The Ghost in Room 11

by Betty Ren Wright

  Matt’s dad reached over and gave him a tap on the arm. “No more stories, right? Now let’s forget it. You have something important to tell us. You saw—what?”

  Matt swallowed hard. I saw a ghost in school. She called my name. He imagined the look on his mother’s face if he told them that.

  “Well,” his mother said impatiently, “what did you see?”

  Matt stood up. “Nothing,” he said. “I forgot.”

  It was weird, telling another lie, when he wanted more than anything to tell the truth.

  5

  The Picture in the Hall

  “What’s the ghost look like?” Jason Myers asked the next morning. Jason was Charlie’s best friend.

  Matt pretended not to hear. He wasn’t going to talk about the ghost. His parents wouldn’t believe him, and his classmates had already decided he was a liar. Besides, he was pretty sure the boys didn’t believe there was a ghost; they had just wanted to play a trick on him. He was sure of it when Charlie came up the basement stairs carrying a cage with two gerbils in it.

  Jason grinned at Matt. “Charlie’s speech is about how to take care of gerbils,” he said.

  So that was what had been rustling on the closet shelf!

  All morning long Matt tried to decide what to do. He could run away, but where would he go? If he took the bus to Milwaukee, he could call Jerry or Mike or Paul—but their parents would call his parents. He’d be back in Healy in no time.

  He was glad when recess arrived. The students lined up and filed out of the room. Matt gave one quick look down the hall, to the spot where the ghost had appeared. The fifth graders were there, with their teacher, Miss Carey. She was short and round with red hair—nothing like the tall, terrifying figure he’d seen the night before.

  Matt headed toward the door. Then, to his horror, he saw the ghost, peering at him from a gold frame above a row of lockers. He stepped back and stumbled over a foot. When he turned around, Mr. Beasley was brushing off his shoes.

  “I—I was looking at the picture,” Matt stammered.

  Mr. Beasley nodded. “Miss Edna Whipple,” he said solemnly. “She was already famous here at Healy when I entered kindergarten. They say she died at her desk, correcting papers.” He sounded as if he thought that was a fine way to die.

  Matt stared at the picture. Miss Edna Whipple, he thought. She had known Matt’s name, and now he knew hers.

  “That was Miss Whipple’s motto.” Mr. Beasley pointed to a gold plate at the bottom of the frame. It read: Try Hard. Then Try Harder.

  “A good motto,” Mr. Beasley said. “You might start by trying harder to stay in the line, Matthew.”

  A moment later Matt was out in the sunshine. He stood there, glad to escape Miss Whipple’s glare.

  “I’m sorry Charlie played a trick on you.” Stephanie was beside him. “I don’t blame you for running away. I would have been scared, too.”

  “I wasn’t running away from those stupid gerbils,” Matt said crossly. “It was something else.”

  “What else?” Stephanie wanted to know. “There isn’t any ghost, you know. It’s just a story.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Matt told her.

  “Do you want to play ball or something?”

  She felt sorry for him! Matt wanted to punch her—or Charlie, or Jason, or even Mr. Beasley. He was more mixed-up than he’d ever been before.

  “I’ve got stuff to do,” he said. He walked off toward the edge of the playground and left Stephanie standing alone.

  6

  Going to Room 11

  “A sleepover at school!” Matt’s mother was reading the school newsletter. “What an unusual idea! Why didn’t you tell us about it, Matthew?”

  “Because it’s dumb,” Matt said. “Who wants to sleep at school?”

  His mom frowned. “This will be a good chance for you to make some friends,” she told him. “It says here that the fourth, fifth, and sixth grades are invited. They’ve got all kinds of fun things planned.”

  “I’m not going,” Matt said. “I’m allergic to that school.” But he knew he’d have to go. When his mother got that look on her face, she always had her way.

  Thursday evening, his dad came home with a big package that turned out to be a bright red sleeping bag. “First choice among smart fourth graders!” he kidded, as Matt tore off the wrappings.

  Matt thought red looked babyish, but he didn’t say so. He had something worse to worry about. How could he spend a whole night in school, knowing Miss Whipple was hiding somewhere, watching him?

