I counted silently to one hundred. I thought it might take my mind off how cold it was.

Todd’s voice interrupted my count. "Are we having fun yet?” he asked.

"Shut up, Todd,” Rubin snapped, swinging his flashlight and shining the bright light in Todd’s eyes.

“Just asking,” Todd said. He stretched his arms out, tucked his fingers together, and cracked all his

knuckles loudly.

Shamequa rolled her eyes. “Todd, give us a break. This is serious.”

"Seriously boring,” he muttered. But he settled back down. And we sat there in silence again, staring

at the wall and listening to the storm outside.

After ten minutes or so, Summer suddenly spoke up. "Ghosts, hear my voice,” she said, breaking the

silence. “Ghosts, if you are here, we are friendly.”

She paused for a few seconds. Maybe she expected an answer. She stared unblinking at the quivering

light beam on the wall. Then, her voice rang out in the empty room again: "Ghosts, if you are here, please

give a signal.”

One second later, a hard knock from behind made us all cry out.

12

Did my heart stop beating?

I think it did.

I know I had to force myself to start breathing again.

No one spoke. We all froze, as if we all had died in place. Time seemed to stop. The sound of that

knock still rang in my ears.

Silence now. Buzzy grabbed my arm. "Did you ... hear that?” he stammered.

I nodded. I wasn’t sure I could speak yet.

Shamequa stood stiffly, arms crossed tightly in front of her. She had her eyes locked on the meter.

The rest of us stayed on the floor, afraid to speak, all listening hard.

And then another knock made us gasp and cry out again.

I jumped to my feet. Buzzy stretched out his hand and I helped pull him up.

"It’s here,” Summer whispered, stepping up beside Shamequa. She studied the meter. "We all heard it.

The ghost replied to me.”

Another knock.

Rubin swung his light to the door behind us. “It’s coming from down the hall, I think. It’s coming

from the front of the house.”

We stood huddled together, staring at one another. Did we really want to go investigate? Finding a ghost seemed like an exciting idea. But when a ghost actually reaches out to you, it’s totally terrifying.

“Maybe we should wait for it to come back here,” I said. "You know, so we can track it with our

equipment.”

Rubin ignored me. "We came to prove there’s a ghost,” he said. “It’s signaling to us. It wants us to

find it.”

He led the way into the hall, swinging a bright beam of light in front of him. Todd, Summer, and

Shamequa followed, keeping close together. I walked behind them, chill after chill rolling down my back. I

kept my icy hands buried deep in my jeans pockets. My muscles felt all tensed. My whole body was alert.

A hard knock knock knock made us stop in the front entryway. The sound rose over the howl of the

wind outside.

“It’s here,” Summer whispered. “I can feel its presence.”

I forced myself to keep breathing. My heart was beating so hard, my chest ached.

No one moved. Then, Buzzy pushed past me and Summer and stepped up to the front door. He

grabbed the big brass knob, twisted it—and pulled the door open.

And we all uttered cries of shock.

13

Misty Rogers stood there, staring back at us. Her dark hair fell in wet tangles from her hoodie, and

raindrops trickled down her forehead. Her down parka was soaked through.

"Sorry I’m late,” she said. “Didn’t you hear me knocking?"

Buzzy stepped back. Misty burst inside, shaking off rainwater.

We all started to laugh. Not normal laughter. We were all so relieved.

Misty tugged down her hood and struggled to push her hair back. "What’s so funny?”

"We thought you were a ghost,” Summer told her.

Misty brushed water off her eyebrows. "Have you seen the ghost? Am I too late?”

I shook my head. "You’re our first discovery."

Misty blinked in surprise. “Sammy? You’re here? We were all betting you wouldn’t show.”

“Well, you lost your bet,” I snapped. That made me angry. Did everyone in the group think I was a

coward? I was suddenly glad to be there—just because I proved them wrong.

“We’re set up in the back,” Shamequa said. “Take off your coat and leave it with ours.”

Misty tugged off her backpack, also soaked through. She pulled it open and fumbled inside. “Maybe

this will help us,” she said. She slid out a long box. Then she let the backpack fall to the floor and she raised

the lid on the box.

"Doughnuts!” Rubin cried. "Sweet!” He reached for one.

Misty swung the box out of his reach. “These aren’t for us,” she said. "These are for the ghost. I was

reading this thing online, and it said ghosts totally crave real food.”

"Give me one,” Rubin insisted. "If we each take only one, there’s still a few left for the ghost.”

"I'm starving,” Todd said, begging with cupped hands. "We forgot to bring any food. If we don’t have

a doughnut, we’ll probably turn into cannibals and eat one another.”

"You have a sick mind,” Misty said. “Seriously. You need help.”

“No, I need a doughnut,” Todd insisted.

We all began chanting, “Doughnut! Doughnut! Doughnut!” So Misty passed the box around. And we

all gobbled them up in two seconds. Rubin stuffed a whole doughnut into his mouth and swallowed it in

one gulp. Todd took tiny mouse bites. He said he wanted to make it last.

There were two doughnuts left in the box. We carried them to the back room and placed the box in

front of the video recorder with the lid open.

