The Gloomy Ghost (3 page)

“Where could he be?” Mom asked.

“Calm down,” Dad said. “I'm sure he's hiding because of the television. What did you expect him to do?”

Oh, boy. They'd found it. When I heard that, I started to sink again. I had to get that thought out of my mind right away. I started to sing a song. “Twinkle, twinkle, little star.”

That did the trick. I took a step back from the house. I wanted to go inside, because Mom and Dad were there and they could fix anything that I'd done to myself. But I knew that if I went in now, I wouldn't hear about anything except
that broken thing,
and I'd be in big trouble if I kept thinking about it.

I had to go somewhere else for help.

“Yip!”
The puppy barked at me. I guess he was annoyed that I wasn't paying attention to him. I looked down at him and had an idea. I knew where I could go for help.

It wasn't cold outside. I couldn't feel the temperature, but I could see from the sunshine that it was warm. Even so, the idea I had made me shiver. I felt like my whole body had just been dipped in ice water. Worse, after being dipped, I'd been lifted out into a cold wind. And had a bunch of snowballs thrown at me, while I ate a Popsicle.

Shivering or not, I knew where I had to go.

 

Six

HAUNT AND SEEK

People are always trying to hide things from kids. They seem to think we can't stand bad news. But that's not true. I realized what my bad news was. I'd become a ghost.

“I'm a ghost,” I said out loud, just to make sure that I knew. If my parents were breaking the news to me, they would have dragged it out for hours.

“Rory,” Mom would have said, “did you ever think how special it would be if you could walk through walls?”

Then Dad would add, “Don't you just love that Christmas story with all the ghosts? You know, the one with Scrooge and Tiny Tim. Isn't that a great story?”

I didn't hide the news. There wasn't any reason to. “I'm a ghost,” I said again, just to make sure I believed myself.

So that was the bad news. But I wasn't the only ghost. The puppy was also a ghost. If I was a ghost and he was a ghost, that meant there had to be other ghosts. All I had to do was find them. They'd help me. Then I could get back into my body and be a kid again.

I just needed to go to the best place for ghosts. That was easy. Everybody in town knew where that was. We called it the Winston House. I guess the guy who used to own it was named Winston. I really don't know much about that, but I do know that it's haunted. Everybody says so. Tony said he'd seen ghosts there, but that doesn't count. Even so, lots of other kids say it's haunted, so it has to be.

You could see the top half of the Winston House from here. It's over on the hill behind the main part of town. It's real creepy to look at. But that's not surprising, since it's haunted.

“Come on, puppy,” I said, “let's go for a walk.”

At the word
walk,
he started jumping and yipping. “I have to stop calling you puppy,” I said. “How about a name?”

He wagged his tail, so I guess he liked the idea. Sebastian had read me these fun books about two ghost kids who were twins and had a ghost dog. That dog had a great name, but I didn't want to steal it. I wanted to come up with my own name.

The puppy yipped again. That seemed like a good name. “How about Yip?” I asked him.

He agreed.

I guess it seemed silly for me to talk with the puppy like that, but it kept my mind off other things. I might look brave marching right over to the haunted house, but I didn't feel brave. I felt scared and alone. But I knew I had to do something. I was in all kinds of trouble, and nobody was going to come along and help me.

I'd walked about five blocks when I saw Norman in front of his house. He was standing there looking down the street like he was waiting for something. He's Sebastian's friend. But he's my friend, too. He doesn't treat me like a kid. Norman is really smart. He knows everything. Maybe he could help me.

“Norman,” I called, running up to him. “Hey, Norman. I'm a ghost.”

Norman took a step and walked right through me.

It was weird, because it didn't feel like anything. When his body passed through my head, I saw inside him. But it was real dark, and I think I closed my eyes. I wish I'd closed my ears. I
heard
his heart. It sounded all squishy and wet.

“Norman,” I called as he walked away.

He didn't stop. It was hard to remember that people couldn't hear me. I was used to being seen. I'd been visible all my life. Well, I was invisible to adults sometimes, but they could still see me if they had to. I tried again.

“Norman!”
I shouted.

He paused and looked around, then said, “How peculiar. I appear to be having an auditory hallucination. Not unusual, considering the number of synapses in the cerebral cortex. I'm sure it's nothing to worry about.”

I had no idea what that meant. “
NORMAN
!” I shouted again. This time, he didn't even stop or look around. He ran down the street toward the mailman, who was coming this way. I guess he was waiting for a package or something.

I turned back toward the Winston House. I'm not supposed to cross the street by myself. That's one of the big rules. There are lots of rules, but only a couple of big ones. Those are the ones that, if you don't listen, you could get hurt. Don't play with matches. Don't talk to strangers. Don't get anyone in the Mellon family angry with you.

I guess the big rules didn't count right now. Even so, it felt funny walking across a street without holding anybody's hand. Then Yip ran ahead and a car came at him. I screamed. The car went right through Yip without hitting him. He wasn't hurt at all.

Even though I knew I couldn't be hurt, either, I didn't want to get hit. So I raced over and grabbed Yip and hurried to the other side of the street. I guess I was really a chicken crossing the road. That made me laugh.

