The Ghost in the Third Row Read Online Free PDF Page A

It’s just that—Well, why didn’t you say something before?”
    â€œWhy didn’t you? ” Chris asked logically.
    â€œI don’t know. I was afraid no one would believe me. I thought they would laugh at me.”
    â€œSo do I look that different from you?” she asked. “You think I want the rest of the cast to decide I’ve got a screw loose?”
    Suddenly a nasty thought crossed my mind. Was Chris just pretending to have seen the ghost? “What did she look like when you saw her?” I asked, testing her.
    Chris paused for a moment. “Well,” she said at last, “she was pretty. Very pretty. I remember that she had a long slender neck and high cheekbones.”
    I nodded. What she said was true, but it was too general. I wanted more details. “What was she wearing?”
    â€œShe had on a very old-fashioned dress,” said Chris, “with those funny kind of sleeves—you know, the ones that are all puffy at the top, and then tight from the wrist to the elbow. And she was wearing several strings of pearls around her neck.”
    The pearls did it. They weren’t in the script, and they weren’t the kind of detail someone would think of if they hadn’t really seen the ghost. “That’s right!” I said excitedly. “That’s just the way she looked when I saw her.”
    â€œWell, of course it’s the way she looked when you saw her,” said Chris. “You don’t think she changes her clothes, do you? She’s wearing the costume she died in.”
    Suddenly I felt a little guilty for having suspected her. After all, this was Chris, not Melissa.
    â€œWell, what do you think we should do about it?” I asked, partly to change the subject.
    â€œWhy should we do anything?” asked Chris.
    â€œI don’t know,” I said. “Somehow it just seems like we ought to do something about all this.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œWell, because it’s upsetting people. I mean, look what happened with Lydia last night.”
    â€œDo you think it would make Lydia feel better if we told her we had seen the ghost, too?”
    â€œYes! No. I mean—I don’t know. Wouldn’t it?”
    â€œWhy should it?” said Chris. “She was scared enough as it was. Though to tell you the truth, that seemed kind of weird to me. I mean, did the ghost seem scary to you?”
    Chris had just put her finger on something that had been bothering me, too. “No, she didn’t,” I. said. “She seemed sad. But not really scary.”
    â€œSo what was all the screaming about last night?”
    â€œWell, Lydia’s probably kind of high-strung. And you’ve got to admit that the Grand is pretty spooky anyway. It probably just startled her.”
    â€œI guess you’re right,” said Chris. But she didn’t look convinced.
    â€œAnd you really don’t think we should do anything about it?” I asked.
    â€œWell, it wouldn’t hurt to learn a little more about this ‘Woman in White.’ Just to make sure she’s harmless.”
    â€œHow do we do that? I’ve read the script five times already.”
    â€œForget the script,” Chris said, climbing down. “Alan and Paula said the script was ‘based on’ a true story. If that’s anything like on television, I’d say it means only three things out of every hundred have to be true. Come on. Let’s go back to the library.”
    â€œWhy the library?” I asked, scrambling down after her.
    â€œResearch, dummy.”
    â€œI doubt there are any books about this story. It’s just a local thing.”
    â€œSo we look in the local newspapers.”
    â€œThey save that kind of stuff?” I asked, thinking about the stacks of newspapers we threw out every month.
    â€œThey have to. It’s their job.” Chris was already trotting across the parking lot. “Come