Free The Elevator Ghost by Glen Huser Page B

costumes their dad had helped them create. Elsa was a Picasso painting with two huge eyes on one side of her face and a round striped tummy. Luba wore a costume covered with pictures of clock faces that looked like they were melting.
    Galina, to no one’s surprise, was dressed like a bat monster. Scales had been carefully sewn on her pajamas. Her bat wings, made out of black garbage bags attached to wire coat hangers, drooped a bit in the back.
    Lucy Hooper put on a record of “Danse Macabre.” Emma Hooper and Angelo Bellini twirled and danced beneath a disco ball that caught the light from tea candles artfully arranged between a large wing-backed chair and a stool against the far wall.
    The snack table was covered with Carolina Giddle’s specialties. There was a tray of Rumpelstiltskin sandwiches and plates of purple squiggy squares and iced granghoula bars. Peppermint bone rattlers filled a ceramic bowl covered with small ghosts. Another huge bowl, as black as a witch’s cat, was filled with green popcorn balls.
    â€œMartian Munchies,” Emma Hooper whispered to Amanita Bellini.
    Frozen alien worms lolled in ice cubes floating in a punch bowl of lemonade. An urn was filled with Carolina Giddle’s hot Ghost Host brew.
    But where was Carolina Giddle?
    Herman Spiegelman, wearing his usual work clothes, was keeping an eye on everything. He made sure no one stood too close to the candles or got into a food fight at the snack table.
    â€œHe doesn’t need a costume.” Dwight nudged his twin.
    â€œHe looks like that guy who gets the bodies for Frankenstein,” Dwayne agreed.
    Suddenly all the lights in the sunroom went out. Gasps and small shrieks circled the floor like surround sound.
    When the lights came on again several ­seconds later, Carolina Giddle was sitting in the wing-backed chair.
    Another gasp, like the breath of a ghost, rippled through the room.
    Carolina Giddle’s hair was white with a couple of white cloth roses tucked into the curls. Her face was the color of chalk, and her eyes were rimmed with black. Blackish-red lipstick outlined her mouth. She wore a long lace-trimmed whitish dress of some thin material that looked like it could have been spun by spiders. It was torn and tattered in places.
    She made a beckoning gesture with her hands, and everyone in the room drew closer.
    â€œY’all make yourselves comfortable,” Carolina Giddle said in a voice that sounded a little crackly, as if she had put it on to go with her ghost dress. There were chairs and floor cushions close to where she sat.
    â€œNow, is everyone ready for our ghost-­story extravaganza?”
    There was a chorus of yesses along with some moans and little shrieks.
    â€œMe first!” Angelo Bellini shouted. No one argued. He’d been better since Carolina Giddle had been babysitting the Bellini children, but he could still throw a pretty amazing tantrum.
    â€œThis isn’t a whole story,” Angelo said as he climbed onto the storytelling stool. “It’s a…what?”
    â€œA riddle,” Amanita Bellini prompted.
    â€œYeah. A widdle.” Angelo inhaled a big breath of air. “Where do baby ghosts go in the daytime?” Before anyone could hazard a guess, he hollered out, “A dayscare center!” and quickly climbed down off the stool, a big smile on his face as everyone laughed.
    Benjamin was next.
    â€œThere was this spaceship,” he began, “and it was sort of like the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle except it had eight tail blades, not four, and the front cone had a sensor spike sticking out of it sort of like a narwhal horn…”
    It took him fifteen minutes to tell the story.
    â€œWake me when it’s over,” Dwayne said halfway through.
    Then Lucy Hooper took over the chair and told a story about a spooky hitchhiker who had four thumbs. Hers only took five minutes.
    There were six stories in all, followed by a