experience had been captured on the recorders. Stewart offered to call their other partner in crime, Zack. They knew he’d want to be there, too, especially if they had captured the ghost on the DVD. Actual physical evidence that the Whispering Willows Woods was haunted; it was just what they’d been looking for. Concentrating on school with so much going on in the woods was going to be difficult for both of the boys. It was clearly going to be a very long day for both of them.

Stewart’s mind raced; there was so much that he still wanted to talk about. Andy was reliving the experience he’d had and was creeping himself out. They had a long day ahead, for sure, and the day had just begun. Notes were passed in the hallway, and a meeting after school was set up. Now all the boys had to do was stay out of trouble. How hard could that be?