Dedication
For my adorable son, Wyatt, and all his ragamuffin friends
May you build Lego kingdoms, skip stones, play hide-and-seek, roller-skate at Moonlight Rollerway, play little league at Silverlake Rec, catch hermit crabs in Cape Cod, build frog cities in Door County, design lizard hotels in the San Gabriel creeks, giggle at Bob Baker Marionette Theater, rattle off the heroes of Olympus, build rocket ships out of cardboard boxes, and wield your Harry Potter wands for eternity. If I could capture you all in a snow globe, I would hand you to the gods and say, “You see, this is why we must save the world.”
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Part One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Part Two
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Part Three
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Books by Andrea Portes
Copyright
About the Publisher
1
I’VE ALWAYS ENJOYED listening to people fight. Not physical fighting, of course. What do you take me for, some kind of brute? No, no. I am talking about the kind of fighting you hear if, say, you are on a road trip with your family and suddenly, somewhere between Carlsbad and Yellowstone, you decide to pull over for the night at random motel number 536, always with a flickering neon sign, a slightly bored lady at the front desk, and a painting above the beds of either a seascape, usually with seagulls, or a landscape, usually with mountains and possibly a deer.
None of this art is going to make it into the MoMA, incidentally, but I do find it oddly comforting.
I’m speaking about word-fights. Especially the fights between couples. Fascinating. There I would sit, ear to the wall, trying to discern every tone, every accusation, every rebuttal, piecing it together like puzzles on Blue’s Clues. What does it mean? Why is she so mad? It seems like he’s really trying. Is this the end? Will they make up? Or have they had enough?
You would think, after my twelve years of motel fight investigations, that I would be able to remember a single fight that ended with agreement and cheerful banter. But never. I’m not sure if that’s because arguments in motel rooms are doomed from the start, or maybe if, perhaps, I just wasn’t close enough to actually hear the reconciliation. Because it was a hug. Or a tender look. Or a hand gesture. Something I couldn’t hear through the paper-thin wall.
Henry, of course, has always considered this habit of mine to be crass and beneath me. And he’s probably right. But just because a person is right does not mean they are going to dampen my morbid curiosity.
And as it so happens, my morbid curiosity, in this case, turns out to be more of a plus than a negative. Not a saving grace. Not a miracle, mind you. But just helpful. A helpful bad habit.
I bet you are wondering what I am even talking about. That’s okay. I wonder that a lot of times, too. The worst time to wonder that, I have learned on my twelve years on Earth, is in the middle of a sentence. Because you know you have to complete the sentence, but you are working with nothing. There is just nothing in there to grab. Yet you must power through. You must solve the mystery of what is coming out of your mouth by the end of the sentence. A daunting challenge.
Of course, this never happens to Henry. His sentences, if they come out at all, come out in logical phrases or even paragraphs, perfectly pieced together, subject verb predicate, with the fastidiousness of Daniel Webster or Hermione Granger. Which is why it’s not always the easiest for Henry to make friends. I mean, does anybody ever really want to compete, voluntarily, with that?
As it turns out, yes.
You see, something strange happened last year, near the middle of the year. Something mysterious indeed.
Henry, my brother, made a friend.
And this friend was not what you thought he’d be. You see, if I had constructed from my imagination the perfect friend for Henry, I would have probably imagined a glasses-wearing, redheaded, freckled, slightly pudgy, possibly nose-picking boy named Harold, or Igby.
But that is not who turned up at all.
One day, in early September, Henry showed up at the house with what looked, and still looks, like one-fifth of a boy band. A person who was sporting a blond mop of hair, almost a surfer cut, with, get this, blue streaks. Checkered Vans, skinny distressed jeans, a jean jacket with a faded cityscape on the back—and a love of magic, Legos, Rube Goldberg contraptions, and a continuous smile on his face. A happy-go-lucky kid. A funny kid. A smart kid. A witty kid.
A kid with a very strange name.
Henry did not tell us, any of us, not Marisol, not Claude, not Terri, that he would be coming home with this new BFF. Or that he even had this new BFF. The whole thing was thrust upon us, and we were to make sense of it what we would.
I just walked in the kitchen and there they were, avec ant farm, peering into the tiny corridors and passageways constructed by the ants.
Marisol and I stood there, speechless, trying to understand what this meant, what this could mean, what this should mean. But to no avail. Their interest in the ants was tantamount.
You’re probably wondering why I am telling you this. Welp, ladies and germs, there’s a reason for the new friend. None of the things later could have happened, or would have happened, without both Henry making said friend and us finding said friend in our kitchen, wondering if he’d gotten lost on his way to some super-cool activity like DJ Skillz class or Future Leaders of Greenpeace.
Just as a Ferris wheel ascends and descends on each little cog and screw . . . this little tale lies firmly on the axis of Henry’s new friend and my essentially limited spying ability.
