A Gust of Ghosts (20 page)

“I'd pay money to see it in the theater,” Will agreed. “That is, if I wasn't afraid I'd fall asleep.”

Will and Henry had been doing their best to entertain Travis, and by now they were hollow eyed with exhaustion. They had managed to escape for the moment by offering to let him have Will's video game player to himself. He was happily ensconced in Will's bedroom, mastering the intricacies of beating back hordes of zombie cows in
Final Moo III: Daisy's Revenge
.

As they all huddled together, speaking in low voices, Poppy could see that the strain was beginning to show on everyone.

The plan, she thought, was working perfectly, except for one little thing....

“Now we've got to get rid of them,” said Poppy.

“But how?” Henry asked. “We can't make them do
anything
.”

“What about that thing you were talking about?” Franny asked. “The hamburger thing?”

Poppy had to think about that for a minute.

“Are you referring to the Gliffenberger Technique, perhaps?” she asked.

Franny blushed. “You don't have to sound so snide. Just because I don't have a good memory for names—”

“Mom was making that up for Rolly's sake,” said Will. “There's no such thing as a Gliffenberger Technique.”

Poppy wrinkled her brow. “I'm not sure that's true,” she said slowly. “The ghosts seem to believe in it.”

Will rolled his eyes. “That's because they don't know Mom and Dad the way we do,” he said. “But we'd better figure out something, because I can't go on like this. You know what I found out about ghosts?
They never have to sleep!
Travis keeps waking me up at three in the morning to watch TV or play video games. And if I won't get up, he just pulls the covers off the bed and covers me with ectoplasm and I wake up all cold and sticky.”

He gave an enormous yawn, which proved catching. There was a brief pause in the conversation as everyone else yawned and blinked and thought wistfully about their comfortable beds and soft pillows.

“Don't forget the broken window,” said Henry gloomily. “It's going to take me a whole month's allowance to pay for that. I don't know how good a baseball player Travis was when he was alive, but he sure can't catch anything now.”

“What about me?” Franny demanded. “I haven't been able to wash my hair in days. Peggy Sue keeps using my bath oil, my perfume, my conditioner, my fingernail polish—”

“Okay, okay, we got it,” said Will impatiently. “Your beauty ritual has been ruined.”

“It's not just that!” Franny said. “Look at Bertha and Agnes.”

“They're the best ghosts we've got, if you ask me,” said Will. “At least they make us cookies and cakes—”

“Yes, but they refuse to clean up after themselves. I haven't washed so many bowls and cake pans in my life. Look!” Franny held out her hands. “My skin is getting all puckery.”

Will nodded toward the house, where Chance had materialized on the porch roof and was giving an impassioned speech, complete with waving arms and rolling eyes.

“I can't walk two steps without him stopping me and asking if I want to hear him read a soliloquy or recite a sonnet,” Will complained. “I'll get enough of that at school.”

Poppy sighed. She was losing sleep, too, and it was because her bedroom was right under the spot in the attic where Chance liked to do his acting exercises and try out different ghostly roles. She'd often hear the sound of clanking chains being dragged back and forth (he enjoyed playing a dastardly pirate who had been thrown in a dungeon). Once she had gone upstairs to complain about the noise and had found him staggering about the room, clutching a knife to his bloodstained chest and uttering cries of “Revenge! Revenge!” On the very worst nights, he played the bagpipes.

Henry stretched out his legs and leaned back against the tree trunk. “The neighbors are starting to notice things, too,” he said.

Poppy sat up straighter, suddenly alert. “They are?” she asked. “What kind of things?”

“Well, I heard Mrs. Kessel talking to Mrs. Banks by her mailbox the other day,” he said. “Mrs. Kessel claimed that she came home late because she'd offered a lift to a teenage girl outside your house. She said that the girl wanted to be dropped off at the high school and she thought it was for a dance. The girl was wearing a real pretty dress, according to Mrs. Kessel. But when she got to the school and looked over at the passenger seat”—Henry leaned forward and whispered the last words—“the girl had vanished!”

“Oh
no
.” Poppy fell onto her back and stared up at the green leaves. “I keep telling her to stop flagging down cars on our street, but she won't listen.”

“Yeah, well, the story of the Hitchhiking Prom Queen is getting around the neighborhood,” said Henry. “And since she always stands right outside your house—”

“Pretty soon somebody's going to come to our front door asking about her,” said Will, his head in his hands. “Like the police.”

“At least Buddy's not much trouble,” said Franny, in the gloomy tones of someone trying her best to find some sort of silver lining. “And he's always very polite.”

“That's true.” Poppy rolled onto her stomach and looked down at the lawn, where Buddy was twirling his lasso. The loop of rope spun in a lazy circle just above the ground, then rose in the air until he was whirling it above his head.

Then she saw Rolly trot up to Buddy with Bingo at his heels.

“Uh-oh,” she said. “Look out.”

Will and Henry scooted over to the side of the tree house, while Franny leaned over to see what Poppy was pointing at.

Rolly and Buddy's voices carried clearly through the quiet summer afternoon.

“What are you doing?” Rolly asked.

“I got to practice every day or I get rusty,” Buddy explained. “You got some nice targets here—”

He glanced at the porch railing, where Mrs. Malone had lined up five red geraniums in ceramic pots just the week before. Buddy flicked his wrist and the lasso settled snugly over a potted geranium on the porch railing.

“Neat as a feather flicker,” Buddy said with a grin.

“Could you teach me to do that?” asked Rolly.

“Sure,” Buddy said. He jerked on the rope and the geranium crashed to the sidewalk. “Darn. Like I said—”

“You get rusty,” Rolly said.

