The Starving Ghost: An Up2U Mystery Adventure - Up2U Adventures Set 3 Read online

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  by Kelly Rogers illustrated by Ebony Glenn

  by Kel y Rogers

  il ustrated by Ebony Glenn

  The Starving Ghost

  A n U p2 U M y s t e ry A dv e n t u r e

  by Kel y Rogers

  illustrated by Ebony Glenn

  An Imprint of Magic Wagon

  abdopublishing.com

  -DF@Mjj4NHMzMHSX@MCADXNMC 8/j+20

  abdopublishing.com

  Published by Magic Wagon, a division of ABDO, PO Box 398166, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55439. Copyright © 2018 by Abdo Consulting Group, Inc.

  International copyrights reserved in all countries. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

  Calico™ is a trademark and logo of Magic Wagon.

  Printed in the United States of America, North Mankato, Minnesota.

  052017

  092017

  Written by Kelly Rogers

  Illustrated by Ebony Glenn

  Edited by Bridget O’Brien

  Design Contributors: Christina Doffing and Laura Mitchell Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Rogers, Kelly, author. | Glenn, Ebony, illustrator.

  Title: The starving ghost: an Up2U mystery adventure / by Kelly Rogers ; illustrated by Ebony Glenn.

  Other titles: An Up2U mystery adventure

  Description: Minneapolis, MN : Magic Wagon, 2018. | Series: Up2U adventures Summary: Shay meets a friendly ghost named Bridget while visiting her uncle in Ireland and sets out to discover what happened to her friend, but how the mystery ends is up to the reader.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017930887 | ISBN 9781532130311 (lib. bdg.) |

  ISBN 9781614798682 (ebook) | ISBN 9781614798736 (Read-to-me ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Ghost stories. | Plot-your-own stories. | Ghosts--Juvenile fiction.

  Classification: DDC [Fic]--dc23

  LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2017930887

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

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  Chapter

  1

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  Shay looked up at the sign marked Customs.

  This was it, the official gateway into Ireland.

  The agent at the desk waved her forward. He

  was a short man with a bushy beard. He greeted

  her with a thick Irish accent that Shay couldn’t

  understand well.

  “Ha longll ya be stain Oirland?” he asked.

  She looked blankly at the man. She had no

  idea what the man was saying. He looked at her

  with narrowed eyes and slowed way down, as

  though speaking to a toddler. “How. Long. Will.

  Ya. Be. Stain. Oirland.”

  4

  “Oh,” she said, flushing bright red. “How long will I be staying in Ireland? Ten weeks.”

  The interview lasted five more painful

  minutes. At the end, the customs man stamped

  Shay’s passport. She felt a slight sense of doom.

  She had secretly been hoping the agent would

  say, “No, sorry love. We can’t have you here in

  this country. Why don’t you go back home and

  have a nice holiday?” Instead, Shay thanked the

  man, grabbed her suitcase, and headed outside to

  the pick-up area.

  Shay thought of her little sister, Erin. Erin was

  probably sitting on the beach right now. Erin was

  too young to travel abroad, so she had been sent

  to California with their aunt Karen.

  Aunt Karen worked as a kayak travel guide.

  She spent her days giving ocean tours and talking

  about the wildlife. Erin was going to help her

  clean the kayaks and learn all about the animals.

  Erin was going to be able to wear a swimsuit all

  5

  day. And Erin could drink as much free lemonade

  as she wanted.

  Unlike her spoiled little sister, Shay would be

  spending her days feeding sheep and cleaning up

  sheep poop and whatever other gross farm chores

  her “uncle” gave to her.

  Shay was staying with her dad’s cousin, Sean.

  Shay was supposed to call him Uncle Sean even

  though he wasn’t really her uncle. He owned a

  sheep farm and she had only met him once. Shay’s

  dad had grown up traveling to Ireland every

  summer to help on his grandparents’ farm, but

  he stopped when Shay was born. Then when she

  was eight, Sean had come to visit from Ireland.

  Her dad still talked about him like a brother.

  6

  She looked down at the photo of Uncle Sean

  her dad had given her. Brown hair, slightly bald,

  wearing glasses. Where was he? she wondered.

  Shay looked at the crowded street in front of

  her. People were greeting family with hugs and

  kisses, car horns were honking, and taxis were

  driving in and out of the pick-up area. Shay

  brushed away the tears coming to her eyes.

  “Forget it,” she muttered. If she was old enough

  to fly across the ocean by herself, she could get to

  her uncle’s house by herself.

