Nothing like stopping at a friend's house the morning after you have tricked him into screaming out his window loud enough to wake up the entire neighborhood.

"Morning, Ralphy. How's it going," I said as I walked down the stairs into his basement.

Three fluorescent lights hung above him in the area his parents had made for him to repair and dismantle computers. He looked up from his cluttered work table, eyes wide.

"Didn't you hear? I was nearly attacked by a ghost last night!"

"Get out of here!" I said with shock. "A ghost!?!"

He nodded, his white, skinny face looking whiter and skinnier than usual. Hair uncombed and sticking straight up, shirt far too large and hanging out his pants, and a shy grin. That's Ralphy Zee. Computer genius and bundle of nerves.

"A scary mean one. Right outside my window."

"It couldn't have been anything else?" I was serious now, very concerned.

"Outside a second-floor window in mid-air? Pale enough to see through and moaning horrible moans?"

Those moans had been Mike Andrew's idea. For someone who hates work and school, Mike has a lot of energy to misplace.

"A ghost!?!" I repeated. "What did it look like? What time? What did you do?"

Ralphy shook his head and sighed to remember his terror. And what terror it had been. By the time he had finished screaming, lights had flicked on in every house on the block.

"It was big and pale with eyes like fire. Just before midnight." He stopped and lowered his

Served him right for letting superstition get to him. Even if Mike and I had spent the entire Friday evening beforehand telling him ghost stories.

"Did it say anything?" My eyes grew as wide as his.

He gulped. "It said it was a ghost of a soldier from the Civil War. That it only appeared on Friday the Thirteenth. That I should stay awake waiting for it on the next Friday the Thirteenth."

I whistled. "No kidding. Maybe Mike and I should be with you then for support. Did it say anything else?"

"Something about leaving my video game collection somewhere." His face grew even more troubled. "I hope it doesn't hurt me. I didn't catch the exact directions."

Nuts. I had told Mike he was talking too quick.

I shook my head. "Told your parents yet?"

"Yes," he said mournfully. "They'd won't let me read scary books anymore."

I shook my head again. But not at Ralphy's parents. At Ralphy. Ever noticed that people who get scared easy are the ones who just have to watch horror shows and read gruesome books?

"That's too bad," I said. "Wait till Mike hears about this."

Ralphy sighed again and resumed his careful work with computer parts. I watched in silence, not that I understood anything he was doing.

On one end, he had the old screen from a portable black and white television. In the middle, set clearly apart from the clutter of tools and small parts, there was a wide wooden tray, with small black chips and soldered wire in all directions. On the far end, what looked like a car battery sliced in half.

"Inventing something?" I asked half jokingly.

Ralphy grunted at a wire he was trying to clip. "Yup. I'd like to win the state-wide science contest."

"What's first prize? A set of encyclopedias?" I nearly choked with glee.

"Good one, Ricky Kidd." He continued to work. When they use your last name, it's a safe bet the remark was sarcastic.

Finally I said, "Well?"

"Well what?" He didn't look up.

"What's first prize?"

"A trip this summer. To the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia."

"British Columbia. That's a province in Canada."

"Um-huh," he said absently. "It's kind of a publicity thing. Some oceanographer has invented a new deep-sea scanner. He'll be searching for the Ogopogo monster, a cousin to the Loch Ness monster in Scotland. The company sponsoring this oceanographer wants some school kids along to give the expedition a better image."

I snorted. "An Ogopogo monster in the Okanagan. Hah. Hah. You should learn to tell better lies." And back them up with great inventions, I thought, like the ghost Mike and I spent so long making.

Ralphy shrugged as he dabbed something in front of him. "Do me a favor, Ricky. Hold these two wires."

"No problem."

I took one in each hand. They felt damp, but it only lasted for several seconds.

"Thanks," he said mildly as he moved to the far end of the table and reached for a small handle attached to a cylinder the size of a football.

He began to crank.

