"Well here we are." Jean said as she pulled her car up to the driveway of the house Nancy was due to inherit if she and her friends could stay in it for 24 hours.
"That was fast." Desy said getting out of the car. There was once only one car but in the last year Jean got a great buy on a red VW punch buggy. The only problem was it had an eight track radio. It wouldn't be so bad if they could take the Barry Mannilow eight track out of it, but it seemed to have melted inside the player.
Jean drove Desy and Tippy in her car while the rest came up in Nancys blue pt cruiser.
"Wow." Nancy said getting out of her car. The others gathered around the front of Jeans car to look the house over. "Shades of Norman Bates."
"Lets just hope he took mummy with him." Desy said quietly. Jean snorted a laugh.
The house was three stories high, the third being a creepy looking attic. There was a two car garage off the to the left of the driveway and a small birdhouse on the front lawn.
"What does that letter say about this place?" Rose asked.
"The sole idea of staying the night terrified the guys into finding a last minute music gig." Desy reported.
"I sure hope they are adding 'The Chicken Dance' to their playlist." Nancy muttered. "Its got three bedrooms so we might have to bunk up. She looked up. "So the rule of dibs is in..." She suddenly noticed she was alone. The other girls had grabbed their things, very few since only two changes of clothes was in order, had run to the front door. "...play." She rolled her eyes and joined her friends at the door. "Let me unlock it."
"We knew that." Tippy said. Nancy opened the door. "The rooms are one the second floor." She said as the girls whooshed by her.
The rooms were taken in short order, Rose had the east side, Jean the west side and Nancy by some miracle got the south side. Jean decided to be a good sport and let Desy bunk with her and Rose let Tippy bunk with her.
"What about Harley?" Nancy asked. "I forgot there was six of us. Desy, Jean, me, Tippy, Rose and Harley."
"Don't worry about me, I can sleep on the couch." Harley said cheerfully.
Her cheer didn’t last once she saw the couch. It looked like it was broken in half. "On the other hand...can I bunk with you?"
"Sure." Nancy said. "Thank god we thought to bring the aero beds. And Desy thought I made a dumb move by buying three of them at yard sales this year."
"Can you blame me? If they don't turn out to be haunted at all I will have my faith redeemed in you." Desy joked.
"Thanks." Nancy said. "I think."
"So what do we do now?" Tippy asked.
"Dinner sounds good." Rose said. "Who’s cooking?"
"I have no idea if there is even food in the kitchen." Nancy said as they went to the kitchen. As Nancy entered it Jean said. "Ah it was Nancy in the Kitchen with the rope."
"Wrong again!" Nancy said as they searched the kitchen. "It was the carving knife." Nancy said as she showed Jean a grody looking specimen.
"Ugg." Rose said as she opened the fridge. "CSI could have a lot of fun in this fridge. Its the case of the haunted bologna." She said waving a green package of Oscar Meyer in front of the gang.
"Its not old, its a special St Patricks day formula." Desy said thinking. "Rose in the kitchen with the salmonella?" Desy said pointing out the rotten chicken.
"Well whoever was here last was here a long time ago." Jean said. "We might have to get Chinese food tonight."
"Jean." Harley said quietly.
"Ok...Chinese American food." Jean said. "I'm sorry!"
"Not its not that." Harley said. She motioned the gang over to the bay kitchen window where she was sitting. "Look at that. No ones going anywhere." There was a huge dark storm cloud hovering over the back end of the house. Rain was falling outside.
"But wait." Tippy said standing at the window opposite Harleys. "It's sunny over here." A sudden flash came from Tippys side. She yelped like a small dog and ran over to Nancy and jumped on her. Her friend couldn’t handle her weight and fell over.
"Hey!" Nancy said underneath Tippy.
"I'm sorry but it was coming right at me!" Tippy said. "For a second there I thought a possible haunted house would have weird weather."
"Don't seem so." Harley said as the storm passed over the house. Large raindrops could be heard on the roof. The lights flickered for a couple of minutes.
"What now?" Jean asked.
"We wait out the rain storm and then go to town." Desy proposed.
"Yeah but everything could be closed by then." Rose said.
"And Nancys store?" Jean asked.
"Closed since the flood. Now it might float away entirely if the storms bad down there." Nancy explained. She then looked up at the ceiling. "If we can't eat we might as well look around some more. It can't be that bad. She did have a cable hookup."
"How do you know that?" Desy said.
"Her cable bills here." Tippy said pointing to the kitchen table. "It looks like she paid it recently. Its half out of the envelope. At least we won't miss Dallas reruns today."
"oh." Desy said. "Well lets go. We got 24 hours to kill...so to speak."
The living room was next. The wall paper was blue and red flowered on a white background. There was the black couch that Harley decided not to sleep on. A old TV was in front of the couch. There was a look alike black chair just to the left of the TV set. The decoration was very sparse, there were not even pictures of the lady of the house.
"Nice. So when are Ozzie and Harriet coming home?" Jean asked.
"We might need to give this place a makeover." Nancy said. "At least its still standing." She said as she lead the people through the house. "This place I know like the back of my hand. She made an exact replica of her house."
"And again I ask...why?" Desy asked.
"Its a good question." Jean said.
"A good answer I cannot provide." Nancy said. They went by a hallway window. "Ooooh cement pond included." She pointed.
"You didn’t know she had a pool?" Harley asked.
"When delivered I didn't spend a lot of time in here; just come back here, drop off her food on the back porch and go back through. She liked to eat her lunch in bed too."
"A real oddball." Tippy sighed.
"She was very senile at the end. She insisted on stomping the devil out of her Salisbury steak before she ate it, then she demanded a new plate and did the same thing." Nancy said as they moved to the stairs.
"With what you are telling us about her, shouldn’t we expect any surprises?" Jean asked as they made their way up the stairs.
"No, silly, who would do anything to us..." Desy said moving to the first door at the top of the stairs. She reached out and opened the door. "I wonder where this goes..." Suddenly something jumped out at Desy. A high pitched scream came from Desy.
"Desy!" Tippy said as they all ran to her side.
"What is it?" Desy said with her hands over her eyes. "It jumped out at me!"
Nancy picked it up. "Haunted teddy bear!"
"Badly in need of washing haunted teddy bear." Tippy laughed.
"Oh you laugh, it looked rabid." Desy said stomping off.
"That’s just the stuffing coming out of his mouth." Rose said as it got passed to her. "Paddington? No!!!!"
"Very funny guys." She said stomping into a random room.
"My room!" Nancy said.
She came out and went into another room.
"My room!" Tippy called stifling a laugh.
She blustered out of the other room and into the right room at last.
"She'll forgive us for laughing right?" Nancy asked.
"She will, or at least not till she gets us back." Rose said.
They looked at each other. "Nahhh."
"If anyone wants to look around, go ahead. I'm going to watch Countdown." Nancy said going down the stairs.
"I'll see if anyone will dare deliver food up here." Rose said going down with Nancy. The others decided to just look around for a while. A half hour gone, several more half hours to go.
