The Gross Ghost Mystery Read online

  “So, Chunky.” Zack punched Chet on the shoulder. “Did you find your stupid glove?”

  “The way we heard it, you stole the glove,” Joe said.

  Zack frowned at Chet. Then he gave the Hardys a wide, phony grin. “Is that what Chet told you?”

  Chet folded his arms across his chest. “Maybe I did.”

  “Well, you’re wrong,” Zack sneered.

  “You lost the glove. After all, you are a natural-born loser! Ha-ha-ha!”

  “Very funny,” Chet mumbled.

  “We found the glove,” Zack insisted. “Then we left it where it would be safe—guarded by ghouls. Right, Biff?”

  A huge blond kid standing behind Zack nodded. “Right, Zack.”

  “Biff?” Joe laughed. “What kind of a dopey name is that?”

  Biff’s face turned red. He stepped forward to loom over Joe.

  “Everybody calls me Biff. Know why?” He made a fist and punched his palm. “That’s the sound of what happens to kids I don’t like. Biff! Biff!” He shoved Joe really hard.

  But Joe knew how to handle bullies. Even though he had to reach up to do it, he swung his fist.

  “Pleased to meet you . . . Biff!”

  Smack!

  With one punch, Joe slugged Biff right in the nose!

  4

  The Zack Pack

  Owwww!” Biff yelled. He reeled back. Then he fell right on his butt.

  “My nose!” He clamped both hands across his face and stared up at Joe.

  “Come on, Biff,” Frank said. “He didn’t hit you that hard.”

  But Mark and Brett, the other kids with Zack, stared, too.

  “Everybody saw that!” Zack shouted.

  “What did you do that for?” Mark asked.

  “Yeah, you socked Biff for no reason!” Brett added.

  Biff scrambled to his feet. His nose did look big and red.

  “You’ll be sorry!” Zack threatened. He walked away. The rest of his gang followed him.

  Sure, Frank thought. Now he’s far enough away to feel safe. He watched Zack and his friends quickly disappear into the park.

  Joe stared down at his fist.

  “That was awesome!” Chet cried.

  A boy who had been playing nearby walked over. He was about the Hardys’ age with black hair and dark skin. His eyes sparkled as he gave Joe a high five.

  “Way to go!” he said. “I’m Mike Mendez.”

  “Hi, Mike,” Frank said. “I’m Frank Hardy, and the guy with magic fists is my younger brother, Joe.”

  “This park used to be great,” Mike said. “Until it was invaded by the Zack Pack.”

  Chet laughed. “The Zack Pack. That’s good!”

  “Well, the Zack Pack threw Chet’s new mitt into the big haunted house on Oak Street,” Joe said. “Now it’s missing.”

  “I don’t know if the house is haunted,” Mike said. “But it is weird. My grandpa used to work there.”

  Frank turned to Mike. “Maybe your grandfather could tell us what he knows about the house.”

  “Sure, let’s go ask him,” Mike said. “He lives on Oak Street, on the same block as the old house.”

  Mike led the way. Soon they reached the haunted house. Mike passed it and walked on to the corner. The other boys followed.

  A little house stood behind a thick green hedge. A thin man with leathery skin and white hair was gardening in the front yard.

  “Grandpa!” Mike called.

  The man turned and smiled. “Hola!” he said.

  “Grandpa, meet Frank and Joe Hardy. They just moved to Bayport,” Mike said.

  “Hello, boys. I’m José Mendez,” Mike’s grandfather said. He glanced at Chet.

  “And this is Chet Morton, from my school.”

  “Some kids took my new baseball glove,” Chet said. “Then they threw it into the haunted house.”

  “You mean the Morrow mansion?” Mr. Mendez shook his head. “It was a beautiful place once. The Morrow family built that house more than a hundred years ago. I worked there for a long time.”

  “What happened to it?” Frank asked.

  “After old Dr. Morrow’s son, Robert, died, no one wanted to live there. Robert was a doctor, too, a brain surgeon.”

  “See, Joe?” Frank said. “I knew there was a reason that skeleton was there.”

  “Did you ever see any ghosts when you worked there?” Joe asked, ignoring his brother.

