Phooey and the Haunted House
One day Bob came home from work and he called his family together. He said “We have a decision to make, I have been given an opportunity to go to England and live in a haunted house for two months and bring you guys along. The man that owns a house once us to see what we can find out about the ghosts and see we can get the ghosts out of the house. I know it is not what I usually do but the man is offering me a lot of money. I told him I would talk to my family. So we will make this decision together. It has to be a unanimous decision or we won't go. It could get scary, but I don't think it will be dangerous. Phooey, you and Tina will spend most of your time searching the house for secret compartments and secret rooms. Mom will be the secretary she will write down everything we find out. So when were done we can make a nice report for Mr. Jones. I will spend most of my time going through old newspapers. They do not have anything on microfilm there, so I have to go to the papers one at a time and they are old so I have to be real careful with them. So it will take a while. Any questions?”
Nobody had any questions so Bob continued “Let's put it to a vote. Mom what you think” mom said “I see no reason why we shouldn't do it, it might be fun and we can learn a lot about England at the same time.”
“Phooey?” Phooey said “It sounds like it would be a blast, I can't wait to get over there.”
“Tina?” Tina said “It sounds a little bit scary, but I won't stand in anybody's way, so I will vote yes.'
Dad said “Good it is all settled, I will call Mr. Jones tomorrow and tell him we will be over there.”
Mom said “When do we have to leave? I need time to get ready.”
“We can leave whenever we want, Mr. Jones said. I figure since school will be out in a month we can leave then.” Dad said.
Mom said “That sounds good to me, I will be ready.”
“How many ghosts are there?” Phooey said.
Mr. Jones thinks there's about three or four, but he's not sure so I guess we'll find out when we get there.”
Phooey said “I'm hungry let's eat.”
Mom and dad laughed, then mom said “Phooey you are always hungry, I don't know where you put it all. Dinner is ready, I just have to put it on the table, let's go eat.”
So one month later they all got on a plane and headed for England. It was a long flight. When they got there they were all tired. At the airport they found out that Mr. Jones hired a limo to take them to the house.
When they got there they could not believe their eyes. The house was a big mansion, two stories tall.
They walked in and found their bedrooms. Then they unpacked. One hour later they were sit in the front room and dad was laying down the ground rules.
He said “Every evening will get together and talk about whatever we found, and in every morning will get together and talk about anything that happened during the night. Phooey, I want you and Tina to always be searching the same room. That way you can keep an eye on her. You are going to have to teach her how to look for secret panels and secret rooms. Show her just like I showed you. Tina, you be sure and stay close to Phooey and let him teach you how to find the secret panels and secret rooms.”
Everyone nodded okay. Then mom said “I checked the kitchen, they really stocked it nice for us. I will have dinner ready in about 30 min.”
For the first two weeks nothing much happened. Then Phooey came down to breakfast one morning and said he saw the ghosts. Then he told what happened He said “A bright light woke me up in the middle of the night, it was shining in my eyes. I shaded my eyes and I could see a tight rope going across my room. There was a man walking on the tight rope. Then I looked to the side and there was a lion standing there. There was a man putting his head in the lion's mouth. Then I looked the other way and there were 2 clowns, they were doing a routine. I started to laugh, then everything got dark, I don't know what happened to them. It took me a while, but I finally went back to sleep.”
Dad said “That corresponds to what I've been reading in the newspapers. There were four brothers that lived in this house. It looks like three of the brothers were killed when their car was stuck on the railroad tracks and was hit by a train. The fourth brother killed himself about two months later. The people that knew him said he just didn't want to live without his brothers.”
That night when dad got home he said he had more information about the brothers. He said “the four brothers were circus performers. Zeb was a tight rope walker. Zeke was a lion tamer and Zero and Zed were clowns. Zeb,Zero and Zed were killed when their car was hit by the train. Zeke was the one that killed himself a couple months later. That all happened in 1938.
The house stayed vacant after that until 1946 when Mr. Jones' great-grandfather bought it. He wanted it for his wife. His wife refused to stay here after the ghosts started playing tricks on her. Then when his grandfather got married his wife also refused to stay here, she didn't like it anymore than his mother did. After that they rented it out on weekends to anybody who wanted to stay in a haunted house. They did all right that way. Then when Mr. Jones father got married they tried to live in this house but she was afraid of the ghosts too, and insisted that they move out. So now Mr. Jones is about to get married and he wants to try to get the ghosts out of the house so he can live here with his new wife.”
Phooey said “We have checked the whole downstairs area and we found two hidden panels, but there was nothing behind the panels. Tomorrow we will start checking the second story.
The next morning when they came down for breakfast Phooey was a little bit late. When dad asked him what happened Phooey said “I went to sleep in my bed last night when I woke up I was on the floor wrapped tightly in all my blankets. It took me a while to get out of them.
A few days later when they were having her evening talk dad said “I found some information today. It was the parents of the four boys that bought this house and raise their sons here. They bought the house in 1875 when they move from Austria to England. His name was Zorro, he was a trick shot artist, his wife Zelda helped him with his act. Shortly after they bought the house they started a family. Their first son Zeb was born about1878 and about every two years after that they had another son until they had four. About 1900 the boys join the circus too. Zorro and Zelda retired from the circus about 1920. She died in 1925 and he died a couple years later.
