7 ANOTHER GHOST

CHAPTER 7 ANOTHER GHOST Cosmo led Kaz and Beckett to the library entryway. He swam over to the book drop and sniffed at it. "WOOF! WOOF!" he barked, his tail swishing from side to side. But it wasn't an angry bark; it was a happy bark. "Cosmo?" came a small voice from inside the book drop. Kaz's jaw fell open. He knew that voice. "Little John?" "Kaz?" The face of a young ghost boy appeared through the wall of the book drop. "LITTLE JOHN!" Kaz rushed forward. "It is

you!" The rest of Little John passed through the book drop, and the two ghost brothers hugged and danced around. Cosmo was so excited, he could hardly contain himself. He leaped at Little John and licked him all over. "Where did you come from? How did you get here? Are you staying?" Kaz had so many questions. "Staying?" Beckett said. "You mean I'm going to have two kids and a dog to take care of?" "You do not have to take care of us," Kaz told Beckett. For just a second, Beckett looked hurt. Or disappointed. Or something. Was it possible he actually liked taking care of Kaz and Cosmo?

"Who's that?" Little John asked Kaz. "His name is Beckett," Kaz said. "He lives here, too. Beckett, this is my brother Little John." "I figured," Beckett said. "How long have you been here?" Little John asked Kaz. "Since our haunt got torn down," Kaz replied. "The wind blew me in through a window. What happened to you when our haunt got torn down?" "First, I got blown into a barn," Little John said, wrinkling his nose. "There were lots of solid cows in there. They kept mooing at me. And they smelled bad. I didn't like it there, so I left." "You went into the Outside on purpose?" Kaz cried. Ghosts never went into the Outside on purpose. "It was better than staying in that barn," Little John said as he scratched Cosmo's ears. "What happened next?" Kaz asked. "The wind blew me into a house. There was a ghost family and a solid family living there. One

of the ghost girls was six years old, just like me," Little John said. "At night, we liked to glow and scare the solid kids!" "Little John!" Kaz scolded. "What? It was fun." Little John giggled. Then he turned serious. "Those ghosts told me I might find our family in the library. So I rode the wind here. But it kept blowing me past the library instead of inside the library." "I wonder if Cosmo saw you," Kaz said. "Maybe that's why he's been acting so crazy lately!" Kaz had to admit, Cosmo looked pretty calm right now. "How did you finally get in here?" Beckett asked Little John. "Seems to me it would be even harder to come in through the book drop than to pass through a wall." "Not if you're inside a book!" Little John grinned. "When I couldn't get inside the library, I let the wind carry me to another house. The people there had library books, so I went inside one and

waited for them to take the book back to the library!" Kaz and Little John spent the rest of the night catching up while Cosmo dog-paddled around them. Eventually, Kaz told Little John about Claire and about C & K Ghost Detectives. Little John gaped at Kaz. "You made friends with a solid?" he cried. "Do Mom and Pops know?" "No. I haven't seen Mom and Pops since our haunt got torn down," Kaz said. "You haven't?" Little John said. "You mean, Mom's not here?" "No," Kaz replied. "What makes you think she'd be here?" Little John reached into his pocket and pulled out a small blue ghost bead. Kaz stared. "That's from Mom's necklace!" he exclaimed. "I know," Little John said. "She was at that house with the other ghost family, but that was

before I got there. They told her there were ghosts in the library, too. So she left to find the library. She wanted to see if we were the ghosts there." Kaz reached into his pocket and pulled out his own ghost bead. It was exactly like Little John's bead. "You have one, too!" Little John cried. "That means Mom was here. So where'd she go?" Kaz shook his head. "Mom wasn't ever here," he said. "I think Finn was here for a while before I got here. But Mom was never here." "Then where did you get that bead?" Little John asked. "I found it in Claire's school," Kaz replied. "But Mom's not there anymore, either. I don't know where she is." Little John sighed. "Why can't people in our family stay in one place? Then maybe we could