Dunc and the Haunted Castle (5 page)
Read Dunc and the Haunted Castle Online
Authors: Gary Paulsen
Amos grabbed T.J.’s arm. “He said to wait.”
“Here.” T.J. lit another candle and handed it to him. “I’ll be right back.”
Amos thought about sitting down, but he couldn’t figure out how. He leaned up against the wall and waited. And waited.
“Dunc? T.J.? You guys aren’t playing tricks on me again, are you?” Amos moved slowly down the passage the way they had gone. A man’s hand reached silently from the cover of a side tunnel. It hit the armor and glanced off. Amos didn’t feel it. He kept moving toward the noise at the end of the passage.
He rounded the next corner and stopped. The passage opened up into a large room set up like a factory. One man was putting empty
bottles into a machine, and another man was slapping labels on them as fast as they came out.
Amos took a step back and accidentally rubbed his heels together. He could feel himself slowly rising off the floor. He frantically reached for his shoelaces but the armor wouldn’t let him bend.
The ceiling was coming closer. Amos ducked through the archway into the factory. He tried walking in backward in the air, but every time he moved, he lunged forward.
The men in the room stopped working and stared at him. For a minute he had them worried. He floated across the room like a ghost with no head. It might have worked the way Dunc said it would—if one of his shoelaces hadn’t gotten caught on the corner of a machine.
One air shoe deactivated immediately. The heavy armor started to tilt sideways. Amos could feel his top half losing altitude. He was hanging upside down. One leg was suspended straight up, the other pedaling frantically trying to get upright. Amos reached up for his other shoelace. He managed to grab the tip and pull.
His landing could have been better.
A couple of inches to the left, and he would have missed the large vat of homemade whisky. As it was, he hit it dead center. He might have drowned if two of the workers hadn’t pulled him out.
Jimmy Knox sneered at him. “It’s one of them snoopy kids. Tie him up until the boss figures out what to do with him.”
“I think not.” Mr. Smith was standing in the doorway with several policemen. “Put your hands in the air.”
Mr. Smith lit his pipe. “Scotland Yard has had this place under surveillance for several months. We had reports of bootlegging in this area but no solid evidence.”
Dunc sat on the sofa in the great room. “You mean these guys were running an illegal whisky-making operation?”
Mr. Smith nodded. “Mr. Macbeth was the brains behind it. It was his idea to rent the castle to you as a cover for the operation. He hired Mrs. Knox and her son and a few others to make sure things went smoothly. When I grabbed you boys in the tunnel, we were just about to make our arrest.”
“How about you?” T.J. asked. “Who hired you?”
“I was hired by the owner. When I showed my letter of employment to Mr. Macbeth, he had no choice but to accept it.”
“Who is the owner?” T.J.’s dad asked.
Mr. Smith cleared his throat. “The Queen.”
T.J.’s eyes popped wide open. “You work for the Queen?”
“I do. And I have been in touch with Her Majesty this very morning, and she wishes me to convey her appreciation to you boys for your help in providing—shall we say—the little distraction that allowed us to get the edge on our suspects.”
T.J. turned to his father. “You should have seen my invention, Dad. Amos went clear to the ceiling. Hey—where is Amos anyway?”
Mr. Smith smiled. “Your friend and myself had a long conversation over breakfast about—”
An ear-splitting noise came from the top of the stairs. Amos was standing on the landing blowing into a set of bagpipes. He was dressed in a red plaid kilt.
Amos took a breath. “What do you guys think?” He turned all the way around to give
the full effect. “Mr. Smith says this getup really impresses the girls over here. I thought I’d try it on Melissa.”
Complete silence.
“What?” Amos looked down at himself. “Is it the dress? Too much knee? What?”
Mr. Tyler and Mr. Smith headed for the kitchen. T.J. and Dunc were moving fast toward the front door.
“Where’s everybody going? Don’t you want to hear my next song?”
The front door slammed.
Amos stared after them, wondering what was wrong. He shrugged, and a happy look crawled across his face.
Maybe, he thought, I should call Melissa and play a song for her. That’s it. A sneak preview of coming attractions. She’ll probably meet me at the airport. The music will win her over. Ill have to fight her off. But I won’t be pushy, play it slow. I’ll wait a couple of days to announce our engagement.…
Be sure to join Dunc and Amos in these
other Culpepper Adventures:
When Dunc Culpepper and his best friend, Amos, first see the parrot in a pet store, they’re not impressed—it’s smelly, scruffy, and missing half its feathers. They’re only slightly impressed when they learn that the parrot speaks four languages, has outlived ten of its owners, and is probably 150 years old. But when the bird starts mouthing off about buried treasure, Dunc and Amos get pretty excited—let the amateur sleuthing begin!