  7

  Shay unzipped her hoodie, pulling out the money pouch hidden against her chest. She

  walked over to the taxi line as she took out two of

  the unfamiliar Euro bills. Each had the number

  20 on them. Was that enough for a taxi? She also

  took out the piece of paper with Uncle Sean’s

  address on it and held it tightly in her hand as

  she moved up in line. Finally, it was her turn. She

  heaved her suitcase into the backseat.

  “Wher’ll it be, love?” The driver didn’t seem

  to think it was strange to have a girl all by herself

  in his cab.

  Shay felt the hairs on the back of her neck

  stand up, like somebody was watching her. She

  took one last look around to check for Uncle

  Sean. She shivered, still feeling like she was being

  watched.

  Shay bent down to get in the taxi and read

  the address to the driver. Suddenly a firm hand

  pulled her out of the taxi.

  8

  Chapter

  2

  "M5MDWODBSDC6HRHSNQ

  “I still feel badly for scaring you like that,

  Siobhan,” said Uncle Sean for about the hundredth

  time since picking her up. He was the first person

  to call her by her full, Irish name—pronounced

  “she-von”—in years.

  It turned out that Uncle Sean had been at

  the airport the whole time! In fact, he was so

  nervous about missing Shay’s flight he got there

  two hours early. He had fallen asleep in a chair in

 
the waiting area.

  “I woke up in a panic,” he explained to Shay in

  the car. “I ran quick as I could outside, and would

  9

  you believe I saw young Shay Sullivan hopping into a taxi!” When Shay looked at it that way, she

  understood why Sean had pulled her out of the

  taxi so fast.

  Once she calmed down, Shay settled into

  her seat in Uncle Sean’s car and fell asleep. They

  arrived at his farmhouse almost three hours later.

  Shay was bleary-eyed from sleep and practically

  stumbled inside.

  She sat at the table and hungrily spooned the

  stew she was given into her mouth. After several

  mouthfuls she realized what she was eating—

  lamb stew! On a sheep farm!—but by the time

  she did, she no longer cared. She was hungry.

  And honestly, the stew was delicious.

  After a few more bites she was finally feeling

  normal. She felt less cranky than she had in the

  airplane. In fact, she was starting to look forward

  to this adventure. Two months in Ireland without

  her parents!

  10

  Shay also felt much less nervous about Uncle Sean. He looked softer than he had in her

  picture. His brown hair was thick and a bit wild,

  and his green eyes were kind and warm behind

  his glasses. He was a bit taller than her dad, and

  much thinner. He wore a plaid shirt with the

  sleeves rolled up.

  She looked up from her bowl to see Uncle

  Sean staring. “Sorry,” she said. She wiped a drip

  of stew from her chin. “I was just—just hungry.”

  She looked down at her bowl for more, but found

  it was empty.

  “It’s me that’s sorry,” said Sean. He stood up

  to refill Shay’s bowl. “Don’t know what I was

  thinking, falling asleep. Then scaring you like

  that. What would your father say?”

  Shay had almost forgotten about her parents

  and why she was in Ireland to begin with. All of a

  sudden she couldn’t eat another bite of stew.

  “Uncle Sean, is it okay if I go unpack?”

  11

  The upstairs of the farmhouse wasn’t like any second floor Shay had ever seen. It had angled

  ceilings that made Shay feel taller than usual.

  The walls were papered over in an old-fashioned

  floral print. They were covered with photos.

  There were probably more than fifty photos, all

  in wooden frames. They hung on the walls of the

  short hallway.

  Shay looked in fascination at the pictures.

  She had photos hanging in her own house, but

  nothing like these. For starters, every single one

  was in black and white. And most of them were

  of large families: parents and lots of children.

  None of them smiled at the camera.

  “Everyone loves these,” said Sean, noticing

  Shay staring at the pictures. “They’re nothing to

  do with me. All of these are people who lived

  here—or on the property. My grandmammy had

  ‘em all hung up when she and pappy owned the

  house.”

  12

  1313

  Shay nodded, only half-listening. She was drawn in by one of the photos. It was a family

  of five: a mother, a father, two girls, and a boy.

  The younger girl was about Shay’s age. She wore

  a plain, white dress. Her long, blond hair was

  caught up in a braid. Her eyes had dark shadows

  underneath them. She almost seemed to be

  looking right at Shay.

  “Do you know who this is?” Shay pointed at

  the picture. Sean shook his head.

  “Whoever it is, she’s long gone. These photos

  date way back, most of them to the 1800s even.”

  Sean pointed to the door at the end of the

  hallway, one of only two. “That’s your room for

  the summer.” Was it her imagination, or was he

  trying to change the subject?

