The Gloomy Ghost (4 page)

“That's how much life your body has left,” she said. She smiled and closed her eyes. “You look very peaceful, lying there. Yes, two hours. If nobody finds you…”

“After that?” I asked.

“Then you'll be dead for good, and you'll never be able to go back. But you can come here.” She let her hand drop from my forehead. “Could you bring me flowers?” she asked.

I turned and ran from the house. As I rushed down the steps, I looked at my watch. It was 4:13. If I didn't get someone to find my body, I'd be dead by 6:13—dead forever.

 

Eight

THE SPIRITS ARE ABOUT TO SPEAK

I ran down the street. Yip ran with me. He was having a lot of fun. I wasn't. When I got to the bottom of the hill, I saw something that made me stop.

“That's it,” I said. There was a house with a sign in the window. I couldn't read all of the words—I'm just learning a little bit of that right now. They aren't teaching it in school yet, but Sebastian's been showing me some words. I know how to read
house
and
car
and
vampire
. And I know
Frankenstein
from Sebastian's poster. That didn't help. Those words weren't on the sign in the window. But there was a picture of a hand and a crystal ball. I knew what that meant—there was a fortune-teller here. Maybe she'd be able to see me.

I was so excited, I ran right through the door. Inside, there was a woman sitting at a table. She had a scarf on her head and big earrings. She was staring into a crystal ball. Another woman, who looked like a grandmother, sat on the other side of the table. This was great. I knew I'd come to the right place.

The woman with the earrings waved her hand over the crystal ball, then looked up at the other woman and said, “You were wise to come to Madam Zonga. I know all. I see all. I can speak with the spirits.”

Boy, was this a relief. I ran up to her and said, “Hi!”

“I hear the spirits speaking,” Madam Zonga said.

“Yeah. That's me. Rory. I need help.” It felt so good to be able to talk to someone, I jumped up and down and clapped my hands together. This was super lucky. I could tell her about my body under the bushes, and then she could call Mom and Dad. I wouldn't have to stay dead.

“What do the spirits say?” the other woman asked.

“Oh, this is terrible.” Madam Zonga gasped and clenched her fists. “They tell me you have a curse on your money.”

“What?” I didn't know what she was talking about. “That's not what I said.” Maybe she was talking to other spirits. I looked around the room, but there was nobody else there.

“Yes,” Madam Zonga said, “they are very clear about this. And they are worried about you. There is a terrible curse.” She closed her eyes and shuddered.

I turned away from her and ran over to the woman. “I didn't say anything about money. I ate some berries and I'm gonna die. Help me.”

She didn't hear me, either. “A curse?” she said. She hunched up in her chair like she was trying to hide. “Can you help me?”

“Of course,” Madam Zonga said. She raised a finger to her lips to make the other woman be quiet. Then she stared into the crystal ball again for a minute. “The spirits are guiding me. They have told me what to do. You must take all of your money from the bank and bring it to me this evening. Wrap it in a handkerchief—a plain white handkerchief. With the help of the spirits, I will remove the curse.”

“You can do that?” the lady asked.

“I will try my best,” Madam Zonga said. She reached out and held the other woman's arm. “It is very dangerous for me to try, but I must help you.”

“Thank you. Thank you very much.” The woman stood up and hurried out the door.

“What spirits?” I said to Madam Zonga.

She got out of her chair as soon as the lady left. Then she went through a curtain to another room and picked up the phone. “Hi,” she said to the person on the other end. “It's me. I got a good one. We'll make enough to get out of town. Get packed up. I want to be out of here tonight, before she realizes we have her money.”

She hung up. Then she laughed.

When I saw Madam Zonga laughing, I got so angry, I tried to hit the table, but my fist went right through it. “You liar! You cheater!” I screamed. She didn't hear anything. “You're just a big fat fake!”

Yip growled at her. She didn't notice.

It was no use. She couldn't hear either of us. I raced out of there. I had to get home. But I was so angry, I could hardly think. Calm down, I told myself. I took a deep breath, even though I didn't need to breathe, then I took a couple of steps. As I walked toward the curb, a van came by. It slowed down. There was something turning around and around on the top of the van. It looked like some kind of antenna. The van stopped.

I took another really deep breath. That was better. I was hardly angry at all. The van drove past me and went down the road.

I realized I could get home quicker if I took a shortcut. I didn't have to go along the streets. I could just go straight toward my house. Instead of walking around Hutchin's Department Store on the corner, I went through it.

Yip followed right along. I didn't worry about anything in front of me. I just walked. When I came out of the other side of the store, I kept going straight toward my house. I went through parked cars and trees and the bookstore and the shoe store.

Then I walked right through a house. At first, I started to go through the porch, but then I learned something. If I really looked where I was walking, I could go up steps. But I had to pay attention and remind myself that they were there. If I walked without looking, I went through the steps. After I came out of that house, I went through another. I was walking through the next house after that when I heard something that made me stop.

“All aboard!” a voice shouted.

I knew that voice. It was Becky. I looked around and I realized where I was right away. I was in the middle of her house, in the living room. I followed the voice to the playroom. Becky was there with a train set. That's right—I remembered something. Today was her birthday.

“Great trains,” I said.

She didn't hear me. That's okay. But they really were great trains. I wish I had a set like that. Becky was running them around in a big loop. Besides the train and the track, she had some tiny houses and trees and a couple of cows.

