5 NO SUCH THING AS GHOSTS

CHAPTER 5 NO SUCH THING AS GHOSTS Claire clutched her book to her chest, grabbed her bag, and hurried to open the door. The whole library was dark. Kaz swam into the entryway. He moved much faster in the dark than Claire did. He was used to darkness. His old haunt was always dark. Those hot things in the ceiling lit up, and the library became bright again. A small crowd had gathered in the entryway. "I saw it!" cried a solid boy in a striped shirt. "I saw the library ghost." Squinting in the bright light, Kaz looked around. Solids could only see ghosts when they

were glowing. But ghosts could see other ghosts all the time. Kaz didn't see any other ghosts. "I saw it, too!" said a solid girl in pigtails. "So did I," said another solid boy, wearing glasses. "It was right there." "Right where?" Claire asked as she opened her book. "There." The boy with the glasses pointed at the air above the sprawling floor plant, next to the spiral staircase. "Henry," said a lady who was probably the boy's mother. "You know there's no such thing as ghosts." No such thing as ghosts! That was like saying

there was no such thing as solids. "Maybe you saw a shadow behind the plant," the mother went on. "It wasn't a shadow." Henry stuck out his bottom lip. "It was a ghost. It was floating above the plant, up by the ceiling. You could see right through him." "We all heard him moan," the girl in pigtails said. "Shadows don't moan." "And they don't turn off the lights," said the boy in the striped shirt. Kaz drifted among the solids. The ghost man, Beckett, had passed through the bookcase and hadn't returned. So who had these solid kids seen? Finn, he thought. Who else? But where did Finn go? "This isn't the first time that someone has seen a ghost in this library," Grandma Karen said in a mysterious voice. "That's right," said a very old solid as she hobbled over with her cane. It was the same lady

who had gotten mad at Claire for running in the library earlier. "I used to own this house," the older solid said in a croaky voice. "Back before it was a library. I had a small apartment here on the first floor, and I rented out the rest of the house. We saw ghosts here all the time back then. It was hard to keep renters. When Mrs. Lindstrom said she wanted to buy the place, turn the first floor into a library, and live on the second floor, I was happy to sell it to her." "Well, I don't believe there are any ghosts here," said Henry's mother. "Kids, let's check out our books. It's time to go home." The old woman and all the other solids, except for Claire, walked away. "That Beckett!" Claire shook her head as she wrote some more in her book. "What about him?" Kaz asked. "I don't know why he keeps coming out and— what was that word you used before? Glow? I

don't know why he keeps glowing around all those little kids. He must like to scare them." Kaz drifted in a circle around Claire. "I don't think Beckett is the ghost they saw. I think they saw my brother Finn." Claire looked confused. "The guy in your book," Kaz said, pointing. "We were just talking about him." "Oh, him," Claire said. "I haven't seen him in more than a month. I don't think he's even here anymore." "Well, we know those solids—" "Don't say 'solids,'" Claire interrupted. "Okay, those kids," Kaz corrected. "We know they didn't see me, and they couldn't have seen Beckett. He went back behind that bookcase. So there's got to be another ghost here. I think that ghost is my brother Finn." Claire shook her head. "If there was another ghost here, I would know it. Beckett's been doing this forever. Like I said, I think he likes to scare

little kids." "But wouldn't we have seen him come back through the bookcase?" asked Kaz. "Not if he went through a different wall." That didn't seem possible to Kaz. If Beckett had passed through a different wall, he would've been in the Outside. No ghost ever went into the Outside on purpose. "Well, I'm going to look around and see if Finn is here," Kaz said. He swam toward the children's room. Claire closed her book and put it back inside her bag. "I don't think he is," she said, hoisting the bag onto her shoulder. "But I'll help you look. Just in case." "Finn?" Kaz called as he swam up one aisle of bookshelves and down another. Claire looked high, low, and all around the room. "Finn? Are you here?" Kaz and Claire searched the children's room, the fiction room, and the nonfiction room.