Ghost Girl

by Torey Hayden

  Several minutes passed without a break in the silence. Jadie, still bent double, shifted her hands to support her head, first covering her face with them, and then eventually turning her head to allow her to see around the room.

  “You’re finding it hard to talk?” I asked quietly.

  Her eyes searched my face.

  “That’s okay. I don’t mind.”

  Back to the silence.

  “Has that man come?” she asked at last.

  “Which man?”

  She raised her head slightly to see me better. “That spider-killer man you told me about last year.”

  “You mean the fumigator? From the pest-control company?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, Mr. Tinbergen has them come twice a year, so, yes, I expect he’s just been. Probably right before school started last month.”

  A pause.

  “You’re not very fond of spiders, are you?” I said.

  “I hate spiders.”

  “How come?”

  “They get everywhere. They see what you do.” A great weariness seemed to overtake Jadie at this point, and she dropped her head to rest it right on her knees. For a brief moment she closed her eyes, then reopened them. “What do you do with spiders?” she asked. “Do you kill them?”

  “Not usually. I’m not frightened by them, so if they don’t put their webs in my way, I leave them be.”

  “But they watch what you do.”

  “I’m sure what I do is not of great interest to spiders,” I replied.

  A small pause ensued.

  “It sounds as if perhaps you’re worried that they’re watching you,” I said.

  Slowly, Jadie nodded.

  “What makes you think that?”

  No reply.

  I looked back at the papers before me on the desk. Jadie, with almost aching slowness, brought herself up into an upright position. She rotated her shoulders, as if they were stiff, and then rotated her head. Folding her hands in her lap, she regarded them. “I gotta ask you something,” she murmured.

  “What’s that?”

  Jadie continued to look at her hands for several moments. Finally, she looked over. “Do you believe me?”

  “About what?”

  “Like when I tell you stuff. Do you believe me?”

  “I try to. Do you worry that I don’t?”

  A small pause. She frowned down at her hands. “Sometimes things don’t sound like they’re true, and then people don’t believe you. Even if it is true, people think you’re making it up.”

  “And you’re concerned this might be the case with me?”

  Faintly, she nodded.

  I smiled and leaned forward on the desk. “Well, I’ll tell you what. What if I always try to believe you? What if I promise I’ll always listen, and if you tell me something’s true, I’ll try to believe.”

  Jadie’s brow puckered. She lowered her head. “What I gotta tell you is that you need to be careful about spiders.”

  “I see.”

  “They are watching you. The spiders are seeing what you’re doing, so you got to never talk to me, except when there’s no spiders.”

  “Oh.”

  “You’re going to die otherwise. That’s the truth. The spiders want you to die. And if they ever see I’m telling you this, I’m going to die too.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  It was only the first full week of October and already we were being attacked by Halloween hysteria. Jeremiah, by far the most vocal child in my group, was also the most smitten by the opportunities Halloween presented.

  “Me and my brother, when we go out trick-or-treating, we’re gonna take pillowcases. We’re going to go all the way around town, to every house, to every single house, and we’re going to get a hundred candy.”

  “A hundred pieces of candy,” I corrected.

  “Well, probably two hundred. Or even a thousand. Probably a thousand candy.”

  “A thousand pieces of candy.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s what I said.”

  We were all sitting around the table working on a jack-o’-lantern decoration for the bulletin board. This was one of my more demented projects. I’d read about it in a teaching magazine, about how the design was drawn on a large sheet of paper and then the children took tiny squares of tissue paper, wrapped them individually around the eraser end of a pencil to form small flowerlike shapes, and glued them closely together onto the design to make a lovely, three-dimensional wall hanging. As it was listed as suitable for kindergarteners on up, I’d thought it was just the thing for us to work on as a group. What I hadn’t counted on was just how many pencil-twisted squares were needed to fill in a design the size of the one I’d drawn, nor how intrinsically boring twisting the squares and gluing them on was.

