“That was Ms. Ann Templeton. She is the great-great-great-great-granddaughter of Mrs. Madeline Templeton.”
“Who’s that?”
“The woman who founded this town about two hundred years ago. A witch if ever there was one. Witchery runs in their family. The woman you just met is the most dangerous creature in all of Spooksville. Nobody knows how many kids she’s killed.”
“She seemed nice.”
“Adam! She’s a witch! There are no nice witches except in The Wizard of Oz.
And one thing Spooksville sure doesn’t have is a yellow brick road. You have to stay away from that woman or you’ll end up as a frog chirping in the stagnant pond behind the cemetery.”
Adam had to shake himself to clear his brain. It was almost as if the woman had cast a spell on him. But a pleasant spell, one that made him feel warm inside.
“How did she know my name?” he muttered out loud.
Sally was exasperated. “Because she’s a witch! Get a grip on reality, would ya?
She probably just had to look in a big pot filled with boiling livers and kidneys to know everything about you. Why, I wouldn’t be surprised if she sent that shopping cart flying toward her car just so you could run over and stop it. Just so she could stop and bewitch your tiny little mind. Are you listening to me, Mr.
Kansas City?”
Adam frowned. “The shopping cart wasn’t flying. It never left the ground.”
Sally raised her arms toward the sky. “The kid has to see a broom fly across the sky before he’ll believe in witches! Well, that’s just great. Be that way. Get
yourself changed into something gross and disgusting. I don’t care. I have problems of my own.”
“Sally. Why are you always yelling at me?”
“Because I care. Now let’s get out of here. Let’s go to the arcade. It’s pretty safe there.”
“None of the games are haunted?” Adam asked to tease her. Sally stopped to give him another one of her impatient looks.
“A couple of games are haunted,” she said. “You just can’t put quarters in them.
Of course, knowing you, you’ll head straight for them.”
“I don’t know,” Adam said. “My dad wanted his change back from when I bought the Cokes. I don’t have any money.”
“Then thank your dad for a small favor,” Sally said.
4
They never got to the arcade. Instead they ran into Sally’s friend—Watch. He was an interesting-looking fellow. About Sally’s height, with blond hair the color of the sun and arms that seemed to reach to the ground. His ears were big. Adam saw in an instant where he got his nickname. On each arm he wore two large watches, four that Adam could see. Maybe he had a couple in his pockets that Adam didn’t know about. The lenses on his glasses were thick—they could have been swiped from the ends of telescopes. Sally seemed happy to see him. She introduced Adam.
“Adam’s from Kansas City,” she said to Watch. “He just got here and is finding the change of scenery painful.”
Adam frowned. “It’s not that bad.”
“What are your favorite subjects in school?” Watch asked.
“Watch is a science nut,” Sally said. “If you like science, Watch will like you.
Me—I don’t care if you flunked biology. My love is unconditional.”
“I like science,” Adam said. He gestured to Watch’s arms. “Why do you wear so many watches? Isn’t one enough?”
“I always like to know what time it is in each part of the country,” Watch said.
“There are four time zones in America,” Sally said.
“I know that,” Adam said. “Kansas City is two time zones ahead of the West Coast. But why do you want to know what time it is in all these places?”
Watch lowered his head. “Because my mother lives in New York. My sister lives in Chicago, and my father lives in Denver.” Watch shrugged. “I like to know what time it is for each of them.”
There was sadness in Watch’s voice as he spoke of his family. Adam felt he shouldn’t ask why everyone was so spread out. Sally must have felt the same
way. She spoke up again.
“I was just telling Adam how dangerous this town is,” she said. “I don’t think he believes me.”
“Did you really see Leslie Lotte get swallowed by a cloud?” Adam asked Watch.
Watch looked at Sally. “What did you tell him?”
Sally was defensive. “Just what you told me.”
Watch scratched his head. His blond hair was kind of thin. “I saw Leslie get lost in the fog. And then none of us could find her. But she might have run away from home.”
