I shifted my stance to the other foot. “Is it off for good?”
“I got the impression this was a postponement due to weather, not a cancellation.”
I relaxed a little. As much as I didn’t relish the idea of going toe-to-paranormal-toe with Gary Riddell, writing the story about a ghost in an historic farmhouse had the potential to be a show-stopper. “Okay, so what did you need to talk to me about?”
Del pointed to the whiteboard. “Since the ghost hunt has been derailed by snow, you and Annabeth have been reassigned for tonight to the open-campus frat party at the Sigma Zeta house.”
I gasped involuntarily and then tried to cover it with a fake cough. Writing about cheesy Halloween costumes at what would surely be a drunken frat party was not exactly an elite assignment. “But you put Janet on that one!”
“Well, you’re the better reporter, so Janet’s now covering the pumpkin decorating contest in downtown Belford. Party starts at nine.” And with that, Del turned back to his desk and resumed typing.
I stood there for another stunned minute, but Del’s total concentration meant I’d been dismissed. I quietly closed his office door.
“Bummer,” Uncle Omar said with a chuckle.
I glanced across the room and saw him leaning against the file cabinets, arms crossed, dog tags dangling, a wicked grin on his face.
I scowled as I walked over. “What are you laughing about?” I asked. “Me going to a stupid frat party?”
“Things happen for a reason,” he reminded me before he vanished.
“Perfect!” I shouted, then grimaced, hoping Mr. Delwood hadn’t heard me talking “to myself.”
I was trying to process what Uncle Omar had said when my internal radar started buzzing. Loudly. Alarm bells went off in my head, causing me to feel nervous, wary, and over-heated all at once. I held completely still as I tried to get a read on what it was, but it was just out of reach, and then it evaporated. I sighed. All I knew for sure was that something big was going down tonight.
I put on my coat. If I was going to a Halloween party tonight, I needed a costume.
Chapter 7
Gary walked out of the Fine Arts Building after his last class of the day and straight into the predicted snowstorm. He blew on his hands, put on a pair of gloves, and pulled a baseball cap out of his backpack. Some committee had gone to a lot of trouble to set up for Halloween. Carved jack-o-lanterns, scarecrows, and bales of hay had been placed decoratively around The Commons and dorm entrances. Too bad everything was quickly being covered in thick, wet snowflakes.
He pulled his phone out to check messages. Sure enough, he found the one he’d been hoping for from Barry, calling off tonight’s ghost-stalking event. Gary was relieved. He’d heard about a big Halloween-themed frat party open to anyone on campus, and Gary wanted to go. Heck, he might even have some fun for a change.
Despite the weather, people were already getting into the spirit of the holiday. It was 5:30 in the afternoon and costumed students were everywhere. He gaped at a Count Dracula, watched a couple of Hunger Games wannabes hurrying along, spotted some 1960s hippies looking like they were dressed for a beach clambake rather than a blizzard, and then he came face to face with Beetlejuice.
“Hey, Foster,” Gary said with an approving nod at the very authentic-looking black and white outfit, complete with ghoulish makeup and white wig. “Cool get-up. Where’d you get it?”
“Costume room.” Foster looked Gary up and down with obvious disdain.
Gary followed Foster’s gaze. “Haven’t had time.” Not that he owed Foster an explanation, but for some reason Foster’s status as favorite son of the freshman theatre class intimidated him. Just as he was about to mumble some explanation about ghost hunts and late classes, he caught sight of one of the resident campus ghosts, strolling along as if he belonged in this world. Gary realized it was that same military ghost that he’d seen when he and Brenda toured the campus months ago.
Foster snapped his fingers in front of Gary’s face to get his attention. “You going as boring college boy?”
“Ghost whisperer,” Gary said. He hurried off, both to get away from Foster and to avoid the ghost.
“I don’t get it!” Foster called after him.
