by A. J. Low
“I . . . no reason. I was just wondering, as there was a war going on,” I replied.
“Is Fort Canning haunted, Mrs. Lim?” one of the boys sitting behind me asked.
“Of course not. Don’t talk nonsense!” she replied. “Let’s talk about what you all learned from the Battle Box.”
“The-vending-machine-there-did-not-appreciate-having-its-buttons-pressed-repeatedly,” Watson said.
“Did anyone learn anything at all about the history of Fort Canning?” Mrs. Lim said, sounding exasperated. “Can anyone at least tell me why Fort Canning is called Fort Canning?”
“It was named after Charles John Canning!” Jimmy said.
The entire class fell into a stunned silence.
“That’s right, Jimmy,” Mrs. Lim said. She looked surprised as well. “Viscount Charles John Canning. How did you know that?”
“Nazhar told me! He knows lots of things about history and war because of his dad,” Jimmy said. “He even told me all about the money the Japanese introduced during the Japanese occupation!”
I was really impressed by Nazhar! I made a mental note to ask if he had any books on history I could borrow.
“It’s good that you’re learning things, Jimmy,” Mrs. Lim said. “Anyone else learned anything from our excursion?”
“Why weren’t snacks provided for the bus ride back to school, Mrs. Lim?” someone asked.
We were all given extra homework.
“Lunchtime! Lunchtime! I’m going to get my snack! See you later!” Jimmy yelled as he scampered off.
I saw Wendy sitting at our usual spot, so I waved at her, and she waved back. As I was walking over to her, Nazhar came up to me suddenly, looking nothing like his usual self.
“Sherlock, I’ve lost my duit pisang!” Nazhar said. “My dad is going to be so upset! They were the only two notes he had! They don’t print them anymore!”
“Why did you bring something so valuable to school, Nazhar?” I asked.
“I-am-valuable. Why-do-I-have-to-come-to-school-with-you-every-day?” Watson asked.
“Because Mom said you’re a troublemaker and she can’t leave you alone at home,” I said. Actually, Mom had not said that, but she did say Watson would be lonely without anybody else at home. I didn’t want to test her hypothesis out. He was my robot, after all, and I had to take good care of all my friends.
“I brought them to school for my presentation, which is after lunch, but now I’ve lost my duit pisang!” Nazhar said. “And I’m presenting first!”
I immediately switched into detective mode. There was a mystery to be solved! My new friend was in trouble, and I don’t like it when any of my friends are upset.
“Okay, when was the last time you remember holding the notes in your hand, Nazhar?” I asked. “It may help if you close your eyes and try to visualize them.” I once found my missing glasses this way. I closed my eyes and saw myself sneaking into the kitchen and opening the freezer door to get chocolate ice cream. My glasses fogged up because of the cold, so I took them off. Just then, I heard footsteps and I quickly shut the door, leaving my glasses inside!
“I think . . . I think it was when Dad gave them to me this morning,” Nazhar replied, opening his eyes. “And he told me to take good care of them.”
“And what did you do with them after that?” I asked.
“That’s the problem. I don’t remember. I thought I put them in my wallet, but they aren’t there. I thought I might have inserted them into my file with the notes for my presentation, but they’re not there, either. I can’t remember,” Nazhar said, frowning.
“Okay, let’s retrace your steps,” I said. “When was the first time you opened your wallet today?”
“I think . . . I took my wallet out to give money to Eliza for our teacher’s birthday gift,” Nazhar said.
“Then let’s ask Eliza!” I said. I wasn’t looking forward to talking to Eliza, but I had to help Nazhar!
Nazhar, Watson, and I ran around looking for Eliza and finally found her at the school bookshop buying a birthday card.
“Hi there!” I said, trying to sound cheerful. “We need your help.”
“Do you need me to explain the meaning of preternatural to you?” Eliza said, her eyes unkind.
