The Golden Ghost by Marion Dane Bauer Page B

living. Boys were always daring one another to check them out.
    Why hadn’t she suggested going back to Todd’s house instead? They could have run through the sprinkler. Or they could have made popcorn and watched one of Todd’s mom’s old movies.
    What was wrong with imagining ordinary things like that?
    Todd had pulled ahead. Delsie sighed and pumped harder. At least the mill wasn’t very far.
    They bumped across the rusty railroad tracks that led to the old mill. Beyond the tracks Todd stopped in the long grass beside the road. He stepped off his bike.
    Delsie jumped off her bike next to him. She pulled off her helmet and wiped her sweaty cheek against her sleeve. Then she looked back at the old mill looming above them.
    A smokestack rammed itself against the blue of the sky. There was a bank of silos, too, and some old buildings. All of it was the dirty white of old cement dust. All of it was silent and empty.
    The houses were strung along a red-gravel street in the shadow of the mill.
    They looked pretty much alike. They were square and small and as empty as the mill.

    The street was deserted, too. Patches of scraggly grass sprouted here and there in the gravel.
    Just standing in the middle of all that emptiness made Delsie’s arms prickle into goose bumps.
    She gave herself a shake.
    What was the harm, anyway? The only thing they were doing was checking out a bunch of old houses. She might have a good imagination, but she didn’t believe in ghosts.
    At least she didn’t think she did.
    Still, she said, “It’s not so hot anymore. Maybe we should just keep riding instead.”
    It was true that the day seemed cooler now. In fact, here, beneath the mill, an odd chill touched the air.
    Todd gave her arm a poke. “Aw, come on,” he said. “It was your idea. You’re not going to chicken out, are you?”
    Delsie thought of turning the moment into a joke. All she’d have to do was flap her elbows and squawk like a chicken. What stopped her was the thing Todd always said about her. That she wasn’t like
other
girls.
    By that he meant she wasn’t prissy, worried about getting her clothes dirty … scared.
    So she said instead, “Of course I’m not chicken.” Then she added, “Which one should we check out first?”
    “That one.” Todd nodded in the direction of the nearest house.
    They dropped their bikes in the grass, and Todd moved out ahead of her. He jumped up the steps onto a rickety porch. He reached for the doorknob.
    It rattled in his hand, but the door didn’t open.
    “Shoot!” Todd said.
    Delsie was careful not to let her relief show. If all the houses were locked, they couldn’t go in, could they?
    She stepped up onto the porch andpressed her nose against the front window. It was so dark inside she couldn’t make out much.
    What had she expected? Ghosts didn’t need to turn on lights to see.
    The house next door was locked, too. The front windows on this one had been broken and were boarded up, so they went around to the side.
    They peered through a small window into what seemed to be a bathroom.
    Would ghosts need a bathroom?
Delsie wondered.
    “You see that ghost on the toilet?” Todd asked, as if he could read her mind. Actually, sometimes she thought he
could
read her mind.
    “No, only the werewolf in the bathtub,” she said.
    He gave her arm a poke again, a little harder than he needed to.
    Delsie rubbed the spot, but she didn’t say anything.
    The next house was locked … and the next and the next.
    This wasn’t so bad. Two more houses and they would be at the end of the street. After that they could cross over and do the other side, stare into the windows, stare into the empty dark. Then they could go home.
    What was so scary about that?
    When they were back at school on Tuesday, they could brag about checking out the ghost houses. The boys would be impressed. Some of the girls probably would be, too.
    The prissy girls would say it was a dumb thing to do. But they would be