Respect Your Ghosts

by John Bemelmans Marciano

  “Thank goodness those ghosts have finally gotten over whatever their silly vendetta was!” his mom says, primping in a mirror.

  “That’s a nice fancy dress, Zia!” Primo says.

  “You are too kind! Too kind!” She half twirls on her toes and pretends to blush.

  Primo and Rosa each take Sergio’s mom by an arm and start out the door, with Sergio and his stepfather trailing up the rear.

  The walk up the hill suddenly seems so long. With every step—ouch, ouch, ouch—Sergio gets farther behind.

  “Hurry up!” his mom yells from ahead. “I don’t want to be late!

  The Carrozzo house stands at the top of the Triggio just below the arch, right where the paving stones—and the rich part of town—begin. The Carrozzo house itself is the fanciest one in the Triggio. So fancy, in fact, that it has stairs on the inside of the house.

  Sergio’s mom takes a deep breath as she comes to the door. She nods, walks in, and then freezes as she and her cousin lock eyes from across the room. They’ve passed each other on the street a million times, but they’ve avoided looking at each other since their trouble began.

  Remembering herself, Sergio’s mom grabs her dress and does a grand bowing curtsy. At that moment, Zia Carrozzo leaps up and hugs her. The two of them start to cry.

  Sergio feels good for his mom, and so do Primo and Rosa. The good feelings vanish, however, when Mozzo and his sister come walking over.

  “This is the boat?” Mozzo says with a sour look as he takes it out of Primo’s hands.

  “I don’t know if our ancestor’s going to like this . . .” Catina says, and turns to leave.

  “Wait here, losers,” Mozzo says, following her.

  “No problem,” Primo says. His sniffing nose turns toward the boar being roasted on the other side of the room.

  “You think we’re gonna get some of that food?” Rosa says to Sergio, licking her lips.

  “I have no idea,” Sergio says. The way his stomach feels, the last thing he wants to do is eat.

  This time, Mozzo and Catina come back quickly. They don’t have the boat.

  “Our ancestor wants to see you,” Catina says.

  “Uh, okay,” Sergio says. “But how can we see him?”

  Don’t they know you can only see your own house spirit?

  “Just come on, moron,” Mozzo says.

  They walk through the back of the house into a courtyard, on the other side of which sits a rear house set into a hidden garden.

  “In here,” Mozzo says, walking to the back building.

  Sergio follows Mozzo, but his sister puts up an arm to block Primo and Rosa.

  “Just him,” Catina says.

  “Wait, why can’t they come?” Sergio asks.

  “Because our ancestor said so,” she says.

  “You aren’t scared, are you?” Mozzo says.

  “No way he’s scared!” Rosa says. “He lives with a ghost.”

  “Don’t worry,” Primo says, waving Sergio on. “We’ll be right here waiting if these Carrozzos try anything!”

  The thing is, Sergio is scared. In fact, he’s terrified. Yes, he lives with a ghost, but what’s that got to do with meeting a different ghost? On the other hand, he won’t be able to see the ghost—or even hear him—so maybe it won’t be so scary after all.

  But just the darkness is scary! Because it is really, really dark inside the little back house. Only the tiniest bit of light comes creeping through the edges of the old, crooked shutters.

  His eyes start to adjust, however, and that’s when Sergio does see the ghost, seated in the middle of the room like a king on a throne.

  But how can that be? It breaks every rule of ancestor spirits!

  The freaky thing—the thing that makes the hair on the back of Sergio’s neck stand up—is that under the hat there is no face.

  9

  BELOVED ANCESTORS

  SERGIO could run. In fact, every bone in his body is telling him to do just that. But then Sergio realizes that he doesn’t see the Carrozzo ghost. What he’s looking at is an empty suit of clothes.

  The hat turns to Mozzo’s sister, who is nodding along as if being spoken to. Catina is being spoken to, Sergio realizes—he just can’t hear what the ghost is saying. Now he knows what other kids feel like.

