The Secret Life of Sparrow Delaney

by Suzanne Harper

  “Oh, Sparrow!” My mother’s eyes were shining. “Really?”

  I shrugged. “It’s no big deal,” I said, even though I could already feel my breathing getting shallow. I sneaked a peek behind me. The ghost was gone.

  As the day wore on and the time for the message service approached, I could feel my stomach starting to jump.

  It’s only one hour out of your life, I kept telling myself. You can do this. After all, you know how to handle spirits.

  Indeed, I had learned a lot about ghosts over the years, thanks to a few pointers from my spirit guides and my own observations. For example, I discovered that people’s personalities don’t change a lot when they Cross Over. There are calm ghosts, jittery ghosts, angry ghosts, and (most annoying) ghosts that sigh and roll their eyes to the ceiling and say things like “I don’t want to be any trouble. Really. If it’s too much to ask for you to let my grief-stricken family know that I’m all right, well, I understand.” Just think of every kind of person you’ve ever met in your life, and I can guarantee there’s a ghostly counterpart.

  I also found out that no matter how different their personalities are, they all have one thing in common: It takes an awful lot to discourage them. However, I did finally develop, through trial and error, three simple rules to keep all but the most persistent ghosts away from me.

  Rule 1: Refuse to acknowledge the ghost’s presence.

  When ghosts approached me, I stared steadfastly into the distance and pretended that I didn’t see them. Even if they waved their arms. Even if they jumped up and down. Even if they got so close that they were seriously invading my personal space.

  Rule 2: Think boring thoughts.

  Ignoring someone who is trying desperately to get your attention requires a lot of concentration. I found that it was easier if I focused on something tedious enough to make my mind go blank but complicated enough to demand a certain amount of focus—mentally reciting the twelve-times multiplication table, for example, or conjugating French verbs. I also memorized several endless poems by Longfellow and entire sections of the judicial code for just this purpose.

  Rule 3: Finally, never, ever talk to them.

  This is the most important rule of all. Saying something to a ghost means you’ve made a connection. And once you’ve made a connection, you’re hooked, like a fish that has fallen for a particularly entrancing lure.

  After I followed these three rules for a while, the ghostly grapevine gradually began working in my favor. I was branded a poor sport in the spirit world. Fewer and fewer ghosts dropped by for a chat.

  They left me alone. I left them alone. And every-one—and by everyone, I mean, of course, me—was quite happy with that state of affairs.

  So as I walked with my family to the auditorium, a barnlike wooden building in the middle of town, I was wondering how, how, how that pushy ghost from school was getting me to do things that I had sworn I would never do again.

  We joined the crowd of people flowing into the building, talking in low but excited voices about what was about to transpire. My mother said coaxingly, “Sparrow, why don’t you sit next to me? I’m sure you’ll serve Spirit tonight! I’ve been seeing the most auspicious signs all day—”

  “In a minute,” I said. “I need to run to the rest room first—”

  “Time for Sparrow’s world-famous disappearing act.” Raven’s voice was acid.

  “I’ll be right back,” I said untruthfully.

  “Yeah, we’ll save you a seat,” Lark said with weary disbelief.

  As Grandma Bee led the Delaney contingent boldly down to the front row, I edged my way toward the side wall. There were huge windows on two sides of the building, kept open to catch any hint of a breeze. Lattice screens were set up a few feet in front of the windows to hide all the miscellaneous items, such as extra chairs, hymnals, and office supplies, that the people working the entrance might need. The screens also offered a convenient place to hide, if that was the kind of mood you happened to be in. I ducked behind one, took a seat, and watched as the audience got settled in for the service.

  The rows of folding chairs were already packed with the last group of summer tourists, and when it came to spirits, it was standing room only. Already at least two dozen misty figures were scattered through the hall. I shivered, and scooted back a little farther behind the screen.

  At seven o’clock on the dot Miss Canterville, a tall, thin woman with curly white hair and piercing blue eyes, took the stage.

  “Good evening!” she called out.

