A Gust of Ghosts
Page 13
Poppy raised her eyebrows. “I suppose you just wanted a wife so you’d have someone to feed your hens,” she sniffed.
“No, ma’am,” Buddy said easily. “I’d have been willing to take care of ’em. Hens and I always got along all right. I never had any problem with hens.” He grinned slightly. “I can’t say the same thing about ladies. I didn’t even have a sweetheart, but I thought, well, maybe if I build the house, I’ll find her.”
At that moment, Peggy Sue drifted through the front door.
“Mornin’, Miss Peggy,” he said.
Peggy Sue barely glanced at him. “Good morning,” she said as she kept drifting, across the lawn and toward the street.
Buddy began playing again. This time, the song was hopeful and yearning. It would make just about anyone stop to listen, Poppy thought, but Peggy Sue kept drifting. She didn’t stop until she got to the street, where she floated in one spot, watching the cars driving past.
Buddy sighed and stopped playing.
“So what happened?” asked Poppy. “With your house?”
“Well, I was heading to town to buy the deed. I had the money in my saddlebag, and I guess somebody got wind of it. They ambushed me on the road and, well, that was that.”
Poppy waited for a few moments of reverent silence before putting down her bowl and picking up her camera.
“That’s a great story,” she said. “Would you mind telling it again? For the movie?”
But Buddy shook his head sadly. “Let me come up with a better story than that,” he said, fading away. “I’m sure I can come up with something more cheerful if I just put my mind to it....”
Poppy spent the morning trying to capture a ghost—any ghost!—on film. After Buddy disappeared, she went inside and found Chance in the living room, raptly watching an old movie on TV.
“Amazing,” he murmured. “If only I had been born a hundred years later! What a star I could have been!”
Quickly, she pointed the camera at him. “Why don’t you try acting for me, right now?” she suggested.
But Chance simply gave her a startled glance, then floated up from the couch and toward the stairs. “Another time, my dear, another time,” he said. “An actor must prepare, you know. I haven’t even done my voice exercises this morning....”
He vanished. Moments later, she could hear him in the attic, nasally chanting “Me-me-me-me-me” to warm up his throat.
Poppy marched toward the kitchen. Surely the cookies were in the oven by now. She could film Bertha and Agnes, then get Chance after lunch and maybe even catch Buddy on the porch before dinner.
She smiled. She always felt better when she had a plan.
When Poppy got to the kitchen, dozens of chocolate chip cookies were cooling on racks. They smelled delicious, but Poppy hardly noticed. She was staring at the kitchen in dismay. The table was covered with flour and sugar and cinnamon. There was a puddle of milk on the floor. Broken eggshells clogged the sink, and there were smears of butter on the countertop.
“Hello, Poppy,” said Bertha. “Have a cookie and let us know how it tastes.”
Poppy nibbled a cookie moodily. “I don’t suppose you’re going to clean this up, are you?” she asked without much hope.
“I’m afraid we need our sleep,” said Agnes, although her bright eyes and pink cheeks didn’t quite match her words. “This has all been more excitement than we’ve had in fifty years.”
“Could you at least answer a few questions?” asked Poppy, holding up her camera.
“Later, dear, we promise. After our naps.”
The two ghosts disappeared.
Poppy ate another cookie.
Something’s up, she thought. Those ghosts are playing some kind of game. And there’s only one way I can figure out what it is....
Even from the kitchen, Poppy could hear Franny, Will, and Rolly riding their bikes back from the park.
Rolly, as usual, was pretending to be a steam engine by imitating a train whistle at the top of his lungs. Poppy glanced out the window and saw Bingo trotting along next to the back wheel of Rolly’s bike.
Travis was clearly not feeling as energetic. He was sitting on Will’s handlebars, his arms crossed, looking around as if he were a tourist being given a guided tour of the neighborhood. He seemed to be making comments over his shoulder to Will, which Travis found quite amusing (based on his broad grin) and Will did not (based on his scowl).
Poppy cracked the window a half inch to hear better.
“Faster! Come on, you can pedal harder than that!” Travis yelled. “Sorry I can’t help you out—the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.”
He chuckled at his own joke.
Even from the third floor, Poppy could see Will’s face turn scarlet.
Then Will put on extra speed, made a sharp turn into the driveway, and raced full tilt toward the garage. At the last possible second, he came to a screeching halt with his front tire one inch from the door.
Travis lost his balance and tumbled to the ground.
“Fast enough for you?” asked Will with a challenging stare.
Travis jumped up, grinning. “You bet,” he said. “That’s the great thing about being a ghost. You don’t get hurt.”
“And you don’t get hungry,” said Franny. “I’m going to get something to eat. Come on, Rolly, I’ll make you a sandwich.”
Poppy grabbed her video camera and ran down the stairs to the back door. As she stepped outside, she heard Travis say, “So, what should we do next?”
He strolled down the driveway, his green eyes sparkling as he surveyed the neighborhood. “How about throwing water balloons at people out of that big tree by the sidewalk?”
“We’ll get in trouble,” Will said in the weary tone of someone who’s been repeating the same words over and over.