  When Friday evening arrived, his mother and father insisted on taking him to school before going out to dinner. They even came in with him.

  The sleep over was in the gym. Tables of snacks were set along the wall, and most of the floor was covered with sleeping bags. There were air mattresses, too, and patio lounges. Matt was surprised to see a few parents sitting around in bathrobes and slippers.

  “Where do you want your sleeping bag?” Matt’s dad asked. “Might as well put it close to your friends.”

  Matt stared at the floor.

  “Matthew,” his mother said, “the way to have a friend is to be a friend. Isn’t that Charles Peck over there? His mother takes the same bus we do every morning.”

  Mrs. Sanders saved Matt from answering. She hurried up to say hello to his parents, looking very different in her blue robe and fuzzy slippers.

  “Good for you, Matthew,” she said cheerfully. “I’m glad you’re here. You’ll have a great time.”

  Not a chance, Matt thought. He picked up his sleeping bag and headed across the gym. A T.V. in one corner was playing a video about elephants. No one was watching it. He dropped his sleeping bag in front of the screen and sat with his back to the rest of the room.

  Pretend you’re home, he told himself.

  It worked for a while, but then he heard Mrs. Sanders calling from the other end of the gym. “Everybody, gather around. Marco the Magician has come to entertain us.”

  Matthew stared at the elephants.

  “Everybody! Right now!”

  Matt turned around, just as a man in a black suit and cape swept into the gym. The man bowed to Mrs. Sanders and to the students. Then he reached down and picked up a blanket that had been folded on an air mattress.

  “Pardon me, miss,” he said to the girl sitting on the mattress. “You’re not supposed to bring pets in here.”

  “I didn’t—” the girl began, but before she could finish, Marco lifted a corner of the blanket and pulled out a white rabbit. Then he scooped up the girl’s pillow and pulled a wriggling snake from the pillowcase. Everyone screamed.

  Matt joined the circle just as the magician grabbed Jason by the shoulder and pretended to shake him.

  “You’re no better than she is!” he scolded. He drew another snake from Jason’s pajama top.

  For the next half hour Marco did card tricks, made balls disappear, and poured cherry soda from an empty pitcher. When the magician borrowed Mr. Beasley’s glasses and made them disappear too, everyone cheered except Mr. Beasley.

  “Are you sure I didn’t give them back to you?” Marco asked. He sounded worried. Mr. Beasley shook his head.

  “Are you very sure?” Marco repeated. “What’s that in your bathrobe pocket?”

  It was the glasses, of course. Mr. Beasley looked relieved and everybody clapped as Marco bowed and whirled his cape around him.

  After that there were snacks, and then a ventriloquist. The ventriloquist knew about a million riddles, but his dummy couldn’t answer any of them. Pretty soon Matt and the rest of the audience were shouting out the answers. By the time a delivery man came in with a stack of pizza boxes, they were starving.

  Several of the teachers and parents put the pizza slices on paper plates. Miss Carey, the fifth-grade teacher, handed out the plates.

  “When you finish eating, I’m sure most of you will be ready to sleep,” she said. “But for those who are still wide
awake, I have a very scary video I think you’ll like. If you want to see it, take your plates and go to the T.V.”

  About twenty kids headed to the corner, Matt included. He didn’t want to watch a scary video, not in Healy School. But his sleeping bag was in front of the T.V. He’d have to find another place for it.

  The students settled down in front of the T.V., while Matthew dragged his sleeping bag to one side.

  “Hi.” It was Miss Carey, her round face pinker than ever. “Would you do me a favor? I thought I had the video in my purse, but I must have left it on my desk. Will you run down and get it, please?”

  Matt dropped the bedroll and stared at her in horror. “Which—which room is yours?”

  Miss Carey looked surprised. “Oh, you’re the new boy, aren’t you? Well, it’s easy to find Room Eleven. It’s at the end of the hall. You can’t get lost.”

  Matt’s stomach churned, and he wondered if he was going to throw up. He wanted to say no, but Miss Carey was already telling the other students that Matthew had offered to get the video, and they would start as soon as he returned.

