When Theo moved into his new apartment, everything was perfect except for one thing. Every evening at eight, a deep, dramatic voice came through the wall. "The ship is sinking!" it cried. "Save the captain's cat!" Theo sat very still. He held a glass against the wall to hear better, and then he phoned his sister. "I think my apartment is haunted," he whispered. "Haunted by whom?" she asked. "A sea captain. He is very worried about a cat." "Then go and knock," she said.
Theo did not want to, but after a week he found his courage and knocked on the neighbor's door. It was opened by Mrs. Okafor, a retired actress with a purple scarf and a script in her hand. She was recording an adventure audiobook for children in the hospital, and when she heard what Theo had thought, she laughed until she had to sit down. "Come in," she said. "I could use a sound-effects man." Soon Theo was making a creaking door, thunder with a baking tray and rain with a handful of rice.