Part 2 (1/2)

She whirled around to find herself staring down the length of a cardboard tube, straight into one glittering green eye.

”Ahoy there, matey,” growled the cat at the other end of the tube. ”I spotted ye through my spygla.s.s. Not much escapes the single eye of wily Captain Blackpaw!” The cat leaped away from the hat rack where his ”spygla.s.s” was braced, and Olive caught a glimpse of a tiny leather eyepatch and a splotchily colored tail before he bounded off into the rafters.

”Ahoy, Captain,” Olive called toward the ceiling. ”How are things on board s.h.i.+p?”

”Smooth sailing,” snarled Harvey's voice from above. ”Ye know the old adage: 'Red sky at night: A sailor's stoplight. Green sky at dawn: Sailor, sail on!'”

”Green sky?” Olive repeated.

Harvey executed a tumbling leap from one rafter to another. ”Prepare to set sail for the islands!” he commanded his imaginary crew. ”All paws on deck!”

”Um . . . Harvey? Or Captain Blackpaw?” Olive began, watching the cat dive-bomb a dusty armchair and spring back toward the beams. ”I came to ask you something.”

”Ask away! Ha-HA!” roared Harvey, scampering across the shoulders of an old sewing dummy.

”Today is Halloween. And I'm going to take Morton out, in disguise, so he doesn't have to miss it.” Harvey paused, aiming his one un-patched eye in Olive's direction. ”Rutherford is coming along. Leopold and Horatio said they would escort us, so I have to make their costumes too,” Olive went on. ”And I wondered-will you come with us? In a costume, I mean?”

Harvey lost his footing on the sewing dummy. He hit the attic floor with a thump. A moment later, his face reappeared, inching out from beneath a velvet love seat.

”Will I?” he whispered.

”That's what I just asked you.”

Harvey's eyes were glazed. ”That's what you just asked me.”

Olive watched Harvey's gaze drift wors.h.i.+pfully toward the rafters, as if all the heroes of history and literature were gathered there in invisible feline form.

”I'll take that as a yes,” said Olive. ”I'm in a big hurry already, so I hope you won't mind making your own costume. Will you?”

”Will I?” Harvey echoed, still staring at the ceiling.

”Good,” said Olive.

While Harvey disappeared back into the clutter, Olive rushed toward the nearest corner and tore into a stack of boxes. The first three were filled with a set of fancy china. In the fourth, she found a cache of spidery lace doilies, and in the fifth, she uncovered a stack of old tablecloths, some thick and silky, some as delicate as tissue paper. An idea began to flicker in Olive's mind.

As she hauled the tablecloths out of the box, she couldn't help but picture them draped across the dining table two floors below, with the McMartin family gathered all around. McMartin hands had brushed this lacy tablecloth. These linen napkins had lain in McMartin laps. As though they were used tissues instead of fancy fabrics, Olive dumped the cloths into a heap on the floor. They wouldn't remind her of the McMartins when she was done with them.

In one small metal trunk, she uncovered a pair of old driving goggles-the kind people wore when twenty-five miles per hour seemed astonis.h.i.+ngly fast-and a pair of leather driving gloves. Olive wriggled her hands into the gloves. She placed the goggles on top of her head. Then she hurried across the floor to look into one of the mirrors, still arranged in the circle where she had left them months ago. Looking back at her from the dusty reflection was a gangly girl in spectacles, with what looked like a pair of bulbous eyes poking out of the top of her head, and two big, brown, claw-like hands.

”Rraaahhhrrr,” she growled at the mirror. And, all at once, Olive knew just what she was going to be for Halloween.

With an armload of tablecloths, several wire hangers, some curtain fringe, the goggles and gloves, and an old silk sash, Olive ran back down the attic stairs through the painting and along the hall to her own bedroom. There, she hunkered down for several hours of secret and serious work.

At precisely 4:00 that afternoon, there was a knock at the front door of the old stone house.

Olive skidded along the slippery wood of the downstairs hall. She stood on her toes to peer through the window. Two brown eyes, blurred by a pair of smudgy gla.s.ses, stared back at her.

Olive gave her wire-hanger wings a last tweak. She pulled down the driving goggles, which she had painted with wisps of flame. Then she yanked open the door.

”Grrraaaapleted. And there's the Butlers'! I wonder why-” Rutherford's toe b.u.mped an acorn. It skittered a few paces along the deserted street before wheeling back again. ”Fascinating!” Rutherford interrupted himself. ”I wonder if that acorn would return to its original spot at the same speed no matter how hard I kicked it!”

Rutherford was still kicking at acorns when they reached the walkway to the tall gray house. On the porch, a boy in a white nights.h.i.+rt stood with his arms folded, scowling down at them.

”Happy Halloween, Morton!” called Olive.

”You look funny,” said Morton.

”It's my costume.” Olive approached the porch steps. ”We're all in costumes.”

Morton's frown deepened. ”What is that supposed to be?” he asked, nodding toward Horatio.

Muttering something inaudible, Horatio attempted to hide himself in a patch of long gra.s.s.

”I'm a jabberwocky, so he's a mome rath,” said Olive. ”See his snout?”

Morton's round, pale face turned back toward Olive. ”That's not very scary,” he said. ”I thought you were supposed to look scary for Halloween.”