CHAPTER ONE DONATION DAYS

 

   

  Is there anything worse than cleaning your room?

  Why clean up when I could be riding my bike or swimming at the pool?

  Even doing homework is more fun than cleaning!

  Don’t get me wrong. I like when my room is clean. It’s better than tripping over my toys all the time. Or searching for my homework under piles of dirty laundry.

   

  But still, cleaning is no fun.

  Well, except if you’re a ghost. Zax, the ghost who lives in my house, loves tidying up my room. He even cleans under my bed!

  Who does that?

  So I usually leave all the floor-clearing and bed-making for Zax to do.

   

  The only time I don’t mind cleaning up is on donation days. That’s when my family figures out what we don’t need anymore. Then we donate it to people who might want it instead.

  I make a big pile of clothes that are too small and shoes that are too tight.

  I even donate video games I’ve already beaten. That way, other kids can have fun playing them! That always feels kind of nice.

   

  What’s not as nice is when donation days turn into a haunted affair.

  That’s me, Andres Miedoso, inside the Kersville Thrift Store. I’m the one wearing the wide-brimmed hat, holding a pot lid as a shield.

   

  And the kid with the big pot on his head, waving a spatula around? That’s my best friend, Desmond Cole.

  I bet you’re wondering about the headless statue who’s chasing us. Well, that’s a thrift store mannequin.

  I know, I know. There’s nothing scary about a human-size plastic figurine who models clothes. But how would you feel if that human-size plastic figurine came to life?

  And it started chasing you?

   

  And it had somehow lost its head?

  Scary, right? Right!

  But before we can talk about how scary it was, we need to talk about how we got into this mannequin mess in the first place!