R. L. Stine_Mostly Ghostly 03 by One Night in Doom House

1
    “ NICKY, REMEMBER THE TIME we were all having dinner at Scruffy's? And you squeezed the ketchup dispenser and accidentally squirted Dad in the face?”
    I grinned at my sister, Tara. “What made you think it was an accident?”
    “Because you wouldn’t do a thing like that on purpose,” Tara said. “You’re always such a
good
boy.” She pinched my cheek. She knows I hate that.
    I shoved her hand away.
    “Remember? The waitress saw Dad and screamed. She thought his head was bleeding. She started to call 911.”
    “Of course I remember,” I said. My voice broke. Sometimes it was hard to think about those days.
    Tara and I crossed Main Street. Snow was falling in big soft flakes. Our shoes didn’t make a sound as we hurried over the snowy sidewalk. I glanced down and saw that we weren’t leaving any footprints.
    Town was crowded with Saturday afternoon shoppers. But no one noticed Tara and me.
    No one noticed us because we are ghosts—which means we are invisible.
    Tara tugged her red wool ski cap down over her dark hair. “You know what I hate about being dead?” she asked.
    “No. What?”
    “Everything,” she said.
    I didn’t answer. What could I say?
    Two boys came running out of Sweets ’N’ Treats on the corner, carrying big bags of Gummi Worms. One of them ran right into me. He knocked me off my feet, and I stumbled into a parked car.
    “Hey, watch where you’re going!” Tara shouted.
    Of course the boys couldn’t hear her. They continued on, boots crunching the snow, slurping red and yellow worms into their mouths one at a time.
    Tara scooped some snow into her mittens, made a snowball—and heaved it hard. It made a nice
thwok
as it hit the boy in the back of the neck.
    His bag of Gummis went flying into the snow. He spun around. “Who threw that?” he shouted.
    Oops. No one there.
    I laughed. “See? There are
some
good things about being a ghost.”
    “It's the pits,” Tara muttered. “I tried phoning some of my friends yesterday. They just keptsaying, ‘Hello? Hello? Hello?’ They couldn’t hear me. How do you think that made me feel?”
    “Bad?”
    She shoved me. “Don’t make fun of me, Nicky. It isn’t funny.”
    “I know,” I said. “But I have a really good feeling about today. I don’t know why, but I think we’re going to find Mom and Dad.”
    Last October, as soon as Tara and I realized we were ghosts, we hurried to our house. We expected to find Mom and Dad waiting for us.
    But we had a shock in store for us. Another family—the Doyle family—had moved in. Wow. That was a bad moment. To come home and find strangers living in your house!
    How creepy is
that
?
    Where were our parents? What had happened to us?
    Tara and I were bursting with questions. But we couldn’t ask them. You see, Mr. and Mrs. Doyle and their older son, Colin, couldn’t see or hear us.
    But to our surprise, Max Doyle—who is my age, eleven—could see and hear us just fine.
    Poor Max was terrified at first.
No way
did he want to be haunted by two ghosts. He didn’t have any answers for Tara and me. He didn’t have a clue about what happened to us or where our parents went.
    Max begged us to leave. He tried to chase us away. But then he saw how frightened Tara and I were. And how sad. And he promised to help us.
    Now it was January, and Tara and I were still hunting for our parents.
    We were wearing old sweaters and winter parkas that Max had dug up for us. The snowflakes continued to fall, dancing in the wind, as we made our way to Scruffy's Diner at the end of Main Street.
    Tara and I had a desperate plan. But I had a really good feeling about it.
    I just
knew
we’d find Mom and Dad today.

2
    THE SKY DARKENED AS Tara and I stepped up to the little restaurant. Yellow light poured onto the snow from the big front window. We tried to peek in, but the window was totally steamed up.
    Scruffy's Diner looks like a train car. It's long and low with a shiny metal front. A sign on the flat roof