"I can't believe Jack wouldn't let us go to the poker game." I said and pouted a little.
Psycho grinned. "No kiddin'. You'd think the guy would have a sense of humor. Just because we play one trick on the guys he has to fly off the handle. Anyway, it was a harmless trick, and you wouldn't think any of those many men would be scared of a garden snake."
I chuckled a little. "Yeah. A room full of guys were scared of a snake caught by two girls... well, two girls with the help of a third party, but that third party was left unnamed because of 'the code' and his attempts to keep Jack from over-reacting."
She smiled. "It was worth it to see the looks on their faces. Anyway, who cares if they all went to the poker game in Brooklyn? I'm sure we can find fun stuff to do here as long as we don't wake Kloppman up."
I nodded. "Yeah, but Kloppman's a light sleeper, remember?"
She shrugged. "We could always sneak out."
I laughed a little. "Yeah, I suppose we could. It would be easy to get back before the others... but Spot probably has spies watching the lodging house or something. He was here when we pulled the thing with the snake, remember?"
"Yeah, I remember." She said evily and laughed. "Funniest thing I've seen in a while. Imagine, the all mighty Spot Conlon afraid of a harmless little snake."
"We obviously have to stay here... so, what should we do?" I asked after a pause.
She pulled out a deck of cards and set we started playing a game. About an hour later the game was still going strong, and no one was anywhere near winning so we set the cards down and started babbling. I frowned a little as I heard a sound, but chose to ignore it. A second later I heard the same sound again. Psycho frowned a little. "Did you hear that?"
I nodded. "Yeah. What do you think it is?"
She shrugged. "I don't know."
We listened closely and heard the sound again, this time a little louder. It was deffinately something scratching at the windows. I raised an eyebrow. "You uh... think that could be your cat?"
She frowned slightly. "I don't think so..."
Once again we heard the scratching noise, this time even louder. I shuddered a little and folded my arms together. "If I hear that sound again I swear I'll freak out."
Psycho shook her head in agreement. "That's so weird, the scratching's too loud to be Hoagie. Something bigger has to be making that sound."
I gasped a little as I heard it again, extremely loud now. I found the one place I was least likely to be seen from the windows and hid there while Psycho backed up against Kloppman's desk, muttering to the newspaper clipping from the strike, "Watch my back, Jack."
I probably would have smiled if it weren't for the fact that my imagination was starting to act up. "Psycho?" I asked softly. "Are all of the windows shut?"
She shook her head slowly. "No, the ones in the bunkroom are open."
I eyed the stairs nervously. "You have anything to defend yourself with?"
"A stick." She said, holding up a flimsy wooden rod of some sort.
I smiled weakly. "I hate to admit it, but I wish Spot was here with his slingshot."
"Me too." She said in a shaking voice, but trying to make it sound like a joke. We heard the sound again and I pressed my back against the wall even more, glancing up at the stairs once again. I could feel the blood drain from my face and my eyes widen bigger than they've ever been as I saw the door to the boy's bunkroom gently opening and closing. I tried to say something or scream but was, for once, speechless, and couldn't even force myself to breath. Psycho eyed me suspiciously. "Echo, what's your problem?!"
I pointed to the door, still unable to speak and starting to hyperventilate. She looked up and gasped, backing away as she noticed the door, still drifting open, then closed again. We kept our eyes glued to the moving door and jumped a mile as it slammed shut. Once again we heard the noise and Psycho clutched her rod a little closer. We were both quiet now, afraid that if we talked someone would hear and attack us, which left my imagination more room to expand. All ready I could imagine some horrible beast outside, like a mountain lion, only with the intelligence of a human. And again, we heard the loud scratching. That must have been the last straw because at the exact moment we both jumped up and ran, full speed, up the stair and into the boy's bunkroom. Psycho frantically tried to close the window, and the whole time I imagined a claw reaching in and impaling her. When she couldn't get it shut we ran back out and down the stairs, hoping nothing would kill us.
We sat at the bottom of the stairs, saying nothing too each other as the scratching noises continued, and hoping either Kloppman would wake up soon or the others would come back. After a while the noises died away and an we waited until we could barely keep our eyes open any longer before trudging up the stairs to the boys' bunkroom where we finally managed to shut the window. I curled up on Jack's bunk, feeling safer there than I would in my own, and Psycho was over in Brian's. Despite our frazzled nerves and over active imaginations we were soon asleep. Oblivion was a nice place to be while it lasted, that is until someone shook my shoulder and said my name, waking me up again. I jumped a little, ready to throw a punch until I noticed it was Jack waking me up. I grinned like a fool and threw my arms around him. "You're back!"
He blinked in surprise. "Yeah, an' yer in my bunk. Why?"
Psycho was also awake by this time and we both quickly told the guys what had happened. Jack actually laughed at the look on both of our faces, along with everyone else. "The scratching was yer cat, Psycho... an' da door shut cause of da wind."
I blushed slightly, embarrassed by the way he rationalized the situation and accepting the explanation. "Oh." I replied simply.
He picked me up off of his bunk and sat me on the ground. "Now do ya mind if I reclaim my bunk an' get some sleep."
I pouted a little and walked to the girl's bunkroom beside Psycho. She was frowning a little. "Echo, do you buy dat explanation?"
I thought about it for a second or so and after I really thought about it I shook my head. "There's no way."
She nodded. "Hoagie isn't heavy enough ta make scratching noises as loud as those."
"Yeah." I agreed, starting to realize we had been justified in being scared. "And the wind may be able to blow the door shut, but how was it opening again?"
"And if the wind was hard enough to slam the door shut the last time, then why wasn't anything else in the room disturbed, like Sketches drawings, and why didn't we hear a gust of wind?" Psycho added.
I frowned as we walked into the bunkroom. "Plus, Kloppman never woke up despite all the noise."
"Something's not right." She said firmly.
I sighed a little. "I dunno, maybe Jack is right." I eyed my bed for a second or so and pointed to it slowly. "Hey, Psycho..." I paused as I stared at my journal lying on top of my pillow. "How did that get there? I left it clear across the room."
"No one else has been in here." She said thoughfully. We both screamed as something swung down at us from the ceiling. It was a streamer Brooklyn had stuck up there to be decorative. We both laughed nervously as someone in the boys bunkroom yelled at us to be quiet. "We have a ghost." Psycho finally said.
I nodded, slightly shocked. "Yep. We deffinately have a ghost."