Free Mississippi River Blues by Tony Abbott

“Haunted house?”
    â€œLuckily, we got one real close,” said Tom with a laugh. From Aunt Polly’s doorway, he pointed up the street to a hill. “Over Cardiff’s Hill. The hauntedest house in town. It’s a real spooker!”
    I looked at Frankie. Neither of us wanted to deal with a haunted house, but it was clear that we were running out of scenery in this story. We had to check it out.
    â€œPoint the way, Tom,” I said.
    So we picked up a couple of bent shovels and picks from the shed behind Aunt Polly’s house and tramped up over the hill called Cardiff’s Hill.
    â€œThere sure are a lot of hills back now,” I said.
    â€œAnd I think we tramped up every one,” said Frankie.
    â€œYeah,” I commented. “Who says we’re lazy?”
    A little while later, we stood by an old house. An old, old house.
    â€œI see the guy who designed the graveyard also did this place,” Frankie said with a snort.
    I tried to laugh, but it was true.
    The house was surrounded by a broken fence, and weeds were smothering the whole yard all the way up to the doorstep. The chimney was a crumbled pile of stones at the side of the house, and if any window had glass in it at all, it was cracked.
    Plus, a whole corner of the roof had already caved in.
    â€œWhat are we waiting for?” said Tom. “Let’s go in.”
    â€œGo in?” I said. “It doesn’t seem safe to look at, let alone go into. Frankie, what do you say?”
    Frankie was reading a page of the book. “It says we go in.”
    â€œGulp,” I said, gulping.
    We crept to the door and looked in at a wrecked living room with a dirt floor. A sort of fireplace was on one wall and was full of fallen bricks and charred wood. In the back of the front room was a cracked staircase hanging from the upper floor at an odd angle.
    â€œFalling down much?” I mumbled.
    Tom entered first. We followed. Everywhere we turned, we got ragged cobwebs in our faces.
    â€œTasty,” I said, wiping a thick web from my lips.
    Since there was nothing much downstairs, somebody—not me—got the great idea that we should climb up those rickety stairs and poke around upstairs.
    â€œSort of cuts off our escape route—” said Frankie, “in case we see some of those haunted ghosts this place is supposed to be haunted with.”
    â€œGhosts can follow a person anywhere,” said Huck.
    â€œOh, thanks,” said Frankie. “I feel so much better.”
    We laid our tools against the fireplace and headed one by one up the cracked and crooked stairs.
    The same sort of ruin that was downstairs was upstairs, too. Broken doors, busted furniture, and dark, empty closets. Not much at all. We were about to go back down and begin digging for treasure when—
    â€œShhh!” said Tom, holding up his hand. “I hear someone coming!”
    â€œIt’s ghosts!” said Frankie. “I knew it! Ohhhhh!”
    In a flash, we were down on the floor, peering through the cracks between the planks, waiting for our hearts to stop pounding.
    Two men entered the front room below us.
    The first one was tall and wore a red poncho with a hood pulled over his head.
    â€œI’ve seen that first one around town just after the trial,” Huck whispered. “People say he’s a Spaniard from Spain or someplace. The other one I don’t know.”
    The other one was a ragged creature with a nasty face who looked as if he were a graduate of the Muff Potter School of Personal Washing. Grimy isn’t the word. Dirt was cleaner than this guy.
    He slung a small bag of coins onto the bare floor.
    â€œI’ve thought it over,” he growled in a deep voice. “It’s too dangerous.”
    â€œDangerous?” grunted the Spanish guy. “Pah!”
    First of all, the Spanish guy wasn’t speaking Spanish. And second of all, we had all heard that voice