The Pike River Phantom (10 page)

“Katya Torin,” Charlie prompted, “who was she?”

“A strange, wild girl—I could
never
forget her.” Mrs. Koch shivered. “She moved to Pike River one summer. Lived out in the country with her parents, but no one ever saw
them
. Just Katya. She came to school in September, though we never knew why. If she hadn't come, I doubt the authorities would have known the family was there. She certainly didn't come to learn—just sat there, scowling at the rest of us. Never talked. Never had a single friend, that I know of. And then the next summer she entered the Sunbonnet Queen contest, just as if she was—was like other girls. People laughed about it.…” A spasm of pain, or regret, crossed Mrs. Koch's face.

Charlie thought,
She was one of the people who laughed
.

“But how could she run for queen?” Rachel demanded. “I mean, if she never did anything but scowl? Grandma said all the contestants collected clothes for the poor that year. If Katya Torin did that, she must have talked to people.”

Mrs. Koch adjusted the pillow under her head. “Well, I suppose she did talk, then,” she said. “I know she went from house to house all over town asking for donations. And I guess folks felt sorry for her. Nobody thought she could win the contest, of course, but she looked so pathetic—so
needy
—like maybe she could use some of those old clothes herself. They gave her things, even when they'd already donated to someone else.”

“To Grandma Lou,” Charlie said.

Mrs. Koch nodded. “There were a couple of other girls in the contest, too, but we all took it for granted that Lou was going to win. Everybody but Katya. She just kept piling up clothes, and when the committee totaled the results, it turned out she'd brought in just about as much as Lou and the people who'd been helping her. It was a tie, you might say. So the committee had to pick the queen, and they chose Lou, since she was a native of Pike River and all. Everybody in town agreed they'd made the right choice, except Katya.”

Rachel's expression was solemn. “I can guess how
she
felt.”

Mrs. Koch shifted uneasily. “I'm not sure anyone even told Katya that Lou was to be queen—until Fourth of July morning, that is. Then all of a sudden there was Katya in the town square where the parade was getting organized. She was wearing a long dress—it might have been one she collected—and a sunbonnet she must have put together from cardboard. She went straight to the queen's float, just as if it belonged to her. When folks saw her coming, they tried to head her off, but it was too late.”

“What happened then?” Charlie asked, not sure he really wanted to hear.

“She went kind of crazy, I guess. I was there—all of Lou's friends were there. Katya started screaming when she saw Lou up on the float, and then she began striking out at everyone around her. She screamed that she had a right to be queen—that she'd worked harder than anyone else. That was probably true, but still … She knocked down one girl, I remember. When she reached the float, she scrambled up and caught the hem of Lou's long dress. I'm sure she would have pulled Lou down if some of the men hadn't come running and dragged her away.” Mrs. Koch wiped her eyes. “After all these years I can still hear her shrieks—the terrible things she said. They took her into the courthouse till she calmed down, and then someone drove her home. We never saw her again.”

“You mean—” Rachel was wide-eyed. “You mean she—did something to herself? Because she wasn't chosen queen?”

“I mean we didn't know what happened to her. Not then, anyway. The next day some of the committee members went out to the house where the Torins were staying. They were going to try to patch things up, but no one was around. The house seemed deserted. Katya didn't come back to school that fall, and the truant officer said the family had moved away. So we forgot about her—or we
tried
to.”

Charlie leaned forward eagerly. “Is that all? Did you ever hear anything about her again?”

“Well, I heard something,” Mrs. Koch admitted reluctantly. “A couple of years ago a nurse friend of mine—it was the same girl who was knocked down that morning in the square—she told me that Katya was in the mental hospital for the chronically insane in Madison. My friend saw her. She'd been there for years and years.”

Charlie's head whirled. Rachel looked as horrified, and as confused, as he was. Could Katya Torin be the phantom in the old house? How was it possible, if the real Katya was a patient in a mental hospital in Madison?

“I wonder—” Charlie began.

He was interrupted by a breathless, barely smothered squeak from Rachel. She was staring at the sofa as though hypnotized. Charlie followed her gaze and saw two beady black eyes peering from under Mrs. Koch's pillow. Whiskers twitched around a pointed nose, just a couple of inches from Mrs. Koch's cheek.