  “What house do you live in?” Jeremiah asked me. “I’m probably going to come there. And you know what I’m going to be wearing as my costume? I’m going to be He-Man, Mightiest Man in the Universe.” This caused Jeremiah to leap to his feet and thrust his pencil into the air, shrieking, “By the power of Greyskull! I GOT THE POWER!” Jadie, beside him, covered her ears.

  “I think that’s a bit loud, Jeremiah,” I said.

  “No, I’m not going to be He-Man. I’ve changed my mind. Maybe I’m going to be Batman.” He swooped his arms out to the side.

  “Jeremiah, please sit down.”

  “What you gonna be, Philip?” Jeremiah asked.

  Philip, across the table, was earnestly trying to twist his bit of tissue paper around a contrary pencil. Ten minutes of concentrated effort and Philip had managed to make two of the twisted shapes.

  “What ’bout you, boogy Reub? What you gonna be?” Having paused to flick a bit of tissue paper against his eyelashes, Reuben was momentarily lost in a reverie of self-stimulation.

  “What’s Reuben going to be?” Jeremiah asked me.

  “I think he’s going to be a pirate, aren’t you, Reuben?” I said and gently lowered his hands from his face. “And Brucie’s going to be a hobo. We’re going to make your hobo’s stick and bundle right here in class next week, aren’t we, Brucie?” I smiled at Brucie, whose main contribution thus far had been to stay upright on his chair.

  “He ain’t gonna be as good as me. I’m gonna be best. I’m going to have the best costume of anybody, and I’m going to win the prize. Mr. Tinbergen always gives out prizes, and this year, I’m gonna win it.” Jeremiah looked over at Philip again. “So, what’s your costume gonna be?”

  “Huh-huhh,” Philip intoned.

  I reached over to press his lips together. “Try again, Phil. Buh-uh-uh.”

  “Buh-huhh.”

  “Bunny. That’s right. Very good, Philip.”

  “Bunny?” Jeremiah shrieked. “Bunny? Whose asshole idea was that, man? What kind of boog are you, gonna be a bunny?”

  “It sounds like a very nice costume, Jeremiah. Philip’s foster mom was telling me all about it. He’s going to have long ears and even whiskers.”

  “Does it got a tail?” Jeremiah shrieked again, thinking this was a tremendously funny joke. Leaping from his chair, he hopped around the room, waggling his hands behind him. “Got a tail! Got a tail!”

  Trying to ignore him, I looked over at Jadie, solemnly forming her tissue paper shapes and sticking them onto the jack-o’-lantern. Although she interacted considerably more with the boys now than she used to, she still tended often to carry on as if none of the rest of us were there. “Have you started thinking about your costume?” I asked.

  Jadie didn’t answer.

  Jeremiah leaped up on the back of Jadie’s chair and wrapped his arms around her neck. “What you gonna wear, girlie-wurlie? What you gonna be? A witch? A witch-bitch? Hinx minx, the old witch stinks. That fat begins to fry—”

  “Jeremiah, please,” I moaned. He climbed down. Jadie dusted off her shoulder as if he’d left fleas.

  “Know what I’m gonna be, girlie-wurlie?” This time he threw himself do
wn in front of her, knocking her pieces of tissue paper all across the table. “I’m going to be Dracula and eat your throat! Arrrghhhhhh!” At this he grabbed Jadie’s neck again, not an easy maneuver to execute from his position on the table.

  “Jeremiah!” I said. “Settle down. Now get off that table and back to your place immediately. You’re supposed to be helping us make this. We’ve still got a long way to go, so please help.”

  “I’m gonna get teeth,” he said, sliding himself over the tabletop and pushing his face close to mine. “Get some of them Dracula teeth that glow in the dark, and I’m going to have a whole mouthful of catsup. Then, when I open my mouth, it’s gonna all drip down just like blood. Grrrrawwwww!” He went for my jugular.

  Grabbing him firmly by the shoulders, I pulled him off the table and sat him down in his chair.

