Tj and The Haunted House

by Hazel Hutchins

  “I’ve got the book! It’s great,” said Seymour. “Guess what I’m going to do? I’m going to hold a séance!”

  I knew what a séance was. A séance was when someone tried to communicate with ghosts, the way mysterious Mr. Toft had done.

  “Seymour,” I said right away, “this is a really, really, really bad idea.”

  “No it’s not. It’s a great idea. I’ll have a table and there’ll be knocking sounds and flickering lights and everything. I’ll have my own sign — Seymour Knows All, Seymour Sees All, Seymour Speaks with the Supernatural.”

  “No,” I said. “No, no, no, NO!”

  “But it’s the idea I’ve been looking for,” said Seymour.

  “And it’s the exact opposite of what I’ve been looking for. I want the ghost to go away, not come back!”

  “What ghost?” asked Seymour. “You don’t believe in ghosts, remember?”

  “Seymour!”

  “Anyway, this isn’t about real ghosts,” said Seymour. “This is a book about tricks. One story is about how Harry Houdini showed that things done at a séance could be done by simple magician’s tricks. The secrets are in the book. And they’re easy.”

  Harry Houdini was a famous magician. I really admired Harry Houdini. Now I was actually listening.

  “Picture this,” said Seymour. “You come into the room. It’s all darkness except for one little lamp in the corner throwing shadows on the wall. There’s a crystal ball on the table. I get you seated and look mysterious and peer into my crystal ball.”

  He peered into his hands and lowered his eyebrows.

  “I see that you are worried about someone close to you … ”

  He looked at me expectantly.

  “Did I tell you about my dad acting weird?” I asked.

  Seymour smiled and shook his head.

  “But you’ve noticed it, right?” I asked.

  “Nope,” he said.

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “How did you know?”

  Seymour grinned.

  “You told me yourself. All I said was that I see you are worried, and you told me the rest. Think about it,” said Seymour. “If you walked up to anyone, especially an adult, and said ‘You’re worried about someone close to you,’ wouldn’t it almost always be true?”

  I thought about it. My mom was always worried about my gran, my dad and me. My dad was always worried about my mom worrying too much. My gran was pretty good at not worrying about people, but she certainly worried about her cats.

  “They’re called Barnum and Bailey statements because they’re like a tricky circus act. They’re statements that suit almost everyone,” said Seymour. “The book explains how not to be too obvious. I’ll have to work on that. But here’s another good one … ”

  Again Seymour peered into his hands. Again he lowered his eyebrows.

  “I see you lost something, something that you were very sad to lose.”

  Instantly I felt a chill down my backbone. When I’d been babysitting Gran’s four cats, I’d lost one of them. It had been really awful until Seymour and I had found her again.

  Seymour and I! Suddenly I came to my senses.

  “You knew about that!” I said.

  “About what?” asked Seymour.

  “About me losing Cleo. You were there!” I said.

  Seymour smiled and nodded.

  “But think about it,” he said. “Wouldn’t it work anyway? You must have lost something I didn’t know about.”

  I thought about it. It was such a little thing that I didn’t mention it to anyone, but last summer I’d lost my favorite rock. It had a neat stripe on it and it fit into my pocket like an old friend. Thinking about it made me miss it all over again.

  Seymour was right. What person in the world hasn’t lost something they didn’t want to lose?

  “Hmmmm,” I said.

  “So a séance is a great idea!” said Seymour. “You don’t have to be spooked about it. It’s not ghosts; it’s psychology and circus tricks. At least that’s what my séance is.”

  I looked at Seymour. He had that very, very hopeful look he has on his face when something really matters to him.

  “You have to say you’re a fortune- teller, not a medium,” I told him.

  “Okay,” he said. “Not many kids know what a medium is anyway.”

  “And don’t use the spare room. You can use my bedroom,” I said.

  Even if he wasn’t calling himself a medium, I didn’t want him in the spare room. “Your bedroom is full of cat hair,” said Seymour.

