Holt Mcdougal Literature Interactive | Reader Grade 7

Find a line where Leo changes from being scared to being curious. Write it here.

I decided to dig. I went to the building’s creepy basement and found old mail in a rusted filing cabinet. Most of it was junk, but one envelope stopped me cold. It was addressed to an apartment —which is my apartment. The name on it: Eleanor Vance.

“It’s an old apartment, Leo,” he’d say, tapping the cracked surface with his knuckles. “Old things settle. They creak. It’s not a mystery.”

Sketch a small picture of Leo pressing his ear to the wall. What expression is on his face? Add two adjectives to describe the setting. The next day at school, I told my best friend, Maya, about it during lunch. Holt Mcdougal Literature Interactive Reader Grade 7

The silver light began to flicker.

Why does the author have Eleanor give a “scientific” explanation for the chalk? How does this mix realism with fantasy?

I wanted to believe him. But Dad didn’t sleep in this room. I did. And at 2:17 a.m.—I knew the exact time because my digital clock glowed red—the wall didn’t creak . It whispered . Find a line where Leo changes from being

She wasn’t a ghost. She was a girl. A living, breathing girl who looked exactly like her photo, except angrier.

The next morning, the chalk was gone. But written in the dust on my windowsill—in shaky, tiny letters—was a single word:

I blinked. “What?”

“That’s ridiculous,” I said. But secretly, I loved that idea.

Before You Read: This story is about perspective—how two people can see the exact same thing but understand it completely differently. As you read, look for the "wall" in the story. What does it represent? My bedroom wall was just paint and plaster. At least, that’s what my father said.

It wasn’t words, exactly. It was more like the memory of a voice. A soft, hurried hush, like someone on the other side was trying to tell me a secret but couldn’t find the right letters. I went to the building’s creepy basement and