The Odds Get Even

by Natale Ghent

Squeak rolled his eyes and turned to Boney. “Sir, if you’re ready…”

  When Boney nodded, Squeak pressed the red switch on the handle of the Apparator with his thumb. There was a click, and a low hum began to emanate from the detector. The tube at the end of the black handle began to pulse green, the light reflecting in the thick lenses of Squeak’s goggles like two luminescent squid.

  “How do we know when it’s detected a ghost?” Boney asked.

  “The light changes according to the ectoplasmic energy field,” Squeak explained, mesmerized by the humming device. “It evolves from green, which means safe, to yellow, which means caution, to red, which means a ghost is in the area.”

  “It’s turning yellow now!” Itchy said, pointing to the glowing tube.

  “Cool,” Boney said, watching as the pulsing light grew in intensity.

  “It’s turning red!” Itchy wailed. “Let’s get out of here!”

  “Not yet,” Squeak said. “We need proof that we’re actually detecting a ghost.”

  “Like what? A dead body?”

  “It could just be fluctuations in the barometric pressure causing an increase in static electricity affecting positive air ion levels,” Squeak explained. “We need to know for certain that the detector isn’t giving a false reading.”

  “Yes, of course,” Itchy agreed, sarcastically. “We wouldn’t want a false reading.”

  The Apparator continued to change. A low moaning rose up from behind the stone walls.

  “Ha ha, very funny,” Itchy said to Boney.

  “It wasn’t me,” Boney said.

  Itchy looked at Squeak.

  “It wasn’t me either,” Squeak said.

  The detector began to buzz. The tube turned fire-engine red as the moaning grew louder, filling the air.

  “It’s the ghost!” Itchy screamed, pointing across the mill to a shimmering form rising from behind a pile of rubble.

  “Run for it!” Boney yelled.

  Itchy grabbed Squeak’s shirt and sent him tripping to the dirt. The ghost detector fell out of his hands and rolled wildly across the ground. Boney stumbled over Squeak’s sprawled legs and went flying to the ground as well.

  “STAY OUT OF MY MILL!” the ghostly voice growled.

  The shimmering form streaked toward the Odds as they scrambled over each other to reach their bikes. The abandoned Apparator glowed angrily on the ground.

  “We’re getting out!” Itchy shouted, grabbing his bike and jumping on the seat. His feet pounded against the pedals and dirt sprayed everywhere as he launched toward the opening in the wall, only to hit a rock and catapult head first over the handlebars into the grass.

  Boney and Squeak ditched their bikes. They grabbed Itchy’s arms and attempted to heave him to his feet, but his legs turned instantly to overcooked spaghetti noodles.

  “STAY OUT OF MY MILL!” the ghost shrieked, rushing across the ruins, its dark mouth gaping, its empty eye sockets trained on the boys.

  “AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH! It’s curtains for us!” Itchy screamed as the ghost fell upon the Odds in a heap.

  Determined not to go down without a fight, Boney kicked and shouted, grabbing the ghost by the head and pounding furiously with his fists. Squeak lay like a paralyzed hamster on the ground, eyes and mouth frozen open.

  “Ow!” The ghost yelled as Boney continued to kick and punch.

  “It is curtains,” Squeak suddenly announced, emerging from his paralysis.

  “Huh?” Boney said, still struggling with the ghost.

  “It’s curtains,” Squeak exclaimed, grabbing one end of the shimmering ghost and yanking with all his might. “Real curtains. It isn’t a ghost at all,” he said as he uncovered a dusty little man cowering beneath the fabric.

  “Oh, blast,” the little man exclaimed.

  Boney jumped angrily to his feet. “What do you think you’re doing, running around, scaring the heck out of people?”

  The man lowered his eyes sheepishly. “I live here,” he said, in a voice that made him sound as if he gargled with gravel. He adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses on his nose.

  “Hey! Those are the glasses I saw by the firepit!” Boney said.

  “I put them there,” the man said. “I wanted to take advantage of the legend.”

  “The legend of the missing boys?” Squeak asked as he retrieved the Apparator. He checked it over, switching it on and off several times.

  The man nodded.

