"Aww, I don't believe in ghosts!" brayed Horsehead Miller, and to prove it, he strode several steps into the dingy basement. Its floor smelled like dank and dour earth, which it was. Beams of sun like bright logs lay from the couple of windows across the big basement. The hot light seemed to hold up the dimness of the rest of the place. "See?" he said loudly as ever and turning around with hands outstretched. His big front teeth gleamed in the beams of light. "No ghosts!"

He clomped back over to them and suddenly tripped on something. The something was connected to something else, or two, which was connected to something upon a pile, and which now fell down onto the pile that needed taking to the curb.

"Oh, look at this!" said Pandora glancing at the SOMETHING. She picked it up and stared at it. "How pretty!" said Nikki.

"Let me see, let me see!" said Missy from the doorway. She would not go inside the basement, but watched from the doorway.

"It's like a jewelry box or something," marveled Pandora running her fingers over it. "It looks really old."

"It's so dark in here," said Nikki, "let's take it outside."

"Let me see!" said Missy. So the kids clomped up the steps to the yard. Coach and Red grabbed up a few things from the pile.

"Yeah, let's hurry up and finish this goofy ball game," said Coach. "I got some home runs to slug over the fence."

Outside, the box seemed to sizzle in the new brightness. It was about the size of a shoe box-a little bigger-and was ebony or black bone with inlays of silver lines all over it. Some markings looked like letters of some sort. Some markings looked like parts of a design. "How pretty!" Pandora exclaimed. She shook it and something shifted around inside.

"How do you open it? I don't see a latch or anything."

"Maybe there's a secret button or something," volunteered Nikki pushing and probing her fingers all over it.

"Oh, look!" said Pandora, "this side has a slide that moves out this way, and, oh, it lets you push this other slide over this way," she went on.