3 SEARCHING FOR A GHOST

CHAPTER 3 SEARCHING FOR A GHOST Do we get to use special effects in this play?" Andy asked Mr. Hartshorn as Kaz hovered nearby. "Special effects?" Mr. Hartshorn scratched his chin. "Yeah. Like smoke or trapdoors," Andy said. He shivered as Kaz drifted closer. Mr. Hartshorn smiled. "No. We're just doing lights and sound. We don't need a trapdoor in Jack and the Beanstalk. I don't think many of the kids in this play even know we have a trapdoor in the stage. And I'd like to keep it that way. For safety

reasons." "Okay," Andy groaned. "Let me show you the control room. Quick! Before the second bell rings," Mr. Hartshorn said. They hurried to the back of the cafetorium. Kaz swam behind them. Mr. Hartshorn unlocked a small room and they stepped inside. Kaz hovered in the doorway. He saw a long table with a machine that had lots of buttons and knobs on it. A window above all those buttons and knobs looked out into the cafetorium. There was another door in the back wall. Probably a closet. "Do you know how to use this equipment?" Mr. Hartshorn asked. "Yes," Andy replied. "And I'd like to run lights and sound for the play, but I have soccer on Mondays and Wednesdays. Do you need me at every rehearsal?" "Not until the week of the play," Mr. Hartshorn said.

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Kaz backstroked away from the control room. "Mom? Pops? Grandmom? Grandpop?" he called as he wafted around the cafetorium. "Finn? Little John? Are any of you here?" Kaz spotted another room along the sidewall of the cafetorium. A light shined through an open doorway, and Kaz smelled something interesting. Food of some sort. Ghosts didn't need food, but Kaz had spent enough time with Claire's family to know that solids did. In fact, solids ate food quite often. Sometimes more than three times a day. Kaz swam into the room, and a loud bell rang again. But the solid ladies in this room didn't even react to the bell. They were busy stirring pans on a stove and talking about their grandchildren. Kaz watched them for a while, but then a shuffling noise outside the kitchen caught his attention. He swam back out into the cafetorium. The shuffling came from behind the heavy red curtain on the stage.

"Hello?" he said as he swam to the curtain. "Is anybody back there?" Kaz didn't want to pass through the curtain, so he dove down and glided under it. There were even more curtains behind that first one. The whole stage was surrounded by black and gold curtains. Kaz heard more shuffling. Then a scratching sound. He followed the sounds to a small room behind the stage. A large board that was painted to look like a house rested against the wall outside that room. Inside, the room was piled high with boxes. Two solid girls around Kaz and Claire's age were folding clothes and putting them into boxes on the floor.

"It's not fair," grumbled the shorter girl. She had a splash of freckles on her cheeks. "I try out for the play every year, but I never get a part. I always get stuck working backstage." "I like working backstage," the other girl said as she tossed her long hair over her shoulder. "It's better than being on the stage and having to learn all those lines. Plus, Mr. Hartshorn lets you out of class to clean the storage room." The girl with the freckles wrinkled her nose. "I'd rather be onstage!" she said as she shoved a