The Gloomy Ghost (2 page)

I'm pretty sure that isn't true. His dad doesn't have any scars. And he wears a suit when he goes to work. Lion tamers don't wear suits.

“I have a spaceship in my closet,” Tony told me last month.

I looked. He didn't. I wish he did.

Tony also told me he was starring in a new television show. He isn't. They wouldn't let him have a show. He talks too fast and I'm just about the only one who can understand him.

He even told me he was going to have a rock group at his birthday party, but all he had was Chuckle-Buckle, the Happy Clown. I can't think of anything he ever told me that was actually true. So there was no reason to believe him about the berries. I pulled one from the bush and looked at it. Strawberries are red, and they aren't poison.

I rolled it around in my fingers. It was so small. There was no way one little berry could do anything bad to me.

I put it in my mouth.

 

Three

BERRIED ALIVE

The outside of the berry didn't have any taste. I figured if it was poison, it would be bitter.

I bit it.

The inside didn't have much taste, either. It was a little sour, but not too bad. I tried a couple more. By then I realized that there weren't enough to fill me up, anyhow. I'd just have to put up with being hungry. That shouldn't be a problem. A real soldier can stand anything. We can walk for days through the mud and the rain, carrying a ton of stuff. We can go forever without any water except a little sip every eight hours.

My stomach had stopped rumbling.

I wondered whether they had tried to turn on the TV yet. I could see it. Dad would switch it on and there'd be nothing. He'd thump it on top a couple of times, or maybe shake the remote. It still wouldn't turn on. So he'd call Mom. And they'd both try it. Then they'd check the plug to make sure it was in. Then they'd call Sebastian, since he's the only one in the house who knows how to use the remote and program all the video stuff.

My stomach didn't hurt anymore. It didn't feel like anything. It was more than not feeling. It was like it never had any feeling at all.

Maybe they'd smell it first. They'd walk into the living room and smell the burnt TV smell. There'd been a pretty big puff of smoke. It probably still smelled in there. Big people can sniff stuff like that and know exactly what happened. It's amazing. The time I melted one of my tub toys with the magnifying glass, Mom knew right away what was going on. And when I'd tried to paint Dad's tires to surprise him for his birthday, he came running out to the garage before I'd even gotten the first one finished.

My legs felt funny, too. They felt like they had no feeling. I wondered if I'd been sitting one way for too long. I stretched them out. They still felt strange.

I hoped Sebastian wasn't planning to watch anything special tonight. I wouldn't want to get him mad at me, too.

“Rory?”

Someone was calling for me. It sounded like Dad. I pulled myself deeper into the bushes. I had to use my arms. My legs weren't working.

This was bad. I wondered if they'd found out about the TV already, or were just looking for me. Luckily, I could be anywhere. There were a bunch of places for them to look. I could be at Tony's, or at Becky's, or at the playground down the street. I could be just about anywhere on the block.

My fingers started to tingle.

It wouldn't be easy for them to find me. I'd be safe for a while. This was a real good hiding place. I used it only for big emergencies. They didn't know about it—not even Sebastian. They've never found me here. Maybe they won't turn on the television. Maybe if I got some books or magazines for everyone, they'd read instead. That might work.

My arms felt funny. I couldn't sit up anymore.

Something was wrong. I didn't feel anything anywhere. Just my face. I couldn't move my body.

“Mom?”

I called Mom. She could fix anything. Sometimes Sebastian called her Dr. Mom. I tried to shout but it wasn't even a whisper. I think my lips moved. I'm not sure. They tingled for a while. But now I couldn't feel them, either. I couldn't hear anything. I couldn't see anything.

I couldn't feel myself thinking anymore. I couldn't …

 

Four

JUST PASSING THROUGH

Gee, I felt a lot better when I woke up. I must have fallen asleep. That was really weird. I sat up. It was brighter outside. I checked my watch. It was almost twelve o'clock. I stretched, but I didn't feel stiff. That's funny. I usually have to stretch when I wake up. Then I saw him. I don't know how he got in here with me. He was sleeping.

“Hey, wake up,” I said to the other kid. What was he doing in my secret place? He looked familiar. Wow. He looked just like me. That made me feel really creepy. It was like looking in a mirror, but without the mirror. “Wake up!” I shouted at him. I decided to shake his shoulder. I tried to do it. But I couldn't touch him. My hand just couldn't get close.

Maybe it was time to find another place to hide. I started to push my way through the bushes.

But the bushes went through me.

They just went right through my arm.

“Mom!”

I shouted without thinking. I didn't care about the television anymore. I just wanted my mom. I ran toward the house.

Sebastian stepped out the back door. “Rory,” he called.

“Here!” I waved my arms and shouted. I ran toward him. But he just looked around, like I wasn't even there. Maybe he was so mad, he was going to ignore me. But that didn't make any sense. Why was he calling me if he was going to ignore me?

I ran to the steps. I tried to run up them, but I went through them. I was in the steps, up to my chest. It was like I'd been cut in half. Sebastian was right in front of me. His shoes were right in front of my eyes.