  Mr. Mendez chuckled. “There was always talk about the house being haunted. But I never believed it.”

  “Neither do I,” Frank insisted.

  “You can read all about the Morrow mansion,” Mr. Mendez said. “When the house turned a hundred years old, the newspaper carried a long article about it.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Frank said. “But first we want to go back to the house and check it out.”

  Joe and Chet stared at Frank.

  “We do?” they asked together.

  Mr. Mendez put down his hedge clipper and began walking to a small shed. “It must be pretty dark in there. You’d better borrow my flashlight. And be careful!”

  Minutes later the four boys were walking up the overgrown path to the Morrow mansion.

  “Do we really want to go inside again?” Chet asked.

  “Do you want your glove back or not?” Frank said.

  “Of course I want it. My mom will kill me if she finds out I lost it already.”

  “Then come on.”

  Mike held his grandfather’s flashlight out in front of him.

  “What we need is a ghost-tracking device,” he said as Frank opened the door.

  “A what?” Joe asked.

  “You know, something to spot and trap ghosts. I could build one,” Mike explained.

  “Mike’s great at building machines and rigging stuff,” Chet explained. “You should have seen the cool robot he made for our science fair.”

  The boys walked through the doorway and into the house.

  “What’s that smell?” Chet asked.

  “Maybe it’s a dead body,” Joe said.

  “Maybe it’s your feet,” Frank said. He led the way to the big room he and Joe had been in before. “Mike, shine the flashlight against that wall.”

  Mike aimed the beam at the wall. The boys could see a gigantic fireplace covered with cobwebs. Above it hung a huge portrait of a man. The man had thick white hair and wore a long black cape.

  “That must be Dr. Morrow!” Joe cried. “Look, he’s got a brain in his hand!”

  Frank moved closer to the portrait.

  “That’s not a brain—it’s a kitten!”

  Mike shone the light on the cat. It was curled up in the doctor’s hand. “Aw! It’s cute!”

  Chet took the flashlight from Mike.

  “Forget the cat, you guys. Let’s look for my glove.”

  The boys moved on. Joe was sure the eyes in the portrait were following him.

  The boys spread out as Chet aimed the flashlight across the dusty floor.

  “Footprints!” Chet exclaimed.

  The circle of light rested on several blurred scratches.

  “They’re small,” Joe said. “Maybe a little kid made them.”

  “Or a skeleton,” Frank said.

  “These scratches must have been made by the skeleton you saw!” Chet exclaimed. “If he stole the glove, maybe we should let him keep it.”

  “Where do the footprints go?” Joe asked. “Shine the light down there.” He grabbed Chet’s arm, trying to aim the light along the floor.

  The boys bumped into Mike, who stumbled. He banged into something with a startled “Ouch!”

  Chet spun, shining the beam around. A round, bumpy object flew through the air toward Joe.

  He caught it. He stared at it and screamed.

  This time there was no mistaking it. In Joe’s shaky hands was a bumpy, lumpy human brain!

  5

  Ghost Story

  Joe threw the brain against the wall as h
ard as he could. The force of his throw knocked him off his feet.

  He hit the floor with a thud. He was staring up at the ceiling when something large and white floated over him. Then it covered him up.

  “It’s alive!” he shouted. “The ghost of Dr. Morrow is alive!”

  Joe heard the other boys laughing. Suddenly three smiling faces were looking down at him.

  “It’s just a sheet that was covering that bookcase,” Frank explained, rolling up the sheet.

  “Then how do you explain this?” Joe asked, pointing to the brain on the floor.

  Frank picked up the brain. “It’s not real. It’s a model.”

  “Then why did it attack me?” Joe asked.

  “It fell from the top of the bookcase,” Frank said. “It was probably holding the sheet in place.”

  “What about the bony footprints?” Joe asked. “How did they get there?”

  “Maybe they were planted to scare us off,” Frank said.

  “It worked for me,” Chet admitted.

  “Well, there can’t be any ghosts in this room anyway,” Mike insisted.

  “Why not?” Joe asked.

  Mike laughed. “Because it’s the living room. Get it? Living room.”

