"Martin, Ann M - Baby-sitters Club 009 - The Ghost at Dawn's House" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin Ann M)

I gasped.
I was looking into my own bedroom!
I stepped inside. The wall that had swung open was the one with the fancy molding that had sounded hollow the other day. The end of the passage was between my room and Mom's.
I was startled but immediately decided I wanted to explore the passage again more carefully. So I left the secret door to my room open (just in case), and stepped back into the passage. This time I kept the flashlight trained on the floor.
I blew up little flurries of dust bunnies as I made my way back to the staircase, crept carefully down the steps (who knew how sturdy they were?), and was soon back in the dirt tunnel.
And that was where I found it Ч the metal button. It looked positively ancient. I'd never seen one like it. It was sort of squashed in the
middle, but I could tell that a design like a shield had been stamped on it.
A few feet further along I found something else I'd missed. A large tarnished buckle. It was too big for a belt buckle, and not quite the right shape. A shoe buckle? People hadn't worn buckles that size on their shoes since . . . the eighteen hundreds?
I felt a chill begin at the nape of my neck and creep down my back.
A key was the last thing I found. It certainly looked old Ч very long and narrow with a large ring to hold it by. How many years had the key been in the passage?
How many years had all the things been in the passage? More importantly, why were they there? Maybe they were all that was left of someone who had died in the passage Ч or worse, someone who had been locked up there to die. Maybe the poor prisoner had been trying to escape using the key. But he hadn't made it and had died a lonely, bitter death.
I knew it. I just knew it: Our house was haunted. It was haunted by the ghost of the secret passage. No one was going to believe it, but it was true. I remembered the rapping noises I had heard the night of the storm. Now I knew what had really made them.
Chapter 7.
The nice weather didn't last very long. By Friday it was gloomy again, and that night, the skies let loose with a storm that my grandfather would have described as a "ripsnorter." I didn't know it then, but while Jeff and I were having a ghostly adventure in our old house, Kristy was having an adventure of her own in her new house.
Earlier that evening, she'd been left in charge of David Michael, and Karen and Andrew, who were visiting for the. weekend. Her two older brothers were at a party, and her mom and stepfather had gone to the theater in Stamford.
When everyone had left, the sky had simply been dark and threatening. An hour later, rain was falling, the wind was howling, thunder was crashing, and lightning was flashing.
Inside, Kristy was trying to interest the kids in a game of Chutes and Ladders, but it wasn't easy. Every time a clap of thunder sounded, David Michael shrieked, Andrew leaped into Kristy's lap, Louie the collie jumped (and skidded on the game board), and Karen looked disgusted and called everybody nitwits.
After that had happened three times, Kristy suggested, "Let's read a book instead of play
ing Chutes and Ladders. What should we read?"
"The Little Engine That Could," said Andrew.
"Fantastic Mr. Fox," said David Michael.
"Ramona and Her Father," said Karen.
Kristy rolled her eyes. "How about Ч "
"How 'bout if I tell a story?" Karen interrupted.
Kristy paused. Karen's stories are notorious. She never means to frighten anyone or to cause any trouble, but she always manages to.
"Do you know any nice, happy stories?" asked Kristy hopefully.
Karen thought for a moment. "Nope," she said.
"I want to hear a scary story," said David Michael bravely.
"You do?" asked Kristy incredulously, as thunder crashed and her brother jumped a foot in the air.
"Um . . . yes," replied David Michael.
"Me, too," said Andrew, not to be undone.
Kristy thought that all of this was a bad idea.
"Oh, we can tell scary stories any old time," she said. "Let's tell jokes instead. Knock, knock."
David Michael, Karen, and Andrew glanced at each other.
"I said, knock, knock," Kristy repeated.
David Michael heaved a great sigh. "Who's there?"
"Banana," said Kristy.
"Banana who?" asked David Michael.
"Knock, knock."
"Huh? Wait, you were supposed to tell the joke part then."
"Trust me," said Kristy. "This one's a little different."
"Oh, all right. Who's there?" asked David Michael.
"Banana."
"Banana who?"
"Knock, knock."
"Who's there?"
"Banana."
"Banana who?"
"Knock, knock."
"Who's there?" demanded David Michael.