The Odds Get Even

by Natale Ghent

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THE GHOST

  Later that morning, Boney stood atop a rickety stepladder, trying desperately to affix his aunt’s broken rose trellis to the wall of the house.

  “Look on the bright side,” he mumbled, his mouth spiked with nails as he teetered on the stepladder. “At least we got out of school.”

  Squeak nodded in agreement from his lawn chair, where he was helping Itchy replace the sequins on the Elvis outfit. “My dad didn’t even ask for an explanation.” He positioned a sequin carefully on the sleeve, holding it in place with his thumb as he pierced it through the middle with the needle to affix it. “You can almost smell where the sequins should go if you look closely enough.” Squeak held his goggled face inches from the fabric, secured the sequin, then raised his head thoughtfully. “I still think we should get a mascot.”

  Boney’s hammer tapped an erratic rhythm against the trellis. “What do we need a mascot for?”

  “They’re good luck,” Squeak said.

  “Aaaaaaaahhhhhh!” Boney shouted, the nails shooting from his lips and plinking down the ladder to the ground. “These rose thorns are murder!”

  “I told you to wear gloves,” Squeak sighed.

  Boney gripped his hand in pain. “I can’t work with your dad’s gloves on. They’re too big.”

  Itchy just shook his head. He was sitting in a lawn chair next to Squeak’s, his own eyes trained on the pant cuff of his dad’s outfit, clumsy fingers fumbling with the sequins and needle and thread. He didn’t bother to look up any more when Boney screamed, it happened so often. “Four thousand sequins,” was all he said.

  Boney retrieved the nails and started hammering at the trellis again. “We need to think about our invention. That’s more important than a mascot right now.”

  “What happened with the ghost?” Squeak asked.

  “Ghost?” Itchy gasped, finally looking up from his work. He had sequins stuck all over his hands and face like sparkly fish scales.

  Boney shot Squeak a cautionary scowl over his shoulder.

  “You know,” Squeak blindly continued. “You said it spoke to you. You never told me what happened.”

  “What are you talking about?” Itchy demanded, pushing his sewing to one side, sending sequins fluttering brightly to the ground.

  Boney stared at Itchy. He wasn’t going to mention the ghost at all, given the situation. “It’s nothing,” he said, turning his attention back to the trellis.

  “WHAT ABOUT THE GHOST?” Itchy shouted, jumping to his feet.

  “Okay!” Boney shouted back. “Just remember, you wanted to know!”

  “I don’t believe you,” Itchy launched in before Boney had a chance to explain. “We’re up to our necks in it,” he waved wildly at the trellis and at Squeak, sewing sequins, “and you’re still running around looking for ghosts!”

  “I was killing time while your dad’s suit was at the cleaners,” Boney said, defending himself.

  “Oh, right!” Itchy snapped. “So, somehow this is my fault?”

  “I didn’t say that!”

  “He didn’t say that,” Squeak corroborated softly.

  Itchy held his hands in the air. “I don’t want to hear about it,” he fumed.

  “But you just said you did,” Boney replied.

  “Oh, yeah, isn’t that just like you to twist my words around,” Itchy accused him, clawing at his hair. He stormed back to where his sewing lay draped over the back of the lawn chair. He counted the sequins on the pant cuff furiously. “Fifteen!” he raged. “What’s four thousand minus fifteen?”

  Squeak opened his mouth to answer but Itchy cut him short.

  “It’s a lot—I can tell you that! We’re going to be sewing until we’re forty just to fix this mess.”

  “Actually,” Squeak piped up, “if we keep going at this pace, it shouldn’t take us more than a few weeks.”

  Itchy collapsed in his chair, pulling the leg of the costume into his lap. “What did the ghost say?” he whimpered.

  “Do you want to hear about it or not?” Boney asked.

  “Go ahead,” Itchy conceded. “You’re just going to tell us anyway.”

  “Fine.” Boney sat on the top rung of the ladder. “When I was down at the mill the first time, I saw the glasses.”

  “Glasses…?” Itchy repeated in confusion.

  “You know…the glasses. I told you about them before.”