  “It’ll add to the atmosphere. Cats and magic go together, remember?” I told him.

  Seymour had one of his abrupt changes of opinion.

  “Good idea,” said Seymour. “The kittens can stay in the room with me. It’ll be nice and quiet and they won’t get lost with people tramping in and out of the house.”

  Now that was a good idea.

  “Maybe I can teach them to help me levitate the table,” said Seymour.

  I didn’t know what to say to that one, so I said nothing at all.

  Chapter 8

  “Onions,” said Gran.

  “I thought onions were supposed to scare off vampires,” I said.

  “Garlic for vampires and colds. Onions for cats. You could try it,” said Gran.

  I’d phoned her about the cats shredding the furniture. I wasn’t sure which Mom would like better — strings hanging from the material on the sofa or bags of onions draped across it.

  “And a scratching post of course,” added Gran.

  Talk about missing the obvious. Maybe I could get the kittens to stop scratching up the place after all.

  “What did you think of the ghost story the other night?” asked Gran.

  “Pretty scary,” I admitted.

  “I hope it isn’t giving you nightmares,” said Gran.

  “Not exactly,” I said.

  Of course “not exactly” didn’t fool Gran.

  “You know, TJ, it’s a good story, but even my mother said that it probably was just a dream,” said Gran.

  “Why would she dream something like that?” I asked. “Why would she dream about Charlie Smithers standing in the hall, pointing into the room or whatever?”

  “He was very, very sick,” said Gran. “My mother would have been wonder ing if there were relatives that needed to be told. Her dream could have been her way of figuring out that, secretive as he had always been, in this case it would be okay to go through his private papers. Maybe he would even want her to go through them. Haven’t you ever had that type of dream?”

  When Gran’s cat Cleo was lost, I dreamed that I found her under the neighbor’s steps. She wasn’t there, but my mind had been trying to work things out in my dreams.

  “Did she go into his room?” I asked. “She must have, afterwards I mean.”

  “Yes, she did, but she never found anything personal — papers or letters or anything to tell much about him. A mystery man — that’s why it makes a good story — although it did puzzle her. She was sure she’d seen him writing in a journal at one time or another.”

  Gran sounded thoughtful.

  “But you see what I mean, don’t you? She’d been thinking about him. It wouldn’t be surprising that she would dream about him.”

  That night I felt a little better when I went to bed. At least I felt better for a while.

  Scrabble, scrabble, scrabble.

  Three in the morning.

  Dark.

  Quiet.

  Scrabble, scrabble, scrabble.

  I hate noises at three in the morning. Noises at three in the morning drive me nuts. Especially when I live in a house with a ghost story.

  I reached for the kittens on my chest. One kitten … T -Rex from the shortness of its fur. Two … Two … No two kitten! Where was Alaska?

  A cold trickle of sweat ran down my neck. I couldn’t help it. By daylight it’s easy to ignore Seymour and his “the ghost did it” theories, but
at three in the morning the whole world changes. I had to find Alaska.

  I picked up T -Rex and set him on the covers. I climbed out of bed. I snuck down the hall.

  Slowly.

  Quietly.

  Why was I moving slowly and quietly? If it was a ghost, didn’t I want to scare it away? But that’s not how my brain thinks at three in the morning. At three in the morning all my brain can think is, don’t let it know I’m here, don’t let it know I’m here.

  Slowly.

  Quietly.

  Scrabble, scrabble, scrabble.

  The sound was coming from the worst place it could possibly be coming from. It was coming from the spare room.

  Scrabble, scrabble, scrabble — thwack!

  It was the thwack that gave it away. Suddenly I felt a whole lot braver. All I needed was a little light.

  I reached into the spare room. I turned on the light.

  Thwack!

  I stood dazed for a moment. Gradually, my eyes adjusted. Yup, I was right. Alaska was standing in the middle of the room. She blinked at me, leaped into the air, danced sideways, pawed something on the floor in her crazy sideways shuffle and sent it skidding towards me.