I was going to say, once again, that ghosts did not exist, but time was of the essence! Now was not the time to get into an argument. Anyway, everyone knows that preternatural and supernatural mean the same thing. One is just a fancier way of saying the other.
“That is not necessary at this juncture. We merely need to find out if you remember Nazhar giving you money for your teacher’s birthday present this morning,” I said.
“Yes, he did. Why?” Eliza asked suspiciously.
“Is it possible I accidentally paid you with old Japanese money?” Nazhar said.
“With what? I’m pretty sure I would have noticed if you gave me strange money,” Eliza said, crossing her arms over her chest. She looked impatient.
“Could you please check, Eliza?” Nazhar asked. “It’s important.”
Sighing deeply, Eliza pulled a white envelope filled with money from her pocket and sifted through all the bills.
“All Singaporean dollars in here,” she said. “Are you missing something? Maybe the ghosts from Fort Canning followed you back home and stole it!”
I couldn’t help myself.
“There are no such things as ghosts!” I said.
“It’s okay, Sherlock,” Nazhar said, somewhat dejected. “Thanks for checking anyway, Eliza.”
“Did you go anywhere else between class and lunch?” I asked while we were walking away.
“What if I dropped the notes somewhere and they flew away and I’ll never get them back?” Nazhar said worriedly.
“That is a possibility, but let’s not focus on the worst-case scenario until we’ve investigated all other scenarios,” I said. “You’ve got to focus on remembering what else happened this morning.”
“Wait! Before school started, I went to the canteen to buy Milo from the drinks stall. That’s actually the first time I took my wallet out,” Nazhar said.
My stomach grumbled at the mention of Milo. It was lunchtime and I was very hungry, but I had to help my friend!
“Then let’s go back to the canteen,” I said.
The canteen was super crowded and the line at the drinks stall was very long, so we couldn’t ask the drinks-stall auntie any questions just yet. Instead, we found Wendy and sat with her. She had saved us seats.
“What took you guys so long?” Wendy asked. “Lunch is almost over and Jimmy is still in the fruit stall line.”
“Did you get your new paintbrush already?” Nazhar said.
“Wait, if you have extra money to buy things, why are you not using it to buy chicken wings or hot dogs?” I asked.
“That-is-why-Wendy-is-tall-and-skinny,” Watson said.
I glared at my robot.
“What’s wrong, Nazhar?” Wendy asked.
“I’ve lost my duit pisang. How am I going to do my banana money presentation now?” Nazhar said, his hands clenched tight with worry.
Suddenly, everything clicked into place.
“Come with me! I know exactly where your duit pisang is!” I said. I led them straight to the long line at the fruit stall, where Jimmy was exactly seven students back.
“Hi, Sherlock! Hi, Watson! Hi, Nazhar! Hi, Wendy! I’ve been waiting beyond forever! Almost ten minutes!” Jimmy said cheerfully.
“Let me see what’s in your hand, Jimmy!” I said. Jimmy held out both hands.
“AH-HA!” I cried.
“My duit pisang!” Nazhar said. “Jimmy, why did you take them? I thought I had lost them!”
Jimmy looked worried. “You said I could borrow money . . . ?”
; “Oh! I completely forgot about that!” Nazhar said.
“This must be what happened,” I said confidently. “Jimmy forgot to bring money to school for lunch today. When I sent Jimmy to borrow money from Wendy, she said she couldn’t lend him any because she needed to buy a paintbrush,” I said.
Wendy nodded. She waved her new paintbrush at me happily.
“You must have overheard and, being the nice guy that you are, you lent him money yourself,” I continued.
“Yeah, but I had to go to the restroom, so I gave him my wallet,” Nazhar said. “But why did you take those two dollars and not a regular two-dollar note?”
“I’m sure Jimmy didn’t take them on purpose, right?” Wendy said. Though we argue sometimes, when it is crunch time, Wendy is a big sister, and always protective of little brothers.
“I only borrowed it! I was going to return it tomorrow, remember? You said it was all right!” Jimmy said. He looked worried.