  “Our beloved ancestor says to tell you that he wanted to see you, and he dressed like this so you could see him,” Catina says.

  “Uh, thank you?” Sergio says, looking into where he imagines the spirit’s eyes are.

  The well-dressed ghost lifts a glove, beckoning Sergio to come closer.

  “Go on, dummy,” Mozzo says, pushing Sergio.

  “He wants you to shake his hand,” Catina says. “To seal the end of the vendetta.”

  The white glove of the Carrozzo ghost feels soft at first. Then the ghost grips Sergio’s hand so hard it hurts, making the handshake creepy and painful.

  The hat of the ghost again turns toward Catina. As she nods along silently, Sergio notices the boat, laid out on a table beside the ghost.

  “Our beloved ancestor says that he wants you to know the true story of the boat,” she says, “as he is sure your ancestor must have lied to you.”

  The ghost draws his gloved fingers together in the gesture meaning Do you understand?

  Sergio nods.

  “Our beloved ancestor says that both of the boats belonged to him, and that he only allowed your ancestor to borrow one. Naturally, when this one sank, he wanted the other one back.”

  The ghost points at Catina for emphasis.

  “Before he could fix the broken boat, your ancestor took it upon himself to try. It was infuriating! Just look at what a bad job he did!”

  “It looks pretty good to me,” Sergio says. “Especially after a hundred and forty years.”

  The ghost grabs the brim of his hat and looks to the ceiling, then turns to Catina.

  “Good? Why look at this color! Yellow? Who paints their boat yellow? And these burlap sails—they look ridiculous! It was just like him to do a sloppy, terrible job on everything. Even his own mother was always complaining about how lazy and stupid he was!”

  “Well, mothers can be wrong about stuff like that,” Sergio mutters.

  “No! He was a little fool is what he was!” The gestures of the ghost fly more furiously as he leans forward menacingly toward Sergio. Mozzo, standing off to the side, smiles his widest smile.

  “And another thing,” Catina goes on as the ghost wags a white-gloved finger. “Tell that ancestor of yours that it’s a sign of how forgiving our beloved ancestor is that he is even willing to let that low-born, ill-mannered woman into our house.”

  That’s it! Insulting his ghost is one thing. But insulting his mother!

  “If I may talk now,” Sergio says. “I have a message from my beloved ancestor to you.”

  “Oh yes?” The Carrozzo ghost settles back into his chair. “What is it?”

  “This!” Sergio says, and gives him the hardest flick of a two-handed mundza he can muster.

  Mozzo and Catina look stunned. The ghost is motionless. Then his gloves grasp at the air like he’s strangling someone.

  “You can’t do that to our beloved ancestor!” Catina says.

  “Yeah! And in his own house!” Mozzo says. “Who do you think you are!”

  “Alive or dead, you Carrozzos are all the same!” Sergio says. “Jerks!”

  Then he turns and races away, pushing through the door right past Rosa and Primo.

  “What’s going on?” Primo yells after him.

  Rosa doesn’t wait for an answer. She sticks out a leg to trip Mozzo as he comes tearing out of the back house. His older sister, right on his heels, goes tumbling over him.

  In the middle of the courtyard, Sergio looks back to see what�
��s happening, and he trips—over these stupid shoes!

  Rosa and Primo each pull him up by an arm and the three of them hurry into the front house just a step ahead of the Carrozzos.

  Inside, Mozzo’s father is making a toast.

  “. . . and as we welcome the rebirth of Nature on this happy First of May, let us also welcome the rebirth of friendships.” He raises his glass toward Sergio’s mother. “Salut!”

  “Salut!” the adults all say, raising their own glasses.

  Primo turns to Mozzo and Catina and gives them the chicken peck—Suckers!

  Mozzo answers with a hand chop to his head—I’m going to GET you!

  “Sergio, my dear boy!” his mother calls to him. She’s holding out her hands for a hug.

