5 WHAT IF IT'S A TRICK

CHAPTER 5 WHAT IF IT'S A TRICK? Eli waited for Claire under the big oak tree outside their school. "There you are!" he said, falling into step with her. He carried a book under his arm. "Here I am," Claire said. Kaz and Little John watched and listened from inside Claire's water bottle. "I'm not grounded anymore," Eli said. He opened the door and they went in the school. "Can you come over this afternoon and find the ghost at my house?" Claire dodged several kids in the hallway. "Your mom and your sister think you're the ghost," she said. "They said you don't want to

move, so you're trying to make people think your house is haunted." "But I'm not!" Eli said. Claire spun the dial on her locker and opened the door. Kaz and Little John passed through the water bottle and floated up above Claire and Eli's heads. Eli leaned against the locker next to Claire's. "I'll pay you if you can find the ghost," he said. Claire wiggled out of her jacket and hung it in her locker. "Don't do it, Claire," Kaz said. He dropped down in front of her. "Please, don't go over to his house." "Why don't you want Claire to go to Eli's house?" Little John asked Kaz. "Because I don't trust him," Kaz replied. "What if Eli plays a trick on her? We won't be there to help her. We're not going home with her after school, remember? We're staying here until Mom says we don't have to go to Valley View."

"We don't have to stay here. We could go to Eli's house with Claire," Little John said. "If he plays a trick on her, we could play a trick on him. Like this." Little John grabbed the book right out of Eli's hands, then let it fall to the floor. Claire tried to hide her smile as Eli bent to pick up his book. He didn't even know why he'd dropped it. "We can stay at his house tonight and then come to school with him inside his backpack tomorrow," Little John said. "Well...," Kaz said. There was no reason they couldn't do that.

"Earth to Claire," Eli said, waving his hand in front of Claire's face. "Will you come over after school or not?" Claire closed her locker. "Okay, I'll come," she said. "But this better not be a trick!" "It's not," Eli said with a grin. "I promise." While Claire went about her school day, Kaz and Little John hung out behind the stage in the school cafetorium. The last time Kaz was back here was when he and Claire had solved the case of the

ghost backstage. That was before he'd found any of his family except for Cosmo. "I like your idea of us playing a trick on Eli if he plays a trick on Claire," Kaz told Little John. "But what kind of trick could we play on him?" Little John shrugged. "He wants people to think his house is haunted. We could haunt him. We could glow and wail at him. You could transform some of his stuff. Then when anyone else comes into the room, we won't do anything." "If only I could glow," Kaz said. "You can. You did it at Valley View," Little John pointed out. "Yeah, but I don't know how I did it," Kaz said. "Well, there's no one around," Little John said. "Why don't you practice?" Kaz looked at his arms. He looked at his legs. Glow, he told his body. Glow! Glow! Glow! He clenched his teeth and squeezed his fists. Nothing happened.

Kaz sighed. While he was trying to figure out what else to try, Little John expaaaaanded really big in front of Kaz and screamed in his face, "BOO!" Kaz almost jumped out of his skin. "What did you do that for?" he asked. "I was trying to scare you," Little John said. "I thought maybe you glowed at Valley View because Petey had scared you." "I don't think that's it," Kaz said, rubbing his arms. He wasn't glowing at all. "Okay, relax," Little John said. "How am I supposed to relax when you just scared me to death?" Kaz asked. Little John swam behind Kaz and squeezed his shoulders. "Like this. Breathe...," he said.