Free The Shade Riders and the Dreadful Ghosts by Bxerk Page B

the ghosts. Breathless, they headed toward the
farm house. Even though Boomer was trampled underfoot, he acted
like nothing happened. He kept in pursuit except a little farther
behind. Some of the horses ran around the kids, and the ones behind
were breathing down the kid’s necks. The gang was soon enveloped
within the herd of fifty horses.
    The horses and kids skidded to a halt right
in front of the metal gate. The kids opened the gate and left the
catch pen and headed up the tractor trail toward the house. Nova
looked back and noticed the horses grunting with displeasure and
breathing out relief. Nova and her friends Max Kim and Takeesha
were pale and breathing hard, grinning and coughing periodically
from the dust.
    The ghosts were nowhere to be seen.
    “That was a close one.” Nova laughed. Max Kim
and Takeesha nodded. Benny laughed and did some coughing too.
    “What was that all about, that they had your
father, Nova?”
    Takeesha asked.
    “You heard that too?” Nova said. “I have no
idea. I just hope I’m not next.”
    “Maybe your dad is still alive?” Max Kim
asked.
    Nova shrugged. “How?” Tears came to Nova’s
eyes. She looked back in the dust of the catch pen for the ghosts.
They seemed to have vanished.
    “I don’t know, but I’m just glad they’re
gone.”
    Benny wheeled toward the house, and everyone
followed.
    When they entered the kitchen, they stared
out the window into the catch pen. “No, ghosts. I wonder where they
went.” Nova said. Now that the panic had died down, she wanted to
ask them about her father. Could her father really still be
alive?
    And if so, how could she find him?
    Benny reached back inside the bag on his
chair and brought out his ESP Zener cards.
    “I’m going to prove to you girls; you don’t
have any magick powers.” Benny explained what the cards did. The
tests involved five signs on twenty-five cards-- either: a square,
a perfect circle, three vertical wavy lines, a five pointed star or
a plus sign.
    “I’m going to hold the cards in front of my
face so you can’t see them,” Benny said, “You have to guess what
each one is. If you can read my mind, then you’ll score higher than
20%, which is what you’d get from just guessing.”
    The kids slid out the wooden chairs and sat
around the dining room table.
    “Okay, here we go,” Benny said.
     
    The others all scored right around 20%. Nova
was right nine times out of ten.
    “Nova, I need to retest you,” Benny said. “I
can’t believe the score you got. You must have cheated.”
    “Benny, I don’t think she was cheating--,”
Max Kim said.
    “I never cheated. I can’t believe you said
that.” Nova pounded on the tabletop.
    “I need to be retested too,” Takeesha said.
“I think I’m having an off day.” She scored 22%.
    “Nova had her eyes down most of the time,”
Max Kim said.
    “Let’s do this later.” Benny sighed, put the
autogyro onto his lap, and started toward the door.
    “Hey, where are you going?” Nova asked.
    “I’m going to see if my autogyro can fly as
fast as a galloping horse.” Benny winked.

     

Chapter 9 Shade's Freedom
    Out in the catch pen, a few
horses still roamed around. Benny tried to chase the horses with
the autogyro, but they refused to budge. Then Buttercup, a palomino
horse being boarded at the farm kicked it back over the fence in a
spray of small parts. The biggest piece bounced into the nearby
bushes. Benny’s jaw dropped. No one moved or said anything for a
few seconds.
    “Oops. I didn’t think they would kick.” Benny
rolled over humps, to the bushes, and began to back up a few times.
“Stupid chair get in there.”
    His hand just managed to snag the main body
of the autogyro.
    “How’s it look Benny?” Nova was picking parts
out of the loose dirt on the ground. Max Kim hurried over and
examined the toy in Benny’s lap. “That’s messed up.”
    But Benny popped on some of the parts-
apparently much of it snapped together-- and placed