The Ghost in Room 11 (2 page)

At recess he told Mrs. Sanders he wanted to stay inside and read, but she wouldn't let him. Charlie waited with his pals outside the door.

“You are the biggest liar I ever heard,” Charlie said. “You make up stuff all the time, and you're a chicken besides. All you can do is talk.”

Matt took a step backward. “I'm not a chicken,” he said. “My real mother's going to teach me to do stunts someday. I'm not afraid of anything.”

Charlie looked sideways at the other boys. “Prove it,” he said. Matt saw that he'd stepped into a trap. “Stay after school tonight and watch for the ghost. I bet you're too chicken to do that.”

“No, I'm not,” Matt said, because there was nothing else he could say. “I'll do it. Big deal.”

He looked up, hoping again for a bolt of lightning. This time he wished it would crash down on his own head. He wanted to disappear in a flash of light and never come back.

That would wipe the grin off Charlie Peck's face.

3

Hiding in the Closet

“It's down there at the bottom of the stairs.” Charlie gave Matt a push. “Hurry up! Hide!”

Matt looked longingly at the door to the playground. The few students left in the school were heading out, and there wasn't a single teacher in sight. Where were they when you needed them?

“What if a janitor comes to get a mop or something?”

“The cleaning stuff is stored up here,” Charlie said. “There's nothing in that closet except books. Unless the ghost hides in there,” he added. “Who knows?”

Matt glared at him and thumped down the stairs. The basement was cool and dim with doors in every direction. They could lead to cells, Matt thought, like a dungeon in a castle. He stopped at the door Charlie had pointed out. Maybe it would be locked. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Charlie watching from the top of the stairs as he turned the knob. The door opened, and there was nothing to do but step inside.

He looked around. Boxes lined the closet walls. Overhead there was a long shelf that held a fan, a globe, and more boxes. The room smelled musty.

“Close the door!” Charlie called softly. “Someone's coming.”

Matt pulled the door shut and leaned against a stack of boxes. Someone shouted upstairs. Heels clicked along the corridor. A voice said, “See you tomorrow.” Finally there were no sounds at all.

Charlie had said the janitors would leave after an hour. Matt wondered how he could be sure they were gone? Time passed slowly in the dark.

He sank down, cross-legged, on the floor and waited. The beginning of a sneeze tickled his nose. His eyes ached from staring at nothing.

He may have fallen asleep; he wasn't sure. But suddenly he was wide awake, certain that he was no longer alone. Something was moving, close by.

The sound grew louder. It came from overhead, Matt realized, up on the shelf. He pictured a tiny mouse and he felt better, but only for a second. It could just as easily be a big, ugly rat. Or a bat! Or a huge, hairy tarantula like the one he'd seen on television last week.

With a yelp, he scrambled to his feet and fumbled for the doorknob. The rustling grew louder. He found the knob, hurtled out into the basement, and raced up the stairs.

The hallway looked different in the shadows of late afternoon. The only light came through the glass panes of the classroom doors along the hall. Matt started toward the playground and then froze. Footsteps sounded from the far end of the hall. Someone was still in the building.

The footsteps were slow and loud. Matt wondered how he could hear them so clearly, when all the classroom doors were closed.

He pressed himself against a locker and tried to decide what to do. If he ran to the playground door, the person might come out of a classroom and see him. If he stayed where he was, he would be caught for sure. If he ran back to the closet—
no!
The bat-rat-spider was waiting for him there.

He blinked. The hall seemed to grow longer, stretching toward a pinpoint of light that widened into a silvery cloud as he stared. A tall woman in a black dress came out of the last classroom.
A teacher
, Matt thought. She raised a hand and beckoned.

Matt edged along the row of lockers, his eyes on the woman. He didn't know what to do. Then he saw something that made his stomach do flip-flops. The door to the last classroom was still closed. The woman had walked right through it.

“MATTHEW BARBER!” The words echoed down the hall.

Until that minute Matt hadn't believed Charlie's story that the school was haunted. But now he had seen for himself. There really was a ghost in Healy Elementary—and she knew his name.

4

“You Saw—What?”

Matt was a fast runner. Back in Milwaukee, he could beat every kid in his class. But now, he felt as if he were hardly moving. Any second, a hand was going to close on his shoulder. A terrifying voice was going to roar, “MATTHEW BARBER!” into his ear.

As he dashed across the playground, he thought he heard giggles, but he didn't stop. If Charlie and his friends were watching, maybe the ghost would catch
them
. It would serve them right!

When he turned onto Graylog Lane the station wagon was in the drive. His father looked up in surprise as Matt staggered into the kitchen.

“Slow down, boy. What's the big rush?”

“Where's Mom?” Matt gasped. He slumped into a chair. “I've got to tell you something.”

“I'm here,” his mother said from the hall. “And I've just had an unpleasant surprise! We've been here only a month, and your teacher is already calling. Mrs. Sanders says you are one of the worst spellers she's had.”

Matt hardly heard her. “Something awful happened,” he said. “I saw a—”

“And that's not all,” his mother interrupted. “She told me about the speech you gave today.”

“Oh.” Matt looked away. “It was just … a speech. Everybody has to give one.”

