I So Don't Do Spooky (9 page)

“Where's the car?” Mom asks.

“At Tires Tires Tires,” I say.

“I'd like to examine the damage,” Mom says. “Wilhelm, we'll stop there on the way home.” The branch goes still. She must be thinking, twirling her hair around her index finger. “That escalated fast.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“A stalker's behavior generally escalates or gets worse over time. I'm assuming her stalker is responsible for the tire business,” Mom says. “Slashing tires is fairly violent. And risky to undertake during the day. He's not starting off with small actions.”

Yikes. I do not want to hear we're dealing with a crazier-than-usual stalker. “The police came, and they're doing a report.”

“Good. Although they won't devote much effort to one-time vandalism.
We'll
have to step up our efforts for guarding Paula,” Mom says.

Grandpa nods his balding bird head.

“We have to keep her safe,” Mom says quietly to him, but I still hear her. “She's what's holding my family together.”

Grandpa mutters something about surveillance schedules and the weekend.

“That's right. I'm tied up all this weekend too. Sherry, you'll have to handle surveillance Saturday and Sunday.”

“I can,” I say. “What's up with you guys?”

Grandpa jabbers. Something so not intelligible to the human ear.

“Uh, Academy business,” Mom says.

“Mom, just tell me.”

“It's the Annual Worldwide Academy Ghostlympics, where we pit our skills against Academies from various countries, including Germany, France, Spain, Korea. I'm entered in the animal mind-control event.” Her voice swells with pride. “It's unusual for a newer student like myself to represent the Academy. But, as you know, I'm good with animals.”

She certainly was when she was alive and worked Canine with her springer spaniel, Nero Wolfe. “What do you get as prizes, invisible ribbons?” I crack myself up.

There's silence.

“What? I was joking. There aren't really prizes, are there? I mean, you're adults. And, well, ghosts.”

Grandpa jabbers some more in, once again, impossible-to-understand birdspeak.

“There
are
prizes.” Mom stops.

Something is going on here. Why won't Mom and Grandpa just spill. “Like what?”

“Sherry, it's a long shot. Grandpa doesn't think we should even aim for it because it's
extremely
difficult to win. So we can't pin our hopes on it,” she says, her voice going all bubbly and enthusiastic. “But if I come in first in my division—and that's a big if—I win five minutes of Real Time.”

“Real Time?” I say.

“It's exactly what it sounds like.” Mom's branch is bouncing up and down like she's jumping with excitement. “Five minutes of regular time with a human. There are minor restrictions, such as the human doesn't remember the time. Although he does carry away the feeling of the time. Sort of an emotional tying up of loose ends. But five whole real minutes!” Her branch bounces again.

Excitement zings through me like I'm those Christmas lights that blink. “Go right this minute and find some animals and bend their thoughts like pretzels.” Arm extended, I point my finger out toward the yard. “Go! Go! Go! Five minutes where I could see you and talk with you like normal? Überfantastic!”

Grandpa shakes his balding head.

“First-time Ghostlympians never win,” Mom says.

“Stop with the head shaking, Grandpa. Mom can't win if she doesn't try. We have to go for it!”

Grandpa slowly nods.

I stare at where my mother's probably sitting. “Mom! Go directly to the zoo.” I'm wagging my finger so hard, it's a blur. “Fly to the zoo! Practice on every single living animal there: bears, rhinos, squirrels, the gross two-headed snake.”

Grandpa waves his raggedy wings. “Go, go, go!”

“I will. I'll give it my best shot.” She'd probably be high-fiving me if she could. “But”—Mom sucks in a deep breath—“let's finish up here.” The branch quits dipping all over the place and goes still. “I went to your school's staff meeting yesterday afternoon. One item of interest. Did you know Paula is failing Kyle Rogers? His dad is president of the school district's board.”

“Uh, no. I wouldn't normally know junk like that. All I know is Kyle's an eighth-grade basketball star who, according to Josh, has major attitude.”

“Apparently his dad's pretty upset about the F and is leaning hard on your principal, who's leaning hard on Paula to pass him. She won't budge. So there may be something there.”

“Junie and I could eat lunch near Kyle and eavesdrop. Could you and Grandpa check out the dad?”

