Oddest of All Read Online Free PDF Page B

1959 Cadillac. It’s huge (comparing it to a modern car is like comparing a seven-layer cake to an Oreo) and it’s my father’s pride and joy. He’s a preservation architect, after all, and he likes his cars the way he likes his buildings—big, old, and fancy. Given the time and money he had put into the Chariot, I could see why he would feel bitter toward the woman who caused us to plunge into the ditch.
    Despite her spooky appearance, it didn’t occur to me to think the woman might have been a ghost. After all, Dad had seen her, too, and while by this time in our lives Chris and I had seen several ghosts, Dad had yet to spot one. It just wasn’t something you expected of him.
    â€œWell, we can’t stand out here in the rain,” he said gloomily. “We’d better see if we can find someplace where we can make a few phone calls.”
    â€œThat may not be easy,” said Chris.
    She was right. We had been taking one of my father’s famous “shortcuts” along an old country road and hadn’t seen a house for the last two miles. Which meant we could either walk back those two miles through the pounding rain, or keep going on the hope that we might find a house not far ahead. Since we couldn’t really get any wetter even if we tried, we decided to gamble on going forward.
    â€œBesides,” said Dad, “maybe we’ll run into that maniac and I can give her a piece of my mind. Wait a minute while I get the flashlight.”
    Lying on his back, he managed to retrieve a flashlight from the glove compartment. Following his lead, we scrambled out of the ditch and up to the road. The rain was pelting down so hard that it hurt. Since there was pretty much zero traffic, we were soon walking side by side. I kept looking around, worrying that the woman might jump out of the bushes or something. What she had done already was so crazy there was no telling what else she might do.
    Here’s the first thing I learned that night: If you walk through freezing rain for twenty minutes, you’ll probably be willing to knock on the door of a house you normally wouldn’t get near on a bet—especially if there’s no other house in sight. Of course, given how dark it was, “in sight” didn’t amount to much in this case.
    Actually, we didn’t even see the house at first. We only realized it was there because I bumped into something and shouted “Ouch!” When Dad lifted the beam of the flashlight to see what the problem was, we saw a mailbox. The name B. SMILEY was painted on the side.
    â€œThey’ve got to be kidding,” snorted Chris.
    â€œI don’t care if Smiley shares the house with Dopey, Doc, and Grumpy,” I replied, “as long as they let us out of this rain.”
    Though the house wasn’t visible from the road, we found an unpaved driveway just past the mailbox. It was lined with trees whose branches met overhead, making it almost a tunnel. The branches provided a little relief from the storm, but the effect was so creepy I decided I would have preferred the rain.
    Just before we left the tree tunnel a bolt of lightning revealed the house. It was about fifty feet ahead of us. Tall and brooding, it had a steep roof and a pair of spooky gables. It looked like something out of a nightmare, the kind of place you’re
supposed
to find when your car breaks down on a cold, rainy night. The only light came from a single window on the second floor.
    My father waited until the rumble of thunder had passed, then said, “Well . . . is it?”
    What he meant was, “Is it haunted?”
    This wasn’t an unreasonable question. Ever since Chris and I had met the Woman in White at the Grand Theater, we had been growing increasingly sensitive to ghosts. Sometimes we knew if a place was haunted just by looking at it.
    Sometimes, but not always.
    â€œI can’t tell,” replied Chris, shouting to