“But I'll bet everyone didn't pick such an unusual subject. Matthew told the class about his real parents,” she explained to Matt's dad. “His
real
father is a deep-sea diver who hunts for treasure. His
real
mother is a stuntwoman in the movies.”

There was a long silence. “I don't even know how to swim,” Matt's father said.

“It was just a speech,” Matt repeated. “I would have told the truth later on.”

“You mean the truth about your plain old bank teller mother and salesman father?” his mom asked. She turned again to his dad. “Matthew's
real
mother drove off a cliff and blew up the car on the way down.”

“Amazing,” his dad said. “I bet she makes a lot of money doing that.”

Matt looked from one of them to the other. They were laughing, but he could tell they were sort of hurt.

“Mrs. Sanders said the other children didn't believe you,” his mom said. “She heard them talking.”

“It wasn't lying exactly,” Matt said. “It was just—”

“It was lying,” his mother said firmly. “You were trying to impress people, and it didn't work.”

Matt's dad reached over and gave him a tap on the arm. “No more stories, right? Now let's forget it. You have something important to tell us. You saw—what?”

Matt swallowed hard.
I saw a ghost in school. She called my name
. He imagined the look on his mother's face if he told them that.

“Well,” his mother said impatiently, “what did you see?”

Matt stood up. “Nothing,” he said. “I forgot.”

It was weird, telling another lie, when he wanted more than anything to tell the truth.

5

The Picture in the Hall

“What's the ghost look like?” Jason Myers asked the next morning. Jason was Charlie's best friend.

Matt pretended not to hear. He wasn't going to talk about the ghost. His parents wouldn't believe him, and his classmates had already decided he was a liar. Besides, he was pretty sure the boys didn't believe there was a ghost; they had just wanted to play a trick on him. He was sure of it when Charlie came up the basement stairs carrying a cage with two gerbils in it.

Jason grinned at Matt. “Charlie's speech is about how to take care of gerbils,” he said.

So that was what had been rustling on the closet shelf!

All morning long Matt tried to decide what to do. He could run away, but where would he go? If he took the bus to Milwaukee, he could call Jerry or Mike or Paul—but their parents would call his parents. He'd be back in Healy in no time.

He was glad when recess arrived. The students lined up and filed out of the room. Matt gave one quick look down the hall, to the spot where the ghost had appeared. The fifth graders were there, with their teacher, Miss Carey. She was short and round with red hair—nothing like the tall, terrifying figure he'd seen the night before.

Matt headed toward the door. Then, to his horror, he saw the ghost, peering at him from a gold frame above a row of lockers. He stepped back and stumbled over a foot. When he turned around, Mr. Beasley was brushing off his shoes.

“I—I was looking at the picture,” Matt stammered.

Mr. Beasley nodded. “Miss Edna Whipple,” he said solemnly. “She was already famous here at Healy when I entered kindergarten. They say she died at her desk, correcting papers.” He sounded as if he thought that was a fine way to die.

Matt stared at the picture.
Miss Edna Whipple
, he thought. She had known Matt's name, and now he knew hers.

“That was Miss Whipple's motto.” Mr. Beasley pointed to a gold plate at the bottom of the frame. It read:
Try Hard. Then Try Harder
.

“A good motto,” Mr. Beasley said. “You might start by trying harder to stay in the line, Matthew.”

A moment later Matt was out in the sunshine. He stood there, glad to escape Miss Whipple's glare.

“I'm sorry Charlie played a trick on you.” Stephanie was beside him. “I don't blame you for running away. I would have been scared, too.”

“I wasn't running away from those stupid gerbils,” Matt said crossly. “It was something else.”

“What else?” Stephanie wanted to know. “There isn't any ghost, you know. It's just a story.”

“I don't want to talk about it,” Matt told her.

“Do you want to play ball or something?”

She felt sorry for him! Matt wanted to punch her—or Charlie, or Jason, or even Mr. Beasley. He was more mixed-up than he'd ever been before.

“I've got stuff to do,” he said. He walked off toward the edge of the playground and left Stephanie standing alone.

6

Going to Room 11

“A sleepover at school!” Matt's mother was reading the school newsletter. “What an unusual idea! Why didn't you tell us about it, Matthew?”

“Because it's dumb,” Matt said. “Who wants to sleep at school?”

His mom frowned. “This will be a good chance for you to make some friends,” she told him. “It says here that the fourth, fifth, and sixth grades are invited. They've got all kinds of fun things planned.”

“I'm not going,” Matt said. “I'm allergic to that school.” But he knew he'd have to go. When his mother got that look on her face, she always had her way.

Thursday evening, his dad came home with a big package that turned out to be a bright red sleeping bag. “First choice among smart fourth graders!” he kidded, as Matt tore off the wrappings.

Matt thought red looked babyish, but he didn't say so. He had something worse to worry about. How could he spend a whole night in school, knowing Miss Whipple was hiding somewhere, watching him?

When Friday evening arrived, his mother and father insisted on taking him to school before going out to dinner. They even came in with him.

The sleep over was in the gym. Tables of snacks were set along the wall, and most of the floor was covered with sleeping bags. There were air mattresses, too, and patio lounges. Matt was surprised to see a few parents sitting around in bathrobes and slippers.