if it’s very late.”
Grandma Eunice threw her head back and laughed at something on TV.
“Maybe we shouldn’t be talking about this in front of your great-grandmother,” Dandy whispered, pointing her way.
“It’s okay,” Malcolm said. “She doesn’t know what’s going on.”
“Oh well,” Dandy said. “I don’t want to go to that house at night anyway. That place was scary enough in the daylight.”
“I just have to go,” Malcolm said. “And I’m taking my camera. If my specter detector can really detect a ghost, I might be able to capture it on film.”
Grandma Eunice laughed again, this time slapping her leg. A bit of drool rolled down the corner of her face.
“Maybe there’s another house we could test it out on,” Dandy suggested.
Malcolm shook his head furiously. “No, it has to be the McBleaky house!”
Suddenly the television shut off. Malcolm looked over at Grandma Eunice. She sat with the remote still extended in her hand. Her face looked young and bright, and her eyes were lit like someone half her age. “You don’t want to go there,” she said.
Malcolm leaned toward her and looked her in the eyes. “Grandma?”
“You don’t want to go to the McBleaky house,” Grandma Eunice warned. “It’s not fit for any living soul, especially little boys.”
Malcolm couldn’t believe it. His great-grandmother had some wits about her after all. “How do you know about the McBleaky house?” he asked, still not convinced she was totally all there.
“Because I knew Old Man McBleaky himself. And I know what happened in that house.”
“What?” Malcolm and Dandy asked, huddling together.
Grandma Eunice moved in closer to the boys. “It all started about 80 years ago . . .”
Malcolm and Dandy leaned toward Grandma Eunice. Her eyes looked distant. Not like before when she was in another world, but like she was remembering.
She continued, “The McBleakys built that house in the 1920s. They had two boys, Howard and Herbert. Howard was the serious one, always worried about school and his paper route. Herbert was the joker. He made Howard’s life miserable, constantly putting dead flies in his ice cubes or fishing string across the bottom of his doorway. Howard hated it. He swore he’d get Herbert back one day.
“Their parents were killed when they were young men. Their mother was struck by lightning while hanging out the wash, and their dad caught it in a tractor accident. Both within just a couple of months of each other.
“The boys were left alone in that house, but they were old enough to look after themselves. Everyone thought that with the parents gone Herbert would straighten up and get serious. No sir. He kept right on pulling those awful jokes on his brother.
“But then Herbert up and kicked the bucket himself. No one ever knew the true cause of his death. But Neb Fuller, the barber, overheard Howard whispering at the funeral, ‘Guess I got the last laugh.’
“Within a few days, Howard started coming into town, his eyes all red and bloodshot, his face weary and tired. ‘What’s wrong, Howard?’ people would ask. He’d just lift his heavy head and say, ‘Can’t sleep.’
“Then he started aging real fast. He became bitter and frail. He’d hobble around town shaking his fist and hollering at folks. People stayed out of his way.
“One day, I saw a crowd by the fence of the McBleaky house. An ambulance was parked in front, and two men in white coats were hauling Howard out the door. He was dressed in nothing but his boxer shorts. He was screaming at the top of his lungs, ‘I can’t take it anymore! He’s still playing tricks on me!’ It was a pitiful sight.
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