She had lots of extra train cars, too. I watched while she added cars, making the train longer and longer. It was really great. She didn't just hook up the cars. She made the train do it. She'd put a new car behind the train, then have the train go backwards. When it bumped into the next car, everything got hooked together. Then she'd make it go forward around the track.

Yip barked and chased after the trains. He kept trying to pick them up in his mouth. It was funny. I wanted to play with them, too, but seeing Becky play with them was almost as good. Maybe I could ask for a train set for Christmas. Of course, I'd have to be alive to ask for it.

Alive!

I looked at my watch. It was 5:27. I'd been watching the trains and I'd forgotten all about getting home. Now, I had only—I tried to figure it out, but I couldn't. I just knew it wasn't a lot of minutes.

“I gotta go,” I said to Becky as I rushed out of her house.

 

Nine

HAS ANYBODY FOUND MY BODY?

When I got home, I ran around to the backyard to see if my body was still there. It was. I tried to grab my legs so I could drag myself out from under the bushes, but I couldn't put my hands on me.

Maybe I could get someone inside to find me. I think Sebastian almost heard me before, when I'd shouted. Maybe people in a family can sort of hear ghosts. I went to the porch and walked carefully up the steps. The back door goes right into the kitchen. That's good, because I didn't want to go anywhere near the living room. Even thinking about the living room, where the you-know-what was, made me start to sink into the floor a little.

Mom was in the kitchen, walking back and forth, saying, “Where could he be? This isn't like him to run off.”

Dad was sitting at the table. “Rory's fine,” he said. “I'm sure he's just afraid to come home. But it'll start to get dark soon, and he'll come back.”

I tried to make them hear me.
“Look under the bushes!”
I shouted. But they didn't hear anything at all.

Maybe Angelina or Sebastian would hear me. I went up the stairs. At first, I couldn't find them. I thought they'd be in their own rooms. But they were both sitting in my room, looking real sad. “Hey, I'm okay,” I said. “You just have to find me.”

Sebastian sort of frowned, then said, “I know he's okay. I just know it.”

Angelina nodded. “Yeah. I sort of feel that, too. But I wish he'd come back. I'm worried.”

I heard a doorbell, then footsteps. Norman came up the hall and into my room. “Look, I got a new set of magnets,” he said, holding up a box. He reached in and held up two big bars of metal. “Check this out.” He put one magnet on the rug, then he moved the other near it. The first one slid away. I'd seen that before. I have some tiny plastic dogs that do the same thing. The heads push each other away, but the head sticks to the tail.

“Not now,” Sebastian told him. “We've got problems.”

“What's wrong?” Norman asked.

Sebastian looked down at the floor for a moment, then said, “Rory is missing.”

“Oh, no.” Norman picked up his magnets and dropped them back in the box. “Have you looked for him?”

“We've been looking all day,” Sebastian said. “I went everywhere—to the school and the park and the mall. And all around the neighborhood. Dad's been driving all over town. He just came back a couple of minutes ago. And he called the police, and they're looking, too.”

The police?
Wow. Oh, wow. I felt that big guilty feeling, when you know you've been really really really bad. The police were looking for me. As bad as that was, I realized it was also good. Maybe they'd find me. But they hadn't yet. Nobody had found me. It was those stupid bushes. If I wasn't under there, they'd see me. But my hiding place was just too good.

I looked at my watch. Oh, no. It was 5:49. That's real close to being 6:13. I ran back down the stairs and out to the yard. I wanted to drag myself out so they'd find me and take care of me and I wouldn't have to stay dead. But that wouldn't work. I couldn't touch myself. I couldn't move myself.

No. That was wrong. I was so excited when I realized what to do, I shouted,
“I got it!”

With Yip chasing along behind me, I ran to the bushes. It would work. It had to.

 

Ten

REPULSIVE RORY

It was true—I couldn't touch myself. But that didn't mean I couldn't move myself. It meant I
could
move myself. It was just like with the magnets. At least, I hoped it was. There was some kind of force keeping me from putting my ghost hand on my real body.

If it worked like magnets, it would save me. If it didn't, I was in big trouble.

I went to the back of the bushes and tried to touch my shoulders. The closer my hands got, the more I felt something pushing me away. But I just kept pushing back harder. I got on my knees and really pushed harder than I'd ever pushed in my life. Or after my life.

“Move,” I grunted as I pushed.

I moved.

What I mean is, my body moved. I slid. Just a tiny bit at first. But I kept pushing, and my body kept sliding. I was slowly moving out from under the bushes.

It was hard at first. I really had to push. Once I got myself moving, it was a little easier. Moving my body was like sliding a heavy box across the floor. The funny thing was that I didn't feel tired. I could push forever. I sure hoped I didn't end up having to do anything forever. I could still see that woman in my mind—the one in the haunted house who was screaming and falling down over and over.

“I did it,” I said as I realized my body was mostly out from under the bushes. But I kept pushing until I was all the way out. I didn't want to take any chance that they wouldn't find me. Then, just to be sure, I pushed myself closer to the middle of the yard, next to where I'd left my bike. It's a two-wheeler. I learned how to ride it last month.

I checked my watch. It was 5:58. I just needed to get Mom and Dad to find my body. I looked up at the house. Someone was staring down at me from Angelina's bedroom window. It was Darling. She's Angelina's cat.

I wondered if she could see me. Cats were always looking at things. They'd sit in the middle of a room and stare at something that wasn't there. Or maybe it was there, and nobody else could see it. I ran back toward the house and up the porch steps. I got so excited, I almost ran through the steps again.