  “Good evening!” the audience chorused in response.

  After saying a brief prayer and leading the room in a ragged but heartfelt hymn, Miss Canterville looked around the room. “I can see that a lot of you brought spirits in with you,” she said. “We have quite a crowd today!”

  There was an excited buzz. Some people glanced over their shoulders, and at least half the audience shifted to the edge of their seats.

  “Please look down and notice what you’re wearing.” Miss Canterville went on. Heads bowed as everyone checked—let’s see, did I put on the white T-shirt or the fuchsia blouse today?—then looked up, memories refreshed. “I ask you to do that because our mediums will often point to someone in the audience and say, ‘I have a message for the man wearing the blue and white striped shirt.’ ”

  She gestured toward a man wearing just such a shirt. He sat up a little straighter, eyes wide, as if he suddenly realized that he might actually be selected to hear a message from the spirit world. The people sitting around him stirred in anticipation.

  “It helps keep things moving if you can remember what you put on this morning,” she said in a lighthearted tone that was calculated to make the crowd chuckle. They did chuckle, right on cue. You’d never know that Miss Canterville had repeated the same patter at least once a day for the entire summer.

  “First, I’d like to ask Sylvia Robertson, a registered medium here in Lily Dale, to come forward and serve Spirit.”

  Miss Robertson walked eagerly to the front of the room and scanned the faces in front of her. After a moment she pointed to someone in the fourth row and said, “The woman wearing the green blouse. May I come to you?”

  The woman nodded eagerly.

  “Please say something, dear, I need to hear your voice for Spirit to come through. May I come to you?”

  The woman cleared her throat and said, very loudly, “Yes, you may.”

  “I see a dog sitting right by your feet, it looks like a pug, do you understand that?” Miss Robertson said rapidly.

  “Yes!” the woman cried as a friend gave her a significant nudge. Clearly Miss Robertson had scored a direct hit right off the bat.

  “I’m getting the name Barry or Bob, do you understand that?”

  “His name was Bart!” the woman squeaked.

  “Yes, Bart, he was quite a pistol when he was on this plane, wasn’t he, dear? Quite the ladies’ man.”

  The woman was nodding so much she looked like a bobble-head doll.

  “Yes, I see that he already has a special friend on the Other Side.” A ripple of laughter ran through the audience. “He wants you to know that he feels like a young pup again.” She paused to listen, smiled, then added, “And he’s so happy that you took in that little stray from down the street, but he wants you to buy a new dog dish. He doesn’t like seeing someone eat out of his bowl. That’s why he keeps pushing it behind the refrigerator.”

  The woman looked a little stunned

  “And I’ll leave you that with blessings, my dear,” Miss Robertson finished up.

  She strolled to the other side of the room, her eyes searching the audience. She drew out the moment a bit (Miss Robertson loves her moment in the spotlight) but finally pointed to someone else. “May I come to you?”

  She passed on an entertainingly sarcastic message from a Siamese cat (“I told you I was sick, but would you listen?”) and a golden retriever’s slobbery declaration of adoration for his former o
wners (“I really really really love you, yes, I do, I really really do!”). Then the gerbils started coming through, and Miss Canterville sensed that people’s patience was wearing thin. She said crisply, “Lovely, dear. Such comforting messages, as always. But I believe there are other spirits anxious to communicate with their loved ones.”

  Miss Robertson walked back to her seat, and Mrs. Winthrop stepped forward to take her place. She usually wears a long purple caftan in the hope of looking more spiritual, a hope that is dashed by the inevitable egg stain on the front and the torn hem dragging on the ground. She breathed deeply to prepare herself, then looked expectantly around the room.

  A ghost standing in the middle of the aisle waved her hand to get Mrs. Winthrop’s attention. The spirit was a small woman carrying a thick book, her finger holding her place. She had the distracted, impatient look of someone who had been interrupted just as she got to the good part of a new novel. Her impatience only grew over the next ten minutes, as the medium laboriously figured out that the spirit was a librarian who wanted to contact her sister Jane.

