The Golden Ghost

by Marion Dane Bauer

  “I guess he’s okay,” she said to Todd.

  Todd nodded, but he kept stroking Bug from head to tail, checking for injury.

  “Do you know what he was barking at?” Delsie asked.

  “The old man,” he answered. “What else?”

  Delsie took a deep breath. She knew it was useless to tell him. But because it was Todd and because they had always told one another everything, she kept going.

  “He was barking at the old man’s dog,” she said. “It’s a ghost dog, really. More a collection of sparkles than anything.”

  Todd didn’t reply.

  Delsie put a hand beneath Bug’s chin and tipped his head up. She gazed into his solemn brown eyes. Bug had seen the golden dog. She knew for certain that he had.

  She waited to see what Todd would say.

  “Do you know what?” Todd said finally.

  “What?” she asked. She kept her gaze on Bug’s large, round eyes.

  “Sometimes I think you’re nuts,” Todd said. “Positively nuts.”

  Delsie winced. But if Todd had just told her he’d seen a ghost dog and she hadn’t seen the same thing, wasn’t that what she would have said?

  Maybe.

  Maybe not.

  “I think I’ll go home,” she said. And she stood.

  “What do you want to do tomorrow?” Todd called after her when she was halfway down the walk.

  “I don’t know,” she answered, not looking back. “Probably nothing. Nothing at all.”

  Maybe they were getting too old to be best friends. Her mother had told her that might happen. She said that someday they might feel too old to be best friends, a boy and a girl. She’d said things would happen that would make everything different.

  Delsie didn’t think her mom had been talking about ghosts, though.

  Still, Delsie was angry. She hadn’t said it. She hadn’t even let her voice sound like it. But she was good and angry.

  Why couldn’t Todd let himself see what was right in front of his eyes? Was it just because she was a girl? Because he was a boy and what he saw was always bigger, more important, than anything she might see?

  She headed for her apartment above the store.

  As the man approached the row of houses, he walked faster. He swung the two bags with their scant groceries.

  Blasted kids! What were they doing interfering? He wasn’t hurting anybody, staying in that little house. Why should a house be sitting there empty when there were people like him in the world who didn’t have a roof? Didn’t have anything.

  Not that it mattered. There wasn’t much that seemed to matter now that Dog was gone.

  It was time to move on. The cold would be coming soon, and there would be no way to get heat in that abandoned little house. He was running out of odd jobs in this hick town, anyway.

  Still … he hated being told. Always had. It was almost like having the police say it. “Move on! Move on!” That annoying kid and her “We’ll tell the police.”

  That infernal little black dog, barking at his heels.

  He hadn’t been able to stand the sight of a dog, any dog, since Dog had died.

  His dog.

  No name. He’d never given her a name.

  He felt bad about that sometimes. She’d deserved a name.

  Sometimes he almost thought he saw her again … hanging around, right close by. Just a glimpse of that golden fur. Those eyes.

  But he wasn’t crazy. He wasn’t like those guys who got hauled away every now and then. Seeing stuff. Yelling about what they were seeing.

  He knew what was what.

  Dog was dead. That was all. Dead meant gone. He’d buried her himself behind the little house. Dug a hole deep so no wild animal would come out of the woods and dig her up.

  Dug a hole and that was the end of it.

  Except now he’d have to go off and leave her here. There was nothing to be done about that.

  As the man walked up the steps to the porch, though, the nothing he could do was suddenly too much. He kicked the face of a step. Kicked hard, meaning it to hurt. Hurt his foot. Hurt the step.

  He intended to make a solid thump.

  He’d spent years—he no longer knew how many—without a home, and he’d never made any noise. Sneaking around. Hiding in boxes, in sheds, in abandoned houses no one had bothered to tear down.

  If anyone had known he wanted to live in this one, they probably would have torn it down. They would have hauled it away before he got a chance.

  But the thump his foot made wasn’t solid. When he kicked, his foot passed right through the front of the half-rotten step. His foot passed through and his ankle caught.

  And then he was falling backward … falling.

  elsie was halfway home when a soft touch on her hand startled her. It was a damp, cool touch.

  She looked down and, at first, saw nothing.

  Then the golden dog gathered before her eyes. The dog trotted along beside Delsie, her cool nose grazing Delsie’s palm.

  Come, the cool nose said. And the liquid brown eyes said, Come.

  Delsie stopped walking.

  Again, a nudge from the nose.

