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“SHHH!” Walt hissed at him. She glanced nervously at the dining room, where Madison and Mrs. Food were having dinner. Fortunately, they didn’t seem to have noticed the ruckus. To be fair, it had been a pretty exhausting day. Mrs. Third Floor hadn’t left for ages. “Keep it down!” Walt hissed. “Stop attracting attention. Do you want them to find Wallace?”

Wallace had decided to hide out in Marco and Polo’s aquarium until it was time for the sleepover. So far Mrs. Food hadn’t noticed the extra rat in their cage. (They’d been very carefully flopping into a heap whenever she walked by. It wasn’t easy to tell how many rats there were when they were in a heap. Unless you counted tails, which luckily, Mrs. Food didn’t usually do.)

“FINE. I’LL GO NAKED. I just feel so unprepared,” Marco sighed. “No pajamas, no fuzzy slippers, no popcorn, nothing. Do we even have movies to watch?”

“WE DON’T EVEN HAVE SLEEPING BAGS!” Polo wailed.

“There might be popcorn, actually!” Wallace said, sticking his head out from under a pile of cedar chips. “I think Mrs. Third Floor had some in the cabinet. She said something about making the apartment smell homey. I bet she wouldn’t mind if we ate it.”

“Well, at least we’ll have something,” Marco said. He could always go for a good piece of popcorn.

“And there are probably movies on TV!” Wallace said. “And if there aren’t, there’s always the home shopping channel. I think tonight’s the Cubic Zirconia Extravaganza!”

“OOH, SPARKLY,” Polo sighed. She had her sparkly button, sure, but she always had room for more sparkly things in her life.

“Remember, this is supposed to be a stakeout, not a party,” Oscar said. “We’re staking out the ghost.”

Butterbean wrinkled her nose.“Yeah, but Walt didn’t say stakeout. She said sleepover. And I don’t have pajamas either.”

“Well, you don’t need pajamas for a stakeout,” Oscar huffed, puffing out his feathers. He just hoped that if they really did find the ghost, they’d be able to handle it. Ghosts were serious business.

Walt sat down next to the rat cage.“Look, I can’t do pajamas, but I think I can get you guys sleeping bags. Okay?”

“Oh, Walt, that would be awesome!” Polo cheered. This was shaping up to be the best sleepover ever. As long as she didn’t think about the ghost part, that is.

“Okay, so here’s the plan. We wait until everyone’s gone to bed. Butterbean obviously can’t go through the vents, so I thought I’d go with her in the hallway. Oscar, you and the rats open the door for us when we get there.”

“Wait, how are we getting there?” Polo asked, tilting her head to the side.

Walt shrugged.“The vents. Obviously.”

“Oh no. I’m sorry, but no. I’ll go on Butterbean’s tummy, thank you. I don’t want to be in those vents alone.” Wallace crossed his arms defiantly.

“HEY!” Polo said indignantly. “What am I, chopped liver?”

“YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN!” Wallace glared at her. “IT’S NOT SAFE.”

“But you love the vents!” Oscar said. “They’re your home!”

Wallace shook his head.“Nope. Not until that ghost is gone, they aren’t. I’ll stick with Walt and Butterbean.” He shot Polo a look. “WALT’S BIG.”

Walt sighed.“Fine. Oscar, you and Marco and Polo can handle the door.”

“Um. I think I’d rather go with Wallace, okay?” Polo toed the floor of the cage nervously.

“Yeah. Me too,” Marco said. “Safety in numbers, right?”

Walt groaned.“The more of us there are in the hallway, the more risky it is!” She couldn’t believe the others were being so silly. “Fine, Oscar, we’ll meet you there.”

Oscar shot a sideways glance at Walt and cleared his throat.“Um.”

“NOT YOU TOO!” Walt burst out. “We are supposed to be INVESTIGATORS. How are we supposed to investigate if we’re a bunch of chickens!”

“Sorry,” Marco said.

“Bawk bawk,” Polo said softly.

“Walt, you haven’t seen the classic horror movies on the Television. You don’t know what happens when the Television people split up.” Oscar shuddered. “It’s not pretty.”

Walt groaned.“So all of us are just going to traipse through the hallways and hope nobody sees us? Is that really our plan?”

Butterbean patted Walt on the shoulder.“Trust me. It’ll be fine.”

It took forever for Madison and Mrs. Food to get ready for bed. Butterbean had a feeling they were spooked by all the ghost talk too. They’d never left the bathroom light on all night before.

Finally, Oscar opened the door to his cage and hopped out.“Bean! Help me check!”

Oscar flew down the hallway and hovered outside Mrs. Food’s door. “Nothing.”

Butterbean nosed at the bottom of the door and cocked her head.“Snoring. We’re good.”

Oscar flew to Madison’s door and did the same check. “Sounds good. Bean?”

Butterbean nodded.“Asleep.”

Oscar flew back into the living room.“All clear. Everybody ready? Let’s go.”

Walt didn’t move. She just sat in the living room and twitched her tail back and forth. “And how exactly are we going to get inside?” She was still irritated about the whole vent thing.

Oscar held out a claw with a flourish. In it was a shiny silver key.“Voil?!”

Walt’s eyes got wide. “Where did you get that?”