The Mapmaker and the Ghost

by Sarvenaz Tash

  For the first time in days, Goldenrod felt filled with a sense of purpose.

  On Tuesday, Goldenrod got her backpack ready. She packed:

  • a flashlight with extra batteries (those always seemed to come in handy in books or movies when anyone was going on an adventure)

  • three fresh notebooks, one lined for notetaking, one unlined for sketches, and a third filled with grid paper for the map

  • three sharpened pencils

  • a pencil sharpener

  • her pocket-sized atlas

  • a ruler

  • a measuring tape

  • a clean and empty jelly jar (in case she ever needed to collect any specimens)

  • a pair of tweezers (for the exact same reason)

  • an old, rather dull pair of her mother’s gardening shears

  • a set of green and brown face paints that she had saved from last Halloween

  • a lunch box for which she was planning many different kinds of sandwiches

  • her compass, of course

  • a roll of duct tape (she had yet to find any use for this tape herself, but she had heard her father go on and on about its indispensability)

  • and a very small, very dirty sock that probably used to be yellow. This was a sock she had worn as a baby and which, for some reason, she found comforting to carry around.

  Wednesday and Thursday were spent thinking about how to get her mother to let her step foot outside of the four barriers that she had never been allowed to leave by herself before. The perfect mile-long and mile-wide square was marked on each end by the park playground, Pilmilton Woods, Joseph McKinney’s house, and the Pilmilton Science Museum on the corner of Sutton and Main. Knowing her mother, getting permission to explore outside of that area wasn’t going to be easy.

  By Friday, Goldenrod was standing outside and watching her father happily bang away on the roof. She was making sure that he didn’t fall. This was called spotting and it was pretty boring, but Goldenrod had volunteered to do it because she figured that having Dad on her side when she talked to Mom would be crucial in her Barrier-Breaking Plan.

  So there she stood in the front yard, her cheap daisy kiddie sunglasses (the only pair she could find) squishing against her temples and hurting her head without providing much protection from the glaring sun.

  “You’re doing a great job, kiddo,” her dad called down with a huge grin. He was a slightly pudgy, dark-haired man and, at the moment, he was sweating profusely. “I feel safer already. Remember, two Morams are better than one.”

  “Yup,” Goldenrod said as she imagined her perfect, detailed map embossed with a Legendary Adventurers logo (which, she realized, she would have to design). “You hungry, Dad?” she called up to him.

  “What’s the special today?” he called back down, his face even more freckled than usual because of all the days working in the sun.

  “Peanut butter on whole wheat toast with strawberries and Cheerios. For extra crunch.” Goldenrod was an excellent sandwich-maker.

  “Mmmm. I’ll have one of those.”

  Goldenrod nodded. “Birch!” she called to her little brother.

  “What?” he called back from inside.

  “Come take my place watching Dad for a sec.”

  “I’m about to beat Level Three!” he yelled back.

  “I’m making sandwiches,” Goldenrod said.

  She heard a beep and a few seconds later Birch was outside. “For me too?”

  “Of course,” Goldenrod said and then turned around to the direction of her mom, who was working in the farthest reaches of the front garden. “You want one, Mom?”

  There was no response. Her mother was digging.

  Goldenrod had to walk over to her and tap her on the shoulder before her mother heard a word she was saying.

  In the kitchen, as Goldenrod prepared the four sandwiches, she thought about her backpack. She thought about her map. She thought about leaving the Barriers. She thought about a new school without Ms. Barf. And, most of all, she thought about Charla. It wasn’t going to be quite the same, being Lewis without Clark. But still, she knew her friend would be thrilled for her if Goldenrod really were able to become a Legendary Adventurer, make an extraordinary map, and hopefully find something no one even knew existed.

  Goldenrod smiled as she plated the sandwiches. When she was done, she rummaged through the kitchen drawers and found a box of frilly toothpicks. She put one on each of the two slices of her mother’s sandwich before putting all the plates on a tray and heading back outside. Sometimes, the littlest things could put parents in a good mood. And she needed her mom to be in the best mood possible.

  3

  THE EXPLORATION BEGINS

  It had taken a few days for Goldenrod to convince her mother to let her go through her impenetrable barriers. Eventually, she had had to pull the Charla card—telling her mother that the only way she could possibly make any new friends would be to leave the house and explore some new places. “Besides, it’ll be good for my sense of independence, Mom.”

  “It’s true, Janine,” Mr. Moram had chirped from the roof. “Our girl’s got to learn to be self-sufficient sometime. Let’s face it, she’s a middle schooler now. She’s not going to find much adventure hanging around the backyard.” Goldenrod had smiled innocently, all the while giving herself a mental high five for planting those lines so perfectly in her dad’s head.

  On the Tuesday after her long, drawn-out grounding, she found herself at the end of her driveway, looking around with an exhilarating sense of freedom. Her green Backpack of Adventure, which now, needless to say, also contained a cell phone programmed to call her house and 911 with the touch of a button, hung heavy on her back with the promise of great things.

