The Ghost in Room 11 (4 page)

His mom smiled. “Don't be so surprised, Matthew,” she said. “We were roommates in college, and I just happened to run into her at lunch a couple of weeks ago. I didn't know she had become a writer, but she told me all about it.”

“We're supposed to write stories because she's coming,” Matt complained. “I don't have anything to write about.”

His dad handed him a bag of groceries. “Write about something you know,” he suggested.

“That's a good idea,” Matt's mother agreed. “Write about what it feels like to leave your old friends and have to make new ones. Tell the truth, Matthew. It'll help the other students understand you.”

Matt took a banana from the grocery bag and wandered down the hall to his bedroom. He thought about what his parents had said.
Tell the truth
—
it'll help the other students understand you. Write about something you know
. The words bounced around with a message all their own. Suddenly he knew what it was.

If there wasn't one single person he could tell about Miss Whipple, then maybe he ought to tell everybody! He could write about what happened the night he hid in the closet, and what had happened at the sleep over. He could tell the truth. People might believe him, and they might not,
but they wouldn't be sure
. He'd be the boy who might have seen a ghost.

He could hardly wait to start writing.

9

“Shocking”

“Do you want to stay after school and play T-ball with us?” Stephanie asked one afternoon.

Matt shook his head. He was working on his story every evening. If it was good enough, Stephanie wouldn't have to feel sorry for him much longer.

The story was taking a long time to finish. He wrote about how some boys had dared him to look for a ghost. He told about the noises in the closet and about seeing Charlie bring the gerbil cage up from the closet the next day. He put down how he had run upstairs and had seen the cloud of silvery light.

Describing Miss Whipple was hard. Just thinking about her made Matt feel sick. She was tall and thin, and she wore a black dress. Her skin was paper-white, and her eyes—he couldn't find the right words for her eyes. Her glare had been terrifying when he'd seen her at the end of the hall. It had been a thousand times worse when he'd peeked through the glass into Room 11 and found her looking back at him from the other side.

As he finished each paragraph, Matt stopped to look up the words he wasn't sure of. Most of the time he'd spelled them wrong. He wished his parents would get a spell-check program for the computer, but they said he shouldn't depend on a machine to do the hard work.

“I have everybody's story but yours, Matthew,” Mrs. Sanders said a few days later. “You must turn it in tomorrow. Miss Bucher wants to get started reading.”

“It's just about finished,” Matt told her. That night he read what he'd written, and the story made him shiver. He hoped it would make Miss Bucher shiver, too.

After dinner he did math problems, and then he wrote the words he'd had wrong on that day's spelling test. When he'd copied each word ten times, it was time for his Mystery Theater. He forgot all about studying the list of words for tomorrow's spelling test.

“Honestly, Matthew!” Mrs. Sanders exclaimed the next afternoon. “I think you're getting worse instead of better. You'd better stay after school today and write all your misspelled words
twenty
times instead often.”

Matt looked at her pleadingly. “I can think better at home,” he said.

Mrs. Sanders shook her head. “Here,” she said.

At three-fifteen Matt watched glumly as the rest of the fourth graders filed out. Ten words, he thought, twenty times each. Two hundred words to finish before he could leave!

He began to write furiously.

“I'm going to the office, Matthew,” Mrs. Sanders said, after about twenty minutes. “I'll be right back.”

Matt's hands grew clammy. He wrote faster. Seven columns of words were finished. Eight. Nine. His fingers ached from clenching his pencil, but he didn't dare slow down. What if Mrs. Sanders decided to go home and made him stay, by himself, until he'd finished?

What if she'd already left?

Why was the room so quiet?

He turned around. There, just behind his left shoulder, stood Miss Whipple. She was close enough for him to see the shiny black buttons on her dress and to feel her icy breath as she bent over his desk.

A long white finger tapped his paper. “Shocking!” she said in a harsh whisper. “Can't you do
anything
right?”

Matt tried to yell, but he couldn't. He tried to slide out the other side of his seat, but he couldn't. For what seemed an endless time, Miss Whipple glared down at him. Then footsteps broke the silence. Miss Whipple vanished as Mrs. Sanders came through the door.

“Daydreaming again, Matthew?” she asked. “Have you finished all the words?”

Matt carried his paper up to her desk, looking over his shoulder all the way. He was ready to dive right through a window if Miss Whipple appeared again.

“Oh, Matthew, it's ‘phantom' not ‘panthom,'” Mrs. Sanders said crossly. She pointed at the same word the ghost had pointed at. “Do you know what a phantom is?”

Matt cleared his throat. “It's a g-g-ghost.”

Mrs. Sanders looked up from his paper. “Goodness gracious!” she said. “You're absolutely green! You look as if you've seen a phantom yourself. But that's not likely, is it?” She waited, but Matt didn't say anything. “You'd better go home and get a good night's sleep.”

Her words stayed in Matt's head like a bad joke, as he raced out of the school. He'd probably never get a good night's sleep again—not when he knew Miss Whipple might be waiting in his dreams to whisper “Shocking!” in his ear.

10

“The Ghost in Room Eleven”

“Matthew, you surprise me!”

Matt was stuffing his jacket into his locker when Mrs. Sanders stopped beside him. She stared at him for a moment, and then walked on, shaking her head.

“She was carrying our stories!” Stephanie said excitedly. “Maybe you won! I hope we both won!”

“It's not such a big deal,” Matt muttered. But his heart was thumping. He wondered if Mrs. Sanders was surprised because his story was so terrific!

The pile of papers stayed on Mrs. Sanders's desk all day, under her green frog paperweight. By three o'clock Matt thought he must have looked at the frog about a thousand times.