I should catch you up, though. We should all be looking at the same slate. You see, it’s not a blank one. No, no.
Hmm . . . how to tell the story of two kids, five ghosts, and one villain? Concisely, I suppose. In a manner of expedience.
You see, last summer, something very strange happened, and it did not happen to mermaids in the middle of Muskogee or chupacabras from the oil fields of Texas or unicorns from the lost city of Atlantis. Nope. It happened to us. And I couch it like that because, let’s face it, it seems un
likely. Like a fairy tale. Or a myth. Or a spooky campfire story. And in some ways I wish it was. Because part of it is sad and horrible.
But not every part.
Part of it is also wondrous and amazing. Sublime. Like life. Part awful, part beautiful. Almost like you can’t have one without the other. A payment. A tally. A scale. The Ferris ride, itself, pointless if it doesn’t go down before going up, or vice versa. I mean, honestly, who would ride a Ferris wheel if you just had to sit there? You wouldn’t even pay for the ticket!
“Here, can I pay you three tickets just so I can sit here like a rump roast?”
No. There has to be both the up part and the down part. So, here we go . . . we’ll start with the down.
Last year, before the end of the school year, our parents died. And they didn’t just die, they were in a “boating accident.” Yet it wasn’t just a boating accident. But a setup. You see, we had an uncle who decided that money mattered more than love, or decency, or morality, for that matter, and his greed drove him to get rid of our parents in the hope that he would inherit our rather old Victorian house perched oh-so-precariously on the side of a cliff in Big Sur.
Now, this house has been in the family since the gold rush. Yes, 1849. But our uncle decided he should inherit it and, more important, the land underneath it, so he could sell it and run off with the money, which he probably would have blown, let’s face it, in two years. Now, I’m not going to tell you which uncle it was. Because that would be giving away the ghost.
However, I will tell you this, this fact, which you probably won’t believe until you witness it. That’s fine. I’m not mad. I wouldn’t believe it, either. I mean, I would be crossing my arms at this, immediately.
But the simple fact of the matter is that by the end of this great tragedy, or mystery, or whatever you wish to call it, my brother and I inherited a kind of superpower. I know, I know. You still don’t believe me. But it’s true. No matter how far-fetched or “Northern California” it may sound. Okay, ready? The superpower is . . .
My brother and I can see ghosts.
And not just see them, we can communicate with them. Like talk to them. In detail. Long conversations. Witty banter. Jokes. What have you. It’s actually a pretty fascinating skill because, unlike in movies or books, you get to go back in time through someone’s actual memory and learn what it was like, say, when the Donner party was found, or when the Titanic sank, or when the Wright brothers flew a plane up from the beaches of Kitty Hawk.
It’s not superstrength, or invisibility, or the power of flight, but it’s not bad.
Still, I understand. You don’t believe me. And that’s fine.
You’ll see.
In the meantime I should probably tell you where we are. And what we are doing here. And why this night will forever take the cake as the weirdest, most dangerous, most perilous night of all time.
And yes, there will be ghosts.
2
REMEMBER WHEN I was telling you about Henry’s new friend? I mean, you must. It wasn’t that long ago, jeez.
Well, I’m going to tell you a few facts now about said friend. And I urge you to hold your judgment until the end of the fact parade.
Fact number one: He’s from LA.
I know, I know. But don’t hate him. I know everybody from LA is supposed to be stupid and vapid and think that Chekhov is only a character from Star Trek. It is supposed to be the land of plastic surgery, palm trees, swimming pools, and movie stars. But I will tell you one or two things I have learned from our new friend—sushi burritos. And Korean tacos. And tofu, just straight from the box. Even seaweed. The crinkly kind. Also, I have never seen someone who cared less about what people look like. No, really.
Have you ever noticed how sometimes adults seem surprised at what people look like in relation to what they are? Like, say, where they are from? You know, on the globe? Or in their background. Like, if they meet Marisol, who hails originally from Guatemala, they sometimes start speaking English in an overemphasized manner? As if she won’t understand? Or if, say, they meet someone who is Asian and they ask them where they’re from and seem surprised if they say, like, San Jose? So, that quality, even on the smallest, most minuscule level . . . seems to be completely absent from Henry’s new friend. It’s almost as if he could meet someone purple, from the planet Zorth, and not skip a beat. He’d just say, “Wanna build a fort?” and that would be that.
Is this, I wonder, a product of his LA upbringing? A natural consequence of growing up in a place where the corner-mall signs are in Armenian, Spanish, Chinese, Yiddish, Russian, Taiwanese, Tagalog, Japanese, Vietnamese, French, and maybe English?
Is “different” just “normal” for him? Like, for most people, having a library or a post office?
This trait, I’ve decided, is my favorite trait of the new friend.
And now, for his name:
Zeb.
Yup. A country-sounding name. A western name. A name that makes you think he should be riding horses. And maybe lassoing something. A name meaning he should be wearing a shirt with mother-of-pearl snaps. Maybe cowboy boots. But in reality, he’s a total city slicker.