  His feet more in pain than ever, Sergio hobbles over to where she is sitting and smiling with her cousin and two other ladies. They all laugh.

  “Take those shoes off, dear!” his mom says. “We must buy you a new pair!”

  “Okay,” Sergio says, and kicks them off.

  “I miss you, dear!” his mom says. “Why haven’t you been sleeping at home?”

  “Uh, because you told me to go sleep up with the ghost,” Sergio says.

  “Oh, that’s just an expression! I wasn’t serious!” his mom says, and she and the other ladies laugh again. “Come back downstairs, you silly boy!”

  His mom gives Sergio a big kiss and goes back to her friends. Sergio heads over to look for Primo and Rosa and finds them at the buffet table. His stepfather is there, too, and all three of them are stuffing chunks of roast boar into their mouths, shirts, and pockets.

  “Come on!” Sergio whispers to Rosa and Primo. “Let’s sneak out of here before anything else can go wrong.”

  Outside, they start walking down the hill, stepping off the cold, hard paving stones onto the warm soft dirt of the Triggio street.

  It feels so good.

  10

  HOME SWEET HOME

  “ARE you serious? Are you sure?” Bis-Bis says. “Your mother is really letting you move back downstairs?”

  “Yes!” Sergio says. “The plan worked perfectly!”

  Except for Mozzo and his sister and ghost now wanting to kill him, that is. But Sergio isn’t going to mention that part.

  “What joy, my boy!” Bis-Bis says, throwing his arms around Sergio.

  Sergio finishes packing all of his clothes into a box. “Well, I’ll see you in the morning for your offering!” he says.

  “Oh, don’t worry about the offering!” Bis-Bis says. “Why don’t you take tomorrow off?”

  “Okay,” Sergio says, hardly able to believe it. Bis-Bis has never given him a day off.

  Sergio is half out the door when Bis-Bis stops him.

  “One other thing,” the ghost says. “That old so-and-so . . .” Bis-Bis pauses, a hint of worry on his face. “Did he say anything about me?”

  “Uh . . .” Sergio thinks for a moment. “He said you were very forgiving.” Sergio scratches the back of his neck. “And raised a glass to a rebirth of friendship.”

  “Hah! He did, did he?” Bis-Bis claps and rubs his hands. As Sergio leaves, the ghost happily calls after him, “Why don’t you take the whole week off?”

  Carrying his basket of clothes back downstairs, Sergio can’t believe it. Everything works out. For once!

  The next morning, Sergio feels as free as a bird. He runs across the street to Primo’s and finds Emilio there. He asks Sergio if he wants to go hunting with them.

  “Sure!” Sergio says. “Without offerings to make, I can do whatever I want!”

  “Don’t you still have to check with your mom first?” Emilio says.

  “Oh, dang!” Sergio says. “Right.”

  Back home, Sergio notices that all of his brothers have runny noses and are sneezing. Settimo looks especially bad. He doesn’t even have his toes in his mouth.

  “There you are!” Sergio’s mother says happily. “How nice it is to have you home, son!”

  She comes and gives him a kiss, then puts on her fanciest head scarf.

  “Why are you so dressed up?” Sergio says.

  “I’m going to get my hair combed, like a proper lady! Things are different now,” she says. “Aren’t you happy for me?”

  “Sure,” Sergio says. “I guess.”

  “I will be gone most of the day, so you have to mind your brothers.”

  “Oh,” Sergio says. “I was kind of hoping I could go hunting.”

  “The new diapers are in the chest,” his mother says, as if Sergio had said nothing at all. “And the little ones still need their breakfast. And make sure that every half hour you suck the snot out of the baby’s nose.”

  Sergio laughs.

  “Why are you laughing?”

  “Because you’re kidding about sucking out the snot, right?” Sergio says. “Right?”

  “He’s too little to blow his own nose. You don’t want him to suffocate, do you?” his mother says, pausing at the door. “I did it for you when you were a baby.”

  And she leaves.

