Crandalls' Castle by Betty Ren Wright

you girls too hard?”
    â€œNo way.” I whirled around the kitchen with Mickey in my arms to prove I wasn’t tired at all.
    â€œI thought Will would be home by now,” she said, laughing at us. “We’ll eat as soon as he comes.”
    I told her he had gone downtown for spray to get rid of a big wasps’ nest at the Castle.
    She nodded and said something that really surprised me. “You know, I still haven’t been inside that house. I’ve passed it for years, of course, but now we own it and I should go in and look around but …”
    â€œWhy don’t you?” I said.
    She gave the sauce an extra hard stir. “Well,” she said, “I realize it’s very run-down, and I don’t have Will’s knack for seeing how things will turn out. Sometimes I just see the down side, and that makes me a terrible wet blanket. So I don’t interfere. Will knows what he needs to do … he’s a very hard worker … he …” She turned away from the stove, and I thought her face looked strained. But maybe I imagined it, because she smiled and said, “Will figures out how to support this lively family, and I take care of us at home. That’s the way we both like it.”
    I put Mickey in the high chair and started taking plates and glasses from the cupboard. How can she be so sure Will is doing the right thing when I know absolutely, positively, this time he’s WRONG? The trouble is, he can be wrong and never have to admit it, even to himself. That’s what makes him dangerous .
    I thought about the Castle all through dinner and the twins’ spaghetti-slurping contest. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. The first floor is bad enough, but the second floor is worse. I didn’t see a ghost up there, even though Charli is sure I did. I didn’t see anything . I just knew I wouldn’t spend a night in one of those rooms for a million dollars.
    Charli was in the truck when Will and I came out of the house this morning. She looked at me hard, but I didn’t look back.
    â€œYou ladies have a short workday today,” Will said. “How about getting started in the kitchen this morning? In a week or so I’d like to invite some big-money folks to look around—let them see how nice the Castle’s going to be. Do what you can before eleven—I hear you have other plans for this afternoon.”
    â€œWhat plans?” I asked.
    Will looked at Charli, but she was very busy fastening her seat belt. Finally she said, “My mom has the day off, and we’re going to the mall. Ray says you should come with us.”
    I could tell from the way she said it what she thought of that idea.
    â€œI can’t,” I said. “Lilly might want me to—”
    â€œLilly wants you to have a good time,” Will interrupted. “So do I. You can’t work all the time, girl. Go and enjoy yourself.”
    I was just going to tell him I’d rather enjoy myself at home with Mickey, but then the truck bounced in and out of a pothole with a jolt that sent things flying off the dashboard. A book tumbled out of the glove compartment and landed in my lap.
    â€œHey, I’d forgotten that book,” Will said, so pleased you’d think he hit the pothole on purpose. “The real estate lady gave it to me when we closed the deal on the house. William Herndon’s story of his life. He was born in the Castle and lived there till he was two or three years old. She thought we might want to put up a plaque in the living room or something.”
    Charli asked, “Who’s William Herndon?” She sounded about as interested as she did when she told me I was invited to go to the mall, but Will didn’t notice.
    â€œJust a former governor of the state,” he said. “How about that—a governor born in Crandalls’ Castle!”
    Charli shrugged. I wasn’t much interested either. I was