Read Online Claudia and the Phantom Phone Calls by Ann M. Martin - Free Book Online Page A

a rise of land. Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled.
    â€œKind of like our weather,” Charlotte remarked as a clap of real thunder sounded, followed by a streak of lightning. The lamps flickered.
    Charlotte moved as close to Stacey as she could get without sitting in her lap. Stacey put her arm around her. They looked at each other and giggled.
    â€œI have goose bumps!” exclaimed Charlotte.
    On the television, the scene changed to a bedroom inside the mansion. It was lit only by two candles. A young woman with long, dark hair glided into the room. She was wearing a white dressing gown and carrying another candle.
    She walked across the room to a set of French doors that opened onto a balcony and began to close them, the wind from the storm making her gown billow softly around her. Just when she had almost pulled the doors closed, she gasped and let out a small cry.
    â€œWhat?” whispered Charlotte.
    On the lawn below the woman, Stacey and Charlotte could make out a dark figure.
    â€œLenora,” wailed the figure, “I’ve come back. Back from beyond the grave.”
    Lenora moaned and dropped her candle. Thunder crashed. Then thunder from the real storm outside crashed even more loudly. For a moment, the room Stacey and Charlotte were in seemed to glow brightly. A second later, it was plunged into darkness.
    The girls screamed. Charlotte clutched Stacey. Everything had gone off—the lights, the TV, all the electricity. It was so quiet they could hear their own hearts pounding. But worse than the silence was the utter blackness.
    â€œPower failure,” whispered Stacey.
    â€œI want my mommy,” murmured Charlotte. “Or my daddy.”
    Stacey tried to pull herself together. “There’s really nothing to be afraid of,” she told Charlotte.“So the electricity went off. So what? The Pilgrims lived their whole lives without electricity. You should be in New York when there’s a power failure. The entire city practically stops running. We lived on the seventeenth floor of an apartment building, and when the power went out, so did the elevators. Imagine having to walk up seventeen flights of stairs just to get home.”
    â€œYuck,” said Charlotte.
    â€œI’ll say. Now,” Stacey went on, feeling a bit better, “what we have to do is get some candles.”
    â€œLike Lenora’s?” asked Charlotte.
    â€œWell, yes. Where do your parents keep them?”
    â€œI don’t know. I’m not allowed to light matches.”
    â€œDon’t you have any idea?”
    â€œMaybe in the chest of drawers in the dining room.”
    â€œGood. All right, now we’ll just find my flashlight, and we can use it to light our way into the dining room.”
    Stacey stood up, holding tightly to Charlotte’s hand. They began edging toward the front hall, where Stacey had left her jacket and the flashlight.
    Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle,
crash
!
    â€œOw!” yelled Stacey.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œMy toe. I walked right into something.” Stacey felt around. “A table, I think. Okay, let’s keep going.”
    Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle.
    â€œStacey?”
    â€œWhat, Charlotte?”
    Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle.
    â€œI hear something.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle.
    â€œThere it is again. Stop moving.”
    Stacey and Charlotte paused, holding their breath and listening.
    And then Stacey heard it—a creak.
    â€œWhere’s it coming from?” she asked.
    â€œSounds like the basement,” whispered Charlotte.
    â€œWell, let’s make sure the door to the basement is closed. Where
is
the door to the basement?”
    â€œRight here.” Charlotte moved past Stacey, running her hand along the wall. “Yup, it’s closed.”
    â€œOkay. Good. Be quiet for a sec.”
    The girls stopped and listened again.
    Creak. Creak, squish, creak, squish,