  Offered! What a joke! Matt’s feet felt like lead as he edged around the sleepers on the floor.

  “Hurry, please,” Miss Carey called softly, so as not to wake anyone. “We’re waiting for you.”

  Matt opened the gym door and looked down the hall toward Room 11. Bands of moonlight streamed in from the classrooms between the hulking rows of lockers. He shuddered and let the gym door close.

  It was like stepping into a nightmare. Matt moved slowly down the hall. When he reached the front door, he stopped. One glimpse of that silver cloud, he promised himself, and he’d run right out the door and head for home. Miss Carey would be angry and worried, and the kids would say he was crazy, but it wouldn’t matter. They had never seen the ghost of Miss Whipple. They didn’t know.

  He walked on, even more slowly than before. The hall was empty. He passed Room 10 and looked back at the streak of light that marked the door to the gym. It was far away.

  Just a few more steps.…

  Maybe, he thought, the ghost had returned to wherever ghosts came from. Or maybe she was busy scaring someone else. With trembling fingers he reached for the doorknob of Room 11 and peeked through the glass panes.

  Miss Whipple was staring back at him. She was right there, inches away, her dark eyes glittering in a face that looked as if it were carved from ice. As Matt stared, unable to move, she lifted a bony finger and beckoned. The doorknob moved under his hand.

  7

  “Ghost Man”

  Matt raced down the hall so fast his feet hardly seemed to touch the floor. Don’t let her follow me, he prayed. He didn’t dare look back.

  When he burst into the gym, most of the kids were asleep. In the far corner, Miss Carey and the group of video watchers waited, looking bored.

  Matt tiptoed to the corner. “I—I couldn’t find it,” he whispered hoarsely. “I’m sorry.”

  Miss Carey looked puzzled. “Well, I suppose I’ll have to go myself,” she said. “But I don’t understand why—oh, my, you’re pale! Are you all right?”

  “I’m okay.” Matt watched the teacher make her way to the gym door. He knew he should warn her, but he was too scared to leave the safety of the corner.

  “Hey, what’s the matter, Barber?” Jason Myers sneered. “You look as if you’re going to cry.”

  Matt gulped. “Nothing’s the matter,” he snapped. He climbed into his sleeping bag and watched the door.

  It seemed a long time before Miss Carey came back. “It was in a drawer,” she said. “I was sure I’d left it out—sorry.”

  Matt crawled deeper into his sleeping bag. Why hadn’t she seen the ghost? There was only one answer, and it was a frightening one. The ghost of Miss Whipple appeared to Matthew Barber and nobody else.

  For the hundredth time he wished he was back in Milwaukee. Maybe his old school didn’t have sleep overs, but it wasn’t haunted, either.

  “I’m sure you haven’t slept at all.” Matt’s mother smiled as he came into the kitchen the next morning and dropped his sleeping bag. “You have the sleepover look.”

  Matt nodded. She was right—he’d hardly slept all night. When he did doze off, he was right back in that nightmare hallway, walking toward Room 11.

  “You’ll probably be asleep in ten minutes,” his mother teased. “You’ll be dead to the world for hours.”

  “I don’t want to sleep.” If he closed his eyes, he knew he’d see Miss Whipple’s face peering out of the dark.

  He wished he could talk to someone about what had happened last night. But there was no one, he thought unhappily. Then he remembered the girl who’d said she was sorry Charlie had played a joke on him. Stephanie might believe him. He wondered where she lived.

  All that morning, while he carried out garbage and cleaned his room, Matt kept thinking about Miss Whipple. What if she could leave Healy Elementary when she wanted to? What if she started haunting him at home?

  “Run downstairs and get the clothes from the dryer,” his mother said. Then she shook her head. “Oh, never mind. Go upstairs and take a nap.”

  Matt didn’t want to go upstairs, any more than he wanted to go down to the basement.

  “I’m not sleepy,” he said. “Maybe I should dig up some weeds.”

  “Not until your dad comes back from town,” his mother replied. “You don’t know a weed from a watermelon.” But she didn’t stop him when he wandered outside.

