Megan Stine_Jeffery & the Third-Grade Ghost 01 Read online

  Other Jeffrey and the Third-Grade Ghost Books

  #2 Haunted Halloween

  #3 Christmas Visitors

  #4 Pet Day Surprise*

  #5 Max Onstage*

  #6 Max Saves the Day*

  *Coming Soon

  A Fawcett Columbine Book

  Published by Ballantine Books

  Copyright © 1988 by Cloverdale Press, Inc.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 88-91959

  eISBN: 978-0-307-78386-8

  Illustrations by Keith Birdsong

  v3.1

  To Ellen Steiber

  with much appreciation for

  her clarity, perception, and

  gentle editorial touch.

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  About the Authors

  Chapter One

  Jeffrey Becker and his third-grade teacher, Mrs. Merrin, got off on the wrong foot the very first day of school. It happened while Mrs. Merrin was reading a story to the red reading group. The blue group was supposed to be working on a math sheet. Jeffrey was in the blue group.

  Suddenly, Mrs. Merrin stopped reading.

  “Jeffrey Becker,” said the pretty, young teacher in a stern voice, “did you just throw the globe across the room?”

  Everyone in the class looked at Jeffrey. Their looks seemed to say, “Okay, Jeffrey. Let’s see you talk your way out of this one.”

  “No, Mrs. Merrin,” Jeffrey said. “I didn’t throw the globe. It slipped out of my hands, probably because I was looking at the country of Greece.”

  Everyone in the class except Mrs. Merrin laughed. She just pushed her round, red reading glasses onto her forehead and looked at Jeffrey.

  “Jeffrey Becker, you have a detention,” she said.

  “A detention?” Jeffrey said. “No one gives a detention on the first day of school. I think there’s a law against it. You could get up to three years in jail with no french fries.”

  “Make that two detentions,” Mrs. Merrin said.

  That’s how Jeffrey earned detentions for the first and second days of school.

  On the third day of school, Jeffrey had another detention. This time it was for not bringing his summer-reading book report to class.

  When it was Jeffrey’s turn to give his book report, he stood up. He brushed his straight brown hair out of his freckled face. Then he pulled two carrots and an avocado out of his backpack. “Uh-oh. My mom must have gotten confused,” Jeffrey said. “She put this stuff in my backpack and my book report in the juicer!”

  After school that day, Mrs. Merrin told Jeffrey to think about all of the wild stories he told. So Jeffrey thought about them. He thought Mrs. Merrin should have believed him. After all, they were good stories.

  On the fourth day of school, Jeffrey got a detention for hitting Arvin Pubbler on the back with an apple-butter-and-jelly sandwich.

  “But, Mrs. Merrin,” Jeffrey explained. “Didn’t you see it? There was a deadly spider crawling on Arvin’s back! I just saved his life.”

  Mrs. Merrin didn’t see it, but she did see Jeffrey after school for the fourth day in a row.

  Jeffrey sat at his desk and Mrs. Merrin sat at hers. They didn’t speak to each other. Jeffrey was supposed to be writing twenty-five reasons for not lying. But Jeffrey didn’t think the punishment was fair. As far as he was concerned, he didn’t tell lies. He just made up funny stories to make life more interesting.

  Mrs. Merrin straightened up the classroom and wrote things in her teacher’s notebook. Then she took two photos out of her purse and looked from one to the other.

  Finally, she said to Jeffrey, “My husband and I want to buy a dog. But we can’t decide which kind.”

  “Dogs love me,” Jeffrey said. “They can read my mind. They do what I want before I even tell them.”

  The teacher shook her short blond hair. “Jeffrey, that’s absurd,” she said.

  “It’s the truth,” Jeffrey said sincerely.

  “Jeffrey, have you ever heard of the boy who cried wolf?”

  “Did he get a lot of detentions, too?” Jeffrey asked.

  “He lied so much that no one believed him when he told the truth,” Mrs. Merrin said. She put her photos away and stood up. “I’m going to the office. You work on your list—and your attitude.”