"If the ghost doesn’t want it, I’ve got dibs on that chocolate one,” Rubin said.

"Can we stop talking about the doughnuts?” Shamequa said. She checked the meter and the audio

and video recorders. "It’s getting late. We have to get back to work.”

So we dropped onto the floor again and sat side by side, gazing in silence at the wall. Listening.

Waiting. Alert to every sound.

Outside, the rain slowed but the wind continued to howl. Each time the window rattled, I shuddered,

expecting it to come crashing down to the floor with glass flying over us.

More silence. The meter didn’t click. The temperature didn’t move. Shamequa paced back and forth

impatiently. Rubin let the light from his flashlight leap around the room. Todd yawned loudly. He cracked

his knuckles a few times.

Did we sit like that for an hour? It seemed like six hours to me. My legs were stiff and my back ached.

“This is soooo boring,” Todd said, breaking the silence.

"Seriously," Buzzy agreed.

I sighed. “I think our study is a flop.” I climbed to my feet and shook my left leg, which had fallen

asleep. “I think we should give up.”

“Me too,” Buzzy said. He shivered. “I’m so cold, I think my bones are frozen. I feel like a Popsicle. And

there’s no sign of any ghost. No sign at all.”

Summer sighed. "We know the house is haunted. Why doesn’t the ghost come out and give us some

proof?”

Shamequa sighed, too. "I’ll start packing up. This experiment was a total flop.”

"What are we going to tell Miss Flake?” Summer asked. "We can’t just go in and say we gave up.”

“Of course we can,” Todd insisted. “It’s not our fault if the ghost is too shy to show himself.”

Summer turned to face us. “Should we vote? How many want to stop now and go home?”

Everyone raised a hand. We all began talking at once. I started to raise my hand—then stopped.

I froze. My heart skipped a beat.

Shamequa had her eyes on me. “Sammy? What’s wrong?”

“Hold on,” I said. My voice came out in a whisper. "Wait. Just hold on. Didn’t you hear it? I think I

heard it.”

“Heard what?” Rubin demanded.

“I think I heard it,” I said. “I think I heard it.”

14

Misty grabbed me by the shoulders. “Stop repeating the same thing over and over,” she said. “Have you

gone crazy?”

“M-maybe,” I stuttered. “But I... I heard something. I definitely heard it.”

She tightened her fingers, as if trying to squeeze an answer out of me. "What? What did you hear?”

“A whisper,” I managed to say. I slid her hands off my shoulders. "You were all talking. But I heard

some words. A whisper. Like hissing in my ears.”

Rubin laughed. “Hissing? Maybe it was a snake.”

"Not funny,” Summer said. Hugging herself, she turned to me. “What were the words? What was the

whisperer saying, Sammy?”

I struggled to remember. "Just... words,” I said finally. I was so shocked, I—

“Maybe we captured it on the voice recorder,” Shamequa said. She moved to the row of equipment.

"Maybe we can play it back.”

“This could be awesome,” Buzzy said. “If we recorded the ghost... we could be famous!"

Rubin shook his head. “Why didn’t the rest of us hear it? I’ll tell you why. Because Sammy imagined

it.”

“You all started talking,” I said. “We were voting on whether to leave, and you all started talking

about it. And—”

"Quiet, everyone,” Shamequa said. She leaned over the small, square voice recorder. “Let’s see what

we’ve got here.”

We all huddled close. I jammed my frozen hands into my jeans pockets. I took a deep breath. Had I

really heard a ghost?

Shamequa’s finger trembled as she pressed PLAY.

Silence.

More silence.

A soft howl in the background. The sound of the wind outside the window.

I held my breath and leaned my head close to the recorder.

More silence. Then crackling static.

And then a terrifying, hoarse whisper: "You'll never leave this house alive. ’’

15

I let out a groan. Beside me, Misty murmured, “Oh, wow.”

No one moved. Shamequa stopped the recorder. She stood over it, still as a statue.

“Play it again," I said. “Let’s hear it again.”

Shamequa pushed the button again. Silence, then static.

And then the same terrifying whisper: "You'll never leave this house alive. "

So clear. So angry.

She played it again.

I gazed from face to face. We had all come here to capture proof of a ghost in the house. But now that

we had the proof... Now that we’d heard the ghost and its menacing whisper ... We were too frightened to

enjoy our victory.

And then Buzzy let out a cry. He dove past Summer and Todd—and gave Rubin a hard shove with

both hands.

Startled, Rubin staggered back and stumbled over the video recorder. “Hey!” he cried out angrily.

"What’s your problem, Buzzy?” He picked himself up from the floor, both fists tight at his sides.

“You jerk!” Buzzy cried. “I recognize your voice on the recorder. Don’t you ever stop with the jokes?”

Rubin’s mouth dropped open. “Huh? Are you serious?”

"You recorded that whisper before you came here,” Buzzy shouted. "It’s not funny, Rubin. You scared us to death and—”

“Shut up!” Rubin cried. He waved both hands in the air. "Time out. Time out, okay? You got it totally

wrong, Buzzy. I didn’t do that. That was not me.”