Free Dunc and the Flaming Ghost by Gary Paulsen Page B

burst out the front door like an explosion, screaming and tripping over each other. They hurdled the fence that encircledthe yard and collapsed on the sidewalk, panting and scared spitless.
    Scruff trotted out after them, his tongue wagging out of the side of his mouth. When he reached the fence he cocked his head to one side and looked at them curiously.
    Amos stared at Dunc. He took a deep breath, took another one without exhaling, then one more, and screamed directly into Dunc’s ear:
    “Now do you believe in ghosts?”

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    “It couldn’t have been a ghost,” Dunc said.
    He and Amos were sitting at a table in the school library. It was that point in the afternoon when they began thinking less and less about schoolwork and more and more about other things. They were supposed to be working on book reports.
    “I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to even think about it. We’re supposed to be studying.”
    “But it
couldn’t
have been a ghost. It’s just not possible.”
    “You didn’t seem so convinced about that last night.” Amos snorted. “I barely caughtup with you. That reminds me—how’s your back?”
    Dunc squirmed. “It’s all right, I guess.” He had a big bruise in the shape of a footprint right between his shoulder blades.
    “It’s amazing you could run as fast as you did with a bruise like that. You must have broken eight or ten land speed records. If you had cleats on and a track coach saw you, you’d be in the Olympics.” He shook his head. “And now you say what we saw last night couldn’t have been a ghost.”
    “I didn’t have time to think about it last night.”
    “What’s to think about? It was huge and white. It had matches sticking out of its head. It was either someone with a serious skin disorder and mental problems, or it was the ghost of Captain Edward Teach. In either case it doesn’t matter. I just about peed my pants.”
    “Who was that?” Dunc asked. “The name you mentioned?”
    “Edward Teach. Blackbeard the Pirate. He used to stick matches under the brim ofhis hat to look scarier. Personally, I don’t think he needed them.”
    “How do you know about Blackbeard?”
    “I looked him up in the encyclopedia.”
    “It just isn’t possible.”
    “Sure it is. You just look under
B
, and there it is. You read about it, and then you know about it.”
    “I don’t mean that. It just isn’t possible that what we saw was Blackbeard’s ghost.”
    Amos sighed. “When are you going to admit you don’t know everything? There are some things people just aren’t meant to understand. Ghosts are one of them.”
    “I still don’t think—”
    He stopped in midsentence. Amos had just kicked him under the table.
    “What did you do that for?”
    “Melissa. Melissa just came in the library.”
    Dunc looked over his shoulder. Melissa was walking with one of her friends between two bookshelves.
    “So?”
    “What do you mean, ‘so’? This could bemy big opportunity. Watch this.” He stood up and sauntered over to the aisle.
    He’s being cool
, Dunc thought.
That’s not good
.
    Amos pretended he didn’t know Melissa was there. He took a book off the shelf and opened it.
    Here it comes
, Dunc thought.
    Amos leaned his free hand against a row of books. There was no backing behind them, and they shot out into the adjacent aisle like cannonballs. They hit the librarian right in the nose as she was reshelving a book about human anatomy. She was out cold, with her glasses split down the middle and hanging from her ears.
    Amos lost his balance and clutched the shelf as he fell. It broke off in his hand and tumbled to the ground with him. An avalanche of books about skiing cascaded down, burying him. Only his feet stuck out from under the pile. Melissa looked at him and shook her head. As he climbed to his feet, she walked away.
    After the mess was cleaned up and theschool nurse had led the dazed librarian away, Amos walked back to the table.
    “I don’t