  It was a warm, sunny day—not a day to see a ghost, Matt told himself. He walked up the driveway and started along the road to the school. The kids played softball there on Saturday afternoons. He’d heard them setting up teams every Friday.

  Maybe Stephanie would be at the playground with the others.

  He stopped in a grove of trees at the edge of the playground. A game had started, and some little kids were playing on the swings. He didn’t see Stephanie.

  “Hey, it’s the ghost hunter!” Charlie Peck, in the outfield, was pointing at him. The whole team started to laugh.

  Matt ducked deeper into the woods.

  “Hey, ghost man, come on out!” shouted another voice.

  Matt stayed in the woods until the kids forgot about him. It didn’t take long. Then he went home, feeling lonelier than he ever had in his life.

  Music floated from the windows of his house, and the leaves of the crabapple tree danced in the breeze. He looked at the hammock his father had set up under the tree. Maybe if he lay down for a couple of minutes, out here in the warm, safe sunshine.… He tumbled into the hammock and was asleep almost at once.

  It was after five when his dad woke him. “Time for dinner, sleepyhead.” He grinned down at Matt. “You’ve slept away a whole beautiful Saturday afternoon. That’s what happens when you stay up all night having fun!”

  8

  A Famous Friend

  “Quiet, class!” Mrs. Sanders clapped her hands.

  Matt jumped. He was scared all the time now. If anything really frightening happened, he’d fly apart in a thousand pieces.

  “We’re going to have a contest,” Mrs. Sanders announced. “The fifth and sixth grades are going to take part, too. It’s a writing contest—either a true story or one you’ve made up. Miss Bucher, our librarian, and her helpers will pick the winners.”

  “What’re the prizes?” Charlie wanted to know.

  “The two winners will read their stories at an assembly. And there will be someone famous here to listen. Merry Monahan, the author, is coming to visit us.”

  “Cool!” Some of the boys and girls clapped. Even Charlie looked impressed.

  “She’s coming as a special favor,” Mrs. Sanders went on. “She’s an old friend of Matthew’s mother.”

  Matt jumped again. His mother had never mentioned that she knew a famous author.

  “You’re lucky!” Stephanie whispered. Matt wondered if Mrs. Sanders had made a mistake.

  “I’m g
oing to write about crossing Lake Michigan on the ferry,” Stephanie said in a low voice. “My sister got seasick and we both got sunburned, and I almost fell over the railing. It was really fun. What about you?”

  “Don’t know.” As long as Matt had Miss Whipple to worry about, a contest didn’t seem important. Besides, writing meant spelling. He had enough trouble keeping up with the daily spelling tests.

  When he got home that afternoon, Matt made a sandwich and went out to the hammock. The bus from Milwaukee reached Healy at five-thirty and the drive from the bus station took five minutes, unless his parents stopped for groceries. When he’d eaten his sandwich, he lay back and stared up at the sky. Birds had an easy life, he thought—nothing to be afraid of but cats.

  It was nearly six when the station wagon turned into the drive. Matt rolled out of the hammock.

  “Do you really know Merry Monahan?” he demanded, as his mother stepped out of the car. “Mrs. Sanders said so.”

  His mom smiled. “Don’t be so surprised, Matthew,” she said. “We were roommates in college, and I just happened to run into her at lunch a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t know she had become a writer, but she told me all about it.”

  “We’re supposed to write stories because she’s coming,” Matt complained. “I don’t have anything to write about.”

  His dad handed him a bag of groceries. “Write about something you know,” he suggested.

  “That’s a good idea,” Matt’s mother agreed. “Write about what it feels like to leave your old friends and have to make new ones. Tell the truth, Matthew. It’ll help the other students understand you.”

  Matt took a banana from the grocery bag and wandered down the hall to his bedroom. He thought about what his parents had said. Tell the truth—it’ll help the other students understand you. Write about something you know. The words bounced around with a message all their own. Suddenly he knew what it was.

  If there wasn’t one single person he could tell about Miss Whipple, then maybe he ought to tell everybody! He could write about what happened the night he hid in the closet, and what had happened at the sleep over. He could tell the truth. People might believe him, and they might not, but they wouldn’t be sure. He’d be the boy who might have seen a ghost.