Travis lifted one impish eyebrow. “It’s not fun if you don’t get into a little trouble.”
“Easy for you to say,” muttered Will. “Ghosts don’t get grounded, either.”
Travis wasn’t listening. “We could wait until it gets dark, then ring a few doorbells and run away,” he said. “Or we could soap their windows. Or I know! We could do both!”
“I keep telling you—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, you’ll get in trouble,” said Travis, disgusted. “Check your record player, Will; I think the needle’s stuck.”
“What?” Will looked baffled.
Poppy stepped forward. “He’s talking about vinyl records, Will. You know, like the kind Mom and Dad like to play.”
“Yeah, right,” said Travis. “Sorry, I forgot you don’t play records anymore.” He floated up into a tree, flipped over in the air, and hung by his knees from a low-lying branch. “So what do you want to do?”
“Eat lunch.” Will headed for the kitchen door.
“Well, I guess that leaves me out.” Sulkily, Travis swung back and forth. “Since I can’t eat. Which you know.”
“Maybe I could film you while Will is eating,” Poppy said with a big smile, holding up her camera.
Just as she suspected, Travis looked first startled, then wary.
“I would,” he said, “but I, um, have something to do.”
“Really?” Poppy did her best to look wide-eyed and innocent. “What?”
“Just, um, things. See ya later!”
And with that, Travis blinked out of sight.
“Hmm.” Poppy stood still for a minute, gazing unseeingly at the empty lawn chair until a sharp bark interrupted her thoughts.
Bingo was chasing his tail on the lawn, waiting for Rolly to come back out.
“Hey, Bingo,” Poppy said, raising the camera to her eye. “Do you want to be in the movies?”
His ears perked up. His head swung around so that he was looking right in the lens.
Poppy caught her breath. “Good dog,” she whispered.
Bingo barked again.
And then he, too, disappeared.
Chapter SEVENTEEN
What she needed, Poppy decided, was a quiet place to think where she wouldn’t be disturbed, but even that was maddeningly difficult to find, what with Peggy Sue lolling in the bathtub, Bertha and Agnes taking over the kitchen, Buddy playing music on the porch, Travis jumping on Will’s bed, and Chance practicing his lines in the attic.
Even her own bedroom wasn’t safe. Agnes had a habit of barging in to sweep under her bed or rearrange her bookshelves. And Poppy had awakened that morning to find Bingo sitting on her bed, licking her nose.
Finally, she waited until Franny, Will, and Rolly had gone to visit Henry in his tree house, and she snuck into Rolly’s room. Poppy had always found it to be an oddly calming place. She could stretch out on the rug, a deep plush pile that was always handed down to the youngest member of the family and that was still, despite a stained and battered appearance, the most comfortable spot for thinking. She could watch the fish mobile that she remembered hanging above her own bed when she was little turning lazily in a slight breeze. And she could be almost sure that she wouldn’t be disturbed (even the ghosts, she had noticed, were nervous about invading Rolly’s territory).
She flopped down on the floor and stared at the ceiling, trying to concentrate, but this time the room’s usual magic didn’t work. Her thoughts kept whirling around from all the if onlys (If only Mrs. Farley wasn’t so whimsical!) to all the what ifs (What if the ghosts never left?) and ending up, most unhelpfully, back at the biggest what if of all: What if we have to move?
Even when she closed her eyes and forced herself to focus on just one worry, she kept getting distracted by random noises, like the bee buzzing against the windowpane, the distant jingle of an ice cream truck, and what sounded like Chance’s voice rising through the heating grate, saying something about sticking to a plan....
Her eyes popped open. She rolled onto her stomach and peered through the grate at the living room below.
Chance and all the other ghosts were gathered together, talking in low voices and looking over their shoulders every once in a while, like spies who were afraid of getting caught.
“Just keep doing what you’re doing,” Chance said. “Any time Poppy points that camera at you, vanish! Disappear, evaporate, vamoose! Whatever you do, don’t get caught on tape!”
Every ghost nodded with determination. Every ghost except Agnes, who looked (at least from the bit of untidy hair and pink nose that Poppy could see) troubled.
“I’ll do what we all agree on, of course,” said Agnes. “Still, it does seem a shame. She always looks so disappointed, poor little thing. And it would be terrible if she and her family did have to leave this lovely house, just when they were getting settled in—”
Bertha turned on her fiercely. “Let me ask you one thing, Agnes: Are you having a good time?”
“Well, of course,” said Agnes, flustered. “I’m having a grand time. We all are!”
“And what do you think will happen once we’ve helped the Malones get their evidence?” Travis said.
“I’ll tell you what happens,” Peggy Sue said. “They won’t need us anymore. We’ll all be—”
“Banished!” the ghosts said in an unhappy chorus.
Buddy strummed a solemn chord on his guitar.
Chance nodded moodily. “We’ve had one lucky break, at least. None of them seem to realize that the Gliffenberger Technique actually works.”
“Well, we’d better make sure they don’t ever find out the truth,” said Buddy. “We don’t want people knowing how to get rid of ghosts.”
“So, we’re still agreed?” asked Chance sharply. “We’ll make sure that Poppy Malone never makes a film about us, never reveals our existence and, most important, never lets her parents know that we are here.”
