Phantom of the Auditorium

The books starts with the narrator, Brooke Rodgers, telling the reader that she and her friend, Zeke, are going to discover a phantom who has been haunting their school for seventy years.

Brooke and Zeke are aspiring thespians, having appeared in last year's elementary school production of Guys and Dolls. When Brooke and Zeke go to look at the cast list for the new, "scary" play the sixth grade class is putting on, Brooke discovers a note pinned to the board telling her that she has been suspended. Zeke reveals he set up the joke.

Zeke gets the title role as the Phantom and Brooke will be playing Esmerelda. A 7th grader named Tina who doesn't much like Brooke finds out she's Brooke's understudy and also is in charge of scenery. At the script reading the next week, Tina reveals that the play is cursed and also that the school puts it on every year. Tina starts to tell about how there is an actual phantom in the school, but she is interrupted by Ms. Walker, the teacher directing the play, who tells her that the story is "Very scary... very upsetting." But then she gives in to peer pressure and does reveal the tale to the class.

Seventy two years ago, when the middle school was first built, a student found a copy of a play called the Phantom in the basement that someone had left. The boy shows the play to a teacher who decides the school will perform it and then on opening night, the boy disappears, never to be found again. After that night, all copies of the script were destroyed except one, which was kept locked in a safe and the play was never performed again.

Ms. Walker tells the class that they'll be ignoring the rumor that the Phantom won't let them perform the play and then she accidentally falls down a trap door below the stage. She has the kids help her up and then excitedly tells them that they'll be using the trap door in the stage during their play.

Brooke gives us a brief synopsis of the play. Carlos owns a theatre. Beneath the theatre lives a phantom with a scarred face. Esmerelda, the daughter of Carlos, falls in love with the Phantom, but then her boyfriend Eric finds out and he kills the Phantom. Esmerelda runs away and the Phantom haunts the theatre forever.

After everyone leaves rehearsals, Zeke and Brooke stick around to try out the trap door in secret. They go down in the trap door but they keep going down and eventually they're "a mile" beneath the school. They're in a vast, dark corridor. Suddenly the platform begins to move up again and the two jump onto it as it goes back up. The platform stops a little short of the stage so the two have to hoist themselves up. Once on the stage, they run into Emile, the night janitor, an old man with a big purple scar on his face. The janitor chides them on using the trap door and kicks them out of the school.

The next day at school, there's a new boy sitting in Brooke’s chair in Ms. Walker's class. His name is Brian. He claims he just moved here from Indiana. He compliments Brooke on starring in the play. Brooke runs out to her locker after talking to Brian and inside her locker there is a note written in red crayon, warning her to stay away from the writer's Home Sweet Home. Brooke thinks Zeke did it. Zeke denies it.

After school, Brian asks Ms. Walker if there's any parts left in the play. She tells him no and so he goes to work for Tina on the scenery crew. Suddenly, the lights go out. And there's a terrifying scream in the auditorium. A masked man comes swooping down from the catwalk and disappears down the trap door. Brooke is certain it's really Zeke, and not the Phantom. The rest of the cast and crew get mad at Brooke for what Zeke did, and then the platform comes back up from the basement empty. Ms. Walker lets rehearsals out early and Brooke goes out to the parking lot, where she sees Zeke in his mom's car. He had a doctor's appointment; he couldn't have been the Phantom.

The next day at play rehearsal, the Phantom appears again from the platform and nearly shakes Brooke to death. Zeke is watching from the front row. Later, Zeke goes to the school office and asks if maybe Emile the night janitor has turned in a book he lost. The girl in the office informs him that the school doesn't have a night janitor.

Brooke and Zeke talk Brian into helping them catch the Phantom in the school. They break into the school one late evening. They creep around in the abandoned, dark school, coming upon the auditorium. On the big brick backdrop, someone has painted the same "Stay Away From My Home Sweet Home" message in red paint. Then Ms. Walker enters the auditorium and catches the three of them and accuses them of creating the vandalism. Ms. Walker starts to sort of believe that they had nothing to do with it, but then she notices a trail of red paint leading to Zeke's locker. Ms. Walker kicks Zeke out of the play. On the way home, Brooke runs into Tina, who is riding her bicycle away from the school.

Zeke gets replaced with some kid named Robert Hernandez. At practice, Ms. Walker cancels the play after someone glues her script together. She then calms down and allows the play to continue.

Brian and Brooke go to Zeke's house to visit. Zeke's dog barks at Brian. Zeke is outraged at what a bad job Robert is doing in his role. He vows to try one last time to catch the Phantom. The three kids go back to the school at night again, and find their way back down the tunnel. Then the trapdoor rises by itself and traps them beneath the school in the tunnel. They investigate and stumble across a small, furnished room. There's even a fresh bowl of corn flakes on a table, and the flakes aren't soggy yet so the Phantom must be near. The kids somehow get locked in the room. Then after pushing really hard on the door for several minutes, they realize the door opens in, not out.

The door opens easily and standing in front of them is Emile. Turns out he's just a poor homeless guy who has been living below. He painted the warnings but doesn't understand why they keep referring to a phantom. Then kids run from Emile and then they snitch on him to their parents, who call the police to investigate. The reason they tell Zeke's dad about it is because Zeke's dad appears in the tunnel to save them.

Zeke gets his part back in the play. The kids are all preparing to go on stage on opening night. Halfway through the first act, when the Phantom makes his dramatic appearance, Brooke figures out it isn't Zeke. It's the real Phantom. He gives a speech about how he died on opening night and had been haunting the school, waiting for his chance to play the role. After the curtain closes, the Phantom skitters away and Zeke shows up, complaining that someone hit him over the head.

After the show wraps, the students look through old yearbooks. They come across the very first yearbook in the school's history and the boy in the yearbook is Brian.