  The moment she left, Jeffrey went to work on his list. First, he added a fancy red border with a crayon. Then he used markers to draw a baseball glove in the corner. After all, how could a list be complete without a drawing of a baseball glove?

  “Jeffrey!” a voice outside called to him. It was Benjamin Hyde, Jeffrey’s best friend. He was waiting for Jeffrey on the playground.

  Jeffrey ran to the window and climbed onto a desk to look out. Benjamin was two stories down. He waved up at the third-grade classroom window. Ben had curly brown hair and gold, wire-rimmed glasses. His glasses seemed to glow in the sunlight.

  Ben and Jeffrey had been best friends ever since kindergarten, when the class was studying dinosaurs. One day the teacher had called on Jeffrey to explain why dinosaurs became extinct. Jeffrey, as usual, had been ready with a smart answer.

  “Mrs. Gorshlak, dinosaurs aren’t extinct,” he had explained. “They just went to another planet where no one could make fun of them for being so ugly.”

  Ben had laughed. Even in kindergarten Ben had known more than anyone else about dinosaurs. He had thought Jeffrey’s answer was great—unscientific, unbelievable, but great. They had been best friends from then on.

  “Come on down, Jeffrey,” another voice called. It was Melissa McKane. She was standing next to Ben.

  Melissa McKane was Jeffrey’s next-door neighbor. She was so much taller than Ben that she practically made a shadow on him. Melissa’s hair was long and red. And she always wore it in a pony tail to keep it out of her face in case she suddenly decided to climb a tree, walk all the way home on her hands, or pitch nine innings of baseball. And she did all of those things superbly.

  “Hey, Jeffrey,” Ben shouted. He pulled out a small plastic squirt gun and aimed it up at the window. “Say ‘ah.’ ”

  Jeffrey saw the tiny squirt gun and laughed. It looked like an ordinary, dumb squirt gun, the kind that leaks faster than it shoots. Jeffrey knew that Ben was too far away to hit a target two stories above the ground.

  “Ready, aim, fire!” Melissa shouted.

  Ben squeezed the trigger. And suddenly a blast of water hit Jeffrey smack in the face. One second Jeffrey was laughing at Ben. The next second he was soaking wet.

  “What do you think?” Ben asked with a wicked grin. “I’ve been working on it in my laboratory.” Ben wanted to be a mad scientist when he grew up. He called his bedroom his laboratory.

  “Uh … pretty cool,” Jeffrey called out. Then he turned around quickly and glanced at the door. Mrs. Merrin still hadn’t come back.

  “But not as cool as the Super Power Water Blaster than I’ve got hidden under my notebook,” Jeffrey muttered to himself. He ran back to his desk, water still dr
ipping from his face.

  He opened his desktop, started to reach in—and snatched his hand back. His muscles froze, his mouth dropped open, and he forgot how to breathe.

  There, floating in midair inside of his desk, was a living hand! It wasn’t connected to an arm or a body, or to anything else for that matter. It was just a hand floating inside Jeffrey’s desk.

  Before Jeffrey even had time to slam the desktop shut, the hand picked up his Super Power Water Blaster and squirted him in the face.

  “I don’t believe this,” Jeffrey said. “I just got squirted with my own gun!”

  Chapter Two

  Jeffrey couldn’t move. He looked and felt like a statue. If the statue had a title, it would be, “Boy Frozen at His Desk with His Mouth Open Wide Enough for Birds to Nest In.” Did what just happened really happen? Did a ghostly hand actually squirt him in the face with his own gun? Or did he just think it happened?

  There was only one way to find out: He had to look in his desk again. But just as Jeffrey was about to peek in, Mrs. Merrin came back into the classroom. Jeffrey closed his desk with a slam that made Mrs. Merrin jump. She looked at Jeffrey carefully.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Jeffrey said.

  “It’s worth a try, isn’t it?” the teacher asked with a smile.

  “I’ve been working on my list, that’s all,” Jeffrey said.

  “You’re right. It doesn’t fly, Jeffrey,” Mrs. Merrin said in a calm voice. “Why is your face soaking wet?”

  “I’m sweating. It’s really hot in here, don’t you think?”

