class with the added bonus that Zack was in there, too. It was always good when any of the boys had a class together; it made time go by faster. Coach let them play dodge ball, and Stewart forgot about everything else for that hour.
As they passed in the hallway, Steward managed to slip Andy a note that said, you talk to Kendall! Andy didn’t like it, but knew if he didn’t talk to Kendall, Stewart wasn’t going to, and Stewart would likely make a scene until he broke down and did it anyway. He might as well get it over with. Andy was the best choice for the job, even if Andy didn’t agree. It was simple; the girls liked him!
11:45 finally rolled around. Nervously, the boys walked towards the cafeteria. It was a different kind of nervousness than they had felt in the woods; it was an uncomfortable kind of nervousness, not fearful. They sat down at their usual table and waited for the girls to walk in.
Maggie strolled into the cafeteria first, and Ally, Kendall, and Krista were not far behind. They were staring in the boys’ direction, and that made the boys noticeably worried. It led them to believe that the girls were acting overconfident and might actually know something that would change everything.
The boys sat down and watched the girls for a while, and even though Andy knew it was coming, he wasn’t ready when Stewart nudged him. Andy felt sick to his stomach; he’d rather be face-to-face with the ghost than face-to-face with the girls. He assured himself that he was merely relaying a message from Stewart and that was it. It wasn’t a social visit; it was a message. The girls’ stares drew way too much attention toward them, and they hated that, since everyone kept looking to see what they were staring at!
“Hurry up and get it over with, Andy,” Stewart whispered. “If we don’t, they’ll come over here. Look, they’re still staring, and now other people are, too.”
Andy hung his head and stood up; very slowly, he walked toward the girls. To his horror, Krista stood up and walked toward him. It was obvious that they were going to talk. This was a move the boys had not anticipated. Andy turned back on his heels, motioning with his hand as he did so. Krista followed him back to the boys’ table and, with a quick glance back at the girls, received an approving thumbs-up from all three girls watching her.
Krista sat down on the opposite side of the table and noticed immediately that the boys seemed incredibly fidgety. Stewart discreetly nudged Andy in his ribs, and Andy opened up the dialog. “You say that you have something – information – that you saw something? What exactly do you believe you saw?”
Andy asked, surprising himself as his eyes stared down at the table.
Stewart was impressed. Great opener, he thought.
Krista was taken off-guard by the directness of Andy’s questions, but she answered him just as bluntly. “Yes, we do,” she said as she looked around before speaking again. “Do you want me to tell you here, like, right now?”
“Yes, if you don’t mind.” Andy whispered. “I think – I mean, we think – that it would be best if we knew what you were talking about, don’t you?”
Stewart nodded his head, “I agree,” he said.
“It’s simple, really. We saw what you saw!” Krista waited for the boys to respond.
It took Stewart a moment, but he leaned toward her and, in a lowered voice, said, “And what exactly do you think we saw?” He was not prepared for her answer, and neither was Andy.
“The ghost in the Willows, of course. The little girl, we saw her playing in the Willows!” She waited for their response.
“Ohhh,” Andy said. “Wait a minute. Ohhhhh…what did you just say?” He was making sure that he was clear about what he had just heard.
Stewart’s gaze shot toward Andy, and his eyes were big. Had he heard her right? Had she said what he thought she’d said?
Krista repeated the words and, sure enough, they were the ones that Stewart had thought he’d heard. “You know, the little girl. The ghost in the Willows, we saw her, too!” Krista said. “The one you’ve been searching or looking for,” she whispered, not sure if she should have revealed that part yet.
Stewart raised his hand ever so slightly. “I’m sorry. But did you say the little girl in the Willows?”
Andy finally managed to speak. “Do you know what this means, Stewart?” he said, still trying to process the words himself. “Do you realize the magnitude of what she just said?”
Krista was confused; this was not the reaction that she had anticipated. “Isn’t that what you saw, too, and why we’re really here?” she asked, curiously glancing at the boys. The girls had been so certain that the boys were chasing or searching for the same thing that they were: the little girl who wasn’t a real girl anymore.
Stewart nodded. “We definitely saw something, too, and yes, this is why we’re here now, I guess. But it just got complicated,” he said quietly.
Andy leaned toward Krista and said, “Now, this is kinda cool, but kinda strange. Yes, we’ve seen and are onto something, too, but it’s not a girl.” He had her attention, but she was still confused. He explained that they had solid proof of a boy, a ghost boy. Now her mouth dropped open. The other girls could barely sit in their seats as they watched her facial expressions change.
Stewart stated the obvious: there was more than one ghost in the Willows, and the investigation had just taken a new turn.
Krista described the little girl that had been underneath the willow trees. She had been playing, and they didn’t think that she had seen them as they watched her. She had been clutching a doll; the little ghost girl had been playing with a doll! She had been talking to the doll and the doll had been “talking” back as the little girl pretended the doll could speak to her. “It was definitely – no, it is definitely – a little girl. A pretty, little, dead girl,” Krista said, feeling weird about the whole thing as soon as the words left her mouth.
Stewart put his head in his hands. “From the beginning,” he said to Krista. “Tell us everything you know, and we will do the same, but it has to be from the beginning.” He pointed to Andy. “Do your thing and record it all!”
Andy logged each and every word Krista said. The other girls joined them at the table. The boys were too excited about the new information to care. As Krista described the scene, the girls interjected details that, to the boys’ surprise, were actually relevant facts and useful to the investigation. Once the girls had shared every single detail that they could remember, the boys did the same.
Krista suggested a joint meeting, and even though the boys agreed it was time, they weren’t quite ready for that. “We’ll get back to you on that,” Stewart said, as he pointed toward Andy. “Exchange numbers with Andy. We’ll be in touch!” Andy rolled his eyes and gave Krista his number. He wasn’t happy about sharing his number with them and was relieved when the girls finally left.
Stewart called an emergency meeting with Andy and Zack after school. The topic, of course, was the latest developments regarding the little ghost girl and the girls. They would meet at the Willows.
They had no idea that the girls had the exact same idea, meeting also to be in the Willows, in the hopes of spotting the little girl again. First on their agenda: what to do next now that the boys knew?
***
It
