by Larry Parr
I turned my back on Jason, ignoring him completely, and walked toward Mr. Bell, who was lumbering toward the edge of the roof in the stiff-legged walking style he had, presumably so he wouldn’t wrinkle his aluminum-foil pants.
“Be careful, Mr. Bell,” I yelled as he half-stepped half-jumped over one of the hundreds of aluminum-foil satellite dishes that dotted his roof.
But my warning came too late! I watched in horror as Mr. Bell tottered for a moment on one stiff leg, bouncing around, trying to catch his balance as if he were on a pogo stick. I heard him mutter: “Oh no!” and then he fell!
Chapter 20
Like a giant TV dinner
“Mr. Bell!” I yelled. I ran to the spot where he had fallen. He had landed flat on his back, but fortunately he landed on two large, aluminum-foil-ball “satellite dishes.” The “dishes” were smashed flat, having absorbed the impact. Mr. Bell just lay there, barely moving. But I could see he was breathing. “Mr. Bell, are you all right?”
For a moment he lay still, then, quite suddenly, his eyes popped open. I think I jumped back a little when they did. His eyes darted all around, then finally fixed on my face. “Did I fall off the roof again?” he asked.
I couldn’t help but smile. “Yes, you did,” I answered. I could feel Jason come up from behind me, and I could hear the others running up. “Is anything broken? Can you sit up?” I asked.
Mr. Bell sat up slowly, feeling his arms and his legs as he did so. “Everything seems A-O.K.,” he said. Then, suddenly, he reached up and felt the aluminum-foil satellite dish on top of his head. I’m afraid it didn’t survived the fall nearly so well as Mr. Bell. It looked like a total write-off. “Oh my! This will never do. Not tonight. Not tonight of all nights!”
Mr. Bell began scrambling like a turtle on its back, trying to stand without bending his legs. “Help me up, will you?” he finally asked.
I stepped back and allowed Jason, Alan, and Wesley to lift Mr. Bell to a standing position. Once he was standing, Mr. Bell smiled, then looked directly at Wesley and said: “Thank you, young man. That was most kind.”
For a moment Wesley didn’t know what to say. Finally he looked down and mumbled: “That’s O.K.”
I smiled at Wesley and poked him in the ribs. He finally glanced at me, then smiled and looked up. I could tell he wasn’t so scared of Mr. Bell any more. He leaned close to me and whispered: “We heard you yell. We didn’t know what had happened.”
I grabbed Wesley’s arm and squeezed it. “Thanks!” I whispered back.
Then I turned my attention back to Mr. Bell. I took one of his arms and began walking him slowly toward the door of his house. “Why don’t we go inside, Mr. Bell. Maybe you should sit down for a minute. Are you sure you’re O.K.?”
“Fine and dandy!” he said enthusiastically. Then he reached up and again felt the crushed remains of the aluminum-foil dish that used to be on top of his head. “But I have to fix my dish. Tonight’s an important night. They told me to be ready for a very important message. Tonight. At midnight.”
“I’m sure we’ll have everything ready by then,” I said. “Don’t you have a spare dish you could use for tonight?”
By this time we had gotten him inside his house. I was still amazed by the hundreds of TV monitors lining the walls of his living room. There were everything from twelve inch black and white monitors to twenty-eight inch Sony color monitors. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason for the way they were grouped. It looked like he just mounted the first one randomly, then began filling in every square inch of bare wall with additional monitors as he got them. I helped him sit in the one and only chair in the room; he kept his legs stiff and his back stiff, not wanting to wrinkle his aluminum-foil suit.
“An extra dish?” he said suddenly. “Of course!” He looked at me and smiled. “I don’t have to make another dish tonight. I can use one of the spare dishes!” He laughed and slapped an aluminum-foil-covered hand against an aluminum-foil-covered thigh. “You’ve got a good head on your shoulders, young lady!”
“Thank you,” I said. “Mr. Bell, I need you to help me with something. It’s very important.”
