"I don"t know. I keep playin" "Taps" inside my head. It"s a sad song, that"s all."

"Don"t start bawlin" now!"

"No, I"m just gonna be quiet. You know why? I guess I got it fi gured."

"Why?"

"Ice cream cones don"t last."

"That"s a silly thing to say."

"Ice cream cones are always gettin" done with. Seems I"m no sooner bitin" the top than I"m eatin" the tail. Seems I"m no sooner jumpin" in the lake at the start of vacation than I"m creepin" out the far side, on the way back to school. Boy, no wonder I feel bad."

"It"s all how you look at it," said Doug. "My gosh, think of all the things you haven"t even started yet. There"s a million ice cream cones up ahead and ten billion apple pies and hundreds of summer vacations. Billions of things waitin" to be bit or swallowed or jumped in."

"Just once, though," said Tom, "I"d like one thing. An ice cream cone so big you could just keep eatin" and there isn"t any end and you just go on bein" happy with it forever. Wow!"

"There"s no such ice cream cone."

"Just one thing like that is all I ask," said Tom. "One vacation that never has a last day. Or one matinee with Buck Jones, boy, just ridin" along forever, bangin", and Indians fallin" like pop bottles. Gimme just one thing with no tail-end and I"d go crazy. Sometimes I just sit in the movie theater and cry when it says "The End" for Jack Hoxie or Ken Maynard. And there"s nothin" so sad as the last piece of popcorn at the bottom of the box."

"You better watch out," said Doug. "You"ll be workin" yourself into another fit any minute. Just remember, darn it, there"re ten thousand matinees waitin" right on up ahead."

"Well, here we are, home. Did we do anything today we might get licked for?"

"Nope."

"Then let"s go in."

They did, slamming the door as they went.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE.

The house stood on the edge of the ravine.

It looked haunted, just like everyone said it was.

Tom and Charlie and Bo followed Doug up the side of the ravine and stood in front of the strange house at nine o"clock at night. In the distance, the courthouse clock bonged off the hour.

"There it is," said Doug. He turned his head right and left, as if he was looking for something.

"What are we gonna do?" asked Tom.

"Well," said Bo, "is it haunted, like they said?"

"From what I"ve heard, at eight o"clock, no," said Doug. "And not at nine. But starting around ten, strange sounds start to come from the house. I think we should hang around and fi nd out. Besides, Lisa-bell said that she and her friends were going to be here. Let"s wait and see."

They stood by some bushes by the front porch steps and they waited and at last the moon came up.

There was a sound of footsteps along the path somewhere and from inside the house, the sounds of someone going up some stairs.

Doug stood alert, craned his neck, but he couldn"t quite see what was going on.

"Heck," said Charlie at last. "What are we doing here? I"m gosh-awful bored. I got homework. I think I better head home."

"Hold on," said Doug. "Let"s wait just a few more minutes."

They waited as the moon got higher. And then, a little after ten, as the last peals of the courthouse clock faded away on the night air, they heard the noises. From inside the house, faint at first, almost imperceptible, there came a sound of rustling and sc.r.a.ping, as if someone was shifting trunks from one room to another.

A few minutes later, they heard a sharp cry, and then another cry, and then a sort of whispering and rustling and, finally, a dull thump.

"Those," said Doug, "were definitely ghost sounds. Like someone getting killed and the bodies being dragged around the rooms. Doesn"t it sound like that?"

"Heck," said Tom, "I don"t know."

"Don"t ask me," said Bo.

"Well," said Charlie, "it"s sure a G.o.d-awful racket. If there"s another scream, I"m getting out of here."

They stood alert and waited, almost not breathing. Silence. And then, suddenly, more groans and cries and then something that sounded like a weak cry, "Help."

Then it faded away.

"That"s it," said Charlie. "I"ve had enough."

"Me too," said Bo.

The two boys turned tail and ran.

There was a great whispering and the hair stood up on the back of Doug"s neck.

"I don"t know about you," said Tom, "but I"m get-tin" out of here. If you want to stay to listen to some darned ghosts, you can, but not me. I"ll see you at home, Doug."

Tom turned and ran.

