School of the Dead (6 page)

I had heard enough ghost talk from Uncle Charlie to make me think that whoever the kid was—here one moment, gone the next—he (or it) was acting like a ghost. Trouble was, I didn't believe in ghosts. After all, that supernatural talk from Uncle Charlie had just been that, talk—his way of acting like a kid.

Ghosts don't exist
, I told myself.
It's all a joke.
Don't be stupid. Maybe this was what Ms. Foxton had warned me about: I was being teased.

But who would be teasing me?

I used my key to let myself into our apartment, dropped my backpack by the door, and plopped on our old sofa, which we had brought from back east. When I sat, the pillows seemed to sigh, reminding me of Uncle Charlie's
last breath. There I was, sitting in an empty apartment, the walls white and blank, the inside of nothing. It didn't even smell like home, just paint. I thought,
This newness is getting old.

How different from Connecticut. When I came home from school, Uncle Charlie would be there. We'd talk, do things, have fun.

Next moment Uncle Charlie, like the genie from a lamp, was standing across the room.

“What's going on?” I asked him.

He smiled and vanished.

I asked myself:
What makes Uncle Charlie appear the way he does?
I mean, just now, I
had
been thinking of him. Then,
abracadabra
—I saw him. Okay.
Memory.
Even so, there'd been a number of times that day I had
not
been thinking of him, and still he had appeared.

I told myself that having his memory around had gotten me through the first day.
Fine. Time to move on.
I would only think about him—and bring him around—when
I
felt the need.

I pulled out the assignment sheets teachers had given me. End of October, a five-page research paper for history. Mid-November, an English paper. Before Christmas
break, a science lab report. Heart sinking, I threw the assignment list aside. I had never been asked to write a paper before.

I took a long shower. Thinking again about what Jessica had said, that I smelled like death, I scrubbed myself hard.

I went to my room and walked my slackline. When I did, I felt free. Uncle Charlie had told me that walking the line was not of the earth, not of the sky, but what a ghost might feel. How, I asked myself, had he come up with that idea?

Sometimes when I walked the line, I didn't think of anything other than what I was doing. If I didn't concentrate, I fell. In fact, when I heard the apartment door slam, I did fall.

Dad looked into my room. “How come you're on the floor?”

“I stopped being a ghost.”

“Very funny. Do you like Penda?”

“It's fine. How come you're home early?”

“It's your first day. Didn't want you to be here alone.”

“I'm good.”

“Okay,” Dad said, retreating.

The trouble with most parents is that they believe what their kids tell them.

I got back on the slackline but kept falling. In a corner, Uncle Charlie reappeared. He was becoming like one of those songs you really love. You know, the kind you can't get
out of your head until, though you love it, it starts becoming annoying.

Since I was convinced I had
not
been thinking about him, that question my cousins and I had always asked popped into my head:
What's the deal with Uncle Charlie?

Telling myself I was being unfair, I changed the question to:
What's the deal with the school?

Mom opened my door and held up some white foam boxes. “San Francisco has amazing food!” she exclaimed.

I said, “Hope you got McDonald's.”

“Very funny. Chinese.
Northern
Chinese, thank you. Dinner's ready.”

At the table she said, “How was school?”

“Okay.”

“Make any friends?”

“Maybe.”

“Need anything?”

“Pens, pencils, notebooks.”

Mom said, “Can we wait for the weekend?”

“Suppose.”

To Dad, I said, “What do you know about earthquakes here?”

“California has about ten thousand earthquakes a year.
Most are small. Maybe a few hundred are greater than 3.0 magnitude. Only about fifteen to twenty are greater than 4.0.”

“How do you
know
that?”

“The US government has a website that lists the day's earthquakes. San Francisco is famous for them.”

“Hey, did you guys tell the school about Uncle Charlie and me?”

Mom, shaking her head, looked at Dad.

Dad said, “I didn't. They don't need to know.”

“They
do
know.”

Dad shrugged. “If you told them, that's okay.”

But I hadn't.

Later, in bed, as I was trying to sleep, an idea came: Uncle Charlie must have told Penda I was coming to the school.

Only I realized that was impossible: I had been accepted at Penda
after
he
died. But
someone
must have told them about Uncle Charlie. If it wasn't my parents, or me, then who?

I started thinking about that boy I kept seeing around the school and in the tower: how he looked like the kid in the school office painting, the one they called the Penda Boy.

Not possible
, I told myself again.

I felt an urge to get to school and look at that painting once
more. I was certain that it would
not
be the kid I kept seeing, for the simple reason that that was impossible.

The first thing I did when I woke the next morning was look around for Uncle Charlie. He was not there. Good. That told me I could handle my memories. One problem solved.

Next, when I got to school, I went right into the school office. Mrs. Z, sitting behind her desk, looked up. “Hello, Tony. How did your first day go?”

“Fine. I'm supposed to ask you for a list of the sports teams I can join.”

“Good idea.”

As she bent over to get the list from a drawer, I looked at the painting of the Penda Boy. My heart sank. The kid in the painting really did look like the boy I kept seeing.

Mrs. Z handed me a sheet of paper.

“Mrs. Z,” I said, pointing to the painting. “He died, right?”

“The Penda Boy? Oh yes, a long time ago. In the high tower, they say.”

I left and headed up the steps, my thoughts on the Penda Boy.
When impossible things happen, does that make them possible?
I looked around to the other steps. I didn't see the boy, only Uncle Charlie.

Exasperated, I told myself that whenever I felt upset, Uncle
Charlie appeared, as if I was asking him for help.

“I don't need you,” I called out.

“You talking to me?” said some kid right behind me.

“No, sorry,” I said, and hurried on, trying not to think of the boy.