I kept feeling happy all the way across town, until I got close to the hill. Then I walked up the hill, watching the Winston House growing bigger and bigger. It almost looked like a little castle. There were three floors. I could tell that from the windows. One corner had a round part—I don't know what they call it. That's what made me think of a castle. The old brown paint was pretty faded, and a lot of it had fallen off. By now, I was so close, I had to bend my head back to see the top of the house.

“It's daytime,” I said. “Nothing scary happens in the daytime.”

Boy, was that a lie. Look how much had happened to me already since I got up this morning.

But I had another idea. “I'm a ghost,” I said. “Nothing can hurt me.”

Boy, was that a lie, too. I thought about sinking into the ground, and knew that even when you're a ghost, bad things can happen.

“It's just other ghosts in there,” I said, looking ahead at the Winston House. “A ghost would never hurt another ghost.”

I wondered whether that was the biggest lie of all. It was like saying a kid would never hurt another kid, or an adult would never hurt another adult. Kids hurt kids all the time. There was a bully in my class, so I knew about getting hurt. And if adults didn't hurt other adults, we wouldn't need police officers and soldiers. But we have lots of them.

Stop talking,
I said to myself,
and get going
.

I walked up to the Winston House. For as long as I could remember, it had been empty. Nobody lived there. Nobody who was alive, at least. Right now, as I stood in the front yard, I could hear voices inside—a whole bunch of voices.

 

Seven

WELCOME?

I walked up the steps. When I realized what I was doing, I was so surprised, I stopped and looked down. Back home, I'd gone right through the porch. Maybe the Winston House was so haunted, it was like a ghost itself. I bent and touched the porch. I couldn't push my hand through it, but I didn't really feel anything.

I went up the rest of the steps and knocked on the door. Nobody came, but the door swung open. It made a spooky creaking sound, and I almost turned and ran. Even with the sun shining, the sound scared me. Yip trotted ahead. I guess he didn't know that this was a scary place. I followed him.

There were four people in a living room. Two men were sitting, reading books, and a man and a woman were talking. They were dressed differently. One of the men who was reading had ancient clothes, like someone from Pilgrim times. He was sitting in a plain old wood rocking chair. The woman and the other man with a book had old clothes, but not as old as the Pilgrim's. The man who was talking to the woman had normal stuff. The two of them were next to each other on a couch.

“Hi,” I called.

Nobody looked up.

“Hey. Can you hear me?” I shouted.

They didn't pay any attention to me. I walked into the middle of the room. They had to be ghosts. This was a haunted house, and I was sure that nobody could see them. Nobody who was alive, that is. I went up to the woman.

“Excuse me,” I said. I tapped her on the shoulder. She felt like Yip—that same feeling of being there, but being made of nothing. I was sure she was a ghost.

Even so, she paid no attention to me.

“Excuse me,” I said again. “Can you help me?” I felt another shiver run through me. I wasn't afraid of her—I was afraid she couldn't hear me. What if nobody—not even other ghosts—could hear me? I couldn't imagine ever being that alone.

Finally, she looked over. “Just a minute. I'm busy right now. Can't you see we're talking?”

“Sorry.” I backed up and waited, but I could tell right away that she'd forgotten all about me. I looked at the man she was talking to. He didn't notice me, either.

I walked over to the Pilgrim guy, but I realized he'd never help me. I'd learned that in school. The Pilgrims were always saying, “Children should be seen and not heard.”

Mrs. Rubric told us about that on the first day of school. Then, whenever we were talking, she'd say, “Now, class, let's all be good little Pilgrims.”

Yip was running around, sniffing at everything, but they didn't pay any attention to him, either. I went over to the last guy in the room. “Mister?” I said.

He held a finger to his lips and said, “Shush. Can't you see I'm reading. Whatever your question is, I'm sure it can wait.”

“But—” I was getting tired of this.

“Shush! Now, be a good boy and run along and play.”

I walked into the hallway. There was someone in the next room. It was a woman. Maybe she'd help me. As I walked in, she screamed.

I jumped back. I expected to feel my heart pounding, but there was nothing like that inside me. My body was quiet.

The woman clenched her fists and screamed again. Then she fell to the ground.

I didn't know what to do. I wanted to run. But I also wanted to help her. Before I could do anything, she got up. She screamed again. And she fell again.

And again.

I turned and ran down the hall, heading toward the door. I didn't care if there were answers here. The place was too creepy.

“You're new.”

I stopped and looked up toward the voice. There was a girl standing on the stairs by the second floor. She was about Angelina's age, but dressed like someone in those pictures from before there were cars and everyone rode around the cities in horse carts.

She came down a step. “Yes, you're new. But you aren't dead yet.”

“What?” I stared up at her as she came down the rest of the steps.

She reached out and put a hand on my forehead, almost like Mom does when I have a fever. Except Mom's hand feels cool when I have a temperature. This hand didn't feel cold or hot.

“An hour,” she said. Then she frowned and moved her hand a little like she was searching for something. “No, two hours. Yes, you have two hours. I'm sure of it.” She sighed and added, “I do so wish we had flowers here. I haven't seen flowers in ages.”

“What do you mean?” I didn't understand what she was talking about. “Two hours for what?”