“And you were originally going to take a regular two-dollar note, weren’t you, Jimmy?” I said. Jimmy nodded frantically.
“But then he saw your duit pisang and decided that since he wanted to eat bananas for lunch, he would take the banana money!” I concluded.
Jimmy nodded even more frantically. “I figured since I wanted bananas, I would leave your regular money so you could buy whatever you wanted.”
“But, Jimmy, this money is completely useless,” Nazhar said. “Even though it’s two bills that say ‘One Dollar,’ this kind of money was only used during the Japanese occupation.”
“Oh! I didn’t know that! You said it was duit pisang, so I thought I could use it for pisang! I was going to give you two dollars back tomorrow! I thought it would be the same! I’m so sorry, Nazhar!” Jimmy said. He was upset.
“How did you know that duit pisang was banana money, Jimmy?” Wendy asked. She was patting him on his shoulder.
“Jimmy is Peranakan, Wendy. He understands some Malay. Right, Jimmy?” I said.
“Yes,” Jimmy said, still nodding frantically. “I learned it from Mama!”
“It’s okay, Jimmy. I know you didn’t do it on purpose. Here’s a regular two-dollar note for your bananas,” Nazhar said, handing Jimmy a note from his wallet. He grinned at Jimmy.
“Yay! Thanks, Nazhar! You’re the best! No, wait, Sherlock’s the best! No, wait, Watson’s the best! No, wait, Wendy’s the best! No, wait, you’re all the best!” Jimmy cried. He finally made it to the front of the line and got his two bananas. And as easily as that, I had solved the Case of the Disappearing Duit Pisang.
“But-Sherlock-still-does-not-have-pocket-money-to-buy-anything,” Watson added. “He-has-to-grow-taller-and-thinner-first.”
I really needed to have a talk with my robot.
“By the way, in all the excitement about my banana money, we never talked about what happened last night at Fort Canning,” Nazhar said.
“ARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!” Watson said.
“Watson! Stop!” I said.
The ARRGGHHING-ing once again stopped mid-ARGH.
I quickly told them what had happened last night, rushing through the parts where Dad and I were carried away by Watson.
“Ghosts exist! Ghosts exist!” Jimmy cried. Now that he had his bananas, he could focus on scaring himself.
“There are no such things as ghosts!” I said firmly.
“Then how would you explain the ghostly moans you and your dad heard last night?” Nazhar asked in the calm way that he had.
“There has to be a reasonable explanation for it,” I said. “We haven’t even had a chance to check the readings from our equipment. Perhaps it was the wind or—”
“It was ghosts!” Jimmy said, flapping his arms about like a chicken.
“For the last time, ghosts don’t exist,” I said. “You guys come over later and we’ll go through all the readings and recordings Dad and I got last night. I will prove once and for all that there are no such things as ghosts!”
“Let’s check the thermometer first!” I said.
Everybody had gotten permission to come over after school, so we all gathered at my house to review the results obtained from the equipment we had taken to Fort Canning Park last night.
“I was carrying it, so I know the readings will be entirely correct,” I continued. “The hypothesis is that temperature drops when there is a ghostly presence nearby.”
I checked the thermometer for the time we were at Fort Canning the night before. “Okay, according to the readings, when we were near the tombstones, the temperature remained stable. Then we moved to the sally port and—”
I gasped.
“What?” Nazhar asked, taking the thermometer from me. “The temperature dropped five degrees.”
“That doesn’t mean anything!” I said. “Maybe someone turned on an air conditioner nearby.”
“In a park?” Wendy asked. “That’s ridiculous.”
That’s true. It was a ridiculous explanation. How embarrassing. Calm down, Sherlock! Think logically!
“Did you guys know that not only does 12+1 =11+2, but the letters in ‘twelve plus one’ can be rearranged to give you ‘eleven plus two’?” I said, trying to calm my brain down with simple logic.
