Ghost of a Chance Read Online Free PDF

chimney and out on to the roof.
    â€œAll right!” Joe said, his voice a little louder than the others. “So let’s look around. It’s probably been searched over and over the last couple of decades, but you never know …”
    â€œYeah—it hasn’t been explored by the Hardys, right?” Terry said.
    â€œTrue,” Frank agreed. “Although if we do find something, we won’t know if it was left by Jumper or by someone else.”
    Frank flashed his light slowly around the room. A few wood chairs stood in heaps of leaves and sticks and dirt. What might have passed for a bed—a long wooden platform—was in a corner. A table lay on its side near the fireplace.
    As he swung his light past the grimy window in the far wall, something caught Frank’s eye. Although he had moved the light past the window, his eyes stayed trained on the cloudy glass panes.
    Slowly, he brought the light back and then stood very still. He tried not to move a cell of his body. The window panes were veiled with dirt, but they couldn’t mask what Frank had seen. Two yellow eyes glinted through the glass, their unblinking stare fixed directly on him.

4
Banned from the Set

    Frank’s eyes locked with the yellow eyes staring into the abandoned shack. Suddenly the staring game was over—Frank had won. The yellow eyes blinked and disappeared.
    Frank raced to the window and held his light high against the dirty glass.
    â€œWhat did you see?” Joe asked, rushing to join his brother.
    Frank told the others what had happened.
    â€œWas it a bear, do you think?” Terry asked.
    â€œMaybe—or something less menacing. A deer, even,” Frank suggested.
    â€œLet’s check it out,” Joe said. “It blinked first, so it’s probably not in attack mode.”
    â€œAnd there are three of us, right?” Terry said.
    â€œOkay,” Frank agreed. “But remember, whatever it is, it’s not Gus or Omar. We’re talking wild animal here.” The three grabbed makeshift weapons of broken chair legs and other pieces of wood lying on the floor.
    Frank led the others slowly around the shack to the back. The air was thick with that sweaty smell. The ground was trampled beneath the window, and there seemed to be an escape route cleared into the woods. But they saw nothing as they shone their lights into the quiet blackness.
    â€œShhh,” Frank said, motioning to the others to stop.
    They stood very still for a few moments. Frank heard something moving away from them in the woods. Joe and Terry nodded, indicating they had heard it, too. The sound grew fainter and finally faded away.
    Frank strained to hear more. For a few minutes it was so quiet that he heard only the other two breathing. Then the silence was broken by a raccoon skittering across the shack roof and dropping to the ground.
    â€œMaybe that’s what you saw,” Terry said. “Looks like this one’s heading out after his buddy.”
    â€œCould be,” Frank mumbled. He started along the trampled path leading away from the shack window. The odor was strong.
    Those don’t look like raccoon prints, he told himself as his light played along a strange indentation. “Over here,” he called to the others. “Look at this.” Frank pointed out two large dents in the soil. They looked like huge pawprints. Nearby a tuft of fur clung to a brambly thistle.
    â€œWhoa,” Terry said. “It
was
a bear. Look at the size of those prints!”
    Joe took a tape measure from his pocket and checked the dimensions of the prints, writing the numbers in a small notebook. “Would you believe twenty inches long by eight inches wide?” he asked the others. He also drew a rough sketch of the shape of the prints. “That’s some big bear,” he added, jamming the notebook and pen back into his jeans pocket.
    â€œAnd a weird-colored one, too,” Frank said,