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Sometimes they start to smile before I explain, because they’ve already figured it out. Despite his name, Mr. Smiley looked as if he had no idea what a joke was. He just stared at me and said “Nine” in a flat voice.
    Before I could think of what to say, an enormous clap of thunder shook the walls of the house.
    The lights went out.
    A terrifying screech ripped through the darkness.
    I shouted and reached for Chris. She was trying to grab me as well, and for a weird moment we sort of clawed at each other.
    â€œShut up!” yelled Mr. Smiley.
    Was he yelling at us or whoever had made the screech? If the latter, it didn’t work, because the same voice shrieked, “Lights! Turn on the lights!”
    â€œStupid bird,” muttered Mr. Smiley.
    â€œBird?” I asked in a small voice.
    â€œIt’s my parrot, Commander Cody,” he said in disgust. “He tends to get excited when the weather is rough.”
    At that moment the lights came back on.
    â€œThank you!” squawked the bird.
    I felt a little safer. The bird was weird, but it was a normal kind of weird, if you know what I mean. Which was more than I could say for Benjamin Smiley. An air of deep sadness seemed to cling to him, and I felt that simply by knocking at his door we had done something incredibly intrusive.
    â€œCome along,” he said. “I’ll show you where you can sleep.”
    â€œJeremiah!” squawked the bird, as we started up the stairway. “Go to Jeremiah!”
    We followed Mr. Smiley along a hallway where the pink and gray wallpaper had started to peel but was refusing to let go altogether. “You two can stay in here,” he said, opening the door to a room that smelled dank and musty. He waved his hand to the right. “The bathroom is down the hall.”
    He flipped a switch, turning on a single bare bulb that hung from the ceiling. The bed itself, covered with a worn, pink chenille spread, was old and sagging. Given the circumstances, it was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen.
    â€œI’m glad we had already arranged for you to stay overnight with us,” my father said to Chris. “At least your parents won’t be worried about where you are.”
    â€œMy parents always worry when I go someplace with Nine,” replied Chris.
    My father rolled his eyes. Turning to Mr. Smiley, he said, “I don’t mind sleeping on a couch. I feel terrible troubling you like this.”
    â€œNo need for that,” said the old man gruffly. “You can use the room across the hall.”
    As soon as they were gone Chris closed the door and said, “This whole thing is fishier than Mrs. Paul’s kitchen. Something very weird is going on here.”
    â€œI agree. Only I can’t put my finger on anything specific. I mean, it’s a little odd for the old guy to be living out here all alone, but lots of people are sort of odd. It just feels like there’s something more . . .”
    â€œDidn’t you recognize what happened to us out there?” she asked. “It was just like the last story we heard, the one about the phantom hitchhiker.”
    I shivered. “I was thinking about that one just before we had the accident,” I admitted.
    You probably know the story. A man is driving down a country road late at night and picks up a young female hitchhiker. Later—after the girl has either gotten out of the car or vanished, sometimes after asking him to deliver a message—he stops and has to stay with some people along the road. The man either describes the hitchhiker to his hosts, or spots her picture on the mantelpiece. A terrible look comes over their faces, and they tell him that his passenger was their daughter, who had died in a horrible car crash many years earlier.
    I saw a couple of problems in matching that story up with what we had just experienced. For one thing, the woman we saw hadn’t been