Graveyard Slot by Michelle Schusterman (classic children's novels .TXT) 📕

“Thank you,” I told her, the knot in my chest loosening slightly. That Elapse wasn’t just the coolest (and most expensive) thing I owned, but it had also been a gift from Grandma. I couldn’t believe I’d possibly destroyed it already.

“Mi Jin, will you take over with Sam and Roland?” Jess asked. “I need to talk to Kat for a sec.”

Dad and I stayed behind while Mi Jin and Oscar headed down the trail to rejoin the rest of the crew. When Jess turned to me, I glanced at her camera and my stomach sank. And sure enough:

“Would you mind explaining what you saw?” Jess shouldered her camera. “Hopefully we can save your footage, but I’d like to hear about it in your own words, too.”

“How about this,” Dad said, before I could respond. “Just tell me about it.” He gave Jess a little nod, then smiled at me. “So, Kat. Wandered off again, hmm?”

I rolled my eyes. “I was with Brenda the whole time. Except for when she was peeing, because, ew. Privacy.”

Dad laughed. “Fair enough. So tell me about what you saw.”

I WANT OUT. I saw it in my mind, three words carved all over the interior of the cave. But I didn’t want to tell Dad, or anyone, about that. Not when there was a good chance I’d lost those photos forever.

“I was by the waterfall,” I said slowly. “I thought I heard something in the bushes, so I turned on my camera. And I felt . . . afraid. Like I felt their fear.”

“Their?”

“The campers,” I explained, feeling stupid. “It’s like it wasn’t my fear I was feeling.”

Jess stepped closer, and I cringed. My skin started doing that crawly thing again.

“And then you dropped your camera?” Dad asked.

“Yeah, I . . .”

I didn’t want to say anything about the ghost, the girl who’d looked at me. It didn’t make any sense. This was a residual haunting. A memory. But this ghost had waved at me; there was nothing residual about her. Without my camera, I didn’t have proof. I’d sound like I was either making it up or so spooked that I’d started seeing things.

“I slipped on a rock,” I said at last. “That’s when I dropped my camera. So I found Brenda and we came back here.”

“Anything else?” Dad asked encouragingly, and I knew he wanted me to give Jess a little more to work with. Oscar probably would’ve told this story in a much more entertaining way than me.

I shrugged. “Nope. That’s it.”

Jess lowered her camera. “Thanks, Kat.”

“Sure.”

Dad put his arm around me, and the three of us headed down the trail to find the others. I couldn’t stop thinking about the girl ghost, and I WANT OUT carved all over the cave. The same words from our Ouija séance in the graveyard. Why would the same message appear in two different . . .

I inhaled sharply, then disguised it as a cough when Dad glanced at me. When we reached the rest of the crew, I pulled Oscar aside.

“Do you swear you didn’t fake the Ouija thing?”

Oscar rolled his eyes. “For the hundredth time, I didn’t. Why?”

“Because, I . . .” Trailing off, I studied Oscar for a second. Part of me really wanted to tell him my theory so he could tell me if I sounded like a nutjob. But he’d probably drag me over to Jess so we could talk about it on camera. More air-time for him.

“Never mind.”

Too early the next morning, I woke up to find a massive mosquito making a meal out of my elbow. “Away, tiny vampire,” I muttered, flicking it. Next to me, Dad let out an extra-loud snore. After swapping the Halloween shirt I’d slept in for a clean Night of the Living Dead, I crept quietly out of the tent.

Yawning, I squinted around our campsite. We’d finished our investigation around 2:30 a.m. and agreed there was nothing wrong with getting a late start in the morning. It looked like almost everyone was still asleep. No sign of Oscar, but I spotted Brenda up on the ledge we’d used as a diving board yesterday, laying with her legs dangling off the edge as she read a book. Roland and Sam were sitting on a rock on the other side of the pool. At the sight of their thermoses and the cooler, my stomach rumbled loudly.

“What’s for breakfast?” I asked when I reached them, climbing up to sit next to Sam. Roland took a long swig from his thermos before responding.

“Coffee.”

“And?”

“And more coffee.” He held out the thermos, and I wrinkled my nose.

“And granola bars,” Sam said, handing me the box. “There’s fruit in the cooler, too.”

“Thanks.” I unwrapped a granola bar, thinking. I needed to tell someone what I’d seen last night. Normally, I’d go to Dad. But last night as I pretended to sleep, I’d realized I couldn’t tell him. He would probably be pretty freaked out that I was seeing things. He was already worried that I was traumatized from the whole Emily experience. What if he thought I couldn’t handle ghost hunting anymore, and he sent me back to Ohio? To live with Mom?

Nope.

I cleared my throat. “Okay, here’s the deal. Something happened last night, and I need to tell someone. But you cannot tell anyone else. Especially Jess or my dad.”

Roland leaned away, cradling his thermos. “This isn’t girl stuff, is it?” he asked, eyes wide with mock horror.

I snorted. “No. Ghost stuff.”

Sam perked up. “We won’t tell anyone. Go ahead.”

So I told them everything: the message in the cave, the ghost across the pool. How I could tell she was a girl. How she waved at me.

“So do you think it’s Ana Arias?” I finished, crumpling my granola-bar wrapper. “Is it possible she followed us here after Oscar and I contacted her?”

Sam studied me thoughtfully. “That does seem to be the most likely explanation. Although I have to admit, I’ve been puzzling over Ana’s message since I watched your video. She’s at rest next to her