  Thwack — it hit the baseboard.

  Hurrah! No ghost! Just a hockey-playing cat!

  I bent to pick up the hockey puck. It was small and round and golden. A ring. I turned it slowly in my hand. Carved on it was a pair of initials.

  Don’t look. Don’t look. Don’t look.

  I didn’t look. I picked up Alaska. I went back to my bedroom. I climbed under my covers and put the kittens on top. I held the ring tightly in my hand beneath the covers.

  Only when daylight returned did I look at the initials. I was glad I waited. I wouldn’t have wanted to find out the answer at three in the morning.

  C.S. — Charlie Smithers.

  Chapter 9

  The thing I don’t get about life is the way little things start piling up until suddenly there’s a great big heap and it’s hard to separate one thing from the other, except you begin to feel like you’re on the bottom somehow.

  First, the ring — our house really was haunted.

  Second, the kittens — Mom and Dad had found the holes in the screen door. And the loose threads on the kitchen blinds. And the chewed corners on the T-bone steak. And the shoelaces in pieces. And T -Rex with butter on his whiskers. And Alaska playing hockey with my mom’s favorite earrings. And the tracks up the spare room curtains.

  And third was my dad. I found a sheet of paper in the stockroom. He’d been doodling on it. Barnes’ Hardware he’d written. That was okay. That’s the name of our store. It’s not very imagi-native, but it works. Below that, how-ever, all outlined in bold lines as if it were a sign or letterhead or something official, was more writing. Hardware Haven — Barnes and Son.

  I was right. He expected me to run the business. I should be feeling proud! I should be feeling great! Instead I felt sick inside. What was wrong with me?

  “You don’t look very well, TJ. You’d better go home.”

  Mom actually left the store’s checkout counter to put her hand on my forehead. That’s how lousy I was looking.

  Home wasn’t where I wanted to be either. The ghost was at home. What other explanation could there be for the ring showing up in the middle of the floor at midnight? I hadn’t told Mom or Dad or even Gran and Seymour about it. I knew I’d have to tell them sometime, but it’s hard to explain. Sometimes there are things you have to figure out on your own before you go blabbing about them.

  “Is it okay if I drop by Seymour’s house just for a few minutes?” I asked. “There’s something he wants to show me.”

  “Okay,” said Mom. “But take it easy. You don’t want to be sick for Tuesday.”

  Tuesday was Halloween.

  Three days away.

  “It’s great, isn’t it?”

  Seymour had found a real crystal ball at a garage sale. It was round and smooth and wonderfully clear. It seemed to bend the light inward and reflect it all at once. No wonder people thought crystal balls were magical.

  Seymour had fixed up a portable dimmer switch that he could work with his toe to make the lights flicker. He had also found a toy with a plastic squeeze ball that opened the lid on a garbage can so a monster could pop out. He was working on a way to use it to make the card table lift at his bidding.

  “You don’t need my help,” I told him. “You’re doing just fine on your own.”

  “I am, aren’t I,” grinned Seymour. “Besides, you’re already late for Amanda. I told her to sit on your front steps after lunch and you’d show up eventually.”

  Sure enough, when I got home, Amanda was waiting. She had a bundle of sheets for the haunted house. We hung them over the bottom of the stair rails. They were going to work perfectly.

  “Can you store them somewhere, so I don’t have to carry them back on Tuesday?” Amanda asked.

  We took them upstairs and I put them in my bedroom on the safe side of the house. That’s how I’d begun to think about the upstairs — the safe side and the haunted side. When I came out of the bedroom, Amanda was over on the haunted side, standing in the cold spot. She was actually smiling.

  “Do you know what this reminds me of?” she asked.

  “You already told me,” I grimaced. “Scary stories.”

  “Not this time,” she said. “This time it reminds me of my grandpa’s truck.”

  That’s another thing about Amanda. She doesn’t usually say what you think she’s going to say.

  “I don’t get it,” I said.

