Caleb says his death was unnatural, so he’s a memory fixed in time and space. Kenny runs back to his house and returns to his own time. Another man sees Kenny and asks him to pass a message, which he does, but he also reads it, noting it concerns a meeting aboard The Gaspee. He follows a man who was staring at his window. Kenny finds himself in an earlier time period. Kenny doesn’t think that’s possible, but as he leaves, he finds his room changed. He wants Kenny to help him find who did it.

After getting a sample of the floor analyzed by a chemist, Kenny talks with the slave boy, whose name is Caleb, who affirms that’s his blood, and that he was murdered in his sleep. Kenny tries to talk with the ghost boy, who mutters the word “slave.” He asks Willinghast if any former owners had slaves, but he doesn’t get a candid answer. Secrets.” Kenny visits the local library, where he meets an old historian, Pardon Willinghast, who is also curious about the property. Kenny tells his father there is something upstairs, but his father interprets that as a metaphor for “something you don’t want anyone to know about. Kenny and the ghost see each other the ghost does not speak, and flinches away and disappears when Kenny raises a shoe in defense. Once it is out, the ghost feels the attic walls, in search of something. It moves a box full of books out of the way.

When he looks inside, he sees a ghost that tries to get out from a stain on the floor. One night Kenny wakes to a scraping noise in the old slave room. He lives in a house of past events, built in 1789. He moves from Los Angeles to Providence, Rhode Island. Something Upstairs is about a twelve-year-old boy, Kenny Huldorf, who tells a story to Avi who had visited the school on a book tour.

Something Upstairs by Avi