  “The wire rims from the story,” Squeak added.

  “So what, you found some stupid old glasses,” Itchy scoffed.

  “They were by the firepit,” Boney continued, ignoring Itchy’s anger. “When I went to take a look at them, the wall started moaning.”

  “So…” Itchy groused.

  “So, it was the ghost,” Boney asserted. “It flew out from behind the wall and chased me. And then last night, while I was waiting for the cleaners, I went again, and this time it talked to me.”

  “What a load,” Itchy said, but his eyes were wide with fear.

  “It’s not a load!” Boney insisted.

  “What did it say, then?”

  Boney mimicked the sound of the ghost as best he could. “GET OUT! Get out of my mill!”

  Itchy snorted. “Obviously, it knows you.”

  “It’s all very exciting,” Squeak said. “I can’t wait to test the Apparator at the Old Mill…once we actually build it.”

  “Well, you can count me out,” Itchy retorted.

  “You don’t have to come. Squeak and I will test it out.”

  “Fine.”

  “I’m hoping the rare earth magnets will arrive in the mail today,” Squeak said.

  “Good,” Boney said. “We can start building the Apparator as soon as they arrive.”

  Itchy shook his head angrily. “What about my dad’s costume?”

  “We’ll work on that too,” Boney assured him.

  Itchy grumbled into the cuff of the suit.

  “Hey, look! I have one whole row done!” Squeak announced, holding up the sleeve of the costume.

  “Great,” Itchy grumbled. “Only 3,952 more sequins to go…”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  A BAD IDEA

  That evening after supper, the Odds gathered around the table in the clubhouse. Itchy’s old tire now hung by a rope from the east branch. Boney had placed it there as an apology to Itchy for the way things had turned out with his father’s costume.

  The rose trellis was fixed as best as it could be, patched with old pieces of wood found in Boney’s garage. The sequins would take much longer. Itchy sewed ceaselessly, muttering inaudibly, working by flashlight when the sun started to set.

  Boney lit a candle and placed it to one side of the table. Squeak produced the schematics for the ghost detector, unrolling the paper and holding it flat with small pebbles from his pocket.

  “Gentlemen…may I present the Apparator.”

  “We’ve already seen it,” Itchy said.

  Squeak ignored him, picking up a box from the floor and opening the lid. “Shall we check the inventory?” He handed Boney a small piece of paper with a handwritten list. Boney began to read as Squeak pulled the equipment from the box.

  “Capacitor.”

  “Check.”

  “Twelve-gauge copper wire.”

  “Check.”

  “Toggle switch.”

  “Check.”

  “Bakelite handle.”

  Squeak produced a black plastic handle from the box. “Check!”

  “Weller forty-watt iron.”

  “Check.”

  “Ion detector.”

  “Check.”

  “Deans ultra-connectors and rare earth magnets.”

  “Check and check!”

  Squeak arranged the items neatly on the table. “This is going to be the best invention ever.” He rubbed his hands together, then began assembling the Apparator—soldering connections, coiling copper wire, fitting pieces together.

  The boys ass
embled and sewed, undisturbed by bullies or emergencies of any kind. There was a brief moment when they believed they were being assaulted by eggs, but it turned out to be a shower of acorns from the oak tree that supported their clubhouse.

  Eventually, Boney’s aunt called him in for bed. The work had to stop for the night, but Boney complied without protest, being extra specially good so as to win his aunt’s favour. He had even asked for a second helping of soup casserole at dinner that night, telling his aunt it was the best casserole he’d ever eaten.

  THE NEXT MORNING when Boney climbed up the ladder to the clubhouse, Itchy was already there, sewing sequins. He wore a knit vest, striped in wild greens and oranges and browns. One armhole was wider than the other, and the vest looked too large.

  “My mom’s taken up knitting,” he explained when he saw the look on Boney’s face.

  Boney pulled the Blaster from his waistband and placed it on the table next to the box that housed the half-finished Apparator. He picked up a leg of the Elvis costume and began sewing sequins. He sewed a few to the cuff then cleared his throat. “I was thinking…we should have stuck to our original plan.”