  “When we go out to the farm, sometimes I sit in my grandpa’s old truck. It makes me feel close to him, even though he died a few years ago.”

  “But … is there a cold spot? Aren’t you afraid of his ghost or something?”

  “No cold spot,” Amanda smiled. “Even if there was, it wouldn’t matter. My grandpa wouldn’t hurt me. In fact, I don’t really understand why anyone thinks a ghost would hurt people. I mean, I like scary stories as much as anyone, but I like them because they’re stories. Your mind can make you think as many good things as bad things, I guess.”

  Amanda amazes me. Some of the books I’d been reading had hinted at the same thing, even though they dressed it up in all sorts of ways. That’s when I asked her something I probably shouldn’t have. I don’t really know Amanda well enough to ask her personal questions.

  “Is that why you’re so sad sometimes? Because of your grandfather?”

  Amanda stepped out of the cold spot.

  “No. I miss him, but it’s a different kind of sad,” she said. “It was quite a few years ago.”

  She scooped up T -Rex to give him a kitten cuddle.

  “Do you promise you won’t tell? I don’t want people to start asking me about it.”

  I nodded.

  “My little cousin is sick,” said Amanda. “She has to have special treatments. She’s going to be okay, but she’s just a little kid. Little kids shouldn’t have to go through stuff like that.” She sighed again. “I phone her and tell her jokes, but I wish there was something else I could do.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “So am I,” said Amanda.

  We stood there for a while longer, not saying anything at all. Sometimes it’s okay not to say anything at all. Alaska broke the silence.

  Mew, mew, mew.

  It had to be Alaska because Amanda was still cuddling T -Rex.

  Mew, mew, mew.

  The sound was coming from the spare room. Oh no, I thought, not again. I felt cold right down to my toes, but I knew I couldn’t just ignore it. When you decide to take care of kittens, you have to look after them, ghost or no ghost.

  Amanda and I looked inside the spare room. We couldn’t see Alaska, but the sound was louder.

  Mew, mew, mew.

  Strangely enough, it seemed to be coming from behind the wall, high up where the curtains bordered the top of the window. The words from Gr
an’s story came back to me.

  “He’s standing in his doorway, pointing up near the ceiling … above the window … ”

  That’s when I noticed that the path of plucked threads now went all the way up to the top of the curtains.

  Mew, mew, mew.

  “Where is she?” asked Amanda.

  “I don’t know for sure, but I’m going to find out,” I said.

  In the end, I had to stand on two pillows on top of a chair on top of a table in order to get high enough to rescue her. There was a ledge above the window, and behind it, built in such a way that it would only be found if you knew what you were looking for or had the sound of a lost kitten to guide you, was a small opening.

  I reached into the opening and down into the wall below. Right away, some-thing rough began licking my hand.

  “She’s in here,” I said. “There’s a bunch of other stuff in here too.”

  I pulled out Alaska and handed her down to Amanda. I reached back inside the opening. I brought out a metal box, something soft wrapped in oilcloth and two dull-colored rocks.

  And that’s when I began to come up with a great idea of my own.

  Chapter 10

  “Ahhhhhh!”

  The scream was terrifying. It shrilled through the house. It made my blood curdle. And it made me laugh. It was coming from Ms. K.

  “Oh,” she said, recovering herself with a gasp. “You’re right. This is way too scary for little kids.”

  Our haunted house was about to open. We were testing it on Ms. K. The walls had just grabbed her. Her scream confirmed that the haunted living room, the stairwell and the up-stairs room with Seymour the Haunted Fortune-Teller would only be for older kids. The little kids could come into the kitchen for regular magic tricks, bobbing for apples and scary stories depending on how brave they were feeling. Ms. K. would be there with her witch’s outfit to be a little scary but not too much.

  Ms. K. climbed the stairs. Seymour ushered her into his haunted, fortune-telling room.

  “You are worried about someone in your family. I see palm trees, wild winds and stormy seas,” he said.