Have You Met My Ghoulfriend? Read Online Free PDF Page B

We'll see.”
    I opened my mouth to protest. But I knew there was no point.
    How could I ever pay Colin back for this little joke? There had to be a way.
    That's what I was still thinking about late atnight when I couldn't fall asleep. How can I get my revenge? How?
    And then I heard the sad
meow
of a cat. Not Edgar. The other cat, the mystery cat. A soft animal cry, so close and far away at the same time.
    What else can go wrong? I asked myself.
    The next morning, I found out.

12
    “TARA ? A RE YOU HERE ?”
    I blinked, trying to get used to the darkness. Where was I? How long had I been away?
    “Nicky, is that you?” I heard Tara's whisper nearby.
    I turned to her. Pale gray moonlight poured in from a window. Tara had a floppy hat pulled down over her hair. Her face was covered in shadow. All I could see were the long, dangling plastic earrings she always wears.
    “Where are we, Nicky?”
    I squinted, struggling to focus. I heard a cat meow, a soft, sad cry. “We're back in Max's room,” I said. “I don't know how long we've been away.”
    Tara stepped into the ray of moonlight. Her expression was sad. “Think we'll ever get better at being ghosts? I hate not knowing when I'm going to appear and disappear.”
    The cat meowed again.
    I watched Max sleeping, the blanket pulled upover his head. He groaned in his sleep. Maybe he was having a bad dream.
    Tara stepped close to me. “Something I forgot before we disappeared,” she said. She slapped my arm. “Touched you last.”
    She scooted away. I chased after her. She tripped over Max's Darth Vader wastebasket, and it clattered to the floor. I glanced at the bed. Max didn't wake up. I tagged Tara. “Touched you last.”
    She slapped me back. “Touched you last.”
    Sometimes our “touched you last” game lasted for hours. It was a serious sport. We never wanted to be the loser. Now here we were—ghosts—and we couldn't stop playing it. Sick, huh?
    Suddenly, Tara slumped down on the edge of Max's bed. She cupped her face in her hands and let out a long sigh.
    “What's wrong?”
    “We're nowhere, Nicky. We've been back here in our old house for weeks. And we haven't come any closer to finding Mom and Dad.”
    I sprawled on the floor and leaned against the bed. “That ghost named Phears is our only clue,” I said. “He knows our parents. Maybe he even knows where they are. But he's too evil and too frightening. No way to talk to him.”
    Tara shook her head. Her earrings rattled. “We don't know how we died. And we don't knowif Mom and Dad are dead or alive. We can't just sit here in our old house waiting for them to return.”
    “Well … I know,” I said. “I thought your new boyfriend here was supposed to help us.”
    Tara bonked me on the head with her fist. “Don't call him that.”
    “You have a crush on Max,” I said. “It's obvious.”
    She bonked me again, a little harder.
    “Ow.” Yeah, sure, I'm a ghost. But it still hurts to be bonked on the head.
    Above me, Max stirred in his sleep. The cat meowed again, its voice hoarse, tired.
    “Max did help a little,” Tara said. “He went in the weird tunnel in the wall and brought out that box of your stuff.”
    “Oh, yeah. The box.” I'd hidden it under the bed. I pulled it out and opened it. It had a lot of stuff I'd saved back when … back when I was alive.
    I sifted through it. Some keys I didn't recognize … a Spider-Man action figure … a small comic book …
    I pulled out a framed photograph of Mom and Dad and held it up to the moonlight. Tara leaned her hands on my shoulders and gazed at it with me.
    “They look so young and happy,” I said. Dad had an arm around Mom's shoulders. They werestanding on a beach, grinning at the camera. I could see the ocean behind them. They both had wavy dark hair. Dad looked very tanned.
    “I don't remember saving this photo,” I said. “How did it end up in the box?”
    Tara reached into the box and pulled out the red-jeweled ring. It glowed