  Itchy stopped, needle poised in the air. “What plan?”

  “The plan to lure Larry Harry and Jones and Jones to the Old Mill.”

  Itchy lowered his sewing in his lap. “We’re not doing anything of the kind.”

  “We still need to get back at them.”

  Itchy held up a sleeve. “Haven’t we made enough mistakes already?”

  “But our original plan was foolproof. Nothing can go wrong. We don’t have to borrow anybody’s costume or anything. We just lure Larry and Jones and Jones to the mill and let the ghost do the work.”

  Itchy rolled his eyes. “And how are we supposed to lure those creeps to the mill?”

  Boney opened his mouth to answer, but he was interrupted by a sudden clattering from Escape Hatch #1.

  “Hold still,” Squeak could be heard saying before his head appeared at the top of the ladder, red face sweating behind his gigantic goggles. “I figured out our mascot problem,” he proudly announced.

  “What mascot problem?” Boney asked.

  “Ta-da!” Squeak said, producing Snuff through the hole in the clubhouse floor.

  “Squeak, no!” Boney shouted as Snuff exploded from Squeak’s hands, snapping and snarling like the devil unleashed. The dog lunged across the clubhouse and leapt on Boney’s leg, grabbing the cuff of his pants and pulling Boney to the floor with a horrible thump. Boney reached for the Blaster, but his arm hit the supply shelf on the wall, tearing it down and sending empty cracker boxes and peanut butter and jelly jars flying across the clubhouse. Itchy sprang on his dog in a flurry of sequins, only to send the cutlery drawer springing from its spot on the table, the box with the Apparator sliding dangerously close to the edge, knives and forks and spoons crashing in a silver heap to the floor. Snuff yelped as several spoons hit his back, and he began snarling and snapping with even greater fury, convinced Boney had thrown the cutlery.

  “Snuff, no!” Squeak yelled as Boney kicked and cursed, until all at once he grabbed the Blaster and fired, sending the surprised dog skittering with a yelp down Escape Hatch #3.

  “Snuff!” Itchy cried, looking down the hole where the dog had disappeared. But there was only a puff of dirt in the air where Snuff had hit the ground.

  “There he goes!” Squeak said, pointing down the street to where Snuff was running furiously toward home.

  The boys gazed around the clubhouse. It looked as though a small tornado had touched down.

  “Perhaps Snuff isn’t the best mascot for us after all,” Squeak conceded.

  Boney looked at his torn pants in disgust. “He put a hole in my cuff. You know he hates me, Squeak. Why would you even try to bring him up here?”

  “I was hoping he could get to know you and you could be friends.”

  Boney gestured with the Blaster. “We’ll never be friends.”

  “Not if you keep shooting at him,” Squeak sniffed.

  “He really isn’t good for much,” Itchy admitted.

  Boney pulled himself up from the floor, securing the Blaster in his waistband. “Just forget about the whole mascot thing, Squeak. Look at this mess!”

  The boys began cleaning the clubhouse, reaffixing the supply shelf to the wall with twice as many nails as before, organizing the cutlery drawer to its former condition, and checking the Apparator to make sure it hadn’t been damaged. They even found a piece of plastic and covered the reference library bookshelf, just in case. When they were done, Boney and Itchy collapsed on the clubhouse floor. Squeak continued to work on the Apparator.

  “I can’t take it any more,” Itchy sighed. “First Larry Harry wrecks our lives, then my dad’s costume gets ruined, and now Snuff trashes our clubhouse.”

  “I told you, we’re going to get Prisoner 95 once and for all,” Boney insisted.

  “I don’t want to hear about it,” Itchy said. “Running after ghosts in spooky old haunted mills is crazy. We’ll just end up hurting ourselves, or getting beat up even worse than we already do.”

  “We will need to go to the Old Mill,” Squeak said, grinning broadly, “because the Apparator is finished.” He tightened a screw on the handle, then held it up for the others to see. “Gentlemen, may I present the $500 prize-winning entry at this year’s Invention Convention.”

  The Apparator glistened in the light, its black handle shining, its clear tube wrapped artfully in copper wire. On the handle was a small red switch and hand-painted letters that read “The Apparator.”