  “I am going to make blood drip down. ’Cause me and Micah been stealing them little catsup things from McDonald’s every time we go. So I’m gonna put all them little catsup things together in my mouth, and then I’m going to open it and eeuuhhhhhh! It’s gonna be real pukey,” he said enthusiastically. “I’m gonna have the best costume of anyone. Probably, Mr. Tinbergen’s going to give me first prize. Probably, he’s gonna even give me some money or something, because it’ll be so good he can’t believe it.”

  “Your plans do sound interesting,” I said. Turning to Jadie, I asked, “So, do you have any ideas for your costume?”

  She shrugged slightly. “Don’t got a costume.”

  “Don’t got a costume?” Jeremiah shrieked out in surprise.

  “Shush,” I said and pushed him back into his chair. “There’s still plenty of time.”

  “You don’t got to have a costume,” Jadie said. “I didn’t have one last year.”

  “But don’t you got one?” Jeremiah asked in disbelief.

  “I don’t want one.”

  For once, Jeremiah was stunned into silence. Admittedly, I was surprised myself. Knowing that all the children had the financial means for a costume and none came from homes holding fundamentalist beliefs, I’d just assumed everyone would be participating.

  “Well, what you gonna do for the costume parade?” Jeremiah asked. “How you gonna go from room to room showing them other boogs your costume, when you ain’t got no costume on?”

  “I don’t want to be in the parade.”

  “But how you gonna win a prize then?”

  “I don’t want a prize.”

  “What you come to school for, then, if you don’t want nothing good? How come you don’t just stay home?”

  Jadie raised her head and tilted it to one side, eyeing Jeremiah across the table. “I come here for the same reason you do. ’Cause if you don’t go to school, you get tooken away to the police by the truant officer. I come here ’cause I have to.” There was an unexpected vehemence in her voice. “But they can’t make me do stupid things I don’t want. They can’t make me look like something I’m not.”

  “Whew,” Jeremiah said, sitting back, “that girl there knows her mind. Whew! You hear her, lady? Better watch out, your job’s gonna be on the line, if that there girl gets her way. Kick all the teachers out! Take all their money.” Then a pause. Jeremiah gazed at Jadie a moment longer. “You can probably hate me for saying this, but it’s a good thing they stuck you in this here class. No doubt about it, your mind’s not right.”

  The house next door to the playground had a golden retriever bitch, a beautiful, good-tempered animal, who often played out in the backyard, which abutted the schoolyard. My children frequently gravitated to the fence to talk to the dog and reach through to stroke it; and so they were delighted to discover in September that she had had a litter of puppies. By October the puppies were lively and playful, romping around in the backyard and yapping joyfully at the children during recess. More than once, we had had to repossess a puppy that one of the children had managed to haul over the fence. Consequently, it was no major surprise when, during one after-lunch playtime, one of the older children stopped by the teachers’ lounge to tell me that Jeremiah had made off with a puppy.

  Jeremiah adored dogs, and despite his total lack of respect for anything on two legs, he was quite trustworthy with animals. Consequently, I wasn’t too alarmed by the news; however, I felt it would be better if I went in search of him and let the lunch aides on playground duty keep on watching the other kids.

  It took a few minutes to discover where he’d hied off to, but at last I heard his voice coming from a blind stairwell, which led down to a long since bricked-up basement entrance. Shielded from view, he was chattering away, and I realized there must be someone else with him. Pausing just out of sight, I recognized the other voice as Jadie’s.

  “Lookit, that’s his thing,” Jadie was saying. “He’s got a boy’s pisser,” Jeremiah replied. “Those other puppies, they’ve got girls’ pissers, but this one’s a boy. That’s why I like him best.”

  “I know another name for that,” Jadie said.

  “Yeah, me too.”

  “What word you know?” Jadie asked.

  “Penis,” Jeremiah replied, his tone serious.

  “I know a better one. Pecker,” Jadie said.

  “My cousin calls it a weenie,” Jeremiah added.

  “Yeah, weenie. I know that one, too. And dingding.”

  “That’s a girl’s word for it,” Jeremiah replied, his tone derisive. “And it’s silly.”