Gary went back to his dorm room, dropped his book bag in the doorway, and started rummaging through his closet. He needed something to wear, and clearly he owned nothing that could be even remotely considered a Halloween costume, let alone compete with Foster’s. Then it dawned on him. If Foster was brazen enough to borrow something from the costume room in the theatre building, Gary could, too. He hurried down the hall and rang for the elevator. When the door opened, there was Sean, about to step off.
“Where ya headed in such a hurry?” Sean asked.
“Since the ghost hunt’s off, thought I’d go to that Sig Zeta party.” Gary stuck his hand between the elevator doors to keep them from closing. “What about you?”
Sean shrugged. “Annabeth wants to go.”
Gary stepped onto the elevator and pushed the button for the lobby. “See ya there?” The more he thought about it, the more eager he was to go to an open-campus party that would be crawling with attractive women. Between classes, working at the bookstore, play rehearsals, and dodging the undead, he hadn’t been on a single date since he’d started college. Not that he’d had that many dates in high school, but he had fully intended to make a fresh start when he got on campus. “And tonight’s the night,” he said aloud, just as the elevator doors opened into the lobby. He blushed when two upper class girls who were waiting for the elevator burst into giggles. At his expense, he assumed.
“Uh, hi. I was just…”
Neither of the girls made eye contact as the two of them hopped on the elevator and pressed the UP button.
Bad start if you’re looking for love, he told himself.
****
I had totally ransacked our dorm room closet, looking for something, anything, that I could turn into a last-minute Halloween costume. The last time I dressed up I was fifteen and wearing a Madame Wilhelmina fortune-telling costume. My friend Megan roped me into playing the part of a robe-wearing, crystal-ball-gazing cliché at the high school Halloween Carnival. I didn’t still have the costume, but even if I did, the memories of how I embarrassed myself in front of my peers would keep me from ever putting it on again. So I had to come up with something else, hopefully something more sophisticated.
Nearly every outfit I owned was lying in a heap on my twin bed. Nothing. I sat down on the edge of the bed to think it through. Whatever I decided to wear, I had to come up with it quick, and it had to be something I could cobble together from what was in this room. I closed my eyes and tried some visualization. That didn’t always work for me when it’s about me, but hey, I was desperate.
Aha! Nope, no psychic insights, just a good idea. I jumped up and dug through the pile of clothes until I found my professional-looking business suit, the one Mom insisted a reporter must have, but tossed the matching pants aside as not quite right for what I had in mind. Hoped Annabeth wouldn’t mind…I found a navy blue pencil skirt in her closet that was a little tight on me, but a close match to the jacket. With a white button-down shirt, my hair tied back in what I hoped looked like an old-fashioned, bun-style hairdo, I was ready. I grabbed my press badge dangling from the corner of the mirror, put it around my neck and surveyed my look.
“You need a cloche hat,” a disembodied voice said.
I tilted my head to the side. “When did you become a fashion guru?”
“I’ve got access to all the biggies over here, remember?”
He never ceased to amaze me. “Thanks, Uncle Omar.”
“Good luck tonight,” he said with a chuckle.
My eyes widened. “Am I gonna need it?”
Naturally he didn’t answer.
I don’t have one of those hats Uncle Omar mentioned, and Annabeth doesn’t own one either. Despite vintage fashions coming back into st
yle, I couldn’t think of a single person who might have a cloche hat, nor could I get ahold of it now anyway. With shops in town closing early due to the snow, there was only one way to find the finishing piece for this otherwise-perfect costume. I put on my down overcoat with the hood, decided boots were more practical than pumps, even though the pumps would have been more appropriate for the time period I was going for, and headed out the door to the theatre department across campus.
I arrived cold and shivering, but when I tried the door I was relieved to find it unlocked. Inside, the building was deserted with the exception of the custodian, who was sweeping the hallway.
“Can you tell me where the costume room is?”
He looked up from his dustpan and frowned. “You a drama kid?”
“No, she’s not.” Startled, I flipped around to see Gary scowling at me.
“You a theatre student?” the janitor asked him. “Otherwise, the two of yous gotta go.”
“Yes, I’m a drama major,” Gary replied while giving me the stink eye.