The other ghosts nodded solemnly, then, one by one, drifted away. Poppy rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling once more. This time, her thoughts were wonderfully clear. In fact, she felt that her brain was absolutely whizzing along.
She began to smile.
We’ll make sure that Poppy Malone never makes a film about us, Chance had said.
And we’ll just see about that, Poppy thought.
Poppy enlisted help, of course. Once she told Will, Henry, and Franny what she had heard, they were only too glad to pitch in. (Rolly, who was deemed unable to keep a secret unless it was his own, was sent off to play with Bingo while they worked.)
“I think the porch would be the best place to stage Operation Ghoul,” said Poppy. “And the simplest thing would be to divide into two teams.”
The others agreed. Franny and Will were Team Distraction. Poppy and Henry were Team Installation. (Franny’s suggestion that they have T-shirts made was unanimously voted down.)
Once they had their plan in place, they swung into action. Will lured Buddy off the porch by offering to play him recordings of old cowboy songs that Will had downloaded from a folk song website. Franny stood guard, prepared to chase away any other ghosts who might decide to sit on the porch. She did this simply by holding Poppy’s video camera, ready to film any ghost who wandered by. Once the coast was clear, Poppy and Henry installed what Henry insisted on calling their “secret weapons” in fifteen minutes flat.
When they were done, Poppy stood in the middle of the porch for one last inspection. Everything looked exactly the way it had before they started.
“Great job, everyone,” she said. “Now all we have to do is get the ghosts to join us.”
That wasn’t hard to do (once Franny put the video camera away). The ghosts had gotten into the habit of sitting on the porch in the evening, trading stories and enjoying the sunset. Tonight, Will and Henry sprawled on the front steps, Poppy sat in a rocker, and Franny perched on the railing.
The ghosts were gathered in their usual spots—Buddy on the swing (he had finally convinced Peggy Sue to join him, and looked as if he was about to burst with happiness), Bertha and Agnes in straight-backed wooden chairs, Travis sitting cross-legged on the floor, and Chance standing on the porch steps, striking a dramatic pose. Together they listened to the crickets and watched as Rolly and Bingo played a game of their own invention—it involved creeping through bushes and leaping on each other at unexpected moments—in the gathering shadows. As Bingo barked and dashed around Rolly, Buddy began strumming his guitar. For the first time since the ghosts had arrived at the Malone house, the tune was lively and upbeat.
Poppy found herself tapping her toes. She glanced at Henry and Will, who were smiling, and Franny, who seemed to be humming along. In fact, the music managed to put everyone in a good mood. When the song finally came to a jaunty end, Bertha took several swings at a mosquito that had circled her head a few too many times, and said, “That was right nice, Buddy.”
“Yes, it’s lovely to have some entertainment on a summer evening,” said Agnes, gently fanning herself with an embroidered handkerchief. “Maybe you could play ‘San Antonio Rose’ again and we could all sing along.”
“A delightful idea,” Chance said. Then as if he’d suddenly had another thought, he added, “Or—”
Bertha rolled her eyes. “Here it comes.”
“I could perform a monologue from one of the Bard’s history plays!” he went on.
Will collapsed onto the porch as if he’d been felled by a boxer’s left hook. “A monologue,” he said in dreary tones. “The Bard. History. That’s got to break the record for the most boring words ever said in one sentence.”
“How about ‘I’ll perform a monologue from one of the Bard’s history plays while playing a harp’?” Travis suggested.<
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“‘I’ll perform a monologue from one of the Bard’s history plays while playing a harp in front of a poster of the periodic table of elements,’” Henry added.
“‘I’ll perform a monologue—’” Will began.
“Enough!” Chance said, sweeping his arm through the air as if he were casting them into the darkness. “I am surrounded by philistines!”
He glared at Will, Travis, and Henry, who snickered unrepentantly.
“Actually,” Poppy said, “I’d love to see you perform—”
“For the fifth night in a row,” said Bertha under her breath.
“—and I’m sure everyone else would, too,” continued Poppy. She looked around at the others, who all nodded rather unenthusiastically.
“Well,” said Chance modestly. “If you insist. Perhaps a short scene from Henry the Fourth …”
“That sounds great,” said Poppy brightly. “Where do you want to stand?”
Chance bounded up the steps to the middle of the porch and spread his arms wide. “Here, of course!” he said. “Center stage.”
“Of course,” murmured Poppy as she casually moved a potted geranium a few inches to the right. Every night for a week, Chance had acted a different part and he always stood in the same spot, where he could be the focus of attention. She sat down again, careful not to block the geranium behind her, and said, “I think we’re ready to start.”
“Ah.” Chance cleared his throat, then gave her a glinting look. “Perhaps you would like to give me my cue, Poppy?”
He said this as if he were granting an immense favor, so Poppy did her best to look honored.
“What is it?” she asked.
“‘I can call spirits from the vasty deep,’” he recited.
For a moment, Poppy thought he was making fun of her. Then she saw the glint in his eye become even stronger, and she realized he was giving her a private smile, as if they shared a secret.