At ten minutes after three, Mrs. Sanders finally moved the frog and picked up the stories.

“Miss Bucher and her helpers have chosen two winners of the story contest,” she said.

Matt held his breath.

“Our winner is—” She looked up and down the rows of desks, teasingly. “One winner is ‘The Ghost in Room Eleven,' written by our very own Matthew Barber.”

Nobody made a sound until Mrs. Sanders started to clap. Then the class clapped, too.

“Is it true or made-up?” Charlie demanded.

“You can decide that yourself at the assembly tomorrow,” Mrs. Sanders replied. “I think you'll agree that he's done a fine piece of work. Except for the spelling, Matthew. We'll talk about the spelling later.”

Matt's smile faded, but only for a second. He'd won!

After school, Charlie and Jason followed him across the playground.

“You should have put my name on that story instead of yours,” Charlie said. “I gave you the idea.”

Matt kept on walking.

“Well, I did, didn't I?” Charlie insisted. “I told you there was a ghost, and you made up a story. Right?”

“Wait until tomorrow,” Matt said. “You'll see.”

He could hardly wait. Tomorrow was going to be the best day he'd had since he moved to Healy.

Merry Monahan was tall and tanned, with curly black hair. She smiled and waved at the students and teachers who had crowded into the gym to hear her speak.

“I wanted to bring my pets,” she said, “but I didn't think Matthew Barber's mother would like it.” She winked at Matt as if they were old friends, though they'd met only a few minutes ago. “I'm going to stay at Matthew's house tonight,” she went on, “and I don't think an Irish wolfhound and a boa constrictor would be welcome.”

Everyone gasped, and Jason poked Matt in the ribs. “What's an Irish wolfhound look like?” he asked.

Matt didn't know. “It's big,” he whispered.

Last night, he'd tried to find out more about their houseguest, but his mother had been too busy to talk. She'd put brand-new sheets on the guest room bed, and smelly pink soap in the bathroom, and Matt had to pick a bouquet of daisies for the bedside table. Dinner tonight was going to be lobster tails.

“I'd write a book myself if it meant we could have lobster once a week,” his dad joked. “But I guess Matt is going to be the writer in this family. When are we going to read your story, son?”

“After the assembly,” Matt had told him.

“What's it about?”

Matt's mother had switched off the vacuum cleaner to listen.

“It's called ‘The Ghost in Room Eleven,'” Matt said.

“Oh, my, more wild make-believe!” his mother exclaimed. “First Hollywood stuntwomen and treasure hunters, then ghosts.”

Now, sitting on the gym floor, Matt wondered how Merry Monahan and his mother had become friends. They were very different. Miss Monahan said she liked to write about unusual places. She'd slept in a tent in the African jungle and had climbed mountains. She had even driven a dog-sled in Alaska.

Matt's mother always said that if a vacation didn't include a clean bed every night and a private bathroom, she wasn't interested in going.

When Miss Monahan finished speaking, Mr. Beasley told her the students had a treat for her. They had been writing stories themselves, and two of them had been chosen to read their work.

Jennifer Berman, a sixth grader, read first. Her story was about what it might be like to be the first sixth grader to ride in a space shuttle. When the story ended Matt clapped with everyone else, though he'd heard hardly a word. He was so excited, he couldn't sit still.

“And now we have Matthew Barber,” Mr. Beasley announced.

“His story is called—” He stopped, and Matt could tell he hadn't read the title before. “It's called ‘The Ghost in Room Eleven.'” The principal gave a funny little cough and handed the story to Matt.

Matt hadn't thought about what it would be like to stand up in front of so many people. His voice shook as he read about hiding in the closet and being scared by the gerbils. The students giggled. They'd heard that part of the story before, from Charlie.

“‘Then I ran upstairs,'” Matt read on in a stronger voice, “‘and I saw this weird light at the end of the hall. A lady in a black dress sort of drifted out of Room Eleven. She had a spooky white face, and her eyes just burned into me. She wanted me to come closer, but I didn't. I ran out of there as fast as I could. I never stopped till I got home, even though I heard some kids laughing and wondered if they'd played a trick on me.'”

Matt stole a quick look at Charlie and Jason. He could tell they were remembering that evening, too.

“‘The next day I saw the picture of Miss Edna Whipple in the hall,'” Matt continued. “‘That was when I knew who the ghost was.'” He took a deep breath and turned a page. The scariest part was still to come.

“‘A couple of weeks ago we had a sleep over in the gym,'” he read. “‘Miss Carey asked me to get a video from her classroom. It was Room Eleven. I looked through the door, and the ghost was on the other side of the glass. I was so scared that I ran all the way back to the gym. I told Miss Carey I couldn't find the video, so she went to get it herself. I guess she didn't see the ghost. I'm the only one who sees her, and I don't know why.'”

Matt put down his paper, and the students cheered and clapped. He looked at all the excited faces and knew he'd done what he meant to do. Every single student in the gym was wondering if he'd really seen a ghost.

Miss Monahan returned to the microphone. “Both of these stories are very good,” she said. “Matthew's story is fun because he wrote about school—a place he knows and you know. He put his imagination to work, and he came up with a good idea.” She smiled at Matt. “How did you happen to make up a ghost story, Matthew?”

Matt stared at her in dismay. She was spoiling everything!

“I didn't make it up,” he said loudly. “I really saw the ghost!”

“Now, Matthew,” Miss Monahan said, still smiling, “it's important to know the difference between what's real and what isn't. We all like your story, whether it's make-believe or not.”

“But it
isn't
make-believe,” Matt shouted.
“It isn't!”

“Matthew!” Mr. Beasley jumped up. “That's enough!”