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

jackets and carried white motorcycle helmets. The man dropped his helmet on the seat next to me.
    “Nicky, help me!” Tara screamed. “She's sitting on my lap!”
    “What do you expect
me
to do?” I cried. “
Ouch!
He's sitting on me! And he weighs a ton!”
    “She's
crushing
me!” Tara wailed.
    I couldn’t see Tara at all. The woman had her totally covered.
    “Tickle her!” I said.
    The guy leaned back on me, and I groaned. Pain shot up and down my whole body. He had his dark hair tied in a ponytail, and the ponytail swished back and forth in my eyes.
    “I’m tickling her ribs,” Tara said. “But she doesn’t feel it. Maybe she isn’t ticklish.”
    “Bad news,” I groaned. “This big geek is sitting on my hands. I can’t even
try
to tickle him.”
    The man and woman leaned over the table, holding hands.
    “What’ll it be?” the waitress asked them.
    “I’ll have the vegetable soup,” the woman said.
    “I’ll have the same,” the man said. “And bring a lot of crackers.”
    “I’m crushed. I’m totally crushed,” Tara wailed.
    The guy leaned back again, pushing his greasy ponytail into my face. I let out another groan. “Tara—remind me to breathe later.”
    A few minutes later, the waitress set two large blue bowls of soup on the table. The guy dug hiselbow into my chest as he reached for a package of crackers.
    I slipped my arms free as he crushed the crackers in his hand and dumped them into his soup. “Tara, what do you think?” I asked. “We pick up the bowls and dump the soup in their laps?”
    Tara let out another groan. “Do we have a choice?”

3
    TARA AND I PUSHED open the front door of the diner. We could still hear the screams of the man and woman from the booth in the back. We stepped out onto the snow and took deep breaths of the cold fresh air.
    Tara pulled down her ski cap and I slid the parka hood over my head. The snowflakes had stopped falling. The wind gusted in our faces. We ducked our heads and started for home.
    “What a waste of good vegetable soup,” I said.
    Tara shook her head sadly. “This was such a bad-news idea. What made us think Mom and Dad would show up at the diner?” Her voice shook.
    “It seemed like a good plan,” I muttered. An SUV roared past, splashing slush on us.
    Tara turned to me. “What if we never find them, Nicky? What if we never see Mom and Dad again?” Her chin trembled. Tears made her dark eyes shimmer.
    I slapped her on the back. “We’ll find them,” I said. “Remember that note we found? It fell outfrom the back of the framed photo of Mom and Dad? It said we shouldn’t worry. That they were really close.”
    “But if they’re so close,
where are they?
” Tara cried.
    I didn’t know how to answer. I just let out a long sigh.
    We’d been searching for Mom and Dad ever since we got home. And we weren’t the only ones looking for them. Some evil ghosts were searching for them too.
    We
had
to find them before those ghosts did. We had to keep trying new ways. We couldn’t give up.
    Tara and I stepped into the house. Our old house—143 Bleek Street. But it didn’t feel much like home with the Doyle family living in it.
    “The Doyles are out,” Tara said. “The place is empty.”
    We started up the stairs to Max's room. But a loud crash from the kitchen made us stop. Tara turned to me, her eyes wide with fear. “Who—?”
    We heard someone humming. A woman's voice.
    “Lulu!” Tara whispered.
    Lulu, our old housekeeper, is a ghost too. She pops up in the kitchen from time to time. We beg her to tell us about Mom and Dad. But she's very old and her spirit is very faint. She tries to help us. She really does. But we haven’t learned much from her.
    Maybe today …
    “Glory, glory, it's good to see you kids!” Lulu exclaimed as we hurried into the kitchen. She wore a white apron over her long gray jumper. Her white hair was tied tightly in a bun behind her head.
    She bent to pick up a frying pan from the floor.