He looked deeply into my eyes. I could feel him touching my very soul. It was slightly unsettling—but at the same time it felt exhilarating. I’d never had someone look that deeply into my eyes before. “Yes. I can see it’s important. Whatever I can do, you can count on me.” He smiled and patted my hand. “What do you need?”
I took a deep breath and just asked him straight out. “I need you to come with us to Grissom High School and show us the exact spot where you found that gold coin you showed us.”
Mr. Bell squirmed slightly. It might have been because he was so uncomfortable sitting ram-rod straight the way he was, but I had the feeling it was because he was uncomfortable about something else. “I-I haven’t been away from my house in more than five years,” he said quietly, no longer looking me in the eye. “I don’t know if I can leave any more.”
“If you’re worried about getting back before midnight, I guarantee we won’t keep you away more than a couple of hours. You’ll be back in plenty of time for tonight’s . . .”
He took my hand between his and squeezed it gently. “It’s not that, my dear. It’s-it’s hard to explain, really. I just don’t know if I can leave.”
“Agoraphobia,” Alan said quietly.
We all turned to look at him. It was almost the first word he’d said since we picked him up. “What?” I asked.
“Agoraphobia is the fear of leaving one’s house. It’s a real mental condition,” he said in his normal lecturing voice—but then he suddenly realized that maybe he shouldn’t be saying that in front of Mr. Bell and stopped talking.
Everyone looked at Mr. Bell to see if we had hurt his feelings. For a moment he seemed unaware of why everyone was looking at him. Then he smiled and almost laughed. “The boy is right. It is a mental condition. I’m not offended. I really don’t know how severe a case I have since I haven’t even tried to leave here for more than four years.”
“Four years? Here?” Jennifer asked as if she couldn’t quite fathom what the words meant. “You haven’t been out of this house in four years?”
“Well, I do walk around the yard,” Mr. Bell said, looking at all of us. “It’s not as bad as it sounds. One of my monitors is tuned to the stock market channel. I keep in touch with my broker by phone as often as I need to. He makes sure I have the money I need. Mr. Brown at the local store drops off groceries twice a week. I’m really quite happy,” he said, looking sincerely at each of us. “Really.”
I smiled back at him. “Mr. Bell, I wouldn’t ask you to do this if it wasn’t important. Please. For me?”
He looked me in the eyes once more and smiled warmly as he took my hand in his. “For you, my dear, I would attempt anything. Help me up.”
I held one hand, Jason and Wesley held his other as we pulled him to a stiff-legged standing position. As soon as he stabilized himself, he smiled and said: “Well, let’s get the show on the road!” And he began to walk stiff-legged toward the door. I smiled and followed. The others followed me. I could see them shaking their heads in amazement out of the corner of my eyes.
It took a good twenty minutes to load Mr. Bell into Wesley’s VW. The problem was, Mr. Bell couldn’t bend enough to crawl in the door, or to sit on the seat even if he had been able to make it through the door.
It took a bit of doing, but we finally opened Wesley’s sun roof and lowered Mr. Bell feet first through it. That way he could stand all the way to the school, with his head sticking up out of the top of the car.
It was a brilliant idea, and we have to thank Alan for coming up with it first. Not only did it keep Mr. Bell from having to sit all scrunched up in the bug, but it also made him feel less confined and seemed to help his agoraphobia.
I’m sure we were quite a sight, with five kids crammed into a VW bug while an adult dressed from head to foot in aluminum foil rode standing up,
his head and upper body poking up like some kind of weird car billboard advertising giant TV dinners or something.
Chapter 21
“X” doesn’t mark the spot!
With Mr. Bell sticking out the top of Wesley’s car, and the rest of us packed inside the bug like sardines, Wesley drove extra slow. It took us almost a full hour to get from Mr. Bell’s house to the bottom of Grissom Hill.
And then the fun really started!
Wesley’s little bug had to strain and struggle to make it up the hill with all of us onboard! We kept cheering every time we made it a few yards, and booing every time we slipped back. Even Mr. Bell was cheering and booing and waving his aluminum-covered hands to coax us on!