I wasn’t about to let Gary Riddell deter me. I turned my back on him and gave the janitor my most winning smile. “I need to borrow a hat. For a Halloween costume.” I could tell that the janitor needed more convincing. “I didn’t have time to go shopping, and now with the snow I’m outta luck. I promise to bring it back in the morning. Please?”
The janitor looked me over, exchanged glances with Gary, then shrugged and motioned for us to follow him down the hall. He pulled a large ring of keys from the loop on his belt and unlocked a door that revealed a classroom that had been turned into a massive walk-in closet. There were rows and rows of costumes, arranged in a kind of order that must make sense to actors but made no sense to me. I stared at medieval clothes, nineteenth century dresses—which made me wonder which one Tricia would wear as Elizabeth Bennet—men’s frock coats, and finally mid-twentieth century outfits, both men’s and women’s.
Still overwhelmed by the sheer volume of costuming, I thanked the janitor.
He shrugged. “Door’s gonna lock behind you when you leave.” He turned and walked back down the hallway.
“Talk about chutzpah,” Gary muttered under his breath as he perused the rows of men’s clothing.
I scowled at him. Was he talking about me? Pretty nervy, since the guy was also here raiding the costume stash. “Del—Mr. Delwood, our newspaper faculty advisor—reassigned me to write about the frat party tonight and I didn’t have time to go shopping. I just need one thing to finish off my costume.”
He looked me up and down. “Right.”
A man of few words. Acting seemed like an odd career choice for a guy who couldn’t string two words together. “I guess since you’re one of the elite theatre students, you can help yourself to whatever you want.”
Gary didn’t rise to the bait. He was too busy scouting out the storage closet. “I guess.”
He was infuriating and I was over it. “I need a hat. If you could just point me in the right direction…” Gary didn’t budge. Apparently asking nicely wasn’t going to help, so I tried a different approach.
“What kind of costume are you looking for?”
“Something to top Foster Benning’s costume.” Gary ran his hands along the Regency frock coats.
“Not that,” I said. Boy, was he wrong for anything Regency-era. “Maybe something that showcases your height?”
Gary seemed to give that some thought. While I had him distracted, I repeated my request. “Women’s hats?”
He grunted and pointed to the back of the costume closet where accessories were stored on shelves. I left Gary to his browsing and headed over there. Some items were in labeled boxes while others had been tossed haphazardly onto the shelves. I ran my finger along the edges of the boxes, looking past shoes, capes, petticoats for various time periods, and finally came to the hats. They started with Shakespearean headgear for both men and women, and then abruptly switched to Jane Austen-era bonnets. I stretched on tiptoes up to my full five-foot-five inch height, but I couldn’t reach any of them. I thought for a moment, and then pulled back some capes and searched the floor until I spotted a footstool shoved underneath. Standing on it, I could finally reach the boxes. I rummaged through a few labeled 1950s and at last found a cloche hat. It was pretty rumpled, but I smoothed it as best I could with the palm of my hand.
I went to the mirror on the closet’s back wall to try on the hat. It wasn’t a perfect fit, but hey, this was a Halloween costume accessory, not a fashion statement. I decided it would do and tucked it into my shoulder bag. I returned the stool to its place and retraced my steps. Gary was still staring at the racks.
So many choices. So little time. I needed to get going if I hoped to do justice to covering that frat party, but I didn’t want to be rude to the guy who’d wrangled me a way in here. “Hamlet maybe?” I suggested.
“It’s a little cold to go running across campus in leggings,” he said.
He had me there. But an idea popped into my head, so I rummaged around through the robes, pulling out one that was so squished between other clothing that it was practically invisible. “Here. This is perfect.”
Gary lifted an eyebrow. “Ghost of Christmas Future? Ha ha.”
“Step out of character tonight and go as a ghost, not someone who talks to them.” He looked skeptical in the extreme, but I needed to go and I almost felt bad leaving ghost-boy in there by himself. Not that he couldn’t take care of himself, but for some reason he just looked like he could use a friend right now. But we were not friends, so I said the most reassuring thing I could think of. “It’s just a long robe and it’ll be warm.”