  At one point the librarian glanced desperately in my direction. “This is so irritating,” she said to me. “I left five books under my bed, and now they’re more than three months overdue.”

  I stepped back a little farther behind the screen. The librarian drifted back into my eyesight and waved a hand in the air, as if maybe I was such a completely oblivious idiot that I hadn’t noticed her before.

  “Hello?” she called. “A little help here? I know you can hear me.”

  I pointedly looked away.

  As I watched the ceiling fans whir gently under the high ceiling, I heard her plead. “I want to get back to my book. If you could just pass on one little message for me—” I began to run through a list of U.S. presidents in my mind, concentrating fiercely on getting the chronology exactly right.

  “Oh, all right, fine.” She sounded exasperated, but she turned back to Mrs. Winthrop, whose forehead was now beaded with sweat as she tried to tune in to the spirit’s voice.

  “I’m getting an anxious energy?” the medium said uncertainly.

  Grandma Bee shifted in her seat and gave a fierce clack of her dentures. Mrs. Winthrop glanced nervously at my grandmother and added, “I think there’s something worrying her?” It was definitely a less than commanding performance. I think I actually heard Grandma Bee growl.

  Many, many agonizing minutes later the mission was finally accomplished. Sister Jane, weeping, agreed to return the library books and pay all overdue fines. Mutual expressions of love and caring were exchanged.

  However, the damage had been done. The librarian had picked up on my presence, and other spirits had taken note. A small, nervous man with thinning brown hair and buckteeth glided around the screen and looked beseechingly at me. “Please, I don’t mean to bother you,” he said in a high, nasal voice. “My message is very short. I wouldn’t want to take up much of your time.”

  I stared fixedly at the windows as an extremely large woman wearing an extremely bright flowered dress elbowed him aside. “He only Crossed Over last week!” she bellowed. “I’ve been waiting for almost a decade! And my message is of the utmost importance! It’s a matter of life and death!”

  Even the other spirits, who were now edging closer to me, rolled their eyes at this. “There’s always one drama queen in every crowd,” a small elderly woman murmured. She looked like the Hollywood version of a sweet grandmother, complete with fluffy white hair and rosy cheeks, but her tone was acid.

  I pressed my lips together to keep from smiling, and her gaze sharpened. She took two tiny, tottering steps forward and gazed up at me with a winning, hopeful expression.

  “You seem like such a nice girl,” she said sweetly. “Surely you’ll help a poor old woman contact her great-grandchildren, especially little Joey? He misses me so much, poor dear.”

  I moved farther back in the shadows and started to do algebra equations in my head. She scowled and stamped her little foot. “You’re just like all the other young people these days!” she scolded me before moving on. “No consideration for others! No consideration at all!”

  For the next ten minutes I meditated on double-entry bookkeeping, cinder-block motels, highway exit ramps, Latin grammar, shag carpeting, and mall parking lots. If thinking boring thoughts were an Olympic event, I would have won the gold. Finally all the ghosts drifted away, muttering darkly to themselves.

  The service went on for another half hour, but I stopped paying attention. I sat behind the lattice screen and watched the light fade from the sky and listened to the faint chirp of crickets. Once in a while I glanced at my family, who also seemed ready for the service, and the season, to end. I could see Raven yawning and Lark and Linnet drawing elaborate designs on each other’s arms with ballpoint pens. Even Oriole was now absorbed in a minute examination of her fingernails, and my mother’s usual warm smile was beginning to slip.

  Then a draft of cold air swept across the back of my neck, bringing with it the faint smell of autumn. I turned to see the ghost from history class standing right behind me.

  I whipped my head back around and stared steadfastly at the maroon velvet curtains that framed the stage.

  Rule 1: Refuse to acknowledge the ghost’s presence.

  Within the blink of an eye, the ghost had manifested in front of the curtains, gazing at me as if I were his last hope of heaven.

  My eyes locked with his, and I forgot to breathe.

