6. The Chase!

THE CHASE! 6 Sam was relieved when the day was over. Ever since lunch, he had been jumpy and so had Jasper Eerie. The substitute teacher was clearly flustered. He simply told the students to read quietly. But Sam hadn't been able to concentrate. And every time he looked up from his book, Jasper Eerie was watching him. Students and teachers headed home. But Sam, Antonio, and Lucy headed to the playground.

They all hid behind the jungle gym, watching the exit. They were waiting for Jasper to leave. "There he is!" Sam whispered. "Look!" Lucy said. "Jasper is carrying one of Orson's creepy old journals. It looks like the one we found in the school basement after the locker swallowed me up." Antonio gulped. "That is not a good sign..." Jasper unlocked a rusty bicycle from the bike rack. He glanced around, like he knew he was being watched.

Then he sped away. "Come on!" Sam said. The friends ran after him. "Careful!" Lucy added. "We can't let him see us!" When Jasper stopped at a crosswalk, the friends ducked behind an oak tree. Peeking around it, Antonio said, "I feel like I'm in a spy movie!"

Lucy smiled. "That's better than most days. Usually, it feels like we're in a horror movie!" Jasper rode faster. Sam and his friends had to sprint to keep up. Soon, Jasper turned down a shadowy street. The friends heard his bicycle rattle to a halt. Sam's side was hurting as he sped around the corner. He glanced both ways down the sidewalk, but there was no sign of their substitute teacher. "He disappeared!" Antonio exclaimed.

"He must've known we were on to him," Lucy said, kicking the ground. Sam eyed the old, tall houses that lined the crooked street. Then he spotted it. "Look!" Sam said, pointing to a rusted iron fence. Jasper's bicycle sat at the end of a cracked driveway that led to a rundown house. The house's windows were broken, and the roof was sunken in. Dead weeds covered the lawn. If Eerie Elementary were a house, this is what it would look like, thought Sam.

"That house was in the library book!" Lucy exclaimed. She pulled Eerie: A Town History from her backpack. Her face lit up as she flipped through the pages. "This was Orson Eerie's house. This is where he lived when he was alive..."