  “So why are you going around impersonating a ghost?” Boney demanded.

  The man shrugged. “It’s the only way I can keep people out of the mill.”

  “Despicable,” Itchy said, examining the remnants of the squashed chocolate bar in his hand.

  “Odd,” Squeak added.

  The man eyed Itchy’s chocolate bar hungrily.

  Itchy gobbled the last of the bar. “We should beat him up,” he said, his mouth full of chocolate. He pointed to the curtains. “Look, he just painted that stupid face on himself. Pathetic.”

  The man cringed. “Please, I didn’t mean to hurt you. I only wanted to keep you away.”

  “Why?” Boney asked.

  “It’s—it’s the only home I have,” the man stammered, clinging to the fabric curtain.

  The boys exchanged puzzled looks.

  “My name is Rufus,” he said, holding out his hand. He wore an old pair of navy-blue mechanics’ coveralls, the legs rolled several times at the ankles and wrists. There was a worn oval patch sewn to the coveralls with the name “Charlie” stitched in red letters.

  “How come your badge says ‘Charlie’ if your name is Rufus?” Itchy asked suspiciously.

  The man looked at the patch on his chest. “Oh that.” He lowered his hand. “Someone…uh…left these here years back.”

  “And where’d you get those glasses?” Itchy asked.

  Rufus smiled. “I found them. Don’t know if they’re helping or not.”

  Boney shook his head. “So you pretend to be a ghost to keep kids away.”

  “Not just kids,” Rufus said. “Anybody. I heard about the ghost after those kids went missing all those years ago.”

  “In 1952,” Squeak said.

  Rufus nodded. “Yes, that’s right. It was 1952. Nasty business, that.”

  “How do we know you aren’t the guy responsible for those kids going missing?” Itchy asked.

  “Me?” the man said incredulously. “Why, I wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  “How do we know that?” Itchy said. “How can we trust the word of a guy who runs around in a curtain moaning like a ghost, wearing somebody else’s clothes?”

  “I have nowhere else to go,” Rufus said apologetically. “Besides,” he added, almost proudly, “I help keep vandals away. They were destroying what was left of the property.”

  “And you’ve never seen any ghosts around here?” Boney asked.

  “None but me,” the man answered.

  Squeak sighed loudly. “Well…there goes the official test of the ghost detector.”

  “I’m sorry, boys,” Rufus said. “I didn’t mean to spoil it for you.” He eyed the detector in Squeak’s hand. “Do you mind if I take a look?”

  Squeak shrugged and handed him the device.

  Rufus turned the Apparator over in his hands, admiring the coiled wire and red switch. “Mighty fine piece of work. It uses an air ion detector in conjunction with a variable tube radio capacitor fitted with a dielectric insulator.”

  Squeak’s eyes widened behind his goggles. “Yeah! How did you know?”

  “I used to be quite handy myself, designing and building things.” Rufus flipped the switch on the detector. It crackled and hummed wildly in his hand. He flipped the switch again, and the light in the tube slowly ebbed to a cold grey. “You just may have yourself something here.”

  Itchy snatched the detector from the man. “Yeah, sure. If we were looking for weird old men running around in curtains impersonating ghosts, we’d win the Invention Convention for sure.”


  Rufus lowered his eyes dejectedly. “I’m really very sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Boney said. “It was exciting for a moment to think the detector actually worked.” He turned toward his friends. “Come on, guys. Let’s go.”

  “We won’t be bugging you again, mister,” Squeak said glumly as he took the Apparator from Itchy and stuffed it in his bag. He swung his bag over his shoulder and grabbed his bike, rolling it through the opening to the path.

  The man waved as the boys cycled away. “It was nice meeting you all. Come back and visit sometime.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  LEFTOVERS

  Back at the clubhouse that night, Itchy and Boney continued to sew sequins on the Elvis costume while Squeak tinkered with the Apparator.

  “We can’t enter the convention with a faulty device,” Squeak said wistfully. “I just don’t understand why it didn’t work. I’ve checked all the connections, re-soldered all the points, and tightened the screws. Even if the Apparator was picking up errant static electricity, it shouldn’t have responded so violently.” He turned the detector over in his hands, the same way Rufus had. “Maybe I need to reduce the gauge of the copper wire…or try replacing the insulators in the capacitor…”

  Itchy looked up from his sewing. “Maybe it’s so sensitive it can pick up fake ghosts as well.”

