The most exciting things to happen in Dullsville in my lifetime, in chronological order:

1. The 3:10 train jumped its tracks, spilling boxes of Tootsie Rolls, which we devoured.

2. A senior flushed a cherry bomb down the toilet, exploding the sewage line, closing school for a week. 3. On my sixteenth birthday a family rumored to be vampires moved into the haunted Mansion on top of Benson Hill!

The legend of the Mansion went like this: It was built by a Romanian baroness who fled her country after a peasant revolt in which her husband and most of his family were killed. The baroness built her new home on Benson Hill to resemble her European estate in every detail, except for the corpses.

She lived with her servants in complete isolation, terrified of strangers and crowds. I was a small child at the time of her death and never met her, although I used to play by her solitary monument in the cemetery. Folks said she would sit by the upstairs window in the evenings staring at the moon, and that even now, when the moon is full, if you look from just the right angle, you can see her ghost sitting in that same window gazing at the sky.

But I never saw her.

The Mansion has been boarded up ever since. Rumor had it there was a witchlike Romanian daughter interested in black magic. In any case, she wasn't interested in Dullsville (smart lady!) and never claimed the place.

The Mansion on Benson Hill was quite gorgeous to me in its Gothic way, but an eyesore to everyone else. It was the biggest house in town-- and the emptiest. My dad says that's because it's in probate. Becky says it's because it's haunted. I think it's because women in this town are afraid of dust.

The Mansion, of course, had always fascinated me. It was my Barbie Dream House, and I climbed the hill many nights hoping to spot a ghost. But I actually went inside only once, when I was twelve. I was hoping I could fix it up and make it my playhouse. I was going to put up a sign that said, NO NERD BOYS ALLOWED. One night I climbed the wrought iron gate and scurried up the winding driveway.

The Mansion was truly magnificent, with vines dripping down its sides like falling tears, chipped paint, shattered roof tiles, and a spooky attic window. The wooden door stood like Godzilla, tall and powerful--and locked. I snuck around the back. All the windows were boarded up with long nails, but I noticed some loose boards hanging over the basement window. I was trying to pull them loose when I heard voices.

I crouched behind some bushes as a gang of high-school seniors stumbled near. Most were drunk and one was scared.

"C'mon, Jack, we've all done it," they lied, pushing a guy wearing a baseball cap toward the Mansion. "Go in and get us a shrunken head!"

I could see Jack Patterson was nervous. He was a handsome crush-worthy guy, the kind who should be spending his time shooting hoops or making girls swoon, not sneaking into haunted houses to win friends.

It was like Jack had already seen a ghost as he approached the Mansion. Suddenly he looked behind the bushes where I was hiding. I gasped and he screamed. I thought we were both going to have a heart attack. I crouched back down, because I heard the gang approaching.

"He's screaming like a little girl and he's not even in yet!" one of them teased.

"Get outta here!" Jack said to the guys. "I'm supposed to do this alone, right?"

He waited for the others to retreat and then nodded to me that it was clear.

"Damn, girl, you scared me! What are you doing here?"

"I live here and lost my keys. I'm just trying to get back in," I joked.

He caught his breath and smiled. "Who are you?" "Raven. I already know who you are. You're Jack Patterson. Your father owns the department store where my mom buys her swank purses. I've seen you working the cash register."

"Yeah, I thought you looked familiar."

"So why are you here?"

"It's a dare. My friends think the place is haunted, and I'm supposed to sneak inside and get a souvenir."

"Like an old couch?"

He smiled that same smile. "Yeah, goofball. But it doesn't matter. There's no way--"

"Yes, there is!" And I showed him the loose boards at the basement window.

"You go in first," he said, prodding me forward with trembling hands. "You're smaller."

I slithered easily through the window.

Inside, it was really dark, even for me. I could barely make out the cobwebs. I loved it! There were stacks of cardboard boxes everywhere, and it smelled like a basement that had been there since the beginning of time.

"C'mon already!" I said.

"I can't move! I'm stuck."

"You have to move. Do you want them to find you with your backside hanging out?"

I yanked and pushed and pulled. Finally Jack came through, to my relief, but not his.

I led the terrified senior through the moldy basement. He held on to my hand so tight I thought he would break my fingers. But it was nice to hold his hand. It was big and strong and masculine. Not like Nerd Boy's, whose tiny hand always felt squishy and smarmy.

"Where are we going?" he whispered in a terrified voice. "I can't see a thing!"

I could make out the shapes of massive chairs and sofas, covered with dusty white cloth, probably once belonging to the old woman who stared at the moon.