  Mrs. Merrin shook her head. With a sigh, she walked toward Jeffrey.

  She was going to look in his desk—Jeffrey knew it. He wanted to stop her, but he didn’t know how.

  When Mrs. Merrin pulled open the desk lid, Jeffrey held his breath. Finally, he looked down. His books were there. His notebooks were there. His squirt gun was there. But the hand was gone!

  Mrs. Merrin kept the squirt gun and picked up the list Jeffrey had been writing.

  25 REASONS NOT TO LIE

  by Jeffrey Becker

  1. It gets you into trouble with your teacher.

  2. It sets a bad example for pets.

  3. In certain people, it makes your nose grow.

  4. TV commercials do it better.

  5–15. These reasons are too embarrassing to be talked about in public.

  16–25. These reasons are rated R and I’m too young to know about them.

  “A true masterpiece,” Mrs. Merrin said. But she was laughing when she said it. She walked back to her desk and started washing the blackboard with Jeffrey’s squirt gun. “I’m going to think about you a lot tonight, Jeffrey,” she said. “And tomorrow things are going to be different in this class.”

  “Things are different right now,” Jeffrey said, taking a quick peek in his desk. But the hand was still gone.

  When detention was over, Jeffrey left the school building. Melissa and Ben were still waiting outside for him.

  “Listen,” Melissa said. “Who knows what extremely important event is coming up in four weeks?”

  Jeffrey was only half listening. His mind was still on the hand in his desk. But Ben immediately began to guess.

  “The World Series?” Ben said. “Your brother, Gary, takes his once-a-month bath?”

  Melissa shook her head so much she looked like a windshield wiper. “No, Ben. I’ll give you a hint. Someone terrific is having a birthday.”

  “My birthday isn’t until January,” Ben said.

  “Not you!” Melissa said. “Me! And I’m officially inviting you and Jeffrey to my party.”

  “Does this mean your brother isn’t going to take a bath?” Ben teased.

  “Leave Gary out of this,” Melissa said. “I certainly plan to. Now here’s the deal. I’m going to have a rock-’n’-roll party in my backyard. But I need some help setting everything up. Would you give me a hand, Jeffrey?”

  Suddenly, Jeffrey was paying attention. “A hand?” he gasped.

  “You don’t have to help if you don’t want to,” Melissa said. She sounded a little hurt.

  “Uh, sure I’ll help, Melissa,” Jeffrey said. “But that’s four weeks away!”

  “I like to be organized,” Melissa said.

  By this time they were standing in front of Jeffrey’s house. Ben sat down on the curb. It was almost dinnertime. But Ben would do anything to avoid going home after school. That’s when he was supposed to take out his family’s trash.

  “How about some football?” Ben asked.

  “Can’t,” Melissa said. “My mom and dad are going out tonight. I’ve got to get home so I can talk to the baby-sitter before Gary does.”

  “Why?” Jeffrey asked.

  “Because the last time my parents went out, it was awful. Gary told the baby-sitter I was being punished. The big creep convinced her I wasn’t allowed to have anything to eat the whole night—or to watch TV!”

  “Well, we all know what’s waiting for me at home: the trash.” Ben groaned. “The kitchen trash and the bathroom trash and the bedroom trash. And I’ve got to take it all out. You know, someday I’m going to invent an animal that will eat all the trash in the house—or maybe you could just send your brother over, Melissa.”

  “I heard that,” shouted Gary McKane. Melissa’s brother had been spying on them from behind a tree. He ran out and grabbed Ben’s book bag off his shoulder. “Got anything in here I need?” Gary asked, unzipping the bag. As usual, Gary was picking on Melissa’s friends.

  “Hey! Give that back,” Ben said. “Just because you’re in the fifth grade doesn’t mean you’re required to be obnoxious.”

  Gary snarled. Gary always snarled when Ben used a word he didn’t understand. But he didn’t give back Ben’s bag.

  Jeffrey decided to try to help—in a sneaky way.

  “Come on, Ben,” Jeffrey said. “You know what’s in your book bag. Let him look.” Jeffrey pretended to hide a smile. “Go on and look, Gary.”

