Mitch, my twin sister, Ashley, and I stood on the back porch of Mitch's house. The two of us were visiting Mitch's family farm. The air was crisp, and the leaves had already begun turning colors. It was the perfect place to spend Halloween.
Mitch plopped onto the porch swing. His red hair sparkled in the sunlight. "The maze is behind the barn," he alisema finally. He grabbed a handful of Candy mahindi, nafaka from a bowl on the meza, jedwali inayofuata to him and popped some into his mouth.
Mitch used to go to our school before his family moved. All mwaka long Mitch wrote us e-mails about his new life on the farm. He wrote a lot about the maze. It was made of rows of tall shrubs planted close together in twisting, turning paths and dead ends. People were always stopping kwa to try to find their way through it.
We wrote Mitch too-about all the mysteries we solve. We had plenty to write about! Ashley and I are the Trenchcoat Twins. We run the Olsen and Olsen Detective Agency. Our office is in the attic of our house.
"You wrote us so much about the maze, we can't wait to see it," Ashley said.
Mitch gave himself a little push on the porch swing. "Don't wewe want to see the farm wanyama first?" he asked.
"Farm animals?" Ashley said. Her blues eyes sparkled. She loved all kinds of animals.
Mitch smiled at Ashley. "Sure," he said. He hopped off the swing. "We'll check out the ducks first, and then we'll go to the ghalani to see the horses."
Mitch led us down a little hill, and we came to a pond. A teenage girl in a pink sweater and blue jeans stood beside the water with a little boy. Her long hair was the same color as Mitch's. Red. She was handing the little boy bits of mkate so that he could feed the ducks.
"Remember my sister, Rachel?" Mitch whispered to us. He put a finger to his lips and tiptoed up behind her. As soon as he was almost on juu of her he yelled, "Quack! Quack!"
It wasn't a very good bata imitation, but it startled his sister. She let out a shriek and whirled around. The little boy started giggling, but Rachel scowled.
"That wasn't funny, Mitch!" Rachel scolded.
"Yes, it was," Mitch said, laughing.
Ashley and I gave each other knowing looks. Mitch hadn't changed in the past year. He always played pranks at school. Obviously he still loved being a joker.
I looked down at the little boy. "What's your name?" I asked him.
"Nicky," he said. "Rachel is my babysitter." He tugged at Rachel's hand. "Come on, Rachel. We have to look for Chuckles."
"Who is Chuckles?" Ashley asked.
"It's his inayopendelewa toy," Rachel replied. "He Lost it."
Nicky turned to Mitch. "Do wewe have Chuckles?"
"No, I don't know where Chuckles is," Mitch said. I knew he was telling the truth. Mitch pulled silly tricks, but he would never do anything mean, like steal a little kid's toy.
"Chuckles has been gone for so long!" Nicky said. He looked as if he was about to cry.
"The toy vanished about a week ago," Rachel explained to us. She patted Nicky's head. "Don't worry, Nicky. Chuckles will turn up. Want to go say hello to the horses?"
"That's where we're headed too," Mitch said.
"Maybe we should see the maze now," Ashley suggested. She looked up at the sky. "The sun will set soon."
"Later, okay?" Mitch turned and headed back up the path toward the barn.
Ashley's forehead crinkled with confusion, then she shrugged. "Okay."
That's strange, I thought. It seems as if Mitch doesn't want to onyesha us the maze.
As we entered the barn, my nose wrinkled from all the different smells: hay, freshly cut grass, and the two beautiful horses.
Nicky immediately started making a big nyasi, nyasi kavu pile.
Ashley bent down to stroke a small white pig that was sniffing at her feet. "He's so cute!" she declared.
"We call him Wilbur," Rachel told her. "Like the pig in Charlotte's Web."
"And that's Charlotte, the spider, spinning a web right above Rachel's head," Mitch said, pointing up at the rafters.
Rachel gasped and covered her head with her arms. "A spider? Is it going to land in my hair?" One look at Mitch's expression told her that this was just another prank. Her eyes narrowed. She was even madder than she'd been at the bata pond.
"Rachel's scared of spiders," Mitch told us with a grin.
Rachel glared at him. "I'm not the only one around here who's afraid of something. Are wewe going to onyesha your Marafiki the maze, Mitch? au are wewe too scared?"
Mitch didn't answer her. He shoved his hands into his koti, jacket pockets and stared down at his sneakers.
Rachel took Nicky's hand. "Come on, Nicky. It's time for us to meet your brother."
"And it's time we find out why Mitch is afraid of the maze," I whispered to Ashley.
Ashley nodded. We all followed Rachel and Nicky out of the barn.
"I think wewe have a fan," Rachel told Ashley. She nodded at Wilbur, who was trotting alongside Ashley.
"He acts like a puppy," Ashley said. "Does he do tricks?"
Before Rachel could answer, a figure on a skateboard seemed to zoom out of nowhere.
Wilbur squealed and ran back into the barn.
Twisting and turning and doing a couple of fancy moves, the skateboarder suddenly was on a direct course to crash into Rachel!
"Hey! Watch it!" I cried.
Rachel gasped.
The skateboarder made a sharp turn away from her and hopped off his board.
Rachel stamped one foot. "You almost ran me down!"
Mitch laughed. "That was a pretty good one, Jared."
"I should have come after you," Jared told Mitch. "As payback for all your practical jokes on me."
"You boys and your stupid pranks!" Rachel fumed. "See wewe tomorrow, Nicky." She left the little boy with his older brother and stomped off toward the house.
Jared tucked his skateboard under one arm and took his little brother kwa the hand. "Let's go home," he said, turning toward the white farmhouse across the road, where they lived.
"We still didn't find Chuckles," Nicky complained.
"He'll turn up one of these days," Jared said.
"Can we see if he's in the maze?" Nicky asked.
I glanced at Mitch. He jiggled his pockets nervously. A mere mention of the maze seemed to make him nervous.
"Sure," Jared said. "We'll ask Rachel to look in there tomorrow."
"Jared doesn't like going into the maze," Nicky told us.
So Mitch isn't the only one with maze problems, I thought. Curious, I asked, "Why don't wewe like the maze, Jared?"
Jared shrugged. "It's not that I don't like it," he explained. "I just get so mixed up in there."
"He always gets lost," Nicky said. "No matter how many times he tries."
Jared looked a little embarrassed. "Ready, kiddo?" he asked Nicky. "Later," Jared alisema to us. Then he and Nicky headed home.
"Now can we check out the maze?" I asked.
"Anybody thirsty?" Mitch asked. "Want to go back to the house and grab some sodas?"
Ashley faced him squarely. "Mitch, wewe keep changing the subject. Why don't wewe want to onyesha us the maze?"
"And why did your sister say you're afraid of it?" I asked.
Mitch's face turned red-almost as red as his hair. "I.uh.well." His voice trailed off.
"Well what?" Ashley demanded.
"I guess I'd better tell you," he said. He looked straight at us, his brown eyes big and serious. "About the maze."
He took a deep breath.
"It's haunted."