“The tea!” Rachel rose from her chair like a puppet on strings. “Mrs. Koch, you have to come in the kitchen and show me where the cups are.”

Mrs. Koch didn't move. “Look in the cupboard above the sink, dear. You can't miss them.”

“No, please show me.” Rachel tiptoed across the room and seized Mrs. Koch's hand. “Now, don't get up too fast,” she warned. “Some people get dizzy if they get up too fast.”
Do something
, she mouthed at Charlie, as she drew their bewildered hostess toward the kitchen.

Charlie picked up the broom. He moved swiftly down the hall, closing the bedroom and bathroom doors, opening the basement door wide. Then he rushed back to the living room and whipped the pillow off the couch. The terrified mouse took off toward the dining room. With a quick sweep of the broom Charlie sent it flying into the hall, then ran behind it all the way to the open door at the end. He closed the door, and was back in the living room when Rachel appeared with the tea tray. Mrs. Koch followed her carrying a plate of cookies.

Rachel looked at the couch, then at Charlie, who gave her a thumbs-up sign.

“This tea was a lovely idea,” Mrs. Koch said. “So relaxing. You're good children, both of you.”

Charlie smiled modestly. He was panting hard, but Mrs. Koch didn't notice.

“Now you can finish your story.” Rachel helped herself to a cookie. “About what happened to poor Katya Torin.”

“I think we've talked about that long enough,” Mrs. Koch said. “Such a depressing business. Besides, there's nothing more to tell.”

“Yes, there is,” Rachel persisted. “Do you think Katya went insane just because she didn't win the contest?”

“I'm sure there were other much more important reasons for her breakdown,” Mrs. Koch said primly. “She was an extremely odd girl to begin with. And there were rumors that her parents treated her badly.”

“Where did she live?” Charlie asked. “When she was in Pike River, I mean.”

“I never saw the house,” Mrs. Koch replied. “I did think it might be the same one you told us about, Charlie, when you said an old lady stole a candy bar from you. It gave me a real start, your saying she sent a message to Will ‘from the real Sunbonnet Queen.' But I knew there couldn't possibly be any connection with Katya Torin.”

“Why not?” Charlie and Rachel asked together. “Maybe—”

But Mrs. Koch shook her head firmly. “No connection at all,” she said. “Katya died in the mental hospital four months ago. My nurse friend sent me the obituary from the Madison paper.” She set her teacup down with a clink. “And that's enough about that subject, I'm sure. You should be getting home—your family will be worried—and I must go to bed. Though I wonder if I'll be able to sleep, thinking about that mouse. I'm scared to death of 'em. If I ever got really close to one, I'd surely die!”

CHAPTER 13

They stood in a moonlit backyard halfway between Mrs. Koch's house and Grandpa Will's. A mosquito whined around Charlie's head, loud as a buzzsaw in the hot June night.

“I never believed in ghosts till now,” Charlie complained. “I liked to
read
about them, but I never believed in them. I don't even
want
to believe in them.”

Rachel didn't answer right away, and he had a weird feeling that she might no longer be there beside him. Then her fingers touched his wrist.

“You don't have to believe in just any ghost, but how can we
not
believe in Katya, Charlie? We've seen her. We've talked to her. You tried to take her picture. And now we know why she's here. She's the ghost of a poor lady who died in an insane asylum, and she's come back to Pike River to get even for a rotten thing that happened more than fifty years ago.”

Charlie swatted at the mosquito. “Well, then, we'd better tell somebody,” he muttered. “If she's going to try to—”

“She hates me because I look like Grandma Lou,” Rachel went on, not listening. “She has the two of us mixed up. Losing the contest must have been the worst thing that ever happened to her. I want to be the queen myself, but I can't imagine caring
that
much.”

Charlie surprised himself. “I can,” he said. He felt a surge of admiration for strange, wild Katya. Without friends, without a family who cared about her, she'd tried to force Pike River to accept her as its queen. She must have known how hard it would be, but she'd tried, anyway.

“There's going to be trouble on the Fourth of July,” Rachel continued. “I just know it. Whether I'm the queen or someone else is. And nobody's going to believe us if we try to warn them.”