All of us were having a great time—except for Wesley, who kept muttering and swearing under his breath, and threatening to charge us all for a new clutch. Finally, after about fifteen minutes of starts and stops and jerks, the little bug crested the top of the hill and Wesley turned into the student parking lot to a round of cheers from everyone, including Mr. Bell.
I was worried that Mr. Bell might be having a hard time now that we were so far away from his house, but as we all oozed out of the sardine can Wesley called his car, I could see that Mr. Bell was smiling and enjoying himself. I guess his agoraphobia wasn’t too bad after all.
And besides, if he had to leave his house after four years, he couldn’t have picked a better bunch of kids to have gone off with on an adventure! This was already a night he’d never forget!
After all of us had climbed out of the car and gotten the blood flowing again, Wesley and Jason positioned themselves behind Mr. Bell, each guy lifting up on one of Mr. Bell’s arms, while Alan lifted up on Mr. Bell’s legs from inside the car. It only took a couple of minutes to get Mr. Bell out of the car, and then slide him down to the ground.
The moment his feet touched the blacktop of the parking lot I saw a flash of fear go through his eyes. I immediately grabbed hold of one of his arms and motioned for Jennifer to hold his other arm. “Everything’s O.K., Mr. Bell,” I said as brightly as I could. “This shouldn’t take long, and then we’ll get you right back home.”
Mr. Bell didn’t say a word. He forced a smile and nodded—but I could see fear building up behind his eyes. I knew we didn’t have much time before he would have to be taken back home, so I immediately started leading him to the spot I thought the coins and the body would be buried.
I mentioned before that the campus was dotted with elm trees. Before the school was built the hill was covered with elm trees. In fact, the original cemetery, which the city stopped using in 1911, was called Elm Hill Cemetery. Most of the people buried here were poor people that the city had to bury. Most had no family or friends. I guess that’s why no one cared when the school was built on top of the old graves.
Anyway, the quad area of the campus is covered with cement. It’s quite a large area, and right in the middle is a rather good-sized “planter” in which is growing the largest elm tree on campus. In fact, it’s referred to as the Campus Elm. A plaque embedded in the cement around the planter says it is one of the original elm trees growing on the hill before the school was built.
As far as I was concerned, it didn’t take a genius to figure out that that’s where the body and the stolen coins were buried! But I wanted to be sure.
I wanted Mr. Bell to point to the planter and say “Yes, that’s where I found the gold coin that night I scared off the ghost.”
But things didn’t work out exactly the way I planned. First off, Mr. Bell was having a hard time orienting himself; the last time he was here the school wasn’t complete. And (let’s be brutally honest!) he had been drinking.
He stood near the center of the quad and slowly spun himself around, standing stiffly on one leg. He took a long time looking at the road which led up to the school and finally he began walking toward the edge of the quad, toward the back of the administration wing of buildings. Between the cement of the quad and the back wall of what I judged to be the Principal’s Office was a thin strip of grass and then a flower bed. There was a slight “curb” separating the cement pad of the quad from the grass. Mr. Bell pointed at that curb, hesitated, then suddenly blurted: “There! That’s the spot. Things look a lot different now, but I’m sure that’s where I found it.”
“Not in the middle of the quad by the Campus Elm?” I asked, disappointed that I was wrong.
He shook his head and pointed an aluminum-foil-covered hand at the curb behind the Principal’s office. “No. It was right there. I’m sure of it.” Suddenly he looked up at the full moon, which was sitting about half way up the sky. “What time is it?” he said, suddenly looking worried. “I have to put on my spare dish and prepare myself to receive a very important message from beyond the stars!” he concluded with a flourish, pointing his hand at the star-filled sky above.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Bell,” I said taking one of his arms and motioning for Jennifer to take the other. “We’re going back now. We’ll have you home in plenty of time, I promise.” I gave one last glance back at the spot Mr. Bell had pointed to, and then Jennifer and I led Mr. Bell back to Wesley’s car.
Chapter 22
Do I have to do any of the digging?
It took a lot less time to get Mr. Bell loaded into Wesley’s car the second time and to drive back to his house than it had to get to the school in the first place. The only excitement we had on our way home was driving past Larry & Joe’s Pizza stand and having to listen to all the laughter and cat calls from the school jocks who hung out there every Friday night.