Gary walked to the mirror and held the outfit in front of him. “It’s a little short, but…” He shrugged, pulled it over his hooded sweatshirt and jeans, and tucked the mask under his arm. “Ready?” he asked as he held the door for me.
Which was rather chivalrous of him.
Once back outside, I realized the snow was coming down pretty fast, creating a sort of white-out condition. I groaned. “I wish I’d hitched a ride with Annabeth.”
“Walking’s not so bad,” Gary said. “I do it all the time. And Fraternity Row’s only about a block off campus.”
Great. I had to arrive on foot with a guy I don’t particularly care to be seen with. But there was no help for it, unless I wanted to walk across a deserted campus alone in the dark. Gary pulled his hoodie up over his head, I did the same with my coat hood, and together we pushed into the wind.
There was no mistaking which house was the Sig house, because the loud pulsating music emanating from the two-story building could be heard all the way down the block. It was just a house, though, sitting on a cul-de-sac among other houses that used to be a regular neighborhood in the mid-twentieth century, before ten of them were bought up by the University Greek System in the 1990s. This one was a white wood frame house with black shutters and a matching black front door. The minute I stepped onto the porch, that uneasy feeling I’d been having off and on all day washed over me. For sure I wasn’t going in till I focused, so I stopped mid-stride.
Gary stepped up onto the porch right behind me and nearly bumped into me. “What are you waiting for?”
That blew my concentration. “Nothing now.” I reached into my bag and pulled out the borrowed cloche hat.
Gary donned his mask while I adjusted the hat and we walked through the screened door, which had been left open, letting in the cold. Once inside, though, I understood why. Not only was it loud, it was really hot from all the bodies crammed in there. If the Fire Marshall should come by, I was sure the fraternity would get a code violation. And naturally all the lights were turned off with the exception of the red emergency exit lights glowing in the entry hall. Crowds like this set me on edge. Psychic overload.
I looked across the room and over the heads of some girls dressed as cheerleaders in tight mini-skirts, and watched as they danced with guys in football jerseys. One couple in particular
was looking cozy, but sure enough, I saw their whole future relationship play out in my head. He was going to dump her right after football season in another month or so, and she was going to be broken-hearted. That was the kind of random stuff I hated picking up on, because even though I didn’t know either of them, I knew what it was like to get dumped. I thought about cluing her in, but she probably wouldn’t believe me. Boy, did I ever not want to be here. Too many variables. If I didn’t have a job to do, I’d bail right now.
I surveyed my surroundings from the vantage point of about three feet into the entryway. All the rooms seemed to open off the main hallway, but a couple of walls had probably been knocked down years ago to construct a dining room big enough to accommodate all fifty or so members of the fraternity. As for the Sigma Zeta entryway, a fake candle flickered on a side table and the dark wood paneling, a throwback to another decorating era, was positively gothic in the dim light. Cheesecloth spider webs complete with plastic spiders dangled from the ceilings, and paper bats flew back and forth, blown about by a ceiling fan. A paper skeleton dangled from the ceiling, and in the corner by the ornate wooden staircase was a black plastic cauldron with smoking dry ice. Gary shoved the flimsy skeleton aside and stepped back to let me precede him into the large living area off to the left, which was where the party was happening. I guess somebody taught this guy some manners. His mom’s face popped into my head. She may have been a young mother, but she taught him well.
A guy in a Spiderman costume staggered toward me and shoved one of his two beers at me. I backed away and shook my head. “Alcohol and psychic abilities don’t mix.”
Spiderman furrowed his brow like he was trying to grasp what I’d just said. I guess he didn’t get it because he shrugged and said, “Coat room’s down the hall.”
“Want me to take your coat?” Gary offered.
“I’ll do it. Feel free to go mingle. I’m here to work, not party, so maybe I’ll find some interesting”—I caught sight of a girl in a naughty nurse costume draped all over a guy dressed as a doctor—“people to interview.” I cringed. Del owes me big.
Teenage Psychic on Campus Page 9