  The room was small and had a sloped ceiling

  just like the hallway did. It was sparsely furnished:

  a bed covered in a green and blue patchwork

  quilt, a wardrobe instead of a closet, and a short,

  14

  wide dresser with a mirror hanging over it. A thick layer of dust covered the furniture. Two

  windows looked out over the farmland below.

  Night had fallen, so she couldn’t see anything but

  dark, clear sky.

  “Well,” said Sean, “I’ll leave you to it.”

  Sean started to walk out of the room, then

  turned back to her. He opened his mouth like he

  wanted to say something, then closed it again.

  He walked toward her and stretched his arm

  out like he was going to hug her, but at the last

  moment, patted her on the shoulder as he might

  have done to a beloved pet. He nodded and left

  the room.

  Shay looked at her luggage. Despite her nap,

  she was still tired from the long flight and the

  time change. Just thinking about unpacking

  made her eyelids droop and shoulders sag.

  Instead, she turned to her new bed. The

  quilt looked so warm and fluffy. Without even

  15

  changing out of her clothes, Shay crawled into bed and fell asleep.

  In the middle of the night, Shay sat up straight

  in bed. She didn’t know what had woken her.

  Maybe it was all the silence. Shay was used to the

  noise of a city—cars whizzing by, the occasional

  siren—but not this, this NOTHING.

  She regretted not taking the time to change

  out of her clothes. She was uncomfortable in her

  jeans. There was no overhead light in her room,

  but there was a flashlight on her bedside table.

  She turned it on, went to her suitcase, and began

  to rifle through her clothes.

  SNAP!

  Shay looked to the window. She was positive

  she had heard a sound from outside, like a tree

  branch breaking. She didn’t see anything. Shay

  turned back to her bag, searching for her pajama

  pants.

  SNAP!

  16

  There it was again. She turned the flashlight to the window.

  Someone was staring back at her!

  17

  Chapter

  3

  QHCFDS

  Shay shouted and dropped the flashlight. She

  scrambled to pick it up again and shined the light

  on the window. There was nothing there! The

  face was gone.

  Shay took a deep breath. Then she stood up

  and walked toward the window. She peeked out,

  holding the flashlight as far in front of her as she

  could.

  There was still nothing. She was sure she had

  seen a face. A girl’s pale face with shadows under

  her eyes. In fact, she could swear that it was . . .

  “Shay?” Uncle Sean yelled.

  18

  Shay jumped and dropped the flashlight

  again. Before she could pick it up, Sean had

  already turned on the floor lamp by the door.

  Sean looked half-asleep himself, almost swaying

  in his bathrobe and plaid pants. “Are you okay?”

  he asked. “I thought I heard a scream.�
�

  “I’m fine,” she said, glancing at the window. “I

  thought I saw something, but—it was nothing.”

  Sean smiled kindly. “It’s hard to sleep in a

  new place.” He looked around the bare room.

  “We’ll see if we can brighten this room up in the

  morning. Now try to get some sleep, hey? Lots to

  be done in the morning.”

  Shay nodded. Sean flicked off the light and

  left, closing the door behind him. Shay clutched

  the flashlight and crawled into bed. She was still

  fully clothed.

  It took hours for Shay to get back to sleep.

  She kept hearing small noises. And every time

  she did, she was sure that she was going to see

  19

  another face in the window. After sleeping for what felt like mere minutes, Sean was shaking

  her shoulder.

  “Rise and shine, Shay!” he said cheerfully. He

  had a mug in his hand. Sean was already dressed

  in dirty jeans and a work shirt. “Coffee?” he

  asked, shoving the mug underneath her nose.

  Shay turned away from the bitter smell in

  disgust. “No, thanks. I don’t drink coffee.”

  Sean’s smile fell just a bit. Then he recovered

  and brightened up again. “I’ve got some porridge

  on the stove and a list of chores on the table.

  You’ve done farm chores before, right?” He asked

  this like it was a normal question, like every kid

  grew up shearing sheep and mucking . . . whatever

  people on farms mucked.

  Yesterday’s positivity was fading away again.

  The reality of her summer was finally setting in.

  She was about to do real farm work. Today, right

  this instant.

  20

  Shay thought back to last summer. They spent two weeks at her grandparents’ cottage, water

  skiing and eating picnics on the lakeshore. All

  four of them had such a great time. That was

  before all the yelling and fighting began.

  “No,” she said to Sean. “I haven’t done farm

  chores before.”

  Nothing got in the way of Sean’s smile. He was

  clearly a morning person. “No time like today to

  learn! Get dressed and I’ll see you downstairs.”

  Shay came downstairs in a copy of Sean’s

  outfit: old jeans and one of her dad’s work shirts.

  Sean was nowhere to be seen. On the table was

  what appeared to be a bowl of mush with raisins