  Frank rolled his eyes. “I get it,” he said.

  “Can we go now?” Chet asked.

  “Why?” Joe asked. “Are you scared?”

  Chet grabbed his stomach. “No, I’m hungry. I haven’t eaten in over an hour.”

  “And I’d better return this flashlight to my grandfather before the batteries zonk out,” Mike said.

  “Boy, what a waste of time,” Joe complained as the boys left the house. “No glove, no new suspects. Just a lot of footprints and a bogus brain. How will we ever solve this case?”

  “I have an idea. Let’s go the library and find that newspaper article,” Frank said. “Maybe it will tell us something. See you later, guys.”

  • • •

  Mrs. Hardy drove Frank and Joe to the library later that day. She said she would pick them up in half an hour.

  The Bayport Library was in a brick building in the middle of town. The boys went straight to the information desk.

  “Mr. Kowalski?” Frank asked, looking at the librarian’s name tag. “We’re looking for a story from the Bayport Times.”

  “Do you know the date?” he asked.

  The boys looked at each other. “Um, no,” Joe admitted. “But it was the hundredth birthday of the haunted house.”

  Mr. Kowalski grinned. He wiggled his fingers as if trying to scare them. “Oh, you mean the Morrow mansion.”

  He stepped out from behind his desk and began to shuffle toward the back of the building like a big monster. “Walk this way,” he said in a rough, scary voice.

  “Well,” Joe whispered, “at least the librarians here know how to have fun.”

  Mr. Kowalski found the article on microfilm. Then he showed the boys how to use a machine that projected the film on a screen. They could pay to copy any part of it and take the copy home.

  “Look!” Joe said. “That’s a picture of the house.”

  The picture showed the house when it was in better condition. At least the windows weren’t broken or boarded up. Joe leaned over Frank’s shoulder to read the printed story. One word jumped out at him.

  “ ‘Ghost’!” Joe cried, pointing.

  Frank read that part out loud. “ ‘Some people think the Morrow mansion is haunted. The house was built over a hundred years ago by Dr. Samuel Morrow, a prominent surgeon. After his wife died, Dr. Morrow lived there alone with his cat, Winston.’ ”

  “That must be the cat in the portrait,” Joe suggested. “Do you think Winston’s a ghost now, too?”

  “Nah,” Frank said. “Cats have nine lives, remember?”

  “Very funny,” Joe said.

  Frank continued reading. “ ‘When the older Dr. Morrow died, his son, Dr. Robert Morrow, lived in the house. Upon his death, the mansion remained vacant. The house is said to be visited by the ghost of the first Dr. Morrow, who roams the house, dragging his wooden leg.’ ”

  “A wooden leg?” Joe repeated. “I’ll bet that’s what made those scratch marks. I told you the place was haunted, Frank!”

  “The article says the ghost story is just a rumor,” Frank said. But he put in a couple of coins so they could copy the whole page.

  “Let’s wait for Mom on the front steps,” Frank said. “We can read the rest of the article later.”

  A big stone stairway led up to the library’s front door. Joe sat down near the bottom of the steps and looked around.

  “Hey, Frank,” he said. “Look. There’s Biff.”

  Holding the seat of a pink two-wheeler, Biff was teaching a little girl how to ride her bike. As he ran slowly alongside her on the sidewalk in front of the library, Frank and Joe heard him say, “You can do it. Just look ahead and keep pedaling.”

  Coming from the other direction on his bike was Zack. He stopped short when he spotted Biff and the girl.

  “Isn’t that cute?” Zack laughed. “Big bad Biff playing with a little girl!”

  “Knock it off,” Biff said.

  “Come on, let’s go to the park,” Zack said to Biff. “Or would you rather play with dolls? Ha-ha-ha!”

  “I can’t go,” Biff said. “I promised my mom I’d stay with my cousin.”

  “What a wimp!” Zack shouted.

  Biff’s face turned red, but he didn’t say anything. That was when Zack looked up and noticed the Hardys.

  “Hey! Get a load of Biff, the baby-sitter!” Zack called to Frank and Joe.

  “Guess what?” Joe said to Zack. “We were inside the haunted house again today. But we still didn’t find the glove.”