Dunc and his accident-prone friend Amos are up to their old sleuthing habits once again. This time they’re after a band of doll thieves! When a doll that once belonged to Charles Dickens’s daughter is stolen from an exhibition at the local mall, the two boys put on their detective gear and do some serious snooping. Will a vicious watchdog keep them from retrieving the valuable missing doll?
Dunc and Amos are researching the Civil War cannon that stands in the town square when they find a note inside telling them about a time portal. Entering it through the dressing room of La Petite, a women’s clothing store, the boys find themselves in downtown Chatham on March 8, 1862—the day before the historic clash between the
Monitor
and the
Merrimac
. But the Confederate soldiers they meet mistake them for Yankee spies. Will they make it back to the future in one piece?
Dunc and Amos meet up with a new buddy named Lash when they enter the radical world of skateboard competition. When somebody “cops”—steals—Lash’s prototype skateboard, the boys are determined to get it back. After all, Lash is about to shoot for a totally rad world’s record! Along the way they learn a major lesson:
Never
kiss a monkey!
Dunc and Amos are planning the best route to get the most candy on Halloween. But their plans change when Amos is slightly bitten by a werewolf.
He begins scratching himself and chasing UPS trucks: he’s become a werepuppy!
Dunc and Amos have a small problem when they try hang gliding—they crash in the wilderness. Luckily, Amos has read a book about a boy who survived in the wilderness for fifty-four days. Too bad Amos doesn’t have a hatchet. Things go from bad to worse when a wild man holds the boys captive. Can anything save them now?
Dunc’s not afraid of ghosts, although Amos is sure that the old Rambridge house is haunted by the ghost of Blackbeard the Pirate. Then the best friends meet Eddie, a meek man who claims to be impersonating Blackboard’s ghost in order to live in the house in peace. But if that’s true, why are flames shooting from his mouth?
Deciphering a code they find in a library book, Amos and Dunc stumble onto a burglary ring. The burglars’ next target is the home of Melissa, the girl of Amos’s dreams (who doesn’t even know
that he’s alive). Amos longs to be a hero to Melissa, so nothing will stop him from solving this case—not even a mind-boggling collision with a jock, a chimpanzee, and a toilet.
In order to impress Melissa, Amos decides to perform on the trapeze at the visiting circus. Look out below! But before Dunc can talk him out of his plan, the two stumble across a mystery behind the scenes at the circus. Now Amos is in double trouble. What’s really going on under the big top?
Camouflaged as piles of rotting trash, Dunc and Amos are sneaking around the town dump. Dunc wants to find out who is polluting the garbage at the dump with hazardous and toxic waste. Amos just wants to impress Melissa. Can either of them succeed?
Dunc and Amos are at it again. Some older residents of their town have been bilked by con artists, and the two boys want to look into these crimes. They meet elderly Betsy Dell, whose
nasty nephew Frank gives the boys the creeps. Then they notice some soft dirt in Ms. Dell’s shed, and a shovel. Does Frank have something horrible in store for Dunc and Amos?
Dunc and Amos head for camp and face two weeks of fresh air—along with regulations, demerits, K.P., and inedible food. But where these two best friends go, trouble follows. They overhear a threat against the camp director and discover that camp funds have been stolen. Do these crimes have anything to do with the tattoo of the exotic red flower that some of the camp staff have on their arms?
It’s Christmastime! and Dunc, Amos, and Amos’s cousin T.J. hit the mall for some serious shopping. But when the seasonal magic is threatened by some disappearing presents and Santa Claus himself is a prime suspect, the boys put their celebration on hold and go undercover in perfect Christmas disguises! Can the sleuthing trio protect Santa’s threatened reputation and catch the impostor before he strikes again?
When Amos wins a “Why I Love My Dog” contest, he and Dunc are off on the Caribbean cruise of their dreams! But there’s something downright fishy about Amos’s suitcase, and before they know it, the two best friends wind up with more high seas adventure than they bargained for. Can Dunc and Amos figure out who’s out to get them and salvage what’s left of their vacation?