"Antelope Valley Ranches?" Tommy looked at the sign and frowned. Ranches were supposed to be great big places with cows, and cowboys to herd them. These ranches were five acres. He didn't understand acres, but knew that five acres was a long way from what a real ranch would be.

        "I think our site is along this one," Ted Logan said, looking puzzled. He pulled the car to the edge of the dirt road and picked up the crude map again. "They all look alike."

        "There aren't any signs." Muriel Logan leaned over to look at the map. A red circle surrounded their piece of land. "Lot 37. It's four streets from the highway. Did we go down four or three?"

        "I thought four. Let's drive a little bit farther. There's thirty-one." Ted pointed triumphantly to a white marker. "We're okay. Just a little way left."

        "Why do they call them ranches?" Tommy asked, mentally calculating the distance between the survey stakes. These were just big lots, not ranches.

        "It used to be a ranch, I guess," said his father, searching the side of the road for Lot 37. "Here it is. Our new home."

        "There's nothing around here," Tommy said. The vast, flat plain stretched out as far as he could see. It made him feel small.

        "Not yet," his mother said. "Our house will be right in the middle. Almost in the middle, anyway. Right over there." She pointed into the lot.

        Looking around, he tried to picture a house in the middle of all the weeds. He imagined their city house there. It didn't fit. The lot had no trees, and no lawn or garden. It didn't even have any place to play.

        His friends were all back in the city. Way out here, he would have no friends. There weren't even any houses - anywhere. If there weren't any houses, there couldn't be any other guys to even try to make friends with.

        He hadn't seen a school, either. Where would he go to school? Maybe he wouldn't. That would be okay, but if he didn't go to school, and he had no friends, what would he do all day?

        He remembered when they went and talked to the real estate agent. The woman warned him about wandering too far away. Rattlesnakes still prowled the area. What kind of place were his parents bringing him to?

        There were no houses, no friends, no schools, but there were rattlesnakes. Tommy had seen rattlesnakes on television. Now, he might get to see a real one.

        His father turned onto a path that somebody had bulldozed. He drove into the lot. Within twenty yards, they came to a flat, cleared place.

        "This is where the house will be," said Ted, eyeing the clearing.

        The brush came right to the edge. That meant the snakes would be right next to the house. Tommy saw a large black thing, coiled menacingly at the edge of the clearing. For a moment, he thought it was a snake.

        "The wires are already in," said his father. Tommy relaxed. It was the electric wire.

        "It's going to take quite a bit of work," Muriel sighed. "We'll have to get rid of all the brush, plant flowers and trees, and make it into a home."

        "We'll do it, a little at a time. They're starting ten more houses next week; ours is going to be one of them. Pretty soon they will develop this whole place. There's more than three thousand sites; most of them are already sold. People are already living on the west side."

        "There's no school," Tommy said.

        "You'll be bussed into town."

        "A school bus? I don't want to ride a bus."

        "It'll be fun. I did it when I was a boy."

        Tommy slumped against the back seat. It was getting worse and worse. No friends, rattlesnakes, and now he would have to ride a bus to school. He hated the place already.

        "You'll like it here, Tommy," Muriel said patiently. "Once we get settled, you can have your friends come out. There's a lot to do."

        "Oh, yeah." He stared out the window. Was he looking at the same place as his mother?

        She looked at Ted, pleading with her eyes.

        "There's an old ghost town some place over that way." He pointed toward the west.

        Tommy heard the words 'ghost town' and perked up. He peered out the window. Thoughts of snakes and school buses vanished. All he could see was the endless ocean of sage and rabbit brush. "Where? I don't see anything."

        "It's maybe thirty, forty miles that way. You can't see it from here."

        "Thirty miles," Tommy whined. "It'll take forever to get there." He flopped back onto the seat and folded his arms.

        "Once we get moved, it's a place to go exploring. I'm sure there's a road to it." Ted made a mental note to check his road map for the town. He couldn't recall the name of the place, if he ever knew it.

        "There's nothing to do right here." Tommy snapped. "That's too far off."

        "Well, here is where we're going to be, so get used to it."

        Tommy raised himself from the seat and stared hard toward the west. He wondered what kinds of ghosts would live way out there in the middle of no where. Pretty dumb ones, he bet.

        "Let's see if I can get this thing turned around without getting stuck." Ted pulled farther into the clearing. By jockeying the car back and forth, he managed to get it facing the right way.

        As they drove toward the Interstate, Tommy looked out the window, hoping to catch a glimpse of the ghost town. He knew he couldn't see it. Thirty miles was too far. He bet it was almost to China, or at least to California.

        Suddenly, he could feel the ghosts. They weren't dumb. They were bad. "Dad? Are ghosts bad?"

        "No, Tommy, not usually." Ted smiled. "They don't hurt people."

        "The ones in that ghost town do. They're mean."

        Ted smiled again and looked in the rear view mirror at his son. "I doubt it. They might all be gone now. Nobody has lived there in a long time."

        "No," Tommy insisted. "There's lots of them and they're mean. They hurt people."

        "Maybe we better not go there."

        "They'll come here."

        "Ghosts can't go places they've never been. They can't get to Antelope Valley."

        "Those can. They've been here, watching."

        Ted flicked a glance at Muriel. She raised her eyes and shook her head. She tried to remember if she was the same way when she was eleven years old.

        "Well, we aren't moving for a little while." Ted glanced in the mirror again. "Maybe they'll get bored and go somewhere else."

        "I don't think these will," the little boy whispered, staring out the window toward the town.