  “Yeah,” Frank said. “Maybe somebody just happened to go in and take it out.”

  Zack snorted. “Maybe Chet got his mommy to get it for him. He’s such a wimp.” Zack pointed to Biff. “Just like this guy here.”

  Biff turned to Zack angrily. “I wouldn’t talk if I were you. I’m the one who threw Chet Morton’s glove in the window for you!”

  “Will you shut your mouth, Hooper?” Zack said. He turned his bike around and pedaled away furiously.

  “You mean Zack has never been in the house?” Frank asked Biff.

  “Read my lips,” Biff ordered. “Zack has never gone near the Morrow mansion—ever!”

  6

  A Bump in the Night

  Well, that rules out Zack,” Frank said that evening after dinner. He and Joe were back at the computer. Frank pressed the Delete key. “Now we don’t have any suspects.”

  “Yes, we do,” Joe said. He pointed to the computer screen. “The ghost of Dr. Morrow—or the ghost of his cat.”

  Frank stared at his computer screen and sighed. “Whatever.”

  Just then their mom called from downstairs. “Boys? Your friends are here to visit.”

  Frank turned off the computer. “It must be Chet and Mike,” he said.

  Chet came through the door, but he wasn’t with Mike. He was with a girl. She was a little shorter than Joe, and she was wearing big hoop earrings and a huge turban made from a scarf. She looked like a fortune-teller.

  “Who’s that?” Joe whispered to Chet.

  “It’s my crazy sister, Iola,” Chet groaned. “I told her about the haunted house. Now she wants to have a séance.”

  “A say-what?” Frank asked.

  “A séance,” Iola explained. “That’s where we all hold hands and talk to ghosts.”

  Joe jumped back. “No way! I’m not holding hands with a girl.”

  “Take it easy,” Iola said. “Just think of me as your link to the great beyond.”

  “Just think of her as a nut,” Chet told Frank and Joe.

  Joe grabbed Frank’s arm. “Frank, let’s do it. We have nothing to lose.”

  Frank scratched his head. He turned to Iola. “All right. But this doesn’t mean I believe in ghosts.”
r />   Iola instructed the boys to find four chairs. They set them up around a small table in Frank’s room.

  “First we turn off all the lights,” Iola explained.

  “They are off,” Joe said. “It’s not even dark yet.”

  “Next we hold hands,” Iola said. She grabbed Frank’s hand and then Joe’s.

  “Yuck,” Joe muttered.

  “Then we close our eyes and picture the spirit of Dr. Morrow,” Iola continued.

  The boys squeezed their eyes shut.

  “What do you all see?” Iola asked.

  “The doctor,” Frank said slowly.

  “The doctor stuffing brains in a jar,” Joe answered.

  “I see a cheeseburger with pickles and onions,” Chet said. “Can we stop now?”

  “Be serious,” Iola snapped. “Do you want to find your glove or not?”

  Joe opened one eye. He stared at Iola. She was swaying back and forth.

  “Dr. Morrow!” Iola called out. “If you are with us, give us a sign. Any sign.”

  Joe opened one eye. “If he’s not there, ask for his cat.”

  Bump!

  Frank and Joe jumped.

  “What was that?” Frank gasped.

  “This is too weird,” Chet said.

  Frank could feel Iola’s hand. It was shaking like a leaf.

  Iola gulped noisily. Then she went on. “Dr. M-m-morrow? Is that you?”

  Frank and Joe held their breath.

  Bump! Bump! Bump!

  Chet jumped up from his chair. “I’m getting out of here!” he screamed as he ran from the room.

  “Me, too!” Iola cried, running after her brother.

  “But you were just getting somewhere!” Joe shouted to Iola.

  Iola put her hand on her forehead and swayed shakily. “Madame Iola is getting another sign. It’s from my mom, and she wants me to come home right away.”

  Frank and Joe could hear Chet and Iola thundering down the stairs and out of the house.

  Bump! Bump!

  There it was again!

  Joe turned to his brother. “That was definitely a sign from the great beyond.”

  Frank ran his hand against the wall. The bumps sounded as if they were coming from outside.