Mr. Bell was great. He held his hand up and waved demurely just like the Pope does when he rides around in his Pope-mobile.
It wasn’t until we got all the way back to Mr. Bell’s and the guys had done their bit to unload him from the car that I asked my next huge favor of him.
“Mr. Bell,” I said as Jennifer and I led him back into his house, “I need one more favor from you, and I’m afraid this is a really big favor.”
“I’m terribly sorry, my dear, but I have to get ready for my contact tonight. They told me it would be a particularly important one. I think they might be ready to destroy the Earth, and I really should try to talk them out of it, don’t you think?”
My mouth had dropped open while he was talking. It took me a full second or so before I was able to close it and organize my thoughts. “Yes, definitely,” I said. “We’d all appreciate it if you could talk them out of destroying the Earth. But in the meantime, could I possibly borrow the coin you found at the school. You know, the gold coin? I know it’s a lot to ask, and I promise I’ll be extra careful with it. In fact, I’ll . . . .”
Mr. Bell held up an aluminum-foil-covered hand to stop me from talking any further. “Say no more,” he said brightly. “If you say it is important, then it is important. End of story.”
With that he walked stiff-legged into the bedroom and returned a minute later with the gold coin in his hand. He walked over to me and held it out. “Do whatever you feel you have to do, young lady. I’m just happy that I could be of some small service to you.”
I didn’t know what to say. I could feel my eyes tearing up and a huge lump was forming in my throat. I didn’t want to cry. I slowly reached out and took the coin. It felt smooth, almost soft in a way, and very heavy. I could see why people treasured gold; it had an almost magical feel to it, like nothing else I had ever felt before in my life.
“Thank you,” I finally said. I quickly raised up on tip toe and gave Mr. Bell a kiss on his cheek. “This will be a big help.”
With that I turned around and walked out the door. It took the others several seconds to follow. Jason had to run to catch up with me.
“I can’t believe you,” he said. “What is going on in that little mind of yours, anyway?”
I looked at Jason and smiled. “Jason, whether you understand what’s going on or whether you don’t understand is no concern of mine. If you want to be part of this, t
hat’s fine by me. And if you don’t—that’s O.K., too. You make the decision—but I call the shots. O.K.?”
With that I turned my back on Jason and walked to the car. The others followed in total silence. I got in the back seat; after a moment of silent haggling, Jennifer slipped in next to me and then Alan squeezed in next to her. Jason sat in the front passenger seat.
“Where to now?” Wesley said as he started the engine.
Everyone looked at me. “Well,” I said with some hesitation, “we’ve got a lot to do this weekend, but most of it needs to wait until Sunday night. That’s when we have to dig the hole. At midnight. At the school.”
“Dig a hole? A hole?? At midnight? At the school?” Jason finally said, without turning around. “What’s next, a seance?”
“I told you you don’t have to come,” I said. “You’re more than welcome to come along and help, but you don’t have to. Frankly, I think we could all do with a break from your rapier-like wit.”
I knew that was a little mean. I knew I’d just gone a tad overboard. But right then I didn’t care. We drove in silence for another couple of minutes. Finally Wesley said: “I hate to mention it, it’s probably a petty thing, but I don’t have a clue where I’m supposed to be driving right now. Can anyone help me out?”
“You can take me home,” Jason said, his face pressed up against the passenger window. “I’m through with this.”
“Actually I think it’s time for me to call it a night as well,” I said. I had a few things I had to do on Saturday by myself to get the trap set. “Wesley, are you up for another run to the school on Sunday night? Pick everyone up around eleven thirty? We’ll start digging at exactly midnight. I want the ghost to see us.”
“Your wish is my command,” Wesley said dryly.
We drove in total silence for ten minutes. Jason had his arms folded across his chest and never once turned to look at me or said a word. The atmosphere in the car was so thick you could slice it into bite-sized chunks. Finally Alan said, with false lightness in his voice: “So—we’re going to do some digging at the school, are we? That’s sounds like fun. Are we looking for anything special?”