Grandpa's got his beady dark eyes trained right on me. At my questions, he bobs his head.

Mom goes on. “In a nutshell, the staff at Saguaro likes Paula. They even tried the hummus and pita
bread she brought to the meeting. And no one, except your principal, wants her to give a freebie passing grade to Kyle.”

“Would our principal do anything to The Ruler?” I ask.

“Like stalking? I don't think so. Paula applied for math department head at your school. Perhaps he won't give her a strong recommendation. There's a district meeting on Monday to discuss the candidates. I'll go to that,” Mom says. “You know what the staff at Saguaro's really happy about? The robotics club. I gather Paula put Saguaro on the robotics map last year.”

“It's true.” And I tell them about my Donner robotics-meeting experience. I finish up with, “Those kids are way scary-weird about robotics and they're seriously annoyed with The Ruler. And they have two secret plans, A and B.”

Still staring at me, Grandpa says, “Rats blinking, Sherry.”

“Yes, fast thinking of you to join their club, Sherry,” Mom adds. “Keep a hand in there, and we'll see what you come up with.”

“And then there were these mysterious flowers that came with a happy anniversary card,” I say. “First I thought they were for me. From Josh. Then I thought they were for The Ruler from Dad. But negative and negative.”

“A stalker who sends flowers and slashes tires?” There's a long silence where I just know my mom's doing the hair-twirling thing again. “It doesn't fit any profile I've ever seen. Obviously, there's a mix-up with the flowers,” she says, “but I doubt it's related to the stalker. And I don't think we need to pursue it.”

Grandpa's small beak opens. “I need to pee.”

Which is totally random unless he really said, “I agree.”

“How does this sound for our surveillance schedule over the next couple of days?” Mom lists it off. “Anything else before we adjourn?”

“Wait. I wanna know what happened in Sedona,” I say. “Did Grandma figure out about Grandpa?”

Ironically, Grandma went all the way to Sedona to take a new age class on how to talk to the spirit world when she's got Grandpa in her own backyard. Poor Grandpa keeps racking his birdy brain to come up with ways to make contact with her. Those two just can't seem to get it together.

Grandpa looks down at the ground. “No contact.”

“Sorry.” I rub his scraggly elfin head. “I wish I could help you out.” But he understands that I can't tell her. Academy rules. Even though Grandma's like the one person who'd believe right off in the ghost stuff.

The branch we're sharing bobs up, like it lost a passenger.

“Sherry, you okay if Grandpa and I go over to the tire place now?”

“And then you're going to practice for the Ghostlympics?”

“Absolutely,” Mom says.

“Sure. You guys take off,” I slide down from the tree and head to the front yard. It's not that I really think the stalker will come back today, but I promised Dad I'd be vigilant. So, a quick tour around the house, then I'm heading inside to my room, to chill with my fish.

As I round the corner, kicking the odd-shaped gray stones we have instead of a water-sucking lawn, the sun glints off our big ugly bush. Odd. I stop and stare. It happens again. There is nothing silver or glinty or flashy about that bush. Once a year it covers itself with tiny berries. But even then, they're a dull brick red. I walk over to the bush.

I gently pry apart the outer branches. A few shriveled leaves fall to the ground. I peer in.

There, plunged way deep in the heart of the bush, is a knife.

A
nd not just any old knife's stuck in the middle of the ugly bush.

It's a knife I recognize.

The Ginsu kitchen knife Dad ordered from TV for The Ruler. The long, pointy, never-needs-sharpening, $19.95, shipping-and-handling-extra Ginsu knife.

The stalker used one of The Ruler's knives! From our kitchen! The stalker was in our house! Ack. Eek. Ike.

I gulp air for a few minutes, then pull myself together.

I march into the kitchen, straight to the drawer with the Saran Wrap and tinfoil and plastic bags, and grab a pair of disposable gloves. The Ruler uses them when handling raw meat. Basically, with her in the
house, we're equipped for every kind of emergency. In this case, we're talking about picking up a piece of evidence without smudging the fingerprints. Thanks to my prior detecting experience, I know all about fingerprints.

