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you can come out now,” Mr. Greenwald repeated, this time with an angry, hard edge to his voice.
    I wasn’t sure I could stand. I was breathing again, panting actually, very fast and shallow. My throat was on fire and my tongue seemed stuck to the back of my mouth. The red dots were moving faster and faster before my eyes. I felt very lightheaded, more lightheaded than I think I’ve ever felt before. I wanted to move. I wanted to stand. I wanted to run away as fast as I possibly could, but I couldn’t move at all. I tried, but nothing was working.  
    Mr. Greenwald got an angry look on his face. He balled his hands into fists and took one step closer to me. “Stand up!” he ordered. “Come out here or I’m coming in there to get you. What’s it gonna be?”
    Just before my mind went into total over-load, just before I think I was going to pass out from fear and tension, just as Mr. Greenwald was starting to take one final step toward me—just at that precise moment there was a sound from the other side of the quad.  
    It was a familiar sound, but for a moment I couldn’t quite place it. It sounded like someone dragging something very heavy across gritty concrete. Of course! That’s what it was!
    It was the sound the ghost had made the other night when we first saw it!
    I’ve never seen anyone look more surprised than Mr. Greenwald did at that moment. And suddenly my brain starting working again. If the ghost was across the quad, then Mr. Greenwald couldn’t be the ghost! For an instant I almost started to breath again—but if Mr. Greenwald wasn’t the ghost, then what was he doing here?
    Mr. Greenwald looked once more in my direction. Then he looked in the direction of the weird grating sound. The sound was getting softer, as if it was moving away from us. He looked back at me, then seemed to make a decision and moved away from me, toward the awful grating sound.
    He probably hadn’t gone more than twenty feet before I suddenly stood up, turned, knocked over the trash can with a terribly loud clang—and the next thing I knew I was running! Running, running, running!
    I don’t remember thinking that I was going to run, or planning to run. But boy was I running! If the track coach could have seen me, I bet he would have signed me up on the spot!
    I flew down the hill! Somewhere near the bottom I slowed for just a moment and looked back up the hill. There, standing at the top of the dark hill, silhouetted against the slightly lighter color of the sky, was the figure of a man, Mr. Greenwald, I assumed, watching me as I ran.
    I didn’t care. My reasoning mind was shut off, locked away somewhere and I hadn’t the foggiest notion where the key was. All I wanted to do was put as much ground between me and Mr. Greenwald as humanly possible, as fast as humanly possible!
    I turned away from the figure at the top of Gruesome Hill and I ran. I can’t remember making a conscious decision about where I was running, but within just a few minutes I was outside my bedroom window, prying the window open. I climbed inside, closed and locked the window, checked my door to see that it was locked, then I got under my covers without bothering to take off my clothes, and lay there, shivering in the dark.

 
    Chapter 9
     
    A close call
    I don’t remember if I slept any that night or not. I might have, finally, around five in the morning. But even if I did manage to nod off for an hour or so, it hadn’t been a very restful sleep.
    Earlier, as I lay in bed, shivering with fright under my covers, every one of my senses had been alert, alive, tingling! I could hear the tinniest sound, I could see better in the dark (when I got brave enough to peek out from under my covers) than I had ever seen before in my life! I was scared out of my wits, but I had never felt more alive!
    I had gone to the top of Gruesome Hill alone at midnight, faced the Ghost of Gruesome High all by myself, came within a few seconds of being caught, and had