"I see some stairs," I said. "Just follow me."

"I'm not going any further! Are you crazy?"

"How about a full-length mirror?" I teased, peeking behind a cloth.

"I'll take one of these empty boxes!"

"That's no good. Your friends will kill you. You'll be a laughingstock the rest of your life. Believe me, I know how it is."

I looked back at him and saw the terror on his face. I wasn't sure if he was scared of his friends outside or of the basement steps that might cave in at the slightest pressure. Or maybe he was afraid of ghosts.

"Okay," I said. "You wait here."

"Like I could go anywhere? I have no idea how to get back!"

"But first..."

"What?"

"Let go of my hand!"

"Oh, yeah."

He let me go. "Raven--" "What?"

"Be careful!"

I paused. "Jack, do you believe in ghosts?"

"No, of course not!"

"So you don't think there is a ghost here? Of that old woman?"

"Shhh! Don't talk so loud!"

I smiled with expectation. But then I remembered his gang's dare and grabbed his baseball cap. He screamed again.

"Relax, it's just me, not one of those spooky ghosts you don't believe in."

I carefully ascended the creaky steps and bumped into a closed door at the top. But it opened when I turned the knob. I was in a wide hallway. Moonlight was shining through cracks in the boarded windows. The Mansion seemed even bigger on the inside. I caressed the walls as I walked, the dust softly caking my hands. I turned a corner and stumbled upon a grand staircase. What treasures lay at the top of it? Is that where the ghosts of the baroness appeared?

I tiptoed up the stairs, as mouselike as I could in my heavy combat boots.

The first door was locked, as was the second and third. I leaned my ear to the fourth door, and I heard the sound of faint crying from the other side. A cold chill ran through me. I was in heaven. As I listened closer, I realized it was only the wind whistling through the boarded windows. I opened a closet, which creaked like an old coffin. Maybe I'd find a skeleton! The only thing I discovered, however, were several old hangers sporting cobwebs instead of clothes. I wondered where the ghosts were. I peered into the library. An open book lay on a small table, as if the woman who stared at the moon had been reading it when she died. I grabbed Romanian Castles off the shelf, hoping it would open a secret passageway into a spook-filled dungeon. Nothing moved except a hairy brown spider that scooted across the dusty shelf.

But the next moment, I heard a loud sound and nearly jumped through the roof--it was the honking of a horn! Startled, I dropped the book. I had totally forgotten about Jack's gang and my new mission.

I ran back down the grand staircase, leaping over the last steps. A bright light was beaming through the boarded-up windows in the living room. I climbed onto the bay window and peered out, safely hidden behind the boards. I could see the seniors sitting on the hood of their car, the headlights shining up through the gate of the Mansion.

One of them was looking in my direction, so I pushed Jack's cap out through an opening between the boards and waved it like I had just landed on the moon. I felt triumphant. The seniors gave the thumbs up in reply.

I found Jack in a sweat, sitting in a corner of the basement on top of some wooden crates. He must have been thinking about rats as well as ghosts.

He grabbed me like a child grabs his mother. "What took you so long?"

I replaced the cap on his head. "You'll need this."

"What did you do with it?"

"I let them know you made it in okay. Ready?"

"Ready!" And he pulled me back through the window like the place was on fire. I noticed he didn't get stuck this time.

We shoved the board back in place. It looked as if we had never been there. "We don't want this to be easy for anyone else," I said. He stared back like he didn't know what to make of me, or how to thank me.

"Wait! I didn't get a souvenir!" he realized.

"I'll go back in."

"No way!" he said, grabbing my arm.

I thought for a moment.

"Here, take this." I gave him my necklace. A black leather band with an onyx medallion. "It only cost three dollars, but it looks like it was owned by a baroness. Just don't let anyone appraise it."

"But you did all the work, and I'll get all the credit."

"Take it before I change my mind."

"Thanks!"

He weighed the necklace in his hand and gave me a warm kiss on my cheek. I hid behind the crumbling gazebo as he ran back down to his buddies, dangling the necklace in front of their faces, getting high fives. They adored him now and so did I. I held my filthy hand against my freshly kissed cheek.

After that day Jack hung out with the cool club and even became class president. From time to time, I'd see him around the town square, and he'd always have a huge smile for me.

I didn't have a chance to return to my Barbie Dream House. Word spread that Jack had snuck into the Mansion. Fearful that more kids might break in, police patrolled the area at night. It would be years till I visited the Mansion again.