Yanking on the gloves, I march back to the big ugly bush. Then I plunge both arms in.

Yikes. The knife's totally stuck in the bush. With some heavy breathing and a hefty pull, I free the knife.

Then I'm stumbling and waving the knife in the air, trying to catch my balance.

Just as The Ruler and Sam and Grandma Baldwin pull into the driveway.

The Ruler leaps out of the passenger side of Grandma's car. “Sherry! Are you okay? What's going on?”

Grandma follows. She stops to pull up her knee-socks and slide her feet into her Birkenstock sandals.

Sam climbs out slowly, his eyes on the knife.

I lower it to my side. “I think this is what the person wrecked the tires with.”

The Ruler reaches me. “My Ginsu knife?”

Sam's eyes are growing bigger and bigger, like those spongy figures you leave in water to expand. “The bad guy was in our kitchen.” He always makes connections freaky fast. Like he's some kind of midget genius.

“Paula, you should call the police and have them
dust for fingerprints.” I'm thinking Mom can sneak into the police station to find out what they come up with. No way we're letting the police crack this case. Mom only gets credit if
we
solve it.

“Fingerprints?” The Ruler looks dazed, which is so not her style. “Oh, so that's why you're wearing plastic gloves.”

Grandma shuffles toward me, her arms making big circles in the air, like she's pushing away evil spirits. “Good for you, Sherry, using your noodle.”

“I'll call the detective who came out earlier.” The Ruler straightens up, totally in her element now that she has a task to fulfill. “His card's inside.” She strides to the front door.

No doubt the card is in a special file folder labeled “Tire Incident.” The Ruler invented überorganization.

“I'll get started scattering mint leaves by the doors and windows. Keeps intruders out. Snakes too.” Grandma clomp-clomps the rest of the way up the walk.

“Sherry, bring that knife inside.” Grandma opens the front door. “You and Sam can help me burn some cloves. Then we'll mix the ashes with salt and sprinkle them around the perimeter of the rooms. To keep evil out.” She pauses, a finger on her chin. “I'm pretty sure it's good for your love life too.”

“She gets more and more nutzoid,” I say to Sam, who's sticking to my side.

“Just don't ask her about this wren she thinks she has a”—he makes finger quotes—“‘special relationship' with.”

In the kitchen, I gesture to the pantry with my shoulder. “Sam, get me a bag.”

He doesn't even question the order, which only proves how creeped out he is.

Grandma grabs a cereal bowl, then pulls open drawers till she finds matches. All pyromaniac, she gets a rinky-dink clove fire going in the bowl.

The Ruler is already on the phone with the detective about the knife and possible fingerprints.

I wrap up the knife nice and safe in a plastic bag and scoot it to the back of the counter. I peel off the disposable gloves and trash them.

Grandma dumps a bunch of salt on top of the clove ashes, then hands me the bowl and a spoon. “Stir it up, would you, Sherry?” She starts another clove fire in a different bowl.

Next she'll be asking me to wear face paint and beat on drums.

The phone pressed against her ear, The Ruler bites her lip, thinking hard. “Actually, my husband may have used the knife last. He was slicing food for the barbecue in the backyard. And now I'm not sure it was ever brought back into the kitchen.”

Now that she's said it, I do remember Dad grilling last weekend before he went out of town. He was
wearing his dorky chef's apron, the one that says “Old accountants never die, they just lose their balance.” I can totally see him humming Céline Dion and slicing pineapple (surprisingly yummy when grilled) and bananas (incredibly gross when grilled).

And then I remember something else. “Sam, I was on cleanup that evening.”

“So you probably forgot the knife outside by mistake.” Sam's shoulders relax. He's less creeped out if the bad guy wasn't rooting around in our kitchen.

Me too. Although, yikeserama, I basically left out the weapon.

Balancing the phone on her shoulder while she slots the paperwork back in the file, The Ruler frowns. “You won't be out today to get the knife?”

She hangs up and turns to me and Sam. “Well, they'll come by sometime this week for the prints. This case isn't high priority.” And then, because she's the master of multitasking and can listen to many conversations at once, like even an entire classroom, she says, “Sherry, if it hadn't been my Ginsu knife, he'd have found something else.”