  “What’s wrong?” Delsie asked.

  But the dog only turned away. Then she looked back over her shoulder to see if Delsie was following.

  Delsie’s first thought was that something had happened to Todd.

  But when she neared Todd’s house, she could see that he still sat on the front steps, Bug cradled in his arms.

  Bug leapt down and ran toward Delsie. Or rather he ran at the golden dog. He danced around both of them, barking grandly.

  The golden dog looked down from her much greater height and kept right on walking. When Delsie stopped, the big dog paused a short distance away and looked back. She was clearly still expecting Delsie to follow.

  Delsie scooped Bug into her arms and ran toward the porch. “Put him away,” she told Todd. “Put him away and come with me.”

  She didn’t mean it to be a test, but the moment she said it, she knew it was. Would Todd trust her? Would he come when she asked just because they were friends?

  She saw him hesitate. She saw the question rising in his eyes. And then she saw him decide.

  He plucked Bug from her arms, put him inside the house, and asked, “Where are we going?”

  It was a good thing they had decided to take Todd’s bike. Delsie’s was at home, so she’d ridden sidesaddle on his crossbar. They’d reached the abandoned little house much faster that way.

  And once they got there and saw the old man lying at the base of the steps, Todd could go quickly for help. The man wasn’t dead. He was still breathing, but he was quiet … very quiet. It was almost as if he’d gone to sleep in the middle of the sidewalk.

  Todd had ridden to the first occupied house at the edge of town and asked them to call 911.

  Now Delsie and Todd stood side by side and watched the ambulance pull away.

  “How did you know?” Todd asked. “What made you come back here?”

  Delsie looked over at the golden dog. She sat in the middle of the grass-pocked street, gazing after the ambulance as it turned the corner.

  Delsie shrugged. “You’d never believe me,” she said.

  Todd gave her a long, hard look. “Try me,” he said.

  And so she explained … or tried to.

  She could tell about the silken softness, the slight pressure that had held her in place when they were inside the house that first time.

  She could talk about golden sparkles. She could say that the sparkles had taken the shape of a dog.

  She could even tell about the cool nose in the palm of her hand. And she could describe the way the dark eyes had said, Come.

  But she couldn’t make Todd see what stood right in front of him. The golden ghost.

  “She’s beautiful,” Delsie said finally. There seemed nothing more to say.

  “How do you know it’s a girl?” he asked.

  �
��I just looked at her face, and I could tell,” Delsie said.

  Todd gave a little snort. “That’s not the usual end you check,” he said.

  She shrugged. Some things never changed. Boys had to be funny.

  The great dog rose from her place in the empty street and moved toward the porch. She brushed by so close that Delsie reached out and let a hand flow down her silken back.

  Todd blinked, but he didn’t move. Had he felt something?

  “Here, girl,” Delsie called softly. “Come on, girl. He’s gone to the hospital. You can come with me now.”

  But the dog kept moving away.

  Todd stared in the direction the dog had gone. Then he turned to study Delsie. “Your dad wouldn’t be allergic to a ghost dog,” he said.

  Delsie laughed.

  After a moment she asked, “Do you think he’ll be all right?”

  “The old man?” Todd said.

  “Yeah.”

  “The paramedics said they thought he’d be okay,” Todd said. “They said he’d knocked himself out, falling. They’ll take care of him in the hospital.”

  Delsie turned back to the dog. She sat at the base of the porch steps now, watching the house, watching them.

  “Come on, girl,” Delsie said. “Please, come.”

  The golden dog gazed at Delsie. She actually looked as though she might want to come. But then she looked back over her shoulder at the house again and didn’t move.

  “Call her by her name,” Todd whispered. “If you said her name, maybe she would come.”

  Delsie turned and gaped at him. He was looking toward the porch, but again Delsie couldn’t tell what he might be seeing. He wasn’t making fun of her, though. That much was clear.

  “I … I don’t know her name,” she said. Then she added, “Besides, I think she means to stay. I think she loved that old man and she’s going to wait for him here.”

  “But he won’t be back,” Todd said.

  “No,” she agreed. “He won’t. Even when he gets better, they won’t let him.”

  She and Todd stood there, side by side, for several moments more. The blaze of sunset had dissolved, and the blue had leached out of the sky.

  “Can you … ?” Delsie said finally.

  “Can I see what you see?” Todd finished the question for her.

  She nodded.