As I went from class to class, I felt I was being judged by students and teachers. In various subjects—science, art, and math—teachers kept asking if I had learned this or that, as if constantly saying,
Do you know anything?
Not much, apparently. And there were kids who asked, “Who are you?” That made me feel more isolated than ever.

No sooner did I feel alone than Uncle Charlie appeared. I told him—in my head—
Uncle Charlie, I'm trying to get along without you.
That seemed to satisfy him. He went.

But not the blond boy. I kept seeing him, always partly veiled by a crowd of kids. I tried a new tactic: When I saw him, I closed my eyes for a few seconds. When I opened them, he was gone. That convinced me: I could switch him off the way I did my memory of Uncle Charlie.

And, following my decision not to hang with losers, I also avoided Jessica and her friends. I was never going to be with the
in
group, but once you are with the losers, you're a loser forever.

The next day, my face appeared on the homeroom portrait wall. I
had
taken Austin's place. Below my picture, things were already written.

           
Welcome to Penda! Mr. Batalie

           
You're very interesting. Jessica

           
I'm glad you're in our class. Lilly

           
I need to talk to you.

Why did Jessica find me interesting? Who was Lilly? Who needed to talk to me? Weren't all comments supposed to be signed?

Sure enough, the following day, Thursday, just before classes began, Mr. Batalie made an announcement. “Okay, guys, someone wrote under Tony's picture. Nothing negative, but it was
not
signed. I trust we all know the rules about the portrait board.
No unsigned statements.
I've removed that comment. Whoever did that, please do not do it again.”

Kids looked around. No one confessed. Nothing more was said. Or answered.

Later in the day, Peter asked me if I would like to sit on the newspaper Wednesday club. I agreed, only to have Jessica ask me to join the Weird History Club. She said, “I need to talk to you.”

“I promised Peter,” I said, but noted that
I need to talk to you
was what had been written under my photo. Had she written it?

I sat in on the School Newspaper Club. They talked about who should interview the
perfect
Riley Fadden. It made me wish I had gone with Jessica.

Thursday crept by like a slug with a flat tire. I did not see Uncle Charlie, and that was good. But the blond kid kept appearing, which I did not like. Whenever I saw him, I turned and moved on. That helped.

The best part of my day was after school, when I walked the slackline. Though I was getting better and better, school was not. I felt stupid in classes. I was not making any friends and wasn't sure how to do anything about it.

Friday, another comment appeared under my picture:
I need to talk to you.
Once more, it wasn't signed. By then I was sure it was Jessica who had written it, but I didn't want to say anything.

Batalie scolded the class. No one admitted doing anything.

I saw the blond boy twice.

The instant I saw him, not only did I turn away, but I hung around other kids. That seemed to work. He went. From
then on, I made sure to stay around people.

All the same, I kept catching glimpses of him. So I changed my mind about Jessica. The way I kept seeing—or
thinking
I was seeing—the blond kid upset me. Jessica claimed her club studied weird things. Seeing the Penda Boy was totally weird. I was also sure she wanted to talk to me. Maybe she would help get the boy out of my head. This was why, during morning recess, in the cafeteria, I headed right to where she and the Weird History Club were sitting.

Jessica was at her table, one of her feet—black sneakers with red shoelaces—on the empty chair. When I showed up, doughnut and juice in hand, I didn't get her regular smile. It took me looking at her foot to get her to move so I could sit.

“How's it going?” I said.

“We're okay,” she replied, sounding glum. Mac and Barney kept eating and didn't speak. It was as if they knew I had been avoiding them.

After some silence, Mac said, “Hey, Tony, what do you think of the Penda School now?”

I said, “A lot of work.”

“Yeah,” agreed Barney, adding to his sunflower-seed pile. “It is.”

I was trying to get up my nerve to ask Jessica about the blond kid when she suddenly said, “Anyone tell you more about Austin?”

I shook my head.

“They won't,” she said.

“Why?” I asked.

Mac left off biting a fingernail to say, “The towers. Learn about them yet?”

“Not really,” I said, not getting what Austin had to do with the towers.

“They're haunted,” Mac said, going back to chewing his nail.

Remembering Ms. Foxton's warning about the teasing of new students with haunted stories, I said, “Yeah, right.” Same time I wondered why only these kids were teasing me.

“No,” said Barney. “It's true.”

“That's why they don't let anyone inside them,” said Mac.

“They
say
it's for safety reasons,” added Barney.

“Actually,” said Mac, “she doesn't want us to see what's up there.”

“Who's
she
?” I asked.

Jessica said, “Ms. Foxton.”

“She's afraid of what we'll find,” Mac said.

“The ghost,” I said.

Jessica said, “Yeah, the ghost.”

I couldn't hold back. “What if I told you that the first time I was here, I saw a kid at one of the tower windows?”

The boys' mouths dropped open. Jessica sat up straight, eyes right on me. “Who'd you see?” she demanded. “We need to know.”

Glad to get some reaction, I said, “When my parents and I first visited the school—Sunday—at the highest tower's window—I saw a boy looking out.”

Jessica said, “That true?”

“I think so.”

The boys looked at Jessica as if she should reply. After studying me for a bit, she said, “Then you saw the ghost.”

“What . . . ghost?”

She said, “The Penda Boy.”

“The kid whose picture is in the school office?” I asked.

“Yeah,” said Mac.

I waited a second before saying, “Has anyone else seen him?”

No one spoke until Jessica said, “You were close to someone who died, right? Bet you anything the Penda Boy thinks—because of your smell—that you're dead enough to be his friend. But I hate to tell you, he's not your friend—he's an enemy.”

“You serious?” I cried as the bell went off for the end of recess.

“Hey,” said Jessica, standing up. “You're the one who told us you saw him. No one else is seeing the ghost. Want to know how to handle him? Join our club.”