  “D’you know any more?” Jadie asked. When Jeremiah didn’t immediately respond, she said, “I know one. Dick.”

  “And prick.” The first licentious giggle followed.

  “Worm,” said Jadie. “’Cause that’s what it looks like.”

  “Don’t either,” Jeremiah answered in an offended tone. Then a pause. “What else words you know?”

  There was no immediate response from Jadie, and I was about to go on down the stairs to retrieve the puppy when I heard Jeremiah say enthusiastically, “Lookit, you can pretend it’s a cow. I’m going to milk it. Pull! Pull! See, pretend this is gonna be one of them long sucky-bit things cows got hanging down.”

  “Pull his dicky and get milk,” Jadie replied.

  “You don’t get milk out of a cow’s pisser. You get it out of its boobs. He’s got to be a girl.”

  “No sir. I know a way to get milk out of a pisser. Out of a dicky,” Jadie said. There was a boastful tone to her voice, making it clear that she relished this moment of one-upsmanship with Jeremiah.

  “You can’t,” Jeremiah retorted.

  “You can too. But you don’t squeeze it like that. You got to suck on it, like this.”

  “Jadie,” I said, hurrying down the steps.

  She startled violently and dropped the puppy to the ground. Beside her stood Jeremiah, looking absolutely appalled. “Did you see what she was gonna do, lady? She was gonna put her mouth on that dog’s pisser.”

  “There’s still time left before the bell rings, Jeremiah. If you hurry, I’m sure you can still have a turn at kick ball.”

  “But—” Still the shocked expression on his face.

  I eyed him. “But you’ll need to go right now.”

  Getting the message, Jeremiah zoomed off.

  Jadie attempted to zoom off, too, but I caught her by the shoulder. “I think we need a few words.”

  Leaning down, I scooped up the puppy and cuddled it a moment. Jadie’s eyes were wide and wary, their pupils dilated.

  “Last spring you put your mouth on Reuben’s penis. I explained then that that was a private place on Reuben and we don’t do those sorts of things because of it. At the time I wanted to think a bit of silliness had come over you, because I know boys and girls can get pretty silly sometimes about things like this. Now I’m beginning to get concerned that maybe there’s more to it.”

  “I was just playing,” Jadie muttered and lowered her head.

  “I’m not angry. And I’m not going to get angry, so you don’t have to worry about that. I am concer
ned, though, Jadie. When little girls do something like you were just doing, it’s usually because they’ve seen it done before. Sometimes, someone older shows them or does it to them, and so they know.”

  Jadie sighed wearily.

  “It’s not your fault, Jadie. I’m not angry. But if someone is making you touch the private places on his or her body or is touching you like that, it’s important to tell me. Or, if not me, then some other adult you can trust.”

  Jadie shifted restlessly from foot to foot. I studied her, small and slight, her long dark hair rumpled over her shoulders. Even in her bent, deformed state, there was a brooding attractiveness about her.

  “If something like this is going on,” I said, “chances are, someone has told you not to tell. Chances are, they’ve said something like, if you do tell, you’ll get in trouble. Or that people will think it’s your fault it happened. Or that no one will believe you. Or that you’ll get taken away from your parents or some other equally horrible thing. When a grown-up is doing something wrong, that is the sort of thing they will say to you, because they want you to stay quiet and not tell, because they know they shouldn’t be doing what they’re doing. They’re lying to keep you from getting help. But if someone is touching you or making you touch them, you need help. You’re just a little girl, and these are grown-up matters. You need a grown-up to help you sort it out.”

  “But I wasn’t doing anything,” she said. “I was just fooling around. Nothing else. I was just playing.”

  I fell into frustrated silence.

  Jadie shrugged in what seemed an annoyed, put-upon way. “I’m sorry,” she muttered. “I won’t do it again.”

  “That’s not the point. Jadie, I want to help you.”

  She shifted her feet again, kicked a dead leaf aside with the toe of her shoe, and then sighed very heavily. When I didn’t say anything further, she finally looked up. “Can I go now?” she asked.