Free The Haunted by Bentley Little Page A

kind of reminded me of.”
    “We could do something like that!” James said excitedly. “No one really goes into the garage, and I bet my dad would let us use the loft!”
    “That would be cool!”
    They started talking about what they could do, how they could make a secret entrance, have a couch and a TV up there, and they forgot all about the basement.
    After baseball practice ended, Robbie’s dad drove both of them back to James’s house, telling Robbie that he’d be back to pick him up in around an hour, after he dropped Max off at home and ran a few errands. James announced to his dad that they were back; then he and Robbie went over to the garage, letting themselves in through the small side door. The garage
was
cool, he decided, looking around. Despite everything he’d said, he thought for a moment, when he first opened the door and his eyes had not yet adjusted to the darkness, that it might be scary, but it looked the same as it always had, and he gazed appreciatively at the wooden ladder attached to the far wall that led through a hole in the ceiling up to the loft.
    It really was just the basement that was creepy, and James thought he could probably learn to live with that. There were plenty of people who lived in haunted houses and coexisted with ghosts. He’d seen a Discovery Channel show about celebrity ghost stories, and there were famous actors and rock stars who’d been living with ghosts for years. Some of the spirits were even friendly.
    James recalled his dream of the dirty grinning man in the basement.
He
certainly wasn’t friendly. But even if he existed, he was probably trapped there in the basement, and as long as James stayed out of that room, there should be no problem.
    “Check it out!”
    Robbie had climbed up the ladder and was peering down through the hole in the ceiling. James hurried up after him, and though he’d been up here before, he saw it now through new eyes and realized that he and Robbie really could make this into some sort of secret hideout. Maybe
they
could be detectives, he thought, and he imagined turning this room into a crime lab, with beakers and test tubes, microscopes and chemicals. Excitedly, the two of them began planning out what they needed to do to turn the loft into their crime-fighting headquarters.
    Time passed quickly, and it seemed they’d been up there for only about ten minutes or so when James’s dad called, “Boys!” Hurrying to the small window that looked out over the backyard, they saw both fathers standing on the back patio, waiting for them to come out of the garage.
    “We need one-way glass on this window,” Robbie said. “So we can see out but no one else can see in.”
    “Yeah,” James agreed. “Coming!” he yelled down tohis dad, and the two of them climbed back down the ladder and exited the building.
    After Robbie left, James snagged some potato chips from the kitchen—trying not to look toward the closed door of the basement—and took them out to the living room to eat in front of the TV. But there were no good movies on, and only baby cartoons, and he soon got bored. He returned the Pringles canister to the kitchen, then headed upstairs, figuring he’d play on his computer or DS. His mom was still at work, and his dad was back in his office, but Megan was sitting on the floor of her bedroom, and, as he walked by, she asked in a voice loud enough for their dad to hear, “Want to play a game?”
    That was weird.
    It wasn’t unheard-of—in fact, they used to play board games a lot during the summers when they were younger, before she’d turned into such a brat—but it
was
unusual, and he figured she was trying to show their dad how bored she was in order to get him to agree to let her go somewhere or do something with one of her friends. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, however, and he
did
like playing games, so he agreed, stepping into her room. She pulled something off a shelf, then sat down on the rug, showing him what