  Luckily my body remembered. After a few airless seconds my lungs drew in a deep, shuddering breath. My eyes darted to the clock on the back wall.

  Before I could blink twice, the ghost was standing under that clock. He was farther away than before, yet somehow his presence was even more . . . present. He grinned at me.

  I frowned back. Rule 2: Think boring thoughts.

  “Our legal system is based on the principle that an independent, fair, and competent judiciary will interpret and apply the laws that govern us,” I mentally recited. The State Bar Association’s code of judicial conduct usually puts me into a semiconscious trance within one or two sentences. I relaxed into the familiar cadences, much as I would have relaxed into a hot bath, feeling happy and victorious.

  Then I heard a deep, warm voice say, “Nice try, Sparrow.”

  Startled, I opened my mouth for an indignant reply—and just in time remembered Rule 3.

  Never, ever talk to a ghost.

  I snapped my mouth shut and ran out the back door, congratulating myself on my escape and wondering why it had been such a close one.

  Chapter 9

  I didn’t wait for my family. I knew they would linger after the service to gossip with neighbors and enjoy the relaxed, relieved feeling that comes with the end of yet another season. I ran home, avoiding the worst potholes and enjoying the feel of cool air on my face and the sweet, sad scent of the last summer flowers, still bravely blooming around every house.

  I was used to vanquishing unwanted ghosts in minutes. But this one . . . he was proving to be troublesome. And I couldn’t figure out why.

  I walked into a bizarrely silent house and trudged up the stairs. At least I don’t have to worry about going to another message service for a while, I muttered to myself as I pushed open my bedroom door. The only thing on my mind was my comfortable bed and warm quilts and soft pillows. So when I stepped inside and found the ghost of room 12B lounging comfortably in my rocker, my reaction was not a happy one.

  In fact I actually closed my eyes for a moment, hoping against hope that I was seeing things.

  I opened my eyes. He was still there.

  “Hello, Sparrow.”

  I turned my back on him and began organizing my desk.

  “I enjoyed the service tonight.”

  I neatly stacked my textbooks into a serious, scholarly tower. I straightened the No. 2 pencils, freshly sharpened, that already stood at perfect attention in a chipped mug.

  I sat down, flipped to a
fresh page in my notebook, and stared down at it, my thoughts racing as I tried to figure out how to get rid of him. After a few seconds I couldn’t resist sneaking a quick peek over my shoulder.

  “Perhaps you couldn’t see much from your hiding place,” he commented, “but people are always so happy when they receive a message from one of their loved ones.” He looked wistfully into the distance. “I wish—”

  Wish what? I almost said it out loud. I caught myself just in time and quickly opened my trigonometry textbook, searching for the dullest section I could find.

  The Pythagorean theorem. Excellent. Boring enough to keep any ghost at bay. I started reading: “Label the right angle C and the hypotenuse c. Let A and B denote the other two angles, and a and b the sides opposite them. . . .”

  Instantly a gray fog of boredom began creeping into my brain. La, la, la, I hummed to myself, feeling pleased as punch. You, Sparrow Delaney, are a force to be reckoned with. You can hold off the spirit world with one hand tied behind your back. You can take on all comers and dismiss them in the first round. You are a champion!

  Well, as Professor Trimble always says, pride goeth before a fall.

  Two minutes later, in the midst of an enormous yawn, I looked up to see that the ghost was standing beside my desk, looking down at me inquiringly.

  “Must be tedious work, keeping ghosts away,” he said. He would have sounded sympathetic if it hadn’t been for the hint of laughter in his voice.

  Scowling, I slammed the book shut and started to stomp out of the room. Halfway to the door I stopped. What was I doing? This was my room! If anyone was going to leave, it was going to be the dead guy.

  I whirled around, only to find that he had moved again to stand right behind me. Now we were facing each other, only inches apart, close enough so that I caught my breath at the sudden freezing cold.

  I took a quick step to the right. He moved just as fast to block my way.

  I moved left, he moved with me.