“Sebastian!”
I shouted as hard and as loud as I could. He tilted his head for a second. I think he almost heard me. I shouted again. And again. He stood for a moment. I kept shouting. I shouted so hard, I knew my face was red. My brother turned around and went inside.

I looked down. I was half in the porch. I didn't like that. Seeing my body cut off that way made me shiver. I lifted my hand. It came right up through the old boards with the chipped gray paint. No, I didn't like being inside something. I stepped back. I got out of the porch.

I looked behind me, at the bushes. The kid in there … No, it couldn't be.

I knew the answer. “I'm dreaming,” I said. It was that simple. I'd fallen asleep, and this was a bad dream. It had to be. I couldn't really walk through the porch. I laughed at myself for being fooled by a dream.

All I had to do was wake myself up. That was easy. “Hey, wake up!” I shouted.

It didn't work. I tried again. It still didn't work. No matter how loud I got, I didn't wake up.

Maybe I could wake the kid in the bushes. But something about him scared me a little. I sort of had an idea who he was, but I didn't want to think about it. Sooner or later, I knew someone would come along and tell me what to do. Adults ignore kids a lot of the time, but they never let them alone for too long. I decided to walk around to the front of the house. Maybe I could get inside from there, since the porch didn't have a lot of steps.

That's when I saw the puppy. He was in the yard by the side of the house, wandering around like he was lost. “Puppy,” I called to him. “Here, boy.” I was afraid he'd act like Sebastian and ignore me. But he turned and looked. Then he ran toward me. As he ran through the grass, I noticed he wasn't running over the grass. He was really running through it, just like the way I went through the bushes.

“Hi,” I said when he reached me. I bent down to pet him. I was scared my hand would go right through him, but it didn't. It was like sticking my hand out the car window when the car is going fast. Something pushed against my hand. It was almost like air. But the puppy loved it. He wagged his tail and begged for more when I stopped.

He looked like Browser, Mr. Nordy's dog, only a lot smaller. I remembered that Mr. Nordy had another dog staying with him for a while. Her name was Sheila. The puppy looked like her, too.

“What's going on, puppy?” I asked. I didn't really expect an answer, and I didn't get one. But at least I wasn't alone now. I bent down and picked up the puppy. Then I went toward the front of the house.

I ran into trouble before I got there.

 

Five

THAT SINKING SENSATION

As I walked toward the front of the house, I started thinking about the television again. Even though I had bigger problems, I couldn't help myself. I could just see Mom and Dad shouting and shaking their heads.

I didn't notice anything for the first couple of steps. But then I realized I was getting shorter. I'm not that tall to start with, so it made a big difference. And it was worse than that. I only
thought
I was getting shorter.

Instead, I was sinking into the ground.

This was as bad as walking through the porch. I took another step forward, and sank deeper. I tried stepping backwards. It didn't matter. I still sank. My legs were deep enough that I couldn't even see my foot when I took a step.

The ground came up to my chest. I didn't want to let go of the puppy, but I was afraid I'd drag him under the ground, so I put him down. He ran in a circle around me, barking and leaping all over the place.

“How come you aren't sinking?” I asked him.

He ran over and licked my face.

“If you can walk on the ground, so can I.” I took a step. I rose a bit higher. I took another step. It seemed to be okay. I was coming back out of the ground. I was halfway around the side of the house now.

Oh, no!
I just remembered that it was Saturday. Sebastian's favorite show—
Monster Mayhem
—was on tonight. And the TV was broken. I'd really messed things up.

And I was sinking again.

I was back up to my chest.

The puppy thought this was great. I didn't. There had to be a reason. And I had to find it fast. Even though I wasn't walking, I was still sinking.

I was up to my chin.

Think,
I told myself.

I lifted my hands over my head and tried to stand on my tiptoes, but it didn't make a difference. My mouth sank under and then my nose. That's when I realized I wasn't breathing. My eyes would be next, and I really really didn't want them under the ground.

Think harder!

I figured it out just as the ground reached the top of my cheeks. Every time I thought about what I'd done wrong—breaking the you-know-what—I sank down. I needed to think about something else. It wasn't easy.

Dad has a joke where he says, “Quick, don't think about purple alligators.” Of course, as soon as he says it, I can't help thinking about purple alligators.

But Mrs. Rubric is always saying, “Rory, try to think before you speak.”

It's easy to talk without thinking. I'm
really
good at that. So I started talking to the puppy, telling him all about myself, as we walked to the front of the house.

“I like monsters,” I told him. “My favorite is Frankenstein's monster. Most kids just call him Frankenstein. That's wrong. Frankenstein is the doctor who made the monster. Sebastian taught me that. He's my big brother. You'd like him. He has a poster of Frankenstein's monster in his room. I want one, too, but Mom says no because it would give me nightmares. So I go look at his.” I really liked that poster. It was big and scary and great. I didn't like to look at it if I was alone, but I loved to look at it with Sebastian.

It worked. With each step, I went up a little. By the time we got to the front door, I was walking on the ground again.

The porch only came up to my knees when I walked across it, so that wasn't a big problem. I reached for the knob and my hand went right through it. I realized I could probably just walk in. As I got ready to try, I heard my parents talking inside.