"Yeeeeeooooooooowwwwwwwww!!!!" I hollered and tried to shake the wires loose.

Ralphy stopped cranking.

"Oh," he said. "Glad to see it works."

He cranked again.

It felt like sharks were biting my hand. Each crank of the hand produced another vicious nip. "That's electricity!" I shouted above the numbing pain.

Ralphy stopped cranking. "Good. I was worried I hadn't set the circuits up properly."

The wires still wouldn't shake loose. Not that my fingers at this point could move anyway.

He cranked again. "Ralphy!" I shouted. "Have you lost your mind!"

He stopped and thought about it. "Nope." He cranked again. "Yeeeeeoooooowwwww!"

"It's only a couple of volts," he noted at the next stop. "Nothing that will really hurt you. But the Crazy Glue I used will make the wires hard to shake loose."

I plucked at the wires. Ralphy had gone crazy.

He cranked again until I stopped plucking.

Ralphy grinned at me. "Now, about last night," he said.

My jaw dropped.

"You know?"

He kept grinning, and raised his voice. "Lisa, you can come out of the closet now. And bring your friends."

Wonderful. Lisa Higgins was in on this? She's the kind of girl you dread. Pretty, with long dark hair. When she smiles, it's sunshine breaking through clouds. When she scowls, it's a thunderstorm. She's the girl who hits home runs off your best pitch, beats you in math tests, and always catches you in the middle of something stupid.

Like right now.

She stepped out of the closet and flashed her teeth in a grin at me. Then she turned around and hauled out one of her friends -- a large figure made from helium-filled balloons.

I closed my eyes in grief.

Nobody had to tell me what that was. Less than twelve hours earlier, Mike and I had stood outside Ralphy's window and floated it up on invisible nylon fishing line. A Radio Shack speaker was attached to the base of the balloons, and where the eyes were, we had taped two tiny pen-sized flashlights.

I smiled weakly. "You would have been proud of us, Ralphy. It took three weeks for us to put it together. Cost nearly twenty bucks for all the parts."

I stopped. "Hey!" I said with indignation. "How did you find out anyway?"

Lisa's other friend, the answer to my question, stepped out of the closet.

Joel and his teddy bear. How he manages to follow people is beyond me. He's my six-year-old kid brother who haunts me worse than any ghost. I'm twelve, but he terrifies me. Somehow he appears and disappears when I least expect or want it. Locked doors and walls don't stop that kid. When I do spot him, he says nothing. Only stares at me with solemn eyes that take in exactly whatever I'm doing at that moment, which usually happens to be something I want nobody in the world to see. Then, as I'm bursting out of my skin in terror at his sudden appearance, he's gone again.

"Funny trick you did last night," Joel said gravely. "You and Mike do it again for Lisa?"

I gritted my teeth.

"We were going to return your video games," I said hopefully, suddenly aware again of those wires stuck to my skin.

Ralphy grinned. "Actually, it was a great trick. I'll help you remove those wires, and call us even."

Whew.

As he pulled them from my hands, nearly ripping skin from my palms, he explained. "The crank is part of a generator. I need to store electricity in that battery, so that it will operate that home-made computer." He finished proudly. "Nearly everything is made from scratch."

"You already have a Macintosh," I pointed out.

"For the science contest"

"Ah yes," I said in disbelief. "To go looking for an Oglipolgi.

"Ogopogo," he corrected me.

Before I could say anything, a voice from upstairs interrupted.

"Helloooo. Anybody home?" It was Mike.

Lisa and Joel backed into the closet, taking the balloons with them. I stepped into the nearby laundry room, out of sight.

Mike sauntered down the stairs. "Morning, Ralphy. How's it going," he said.

"Didn't you hear?" Ralphy's voice trembled. "I was nearly attacked by a ghost last night!"

"Get out of here!" Mike said with shock. "A ghost!?!"

A ghost?" Ralphy repeated firmly. He paused. "Say, Mike. Could you do me a favor and hold me these wires for me?"