8 A DANGEROUS MISSION

CHAPTER 8 A DANGEROUS MISSION Me?" Little John cried. "How can I help?" Yeah! Kaz wondered, trying not to feel jealous. What can Little John do to help? "Remember, David's mom said that he and Ben have dentist appointments on Monday," Claire said. "So?" Kaz said. "So, Ally's probably going to go hang out with her friends," Claire said. "Which means no one will be home at David's house. I wonder if the ghost"—Claire made air quotes with her fingers —"will still come out if no one's home."

That's a good question, Kaz thought. Claire went on, "Little John can pass through walls. So maybe he can go inside David's house on Monday and find out for us." "That is a terrible idea," Beckett said. "A terribly dangerous idea." "It's not that I can't pass through walls—" Kaz started to say. "I know," Claire interrupted. She and Little John continued at the same time: "You just don't like to." "I like to pass through walls," Little John said. He spun around and plunged headfirst through the fiction-room wall and disappeared. "See?" he called from the next room over. Then he stepped back through the wall. "But how am I going to get inside this boy's house? Won't I have to go into the Outside to get there? The wind will blow me right past it." Claire held up her water bottle. "This is how Kaz travels outside," she said. "If I can put my

water bottle right up against David's house, maybe you can pass through the bottle and the house." "Oh," Little John said. "Okay." What could possibly go wrong? "No!" Beckett said on Monday. "You cannot send that little boy into a house all by himself. It's too dangerous!" "Mind your own business, Beckett!" Claire said as she twisted the top from her bottle. Kaz, Little John, and Cosmo all shrank down... down... down. Kaz swam into the bottle through the open top, and Little John and Cosmo passed through the stars on the side of the bottle. The bottle felt crowded with three ghosts. They all had to shrink a little smaller to fit, which made everything in the Outside look even bigger. And scarier. "I'm telling you, this is a bad idea," Beckett said, following them all the way to the front door.

"A really bad idea." "I can do it, Beckett," Little John said. "Don't worry." Kaz felt proud of his little brother, but also a little bit jealous. Proud. Jealous. Proud. Jealous. It was as though those feelings were playing tug-of- war inside Kaz's heart. "I'm opening the door now, Beckett," Claire said, putting her hand on the doorknob. "You better get out of the way." "Hmph," Beckett said as he backstroked away from the door. Claire walked Kaz, Little John, and Cosmo down the street, the bottle swinging gently at her side. "This is... weird," Little John said after a while. "What's weird?" Kaz asked. "We're in the Outside, but not really," Little John said, looking all around. "We're traveling safely in the Outside," Kaz

said. "Now let's see if we can solve this case." They were close to solving it; Kaz could feel it. As they turned onto David's street, Kaz saw the same lady working in her flower garden and listening to music on her radio. Wait... radio? Claire said something about radios when she was reading about the electrowhatever interference. "Claire?" Kaz called out. "CLAIRE!" Now that he was smaller than usual, he had to talk even louder to get Claire's attention. "What?" she said, raising the bottle to the level of her eyes. Kaz pointed at the radio on the grass. "Could that radio over there be causing the interference and making all those strange things happen at David's house?" Claire turned. "That little thing? I don't know. We have a radio like that at home, and it never causes any problems with our TV. But... if we're right about the interference thing, maybe she's

having interference, too. Let's go see." She skipped over. "Hello again," Claire said, stopping right beside the radio. The lady glanced up. "Oh hello," she said, shading her eyes. "You're that Jeffrey boy's friend, aren't you?" "Yes," Claire replied. "Did you know that some strange things have been happening over at their house?" "Strange things?" "Yeah," Claire said. "Like, their garage door goes up all by itself. And a lamp comes on. They also get these lines on their TVs, and they hear a really weird voice both on their TVs and through their organ." "Through their organ? Really?" The lady shifted her legs. "Yeah. And these things always happen at five o'clock. I was just wondering if you have any trouble with your radio at five o'clock?" "Well, now that you mention it, I do tend to get