Tina said “While we were searching one of the bedrooms upstairs today. Someone picked me up and I was flying around near ceiling in the room. I wasn't scared it was fun. Phooey was scared, he yelled at them to put me down, finally after about 10 min. they put me down.”
About a week later Tina came down for breakfast and said she had a story to tell them. Then she started “I was playing with my dolls just before I went to sleep. Someone grabbed my dolls and took them away from me and put them on a high shelf. I said “That's not nice, now how am I going to get my dolls off that shelf.” Then someone picked me up by my feet and put me on the shelf next to the dolls. I said “Great! I got my dolls but how do I get down from here.” Then this clown face got right up next to me. He had a funny look on his face, like he was trying to figure something out. He was scratching his head at the same time. Then all of a sudden he got a big smile on his face. He grabbed me with one arm and grab my dolls with the other arm and put us back on the bed and then he disappeared.
Another morning when they came down for breakfast mom said 'The ghosts visited us last night I sleep on the right side of the bed and your dad on the left when we woke up this morning I was on the left side and you dad was on the right.”
Tina said “I woke up in Phooey's bed this morning.”
Phooey laughed and said “You gave me quite a shock when I woke up and you are laying in the bed next to me.”
Dad said “We only have about two weeks left. I think we ought to try and see if we can contact them and talk with them. Maybe we can find out why they are still here.
Phooey said “You mean like a seance?”
Dad said “Yes, something like that. What do you guys think of the idea?”
They all agreed it was worth a try. So four days later they were sitting around the table in the kitchen.
Phooey said “We finished searching the house we found 4 more hidden panels but nothing of any value in any of them”
Dad said “It is time.” Dad started “ghosts of Zeb, Zeek, Zero and Zed. Please come and talk with us we would like to know why you are still in this house. You don't belong here, you need to go on to where you do belong.”
All of a sudden the lights started flashing and then there were three faces on the wall. Tina look like she was asleep. Then all of a sudden this deep voice came out of Tina. It said “I am Zeb I will talk for the rest of them. We like it here, we spent our whole life in this house we don't intend to leave. We are afraid to leave. We just want to stay here and be left alone.”
Dad said “Zeb you men have been here long enough it is time you go to your reward. What is keeping you in this house?”
Zeb said “We are afraid of where we will go when we leave here. We might end up in hell and we wouldn't like that at all so we decided to just to stay here.”
Dad said “Do you believe in Jesus Christ? Do you believe he died for your sins? The three faces nodded yes and Zeb said “Yes we do.”
Dad continued “Then go to your judgment day Jesus is waiting for you. He will take you home with him to heaven and I'm sure your parents are waiting for you in heaven.”
There was silence for about 5 min. and then Zeb said “We have talked it over and we decided that we will go on to our judgment day, and trust that Jesus will take us to heaven.”
Then they all left and all of a sudden there's a smell of spring in the house. Then Tina woke up and she said “What happened? All of a sudden I felt someone was pushing me aside and I couldn't do anything about it.”
Dad said “Tina, Zeb was using you to talk to us. They are gone now, they are on their way to heaven to be reunited with their parents.”
Tina opened up her right-hand and there was an ancient locket sitting in her hand.
Dad said “Where did you get that locket?” Tina said “I don't know, it was in my hand when I woke up.
Dad said “let me see the locket.” He took the locket, it took him a few minutes to figure out how to open it, but he finally got it open. Inside were pictures of a man and woman. “Dad said unless I miss my guess these are pictures of the parents of the four ghosts that were here.”
Phooey said “wow!”
So the Balouees went home after dad handed his report to Mr. Jones. Mr. and Mrs. Jones moved into the house. Everybody was happy.
One day dad said “Tina let's take your locket to the jewelers and see what they can tell us about it.”
So they went to the jewelers. When they got there they showed the jeweler the locket, he got his eye piece out and studied it. Then he has Tina “Where did you get this locket?
Tina said “From a ghost.” The jeweler face turned white and said he would be right back. A few minutes later he came back with a book about circus families. One of the stories was about a family called the Zercoff family. The parents were Zorro and Zelda. The boys were Zeb, Zeke, Zero and Zed. The jeweler turned to the page where they had some pictures of the Zercoff family. There were old pictures of Zorro and Zelda, they look just like the pictures in the locket.
The jeweler said I liked reading about old circus families I found this book one day it has quite a history of the old circus families I couldn't believe it when I looked at the pictures in the locket I knew I had seen them before and then I got my book out and there they were.
Dad said “They were haunting an old house they grew up in in England and we were hired to see we could get them out of the house. We did, they went to join their parents in heaven.”
The jeweler said “I would love to hear the whole story.”
Dad said “I will check with Mr. Jones. He's the one that hired me and if he said is all right to give you a copy of my report I will give you a copy of it. Now what you think is locket is worth.”
The jeweler said “I couldn't tell you. I have never seen anything like it. It would not surprise me if it went over six digits if you put it up for auction and gave them the story to go with it. If I were you I would put it in a safety deposit box and never sell it.”
So dad and Tina went to the bank and put the locket in dad's safety deposit box.
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