“Did you ever hear of a ghost that got younger?” Charlie asked. “That's the strangest part of the whole business. The first time I saw her she was as old as Grandma Lou. Next Saturday is the Fourth, and by then she could be just the age she was when—”

“When she tried to pull Grandma off the float.” Rachel completed the sentence in a whisper. “Oh, boy!”

They started walking again, moving slowly through the buzzing dark. “We should tell someone,” Charlie said again, but he knew Rachel was right. Who would believe them?

Grandma Lou had cocoa waiting when they reached the house. “We were about to send out a search party,” she joked. “Now you just drink this down, and you'll sleep peacefully as babies all night.”

Charlie doubted it would work, and it didn't. He was awake for what seemed like hours, turning and twisting. He thought about Mrs. Koch and the mouse, and about his father snoring gently beside him. Mostly he thought about Katya Torin. Every time he closed his eyes he saw her, looking down at them from the top of the stairs with hate-filled eyes. Who could sleep with a memory like that?

He didn't realize how restless he was till his father woke suddenly and switched on the bedside lamp. “For pete's sake, Charlie,” he muttered, “what's the matter with you? Too much bratwurst and baked beans?”

“I'm okay. Just can't get to sleep.”

John rolled over and squinted at him. “I don't suppose you want to tell your old man what the problem is.” He waited. “Or is your old man the problem again?”

“I said I'm okay,” Charlie muttered. “I'm sorry if I woke you up.”

“No big deal.” His father shrugged and turned off the light. “That was nice, wasn't it?” he said softly. “What Mrs. Koch said tonight.”

“What do you mean?”

“About being glad you and I came to Pike River,” John said. “About hoping we'd stay for a long time.”

Charlie took a deep breath. “Oh, that.”

“Yeah, that. What did you think I meant?” When Charlie didn't answer, he rolled over on his side, and in a few minutes he was snoring again.

Eventually Charlie slept, too, only to dream about the Fourth of July parade. He was standing on the curb in brilliant sunshine. Bands marched toward him. Floats, masses of red, white, and blue, loomed above him, and flags danced in the breeze. He was happy. After all, what could possibly go wrong at a Fourth of July parade?

Then he turned the other way and saw that as they passed him, the bands, the floats, and the flag-bearers were engulfed in boiling gray fog and disappeared completely.

CHAPTER 14

“Charlie! Get up and put some clothes on, dear. You have a visitor.”

Grandma Lou sounded falsely cheerful and a little impatient. She'd sounded that way all week. Charlie supposed it was because she was so anxious to find out if Rachel would be chosen Sunbonnet Queen. More anxious than Rachel, he thought as he scrambled across the tangle of sheets his father had left. Since Mrs. Koch's revelations last Saturday night, Rachel hadn't even mentioned the contest.

“Charlie! Are you coming?”

“Right away.” He pulled on cutoff jeans and a T-shirt and went down the hall to the kitchen. A man stood at the kitchen sink looking out over the patio. He wore jeans and a blue work shirt, and there was something familiar about his nearly-shoulder-length brown hair.

“Well, here he is at last,” Grandma announced. “Look who's come to see you, Charlie.”

The visitor turned. It was Mrs. Fisher's nephew Jacob, the one who had been carrying off her television set.

“Hi, kid.”

“Hi.” Charlie stayed where he was in the doorway. “What's wrong?” He wondered if Jacob had just found out that Charlie had suspected him of being a thief and had come to beat him up. If so, there was going to be a massacre right here in the kitchen. Jacob Fisher was a lot older and at least fifty pounds heavier than Charlie. His shoulder muscles bulged under the blue shirt.

“Charlie,” Grandma said reprovingly, “Jake has an invitation for you. There's no reason to look so hostile.”

Jake Fisher laughed. “There's no reason why he should feel friendly toward me, Mrs. Hocking,” he said. “If I hadn't been in such a hurry last week, maybe he wouldn't have gotten the wrong idea about what was going on. I was running late—my boss is a real bear if I take more than forty-five minutes for lunch—and I'd promised my aunt I'd get her TV set to the repair shop.” He grinned at Charlie. “I'm sorry, kid. When I took the TV back last night, Aunt Marie told me what happened. I could see how it must have looked to you.”