  In between scheming about how to get on her mother’s best side, Goldenrod had spent a great deal of time mapping out her mapping intentions. She had decided that she would start, like Lewis and Clark, in the west (past the science museum), then east (past Joseph McKinney’s house), south (past the park playground), and, finally, north to Pilmilton Woods.

  She had carefully filled the first page in her gridded notebook with the five essential parts of the map. She had come up with a legend—a set of symbols—which included representations of trees, bushes, fences, dogs, litter, no-parking signs, sprinklers, wading pools, and pretty much anything else you would expect to see in your standard suburban town. There was a compass rose that pointed out north, south, east, and west. There was a scale to indicate distance. There was a title on top (Town of Pilmilton) and, of course, there were the grid lines themselves. Everything was ready. All that was missing was the map.

  That first day, Goldenrod walked straight to the strip mall that housed the science museum, the nail salon, the vitamin shop, and the doctor’s office. She strode right up to the very edge of the museum’s large gray building and squinted at a bench that was only a few feet away. Yesterday, she would not have been allowed to sit on this bench. But today … ah, today, Goldenrod looked out at the scene in front of her and with a finger erased the imaginary fiery red line that her mother had once made for her right past that museum. Then, with a thrill that she could feel even in her elbows, she hopped right over that line and sat down on the bench.

  She allowed herself one moment to take it all in. It was another beautiful day, and the sun gleamed off the few cars that were in the strip mall’s small parking lot. Tied to a fire hydrant a few feet away was a small, gray, yapping dog. A boy in black leaned against the front of the doctor’s office, and an old security guard squinted out at him from the front of the museum.

  She had to admit, she felt just a little bit more grown up sitting on this bench all by herself. With a smile, Goldenrod started to rummage around in her backpack. She had work to do.

  She took out her graph paper, a sharpened pencil, and her measuring tape. She decided that the park bench was as good a place as any to start, so she drew the tiny symbol she had come up
with for it. Then she set about measuring the bench itself. She was able to hook one end of the measuring tape underneath the seat and pull the tape out to the other end. But unfortunately, measuring from the bench to the tree all by herself proved to be much more difficult. Whereas Lewis had Clark, however, Goldenrod at least had duct tape. Mentally making a note to thank her father, she secured one end of the measuring tape and managed to jot down the accurate length that she needed.

  As she worked, she suddenly got the feeling that she was being watched. When she glanced up to confirm her suspicions, she took a closer look at the boy in black. She was surprised she hadn’t recognized him earlier. The boy wasn’t leaning against the front of the doctor’s office so much as he was curving into it, and there was only one person—probably in the entire world—who could stand that way.

  His name was Drew Henderson. He was two years older than Goldenrod, and he must have spent the thirteen years of his existence perfecting the worst posture imaginable. In fact, he slouched so much that his back formed an almost perfect C when he was standing in his neutral position. Goldenrod had often wished her mother could have gotten a look at Drew every time she told Goldenrod to “stand up straight.”

  What was truly remarkable about Drew, however, was that he seemed to be able to control his claylike spine in a way most human beings certainly could not. His victory in the elementary school limbo competition a couple of years back was the stuff of legend.

  Almost as if the universe was in tune with her thoughts, at that very moment a middle-aged man in a white coat came out of the doctor’s office. He stared wide-eyed at Drew and slowly started to circle him. Drew stopped watching Goldenrod and looked lazily at the doctor instead.

  “Young man!” the doctor said briskly. “How are you doing that?”

  “Doing what?” Drew asked in a slow drawl.

  “Standing that way.”

  Drew smirked and shrugged; only when he did so, he caused his whole spine to go up and down one vertebra at a time, almost like piano keys.

  The doctor seemed beside himself with fascination. “You must understand, I’m a doctor, a chiropractor. I’ve spent years studying the human spine, and I have never, ever seen it manipulated in that way.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “Tell me, my boy. Have you ever been studied?”

  “Studied?”

  “Yes,” the doctor said. “I feel like I could create a whole paper on you. Would you let me examine you?”

  “What’s in it for me?”

  “Well … you’d be doing it in the name of science. Of progress. Of great possible medical breakthroughs.”

  Drew hesitated for a moment. “Medical breakthroughs?”

  “Colossal ones,” the doctor said.

  “Nah,” Drew said. “Not interested.”

  “I’ll give you fifty bucks.” The doctor obviously had to have some brains to be a doctor, after all.

  “Make it two hundred,” Drew said.

  “Two hundred?!” the doctor said in alarm.

  “All in the name of colossal medical breakthroughs,” Drew said.

  The doctor thought for a second. “Okay, fine.”

  “But I can’t do it now.”

  “How about tomorrow? Would you make an appointment with my secretary for then?”

  “Maybe. If I get a deposit today.”

  “A deposit?”

  “Fifty bucks. Just so I know you won’t bail on me and my valuable time, Doctor.”

  The doctor was looking grouchy now. “Oh, fine, come along then,” he said and led Drew into his office.

  Goldenrod was a little angry at herself for getting distracted by the odd conversation, so she immediately got back to work. A few minutes later, she had just finished putting the duct tape down by the edge of the museum door when a large foot almost stepped on her pinkie. She looked up to see Charlie Cookman, carrying two bottles of his orange energy soda and a small striped ball. He did a double take upon seeing her.