  Squeak frowned, peering along the length of the tube.

  Itchy reached over and plucked a peanut butter and honey cracker from the tall stack on the table next to him. “Do you think that old guy was telling the truth?”

  “About what?” Boney asked.

  “You know…about being homeless and protecting the mill and all that.”

  Boney shrugged. “I don’t know. Guess there’s no way to find out for sure.”

  “He had us pretty scared, though, didn’t he?” Itchy said.

  “Yeah,” Boney laughed.

  “We should have known it wasn’t a real ghost anyway,” Itchy continued.

  “Why?”

  “He was too short.”

  “Right.” Boney shook his head. “I guess ghosts can be short, too, Itchy.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” Itchy agreed.

  “If they’re short in real life, they should be short in the afterlife, right?” Boney reasoned. “He seemed interested in the Apparator, though. I wonder if he could help us make it work.”

  “Incoming!” Squeak suddenly shouted, grabbing the Apparator and diving to the clubhouse floor.

  Itchy wadded up the Elvis costume and dove on top of it, protecting it from the exploding eggs. Boney ducked beneath the window as an egg whizzed past his head and splattered on the wall behind him. Larry’s horrible, hoarse laugh filled the air. The boys looked at each other in shock.

  “That was close,” Boney said. “Is everyone all right?”

  “Aye, aye,” Squeak said.

  “Ditto,” Itchy groaned from his place on the floor.

  Boney slowly raised himself up so he could see out the window. “Coast is clear.”

  Squeak continued to lie on the clubhouse floor, staring at the ceiling thoughtfully. “I wonder what da Vinci would have done in a situation like this.”

  “Being bombed by eggs?” Itchy asked.

  Squeak gave him a puzzled look as he rose to his feet, placing the Apparator carefully on the table. “Perhaps I made a mistake in the calculation for the coil frequency…”

  “It’s a good thing we covered the reference library,” Boney said. He took a rag, dipped it in the pail of water, and began wiping egg off the plastic.

  Itchy stowed the Elvis costume safely on a shelf before dunking the mop in the bucket and sloshing water on the clubhouse floor. “Lousy egg-bombing convicts,” he cursed.

  “What were you saying about Rufus before we were so rudely interrupted?” Squeak asked Boney.

  “I was wondering if he could help us out,” Boney said. “He seemed to know a lot about electronics and that kind of stuff.”

  Itchy eyed him warily, stuffing peanut butter and honey crackers in his mouth as he scrubbed the floor. “What do you mean?”

  “He said he used to build stuff. It wouldn’t hurt to ask him to take a look at the Apparator.”

  “He already looked at it,” Itchy said.

  Squeak stared forlornly at his invention. “Maybe he was just being polite. I think we should ask him. My dad’s too busy to help us, and I could sure use a second opinion.”

  Itchy rolled his eyes. “How do we know we can even trust the guy? I mean, he might be a total psycho for all we know. He lives in an abandoned mill, running around with a curtain over his head.”

  “Come on, Itchy, he’s just an innocent guy who doesn’t have a home. We don’t have to marry him. We just need his advice.”

  “How do we know he’ll even agree to help us?” Itchy asked.

  “Simple,” Boney said. “We’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse.”

  “We’ll threaten to call the cops and turn him in for murder?”

  “No. We’ll bring him food. You saw the way he looked at your chocolate bar.”

  Itchy quickly stuffed the last of his crackers into his mouth. “I’m not wivving him anyfing,” he protested, cracker crumbs spraying everywhere.

  “You don’t have to,” Boney said. “I’ll give him something, for heaven’s sake.”

  Itchy nodded with finality, swallowing with a huge gulp. He pointed at his throat. “Milk,” he croaked.

  Squeak tossed him a small carton of milk from the cooler. Itchy wrenched it open and drained the carton in one big swig.

  “You’re going to give yourself indigestion if you keep that up,” Squeak admonished him. “Anyway, I think Boney’s idea is worth a try.”

