Free The House Has Eyes by Joan Lowery Nixon Page B

your mind? Most people would …” She stopped, smoothed back her hair, and said, “That is, most people would be scared. I probably wouldn’t.”
    “Yuck,” Sean said and pretended to gag.
    “Listen to me, Sean,” Charles said. “We haven’t got time to fool around. The bell’s going to ring pretty soon, and I want to talk over a business arrangement with you. Yesterday I heard someone say that you and your brother are private detectives.”
    “Yeah. We are,” Sean said. “We call ourselves the Casebusters.”
    “Fine,” Charles said. “In that case, I’d like to hire you. My parents and I are going to live here for three months before we can go back to our home in New York. As I told you, I don’t like living with ghosts, so I want to hire the Casebusters to get rid of them.”
    Sean spoke without thinking. “Hunt for ghosts? No way!” he said.
    “Ha!” Debbie Jean said. “You’re scared to!”
    “Are you?” Charles asked Sean. “Tell me right now. Because if you won’t help me, I’ll have to find someone else.”
    Frantically, Sean searched for the right thing to say. “My brother and I are partners,” he said, “so I’ll have to talk it over with him.”
    “Do you think he’ll agree?”
    The first bell rang, but no one moved. Sean realized they were all waiting for his answer.
    “Yes,” he heard himself saying. “I can just about promise that Bri will agree.”
    Charles gave a long sigh of relief. “Fine,” he said. “How about coming to my house at six-thirty tonight?”
    “I have a better idea,” Sean said, eager to see the house in daylight, not in the early winter darkness. “We can come right after school.”
    “No,” Charles said. “Evening is better. If my parents are home, you can meet them, too. I’ll tell the housekeeper you’ve been invited for dinner.”
    Mrs. Jackson came into the classroom just as the second bell rang. She pretended to look surprised. “What’s all this?” she asked. “No one’s sitting down, ready to work? Come on, boys and girls, it’s time to get busy.”
    Sean slid into his chair and pulled out his history book, but he couldn’t concentrate on the lesson. He’d practically promised to do the last thing in the world he really wanted to do—go into a haunted mansion at night, looking for ghosts.

3

    B RIAN LIKED THE IDEA of ghost hunting. “Sure,” he said as soon as Sean told him what Charles had said. “You don’t have to talk me into it.”
    “I’d rather talk you out of it,” Sean said.
    Brian laughed. “Come on, Sean. We may find out a lot more about the ghost lights. It would be fun to tell Sam something scary that he didn’t already know.”
    “I don’t mind hearing scary stories. I just don’t like being in the middle of them.”
    “You don’t have to be in the middle of anything. We’ll listen to what Charles has to say. If we think we can help him, fine. If his parents are right, and the ghosts are all in his imagination, we can forget the whole thing.”
    “Okay … I guess,” Sean agreed. After all, Bri would be on hand, along with Charles’s parents. What was there to be scared of?
    Mrs. Quinn drove Sean and Brian to the Everhart mansion. “It’s too chilly for a bike ride this evening,” she said as she turned her car off the main road onto a long drive that circled up to the house. “Besides, I’d like to meet Mr. and Mrs. Collier.” She turned and smiled at Sean. “I’m pleased that you and Brian accepted Charles’s invitation for dinner. He’s probably very lonely and eager to make friends.”
    Sean gulped, feeling guilty that he hadn’t happened to mention the ghost-hunting part of the invitation.
    Mrs. Quinn parked near the front door, and she, Sean, and Brian climbed out of the car. For a few moments they stood silently, studying the looming, dark redbrick Everhart mansion, with its small, narrow windows. Beyond the house, where the property stretched out toward the bay, they could