  Gary stopped and stared at Jeffrey.

  “What’s so funny, Becker? Why do you want me to look in the bag? What’s in there?”

  “Nothing,” Jeffrey said, almost laughing. “Go on, Gary.”

  Gary threw the bag at Jeffrey. “I’m not putting my hand in there—you are, Becker. Let’s see you do it.”

  Jeffrey reached slowly into Ben’s bag. Then he quickly pulled out Ben’s power-laser squirt gun. With one squeeze of the trigger, he almost drowned Gary.

  “Now you won’t have to wait four weeks for a bath!” Jeffrey shouted at Gary. Melissa and Ben fell on the ground, laughing. Jeffrey laughed, too, but he ran full speed into his own house.

  “Hi, Mom. I’m home,” Jeffrey said, locking the door behind him.

  Jeffrey’s mother was sitting at the family computer, writing a newsletter for the school P.T.A. “Mrs. Merrin called,” she said.

  “She did?” Jeffrey asked with a king-sized gulp.

  “She called to say you forgot your squirt gun,” Jeffrey’s mother said. “She put it inside your desk. It will be waiting for you in the morning.”

  “She did?” Jeffrey said. “Oh, that’s great.”

  But as he walked up to his room, he thought to himself, I wonder what else will be waiting for me in my desk tomorrow. He decided to get there bright and early to find out.

  He hoped it would be the mysterious, living hand!

  Chapter Three

  The next morning Jeffrey woke up before anyone else in his house. He was already eating his breakfast when his father came into the kitchen—and that was early! Jeffrey’s father was an electrical engineer. He had to get up early every morning to go to his job at a construction site.

  “Are you up early or am I in the wrong house?” asked Mr. Becker.

  “Gotta be at school first thing, Dad,” Jeffrey said. “I’m trying out a new program.”

  “What is it?
French? Computers? Woodworking?”

  “It’s called sunrise detention,” Jeffrey lied. “It’s for kids who don’t want to waste a minute of daylight.”

  Mr. Becker blinked once. “I’m sure you’ll do fine,” he said. “You caught on to the afternoon detention like a pro.”

  Jeffrey got to school even before Mrs. Merrin. When he tried the doorknob, the classroom was locked. He stared into the room through the window, trying to see if there was anything strange around his desk.

  Soon, he saw Mrs. Merrin walking down the hall. “Well, this is a surprise, Jeffrey,” she said. “A pleasant surprise. Let’s have a talk.”

  “Sure,” Jeffrey said, putting his hand on the doorknob. He waited for Mrs. Merrin to unlock the door.

  “How about outside?” Mrs. Merrin said.

  “Outside?” Jeffrey asked, staring into the classroom again.

  “Sure,” his pretty teacher said. “It’s fall. The leaves are fading and so is my hay fever. So let’s get some fresh air.”

  “Fresh air? Did you know that Denver has some of the highest air pollution in the country?” Jeffrey said.

  “I know, Jeffrey. But we live a thousand miles from Denver,” said Mrs. Merrin. “Let’s risk it.”

  Reluctantly, Jeffrey followed his teacher outside.

  “I told you I’d think about you last night and I did—in between trying to decide with my husband which dog we want to buy,” Mrs. Merrin said. She picked up red and yellow leaves as they walked. “I have a new attitude today and some good news. I’m not going to give you any more detentions.”

  No detentions? Jeffrey wondered if they had invented a new punishment overnight. He always knew grown-ups did sneaky things after kids went to bed.

  “You aren’t allowed to beat me, you know,” Jeffrey said.

  Mrs. Merrin put a leaf on Jeffrey’s head and smiled. “I don’t think you need detentions. I think you need to get the class’s attention some other way—not by making up stories.”

  It was time to walk back to the classroom. Mrs. Merrin was all smiles. As soon as she unlocked the door, Jeffrey rushed to his desk. He swung the lid open. Inside lay his squirt gun with a note. “Thanks for the loan. Mrs. M.” He searched under everything—but there was no hand.