Alone, Doug stood for a long while staring at the old house. Then he heard someone coming up the path behind him. He turned, his fists clenched, ready to defend himself against the midnight a.s.sailant.

"Lisabell," he said. "What are you doing here?"

"I told you I"d be here. But what are you doing here? I thought you were a scaredy-cat. Is it true what they say? Did you find out anything? I mean, it"s all darn foolishness, isn"t it? There"s no such thing as ghosts, is there? That place can"t be haunted."

"We thought," said Doug, "we"d come here and wait and see. But the others got scared and left and now it"s only me. So I"m just standing here, waiting, listening."

They listened. A low cry wafted out of the house into the night air.

Lisabell said, "Is that a ghost?"

Doug strained to listen. "Yes, that"s one."

A moment later they heard another great whisper and cry.

"Is that another?"

Doug looked at her face and said, "You look like you"re enjoying this."

"I don"t know," said Lisabell. "It"s kind of strange, but the more I hear, I -" And here she smiled a strange smile. The whispers and the cries and murmurs from the house grew louder and Doug felt his whole body turn hot and then cold and then warm again.

Finally he reached down and found a large stone by the front of the house, reared his hand back, and flung it through the gla.s.s panes of the front door.

The gla.s.s exploded with a loud crash and the door creaked open, slowly. Suddenly, all the ghosts wailed at the same moment.

"Doug!" cried Lisabell. "Why did you do that?"

"Because . . ." said Doug.

And then it happened.

There was a rush of feet, a torrent of whispers, and a swirling mob of white shapes burst out of the house and down the stairs and along the path and away into the ravine.

"Doug," said Lisabell. "Why"d you do that?"

"Because," said Doug, "I couldn"t stand it anymore. Someone had to scare them out. Someone had to act like they knew what they were doing. I bet they won"t come back."

"That"s terrible," said Lisabell. "Why would you want ghosts not to be here?"

"Why would you think," said Doug, "that they had a right to be here? We don"t even know who they were."

"Well," said Lisabell, angrily. "Just for that I"m going to teach you a lesson."

"What?" said Douglas.

And Lisabell stepped up to him, grabbed him by the ears, and planted an immense kiss on Douglas"s mouth. It lasted only an instant, but it was a blow like a bolt of lightning that had come out of the air and struck his face and anguished his body.

He shook from head to toe, his fi ngers extended, and somehow he imagined sparks firing out of his fingertips. His eyelids jittered and a fantastic fl ow of sweat broke out on his brow. He gasped and could not breathe.

Lisabell stood back, surveying her creation: Douglas Spaulding, hit by lightning.

Douglas fell back, afraid that she might touch him again. She laughed, her face merry.

"So there!" she cried. "That"ll fi x you."

She turned and ran away and left him in the invisible rain, a terrible storm, shaken, his whole body now hot, now cold, his jaw dropped, his lips trembling.

The explosion of the lightning bolt hit him agai n in memory, even stronger than when it had fi rst struck.

Slowly, Doug felt himself sink to his knees, his head shaking, his mind wondering at what had happened and where Lisabell had gone.

He looked up at the now truly empty house. He wondered if he should go up the stairs and find out if maybe he hadn"t just come out of the house himself.

"Tom," he whispered. "Take me home." And then he remembered: Tom wasn"t there.

He turned, stumbled, almost fell down into the ravine, and tried to find his way home.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR.

Quartermain woke laughing.

He lay wondering what in G.o.d-awful h.e.l.l had made him happy. What was the dream, gone now, but so wondrous that it cracked his face and uncorked something resembling a chuckle beneath his ribs!? Holy Jesus. What?

In the dark he dialed Bleak.

"Do you know what time it is?" Bleak cried. "There"s only one thing you ever wait half the night to churn my guts with-your stupid war. I thought you said the d.a.m.ned thing was over!"

"It is, it is. "

"It is what?" shouted Braling.

"Over," said Quartermain. "There are just a few more things I want to make sure of. It"s what you would call the joyful aftermath. Bleak, remember the collection of oddities and medical freaks we put together one summer for a town fair, all those years ago? Do you think we could find those jars? Are they up in an attic or down in a bas.e.m.e.nt somewhere?"

"I suppose so. But why?"