  “It looks great,” Boney said. “We can test it tonight.”

  “I thought you were grounded for life,” Itchy said.

  “I’ll ask for three helpings at dinner tonight, if I have to. My aunt will let me do anything after that.”

  Itchy folded his arms across his chest. “I don’t care. I’m not going to the mill.”

  “Fine,” Boney said. “Stay here by yourself. But don’t cry to us when the mail thief comes looking for you.”

  Itchy’s mouth flapped up and down in futile protest. “This is so unfair.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THE BIG TEST

  That night, the Odds rode in a tight group toward the mill: Boney on his metallic-blue Schwinn, Squeak swerving with his goggle vision on his red Raleigh cruiser, and Itchy on his mom’s old green CCM, complete with flowered grocery basket strapped to the handlebars. They wove through the darkened streets, punching in and out of the lamplight until the lights disappeared and the street turned to gravel. When they reached the top of the hill leading to the Old Mill the boys skidded to a stop, the dust kicking up in little clouds around their bikes.

  “Now remember,” Boney said, “we keep our bikes close, just in case anything goes wrong.”

  Squeak nodded. Itchy gulped.

  Boney pushed off with his foot, coasting his Schwinn slowly toward the stone ruins. Squeak and Itchy followed close behind, Itchy’s front tire rubbing dangerously against Squeak’s rear tire.

  “You’re going to make me crash,” Squeak hissed over his shoulder.

  “Sorry,” Itchy apologized, applying the brakes.

  As they reached the abandoned mill, Boney dismounted and guided his bike carefully through the opening in the stone foundation. Squeak did the same. Itchy stood at the entrance peering cautiously into the ruins.

  “Come on,” Boney rasped.

  Itchy followed reluctantly, yanking his mom’s bike across the rocks. The bike clattered over the stones, eliciting dirty looks from Boney and Squeak.

  “Sorry,” Itchy apologized again.

  The boys leaned their bikes against the stone wall. Itchy moved to engage his kickstand, but Boney stopped him.

  “You might not want to do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “We might need to make a quick getaway.”

  The boys peered nervously through the dark night air. Boney stepped for
ward, his sneakers grinding loudly over the gravel. Itchy and Squeak watched from the safety of the stone wall.

  “Is there a reason why we have to test the Apparator in the dark?” Itchy asked. “Don’t ghosts come out during the day, too?”

  “All reported sightings of the ghost have been at night,” Squeak informed him. “It only makes sense that we come in the dark if we hope to get an accurate reading.”

  “That’s what I was afraid of,” Itchy grumbled, pulling a Big Turk bar from his back pocket and ripping open the wrapper.

  “How can you eat at a time like this?” Squeak asked.

  Boney grimaced. “How can you eat that at all? Big Turks don’t even qualify as chocolate.”

  Itchy took a large bite from the bar. “It helps me relax.”

  Boney walked across the ruins to the firepit. “Hey, guys, over here. This is where I was standing when I saw the ghost. The glasses should be here somewhere.” He searched the ground, kicking through the dirt with his sneakers. “They were here before, I swear.”

  “Don’t touch anything,” Squeak advised as he pulled the ghost detector from his messenger bag. “We don’t want to disrupt the ectoplasmic energy.”

  “Definitely not,” Itchy said, opening another chocolate bar and taking a bite. He looked warily around the ruins, chewing quickly.

  Squeak held the detector in the air. “I feel we should say a few words before we run the test. You know, kind of like what the Queen does at a ship christening ceremony.”

  “Fine,” Boney agreed.

  Squeak cleared his throat. He assumed an official air, speaking in a lower voice, the kind an important scientist might have. “After many days of effort, we are finally standing here, three scientists, dedicated to unearthing the truth behind nature’s mysteries, dedicated to a study of the intricate fabric of this world’s subtle complexities, dedicated to—”

  “Can we get on with it?” Itchy snapped through chocolate-covered teeth.

  Squeak turned indignantly toward Itchy. “Some of us take this sort of thing rather seriously.”

  “Well, I take my life seriously,” Itchy retorted.