The Ghost of Sullivan Town

By Beverley Spencer

When Niki and Hugo went to work in the library for the summer, they hadn't counted on the ghost in the basement. A ghost who hadn't yet learned how to materialize properly. A ghost with a sense of humor. And a ghost who decided Niki and Hugo were going to help her find out who had given her the fatal push down the basement stairs.

Niki and Hugo get caught up in the mystery -- and you will too, as you meet the fascinating people who lived in Sullivan Town.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Beverley Spencer
• Release date: Dec 10, 2014
• ISBN: 9780993953200

Beverley Spencer

Beverley Spencer first became fascinated with writing during high school and soon developed into an amateur singer-songwriter. After some years as a free-lance writer of articles for newspapers and magazines, Beverley began to write novels. One of her books was nominated for the Silver Birch Award.

Book preview

THE GHOST OF SULLIVAN TOWN

by

Beverley Spencer

Smashwords Edition

The Ghost of Sullivan Town

Copyright © 1984 Beverley Spencer

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

ISBN 978-0-9939532-0-0

Design: Artplus / Brant Cowie

Table of contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

About the Author

Other Books by Bev Spencer

Chapter 1

The basement door creaked open. By itself. Without the aid of human hands. Doors in the old Sullivan Town library were always doing that. Since the library looked like an ancient miniature castle, with ivy swarming allover the stone towers like a plague of green snakes, I suppose I should have expected that. But I didn't like it. It gave me the willies.

Do you believe in ghosts? Hugo asked Harcord, the new librarian.

Of course not! Harcord growled. Ghosts are the invention of a sick mind.

By which he meant they don't exist. Harcord had the charm and good looks of a spider, with a potbelly and thin hairy arms. He towered over Hugo and me, even though we were both tall and skinny for our ages. Harcord liked to bully the student help – that is, us. We had worked for him for a week and already I felt the summer would never end.

If you two think you can get out of the work I hired you to do by inventing excuses about the supernatural, Harcord went on, you're very much mistaken. Get down the cellar and start cleaning up!

With that Harcord pushed Hugo and me through the open door and down the basement stairs. Hugo tripped and had to be picked up. The door swung shut behind us with a scream like a tortured cat. The stairs made moans of pain under our feet.

Why had I taken this stupid job, I asked myself in desperation, and knew the answer too well. Because Dad was away in the city looking for work, and had left me with Aunt Sarah. Because we didn't have two nickels to rub together. Because an eleven-year-old girl like me, even one who could climb trees better and run faster than any boy I knew, couldn't find any other job in this half-dead town.

Harcord had hired Hugo and me because he figured we were too young to give him any trouble. Hugo was only ten-and-a-half, practically an infant compared to me. I guess in the city Harcord couldn't have gotten away with hiring minors." But in a small place like Sullivan Town, there was no one to object except the older kids, who didn't want to work in the library anyway.

At the other end of the basement a box toppled with a crash. By itself. Bugs with cold feet started crawling up my spine. At least that's what it felt like. Hugo pushed his glasses up his long pale nose and stared at the shadows. With his drooping red hair, freckles, and big eyes, he looked like a weird owl. If owls can be skinny. On the other hand, I looked like a floor mop, with my bushy brown hair on top of a stick-thin body. Harcord made me feel like a mop, too.

What are you waiting for? he growled. Get down there!

I'm allergic to cellars, I improvised. I get red spots.

And I tried to push past Harcord, back up the stairs.

Don't be ridiculous, Niki, the hairy librarian snapped, shoving me toward the icy basement floor. See those boxes?

I looked. It was hard to see anything in the gloom. There was one small window high up, hut it was choked with ivy. It cast a feeble light onto untidy piles of boxes. Some of them had fallen over. Heaps of papers filled the spaces between boxes. A strange two-wheeled contraption was sandwiched between the cartons near the window. At some time someone had printed years on the boxes.

Sort out all those papers and put them in their correct boxes by year. Then stack the boxes back against the walls, Harcord ordered. I'll sort through the contents later. Don't touch the documents that are already in boxes. Who knows what damage you would do? Just reorganize them, he said, and retreated to the main floor.

At first things were pretty quiet down there. Except for my nerves, which were doing a tap dance.

No ghosts here, I said hopefully. ,Just mess.

Corn fritters! a voice said.

Hugo uses some weird expressions, I told myself. But why should that surprise me? He had just moved into town from the city and was far from normal. Hugo collected stamps. Little pieces of paper with glue on the back. Hugo had fallen down three times and injured himself in five places on the first day of work. I had never seen him smile, and he talked like a teacher. Hugo hardly made the grade of, human being.

We started to repack the boxes and put them in order. There's nothing like jumpy nerves to speed things along. In no time we had discovered that the first year was 1943, and the boxes came right up to the present, 1983. There were a depressingly large number of boxes. Since Sullivan Town had no city hall, all kinds of moldy old records were stored there. No one had touched them for five years – since the last librarian had died here in the basement. Money to operate the library had run out, and the library had been closed then. No cleaning had been done since. When God decided to redecorate the universe, he couldn't have faced a bigger challenge. The cartons and containers were in a terrible jumble. As if someone had practiced a search-and-destroy mission there. Box 1978 was the worst. Just about all the old crud in it had been dumped. It looked like it had been shuffled through a hundred times.

Hopeless, I groaned.

Just start at one end and work toward the other.

Good idea, Hugo said.

You may have some good ideas, but that doesn't mean you should pat yourself on the back, I said.

Hugo's owl eyes blinked at me.

We started shifting boxes away from the wall, making room for the older ones. The dirt didn't bother me. I was wearing my usual frayed blue jeans and T-shirt. Another layer of dirt wouldn't affect them at all. I heaped letters, papers, books and magazines back into box 1978.

I'll never find anything now, someone complained.

You couldn't find anything before, I said.

True. I suppose you could do better?

I threw an empty box on top of a pile.

"Hugo, you just don’t have the best eyesight. Let’s face it. Isn’t that why you’re always falling down?

I got a grip on a big container and hefted it.

The place was a disaster area when I got here, someone explained.

Niki.

What? I asked.

I haven’t been talking to you, Hugo replied.

I looked up.

Naturally I did what I could . . .

I didn’t know whether to scream or throw up. A gray-haired head was suspended before us in the gloom, talking at