  “Hey! What are you doing here?” he asked her. He said the word “you” like it was a moldy piece of toast he needed to get out of his mouth as quickly as possible.

  She really was about to ask him the same thing. Surely he hadn’t just come out of the science museum, as it was highly unlikely that Charlie would be found anywhere near something educational in his spare time. But then Goldenrod glimpsed the small vitamin shop next to the museum and things became a little clearer.

  “I’m allowed to be here, you know,” she said coolly. “It’s a free strip mall.” She made a point of glaring at his soda bottles as she gripped her pencil tighter.

  Charlie looked a little alarmed and held his soda closer to his body as he walked away. Despite the summer heat, he was wearing a black hoodie, and as he pressed the bottles to it, it was obvious the pockets bulged with something. Goldenrod frowned. Just what is he up to now?

  Across the street, Drew was coming out of the doctor’s office. Charlie went over to him.

  “Everything okay?” Drew asked.

  “Yeah,” Charlie said. “What were you doing in there?”

  “Just a little extra business. Come on, let’s go,” Drew said as they both walked away together, Charlie bouncing his rubber ball.

  Distracted again, Goldenrod thought to herself. She really needed to focus a little better if she ever wanted to get her map done.

  Ten minutes later, she had an even bigger problem on her hands. Although she had a symbol for dogs on her legend, it was impossible to measure the tiny, yapping dog’s exact distance from the hydrant because he kept moving. It made her realize that perhaps it would be necessary to edit down her legend to include only those things that would remain stationary. After all, what good would an extraordinary map be if it was made inaccurate almost the moment she had drawn it?

  There was a slight possibility that the dog might be an undiscovered breed, though. True, Goldenrod was pretty sure that the dog was Ulysses, the beloved Labradoodle of Old Sue, who owned the nail salon. But it never hurts to check, she thought to herself as she kneeled down and gently picked up one of the dog’s tiny paws.

  This did not help with the yapping situation, and it wasn’t very long before Old Sue herself came walking out of the chiropractor’s office.

  “What are you doing?” She looked at Goldenrod oddly as she untied Ulysses’s leash from the hydrant that Goldenrod had hastily started to measure.

  “Oh, nothing. Just … a little project, Mrs. McNamara.” Goldenrod smiled at Old Sue.

  Sue continued to look at her a little doubtfully but left with Ulysses without further comment.

  The truth was that Goldenrod hadn’t told anyone about her map; she didn’t think anybody besides Charla would understand. She’d talked to her parents about wanting to explore Pilmilton but hadn’t given the exact reason why. And as Old Sue walked away, eyebrows still arched, Goldenrod thought that she was probably right to keep it to herself.

  By five thirty, Goldenrod was exhausted. Not only had she spent the day bending over and duct taping every which way, but she also felt like she had spent it under suspicious scrutiny from everyone from the museum security guard to the chiropractor’s secretary to any passersby.

  As Goldenrod zipped up her backpack and headed home (she had a strict curfew of six o’clock), she wondered to herself if maybe west was not the way to go first. What Goldenrod needed was somewhere a little more private to start out with, somewhere she could hone her mapmaking speed and precision.

  By the time she turned the corner onto her block, she had made her decision. Tomorrow, she would go to the forest. Not only was it the most private part of town, but it was also probably the place most likely to discover uncharted territory or a new variety of flower or furry creature. In other words, the likelihood of it being the most important part of her map was very great, and she could see no reason at all to wait to explore it.

  4

  THE OLD LADY WHO LIVES BY THE WOODS

&nbs
p; The very next day found Goldenrod standing at the edge of Pilmilton Woods with her backpack and a head full of possibility. She hadn’t walked more than thirty steps inside her forest barrier when she saw something that proved her hunch from the day before had been correct. There was a house right on the very edge of the woods that she had never, ever seen before. Had never even known existed! Of course, that wasn’t terribly shocking, considering the house was blocked by a grove of very dense maple trees that she had never been allowed to walk behind before. Needless to say, a discovery of this magnitude could prove to be a very important moment in the life of a mapmaker.

  The house was small, but looked well kept and cozy. There was a very bright rose garden in the front. Only by walking closer to it did Goldenrod notice the very small old woman who was on her knees, tending to the roses.

  The old woman looked up at the sound of approaching footsteps. “Well, hello,” she said.

  For a moment, Goldenrod was a little startled by how ugly the old woman was. If this were a fairy tale, she thought, this woman might be a witch or a sorceress. But here, in real life, she was merely exceedingly ugly. She had extremely thin hair that was so white it was almost perfectly clear, showing the freckled and dry scalp underneath. Her nose was very large and accented with an enormous bump that grew out of the middle of it, like a volcano. By contrast, her eyes were very small and close together, so small that it was hard to tell what color they were at all. She had a pair of white bushy eyebrows. Her ears were rather large and protruding. Her teeth were very crooked.

  It took Goldenrod a second to realize that she was gawking rudely. “Hello,” she finally said, a little embarrassed.

  “Are you lost?” the old lady asked.