  Sergio is terrified to be alone with Settimo. Yellow-green gook is smeared from the baby’s nose across his cheeks, and with every breath out, a snot bubble forms from his left nostril.

  “Primo!” Sergio yells across the street. “Primo! You have to get over here RIGHT NOW!”

  “What’s going on?” Primo says when he gets there. “We were just about to leave without you.”

  “You can’t leave me here!” Sergio says, and explains the situation.

  “Skeevo!” Primo says. “That can’t really be true. What baby ever suffocated on its own snot?”

  It does seem like Settimo is having trouble breathing, though. The snot bubble is getting smaller and smaller.

  “Hey!” Emilio calls from outside. “Are you two coming or what?”

  “You’ve gotta help us!” Sergio yells. “We’ve got a crisis here.”

  After hearing the situation, Emilio says, “The Janara stuck a straw up Rosa’s nose to suck all the food out of her stomach. Maybe the same thing works with snot.”

  “Geez,” Primo says. “If only we knew who the Janara was, we could ask them to do it for us!”

  Uh-oh.

  Emilio becomes so mad it looks like his cap is going to pop off.

  “How could you tell him?” he says to Sergio. “You promised!”

  “Hey, don’t get mad at me!” Sergio says. “Everyone knows I can’t keep a secret!”

  Emilio turns to Primo. “And who did you tell?”

  “No one!” Primo says. “Only Maria Beppina. I swear!”

  At that moment, a horrible cough comes from Settimo.

  “You have to do something, Sergio,” Primo says.

  “I have a straw,” Emilio says, reaching into one of his pockets.

  “No way!” Sergio says. “Even with a straw, I’ll still be sucking snot into my mouth!”

  “How about we use this?” Primo says, grabbing the bellows from above the fireplace.

  “But that’s for blowing air onto a fire,” Sergio says. “Not sucking it in.”

  “You have to suck the air in to start,” Primo says. He demonstrates by placing the nozzle against Sergio’s arm and opening the bellows. It pulls his skin inside.

  “Ow!” Sergio says.

  “It’s worth a try,” Emilio says.

  While Primo holds the bellows and Emilio holds Settimo, Sergio tries guiding the nozzle into the baby’s left nostril, but it’s no good. His nose is too small.

  “I don’t know,” Primo says. “I think you have to do it. You have to suck the snot out.”

  “Yeah, you have to.” Emilio says. “It’s getting worse.”

  Sergio is saved for a moment, however, as the front door bangs open agai
n.

  It’s Rosa.

  “I can’t believe that everyone else knew that one of us is living with a Janara except me!” she says to Emilio. “Your own twin!”

  “You did tell her!” Emilio says, turning to Primo.

  “No, I didn’t!” he says.

  “Actually, he didn’t,” Rosa says, and turns to Maria Beppina, walking through the door.

  Her face turns red. “I had to tell someone!” Maria Beppina says.

  “So who is the Janara, anyway?” Rosa says.

  “No one knows! But forget that for now,” Primo says. “Sergio’s about to suck the snot out of the baby’s nose! It’s going to be fan-tas-tic!”

  “No!” Maria Beppina says.

  “Skeevo!” Rosa says.

  We wish we could end the story here, and leave Sergio with some shred of dignity intact.

  But we can’t.

  Life goes on, but our book is done!

  SO it seems that parents need respect every bit as much as ghosts, or they may turn you out of the house as well. I would say that Sergio has learned a valuable lesson, except I am not sure that Sergio learns lessons. Too bad.

  If nothing else, the boy at least has learned some valuable questions. The answer to one—Who helped Emilio?—you may already know, if you have been reading along with us.

  You may even know that some of the things Sergio does not question—such as the “magic” of Primo’s ring, or Maria Beppina having been “caught”—are not quite as they seem.

  The other, more explosive riddle— Who is the Janara?—will only be revealed with time. If you, however, are a CAREFUL reader, perhaps you can find the answer to this as well.

  If you’ve read the first four books, perhaps it is time that you read them again!