Silence greeted me. I could see everyone squinting in concentration as they tried to puzzle out what I had said. Everyone except Watson, mainly because robots don’t squint. Plus, he had a robot brain. Jimmy was staring blankly, his fingers wiggling in confusion.
“Maybe-you-had-your-warm-hand-on-the-sensor-the-whole-time-and-only-removed-it-at-the-sally-port,” Watson said.
“Jimmy port!” Jimmy said.
“No! I’m not that careless during an experiment,” I said, irritably, “but I guess it’s possible. Certainly more possible than ghosts!”
“Or air conditioners in parks,” Wendy said.
“Never mind that. Let’s check the digital recorder,” I said, eager to prove that ghosts were not real. “Watson, please calibrate this so only background noises can be heard.”
“I-always-obey,” Watson said, taking the recorder and walking slowly over to my laptop. He slowly opened up a sound-editing program.
“Couldn’t you have done that yourself?” Nazhar asked. “And faster?”
“Yeah, I forgot Watson couldn’t just plug the recorder into himself,” I said. “I need to fix that.” And remind him when we’re in a hurry.
When Watson had finally loaded the sound file into the sound-editing program, he lowered the volume on the foreground sounds, which were mostly our conversations and screams from last night, and turned up the volume on the background sounds.
We couldn’t hear anything at the tombstones, but when Watson fast-forwarded to when we were at the sally port, we heard something that sounded like voices! The hairs on the back of my neck stood up!
“Those are ghosts!” Jimmy said.
“They can’t be!” I said. “Maybe there was someone nearby. Those could just be people’s voices, muffled by something.”
“Dad, Watson, and you weren’t muffled at all!” Wendy said.
“It does sound like EVP, Sherlock,” Nazhar said.
“What’s that?” Wendy asked.
“It’s short for electronic voice phenomena,” I said, trying to keep the squeaking out of my voice. That sometimes happened when I was scared.
“Exactly. EVP refers to ghostly voices that can only be heard on recordings,” Nazhar said.
“However,” I interrupted, “EVP has been proven to not be supernatural in origin! It could just be background noises or voices that sound ghostly on the recording!”
“Did you hear these voices when you were there?” Wendy asked.
“No,” I had to admit.
“Then the voices only appear on the recording,” Nazhar sai
d.
“They might not be voices!” I said. “I’m not convinced that they are supernatural.”
“Okay, let’s check the EMF meter then,” Nazhar said.
I checked the readings from last night, and they were crazy!
“According to this, there were high electromagnetic fields all over Fort Canning!” I said.
“Electromagnetic fields are a clear indication of supernatural activity,” Nazhar said. “Every ghost hunter knows that.”
“That’s it then!” Wendy said. “We have proven that there are ghosts in Fort Canning!”
“There-is-actually-a-simple-explanation-for-this,” Watson said. However, before he could continue, he was interrupted by hysterics from everyone else.
“Yeah! Ghosts!” Jimmy shouted.
“What kind do you think they are?” Wendy asked.
“They could be hantu galah or jenglot,” Nazhar said thoughtfully. “Or even orang minyak.”
“But then they would have found oil,” Jimmy said.
“You’re right,” Nazhar said. “Maybe they’re jembalang tanah. Don’t mess with those, Sherlock.”
“They could be shuĭ guĭ or yuān guĭ,” Wendy said. “Or maybe è guĭ!”
“They can’t be è guĭ,” Jimmy said. “We’re nowhere near the Hungry Ghost Month! Maybe they’re just guĭ pó. Mama says those are friendly ghosts.”
“It’s not any of those,” I said. “Ghosts aren’t real!”
“Sherlock, you’re a man of science,” Nazhar said, sounding logical and calm. “Look at the evidence in front of you.”
He was right. The readings and recordings were hard to explain, but ghosts weren’t real!
Were they?
KA-BOOM!
“Sam! Don’t forget that it’s your turn to do the dishes!” Mom called out, her voice more shocking than the crashing thunder.