  “No,” he said. “I wish I could.” And then he put a hand very gently on her arm and added in a big-brotherly way, “I think we’d better go home. Maybe we can come back sometimes … to see her, you know? Or at least you can see her.”

  Delsie nodded again.

  Together they climbed onto his bike. She settled back into her friend’s arms, and they started up the street. The front wheel wobbled for a few yards from the extra weight, but soon Todd got the bike under control.

  Delsie looked back over Todd’s shoulder toward the little house and the dog. She could see nothing … only the barest suggestion of a sparkle.

  “I’ll never have a dog,” she said when they stopped in front of Todd’s house.

  The front door opened, and Bug flew out to greet them.

  “I know,” Todd said. “Because of your dad.” He knelt in the grass to receive Bug and buried his face in the shining black fur. “There might be worse things, though,” he added, his face still buried. “Worse than not having a dog.”

  Delsie looked down at her friend. His neck looked skinny … and sad, somehow. “I guess you’re right,” she said.

  She wanted to give Todd a hug, but she didn’t. She gave him a punch on the shoulder instead. Just hard enough to feel, but not hard enough to hurt.

  he golden dog was pacing, pacing. Around and around the little house.

  The man was gone. She loved the man.

  The girl was gone, too. The girl who saw her.

  The dog circled and circled the little house.

  She stopped at last and pointed her soft muzzle at the starry sky. “Arooooo,” she called. “Arooooo!”

  No one answered.

  She circled again … and again … and again.

  At last she stopped beneath the tree where the boy and girl had stood. She snuffled through the grass. She pushed her nose deep into the grass to capture every fragment of smell.

  She walked a few paces away from the tree, away from the house. Then she sniffed again.

  She walked some more.

  By the time she reached the end of the street, she was running. But not in circles. She ran in a straight, true line.

  “Arooooo!” she called. “Arooooo!”

  Delsie woke slowly. Had she heard something outside? Someone calling?

  That wasn’t possible. No one in Milton was up at this time of night. Whatever time it might be, no one was up and about. Not even the town’s two police officers.

  Delsie turned onto her side and adjusted her sheet and the light blanket. It was cooler tonight. Summer was nearly over.

  Only two more days were left before fourth grade.

  Todd’s whole family—well, Todd and his mother and his three brothers—were coming for a picnic on Monday.

  Delsie would help Mom make deviled eggs. Delsie always put pecan bits in the mashed-up yolks. Deviled eggs with pecans were her dad’s favorite. If they didn’t watch him, he would eat them all before anyone else had a chance. At least he’d say he’d eat them if he wasn’t watched.

  She turned again so she faced the door. Even as she turned, she scooted over to leave room on the bed. The way she always did.

  She closed her eyes, but almost immediately they popped open again.

  What was that? That glimmer. Had a lightning bug gotten in? A dozen lightning bugs? More?

  And then there it was again. Right next to her bed this time. Not just a light. Not even a collection of lights. But a shape. A dog.

  “Hello, Sunshine,” Delsie whispered. She didn’t know where the name had come from, but she knew it was right. She reached out a hand, then pulled it back. She didn’t want to scare her dog.

  But Sunshine wasn’t scared. She climbed into the space that waited for her. The space that had been waiting for her for so long.

  The ghost dog stretched herself out along the length of Delsie’s body with a slight “oooomph.” Then she laid her great head on Delsie’s arm.

  Her head was as light as feathers, but still Delsie could feel the weight of it, like a presence in a dream. Her fur was as silky-soft as Delsie had known it would be.

  Delsie laid her other arm across Sunshine’s chest and tangled her fingers in the golden fur.

  “You’re here,” she breathed. “At last!”

  Sunshine made a sound, deep in her throat, a comforting rumble almost like a purr.

  Delsie was pretty sure that it meant “At last!” too.

  Marion Dane Bauer is the author of more than seventy books for children, including the Newbery Honor–winning On My Honor. She has also won the Kerlan Award for her collected work. Marion’s first Stepping Stone book, The Blue Ghost, was named to the Texas Bluebonnet Award Master List. Marion has recently retired from the faculty of the Vermont College Master of Fine Arts in Writing for Children and Young Adults program.

  Marion has nine grandchildren and lives in St. Paul, Minnesota.

  Peter Ferguson has illustrated such books as the Sisters Grimm series, the Lucy Rose series, and The Anybodies and its sequels, and he has painted the covers for many others. He lives in Montreal with his wife, Eriko, and cat, Yoda.