Our aunt Terri seems to think that Zeb is the cutest thing to walk the earth since ladybugs. She even buys him stuff if we are out somewhere there is stuff to be bought. But, let’s face it, she really likes buying stuff. So, she’ll buy a trinket for me, a trinket for Henry, and a trinket for Zeb. As if somehow, this boy, this new boy, is her adopted son. A son from out west. A son she could teach all her lasso tricks to and tell stories to by the fire, in front of a spit. A shooting star flying over them.
Our uncle Claude, on the other hand, seems confused by Zeb and his blue streaks. Why, exactly, does he have blue streaks in his hair? Where did they come from? What are they for? When I explain to Claude that they are an expression of his individuality, the sides of Claude’s lips go down, as if in doubt. I say, “Don’t you see, Claude? It’s a way of him saying not all is as it should be?” And Claude will say, “Is that it? Sounds pretty profound of a statement for an eleven-year-old.” And then I, too, will doubt my assessment. Maybe sometimes a blue streak is only a blue streak. Nothing more. The kind of thing you would just randomly have if you were from LA.
I’ll tell you this. None of the kids our age, here in Big Sur, have them. It wouldn’t even occur to them.
Now the third fact: He met Henry because both he and Henry were separated in their school for being weird. Now, when I say weird, maybe you will think that’s a bad thing, or a derogative thing, but really it just means that they have a tendency to tinker, experiment, and investigate when they are supposed to be listening. The problem, according to the teachers, seems to be that they aren’t paying the necessary attention to the matter at hand. However, I think the problem is that the matter at hand doesn’t have enough to do with the solar robot they are building out of a tin can they found in the garbage.
I, for one, am just happy Henry has a playmate who is just as interested in ant farms, potion-making, and flying-robot- building as he is. Because now these things don’t need to be handled alone.
Simply speaking, two weirds make a right.
You may be wondering why this aforementioned Zeb happens to be in Big Sur in the first place. Quite frankly, Big Sur is more of a travel destination than a place to move to. A place people come to from all corners of the country to freak out on the steep, winding roads snuggled between the cliffs and the perilous sea hundreds of feet below. A place to go whale watching. A place to eat dinner at that wooden restaurant on the cliff nestled in the middle of all the eucalyptus trees. A tourist place.
But it just so happens that Zeb’s dad is a journalist, tried and true, and was asked to become the editor in chief of the Monterey Herald. Now, as far as fast-breaking news organizations go, this doesn’t feel like much. But there is a second topping to this here ice-cream cone, which is that Zeb’s parents are divorced. So he splits his time between Big Sur with his da
d and Carmel-by-the-Sea with his mom, who I know nothing about so stop asking.
And, from what I gather, Zeb has no interest in talking about it, either. It seems to roll off him like everything else, an afterthought. Like, yeah, that happened, but let’s get back to this Lego contraption I just created with flashing lights that is capable of nuclear fusion. That is what we are doing here! He doesn’t want people to feel sorry for him or say “di-vorce” in a weird whisper and make a sad face at him. He just wants to treat it like the sun coming up in the east, and the moss growing on the north side of the trees. A simple fact. Nothing more. Nothing to interrupt his experiments.
So the Monterey paper job isn’t exactly a stepping-stone to Reuters. But Zeb’s journalist dad seems content to manage the paper, in this beautiful place, this quiet but tranquil nest. He can do that here. Just be at peace.
Except that now he’s getting married. Which I think is a sort of wrench in the works. I’m fairly sure that was not part of his quiet, bucolic plan. In fact, I’m fairly sure it was a surprise to everyone involved, including Zeb.
Now, the entire reason for this long and possibly drawn-out explanation is that tonight, the night in question, takes place on the wedding night of said dad and new bride. A night where seemingly all the men and women from Cayucos to Bodega Bay have gathered to celebrate the nuptials of Zeb’s dad and a woman named Binky. I have not yet determined if this is her real name or the shortening of a longer name, such as Belinda or Elizabeth or Beatrice. But she was introduced as Binky and she’s on the ivory engraved wedding invitation as Binky, so I would say she’s all in as far as that is concerned.
The location, on said ivory wedding invitation, was enough to make us gasp, as it is the first time anyone I have ever met or heard of has ever attempted, or even thought to attempt, such a feat. You see, it’s a grand affair. A bit grander than I would have imagined Zeb’s quiet, dignified, discerning dad to find acceptable.
And Zeb, of course, just shrugs about it. You know Zeb.
I can only imagine this is Binky’s doing. An idea she had that was worthy of someone named Binky. A grand idea. A showstopping idea. An idea as if to say, “I have arrived. I am here! Observe me! Respect me! Quake in my presence! For I am Binky!”
Henry & Eva and the Famous People Ghosts Page 1