  Itchy rubbed his stomach happily. “Ahhh…that’s better.”

  “William!” Boney’s aunt called from the kitchen door. “Bedtime!”

  Boney groaned but answered politely, “Yes, Auntie!” He threw the rag into the pail. “Tomorrow, after dinner, we rendezvous at the clubhouse, then visit Rufus. Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” Squeak said.

  Itchy pouted, folding his arms across his chest. “Oh, fine. Agreed.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  HENRIETTA

  The next day at school, the Odds managed to avoid Larry Harry and Jones and Jones for several classes. They slipped from homeroom undetected, and made it through geography and English without so much as a small incident. But by science class, Larry was wadding up paper and spitting it through a straw into Itchy’s hair, which was so wild and unkempt that he couldn’t even feel the impact. The Odds simply focused on their science lab, where a Bunsen burner flamed beneath a test tube of unidentified purple liquid, until a particularly large spitball hit the test tube, knocking it to the desk and setting their entire station on fire.

  The Odds leapt off their stools, shouting unintelligibly. Mr. Harvey sprang from behind his desk, grabbed the fire extinguisher, and blasted the fire with foam until it was out. The lab station resembled a giant burnt marshmallow. The teacher even blasted several shots at Itchy’s hair, convinced it was part of the problem.

  “What happened here?” Mr. Harvey demanded.

  Boney lifted his scorched lab manual from the desk. It was dripping with foam from the extinguisher. “It was an accident, sir,” he said, scowling at Larry Harry, who by this time was innocently working away on his side of the room. Jones and Jones snickered as Itchy drew some foam from his hair and discovered the spitballs.

  “Disgusting! I can’t go through the rest of the day like this.”

  But as bad as the situation was, he had to admit that spitballs in his hair was better than getting creamed in lacrosse, which is exactly what happened next, when Boney and Itchy went out for gym.

  Out at centre field, Boney stared back at Larry, lacrosse stick in hand, body poised to spring. He shot a look over at Itchy, who gripped his lacrosse stick in goal, his entire body shaking with fear. Larry
bared his teeth like a wolverine. Colonel R. blew the whistle. Boney dove, snatching up the ball, only to have Larry trip him with his stick. Boney thumped to the ground, the ball bouncing across the grass. Larry scooped it up and drove it at Itchy, who was hit by Jones and Jones as he rushed forward, crashing him backwards into the net.

  “It’s a plot,” Itchy groaned as he and Boney limped home after school that day, Squeak at their side. “They’re determined to kill anyone with an IQ over fifty.”

  Boney gritted his teeth in pain. “Don’t worry. Larry’s going to be sorry he was ever born.”

  Itchy stared at him incredulously. “I’m sorry I was ever born. It’s going to take me months to get these spitballs out of my hair.”

  Boney and Squeak helped him up the stairs to his house.

  “See you after dinner at the clubhouse tonight,” Boney said. “And don’t forget to bring something to eat, if you can.”

  “Eat…right,” Itchy said as he staggered into his house and shut the door.

  “See you soon,” Squeak called out to Boney as the two boys parted ways.

  When Boney entered the kitchen, the smell of frying onions made him forget his agony. Was it possible his aunt was actually cooking something good?

  “Smells great,” he said, just as his aunt dumped a can of soup into the pan.

  Boney grimaced and made his way to his room, dropping his books on his bed. He did some science homework, starting a new notebook to replace the one ruined in class that day. He thought about his essay for English for a while. When he grew bored of that, he washed carefully behind his ears to be presentable at dinner. He didn’t want his aunt to have any reason to keep him detained that night. Boney pored over his math text then, finishing the last of the equations assigned that day in class. At 6:30 on the dot, his aunt called him down for dinner.

  At the supper table, his uncle was in his usual spot, reading the paper. He smiled as Boney took his seat, then frowned when he saw the grey glop on his plate. Folding his paper, he sighed resolutely and began to eat. Boney did the same, eating methodically until his plate was clean.

  “May I have another serving?” he asked, holding up his plate.

  “Well, of course, dear,” Boney’s aunt gushed, heaping another glop onto Boney’s plate.