“Yup.” With a casual twist of his wrist, Buddy sent the rope whirling in the air again.

It settled over the cement birdbath that Mrs. Malone had bought just two weeks before. “Slick as a whistle,” he said, grinning.

Then he pulled on the rope. The birdbath fell over with a crash.

He winced. “I'm more out of practice than I thought.”

“Why don't you try roping me?” suggested Rolly.

Buddy laughed. “Nah, I couldn't do that. You're just a little fellow—”

“Oh yeah?” Rolly asked. He dashed off, Bingo right behind him. They ran across the Malones' lawn, then through Henry's yard. The hens, who had just settled down for a peaceful night's sleep, began squawking in protest. That, in turn, alerted the neighborhood dogs, who began barking as well.

Bingo made a circle around the Riveras' house and raced back toward the Malones' with Rolly in hot pursuit.

“No, no, no, no, no …” Poppy said.

Buddy threw his rope. The loop floated over Rolly's head, then settled around his midsection. Rolly fell over, giggling wildly, as Bingo danced around him on his back legs, barking.

They all sighed.

“Who wants to go down and tell Buddy to quit roping Rolly?” asked Will. He held out one hand. “Rock, paper, scissors?”

They played a few fast rounds. Henry lost.

As Henry climbed down the tree house ladder, Will returned to the main point. “So what are we going to do? We've got to figure out some way to make them leave.”

“Maybe there's something they want,” Franny said. “Something we could give them in exchange for going away.”

Will gave a hollow laugh. “As far as I can see, they have everything they want already. Chance gets to watch movies all day, and Travis gets to play video games. Bertha and Agnes get to bake as much as they want. Peggy Sue's made our bathroom into her own private spa. And Buddy is happy as long as he's near Peggy Sue.” He collapsed onto his back. “Face it. We've opened a boardinghouse for ghosts.”

Poppy chewed on her lip thoughtfully. “I wish I could figure out how they escaped from the graveyard,” she said. “We made a mistake there, I know we did. I just can't figure out what it was.”

She sat up and stared at the house, where Chance now seemed to be rehearsing a sword fight across the porch roof. She tried to think back over everything that had happened the day they went to the cemetery.

“I missed something,” she said under her breath. “Somehow they found a loophole, a way they could sneak out of that cemetery and follow us home. If I could only figure out what it was, I know I could get them to leave....”

I
t often came in useful, Poppy reflected, to have parents who were willing to sit in a cave night after night, hoping to open a portal to another dimension.

For one thing, it meant that they were far less likely to notice that their house had been taken over by ghosts. And for another thing, it meant that she could eat extra helpings of ice cream for dessert, which she often did.

So when Mr. and Mrs. Malone announced that they were going back to Bastrop to try a different cave in their search for the elusive vortex, Poppy was happy to help them pack up their supplies.

“I think that's all the snacks,” said Mrs. Malone as Poppy tossed the grocery sack into the car. “Emerson packed the magnetometer and the cameras, but I mustn't forget the Geiger counter, just in case we find that the vortex is emitting low-level radiation....”

She turned to go back into the house, and then stopped and stood very still, looking at the wide, shady porch and the lamp-lit windows. This was so unlike Mrs. Malone that Poppy looked up into her face. Mrs. Malone's eyes were worried, more worried than Poppy had ever seen them, and she was biting her lip.

“Mom?” Poppy asked in a small voice. “Is anything wrong?”

“What?” Mrs. Malone blinked, and then turned a bright smile on Poppy. “Of course not, dear. I was just thinking how much I do like this house....”

She shaded her eyes and looked toward the Riveras'. “Now we're just waiting for Mirabella—Poppy, can you run over there and see if she needs anything? I'd like to get settled in the cave before the bats start flying....”

When Poppy dashed over to Henry's house, she found Mrs. Rivera lining up brightly colored bottles on her back porch. She looked up and smiled at Poppy.

“Oh dear, is it five o'clock already?” she said. “I'll be right there; I just have to finish making my spirit traps. The Friends of the Graveyard are going to work on a little cemetery in Andice tomorrow, and of course I won't be able to go with them—”

“Excuse me.” Poppy couldn't take her eyes off the bottles, which were all different colors—red, green, yellow, blue, purple. “I've never heard of spirit traps before. What are they, exactly?”

Mrs. Rivera gave a tinkling laugh. “It's so lovely to meet a young person with an interest in folklore,” she said. “Centuries ago in Europe, people used to put these jars on the paths in cemeteries in order to ensnare any ghosts that might try to get out and, well, make trouble. You know how ghosts are.”

“Yes, I do,” said Poppy with a heartfelt nod. “How do they work?”

Henry's aunt lifted the blue jar and held it up to the last of the afternoon's light. Golden sunshine shone through the glass, showing a tangle of what looked like twine inside. “People used to believe that straight, clear paths let spirits roam free,” she said. “That's the reason some anthropologists think that ancient stone labyrinths were built—to keep ghosts from escaping their final resting places. These jars operate the same way. See the thread tangled up inside? If a ghost tried to move down a path with this jar in its way, it would get caught inside. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Poppy said softly. “So when you and the Graveyard Friends clean up a cemetery—”

Mrs. Rivera shrugged. “Some people get worried that we might be clearing the way for ghosts to roam free. Just to put everyone's mind at ease, we place these bottles on the paths before we leave.”

She gently put the bottle back in the line, then straightened up and smiled into Poppy's eyes. “It may seem a little superstitious, but if it makes people feel better, why not? And they are really quite lovely, too.... Now I must get going. I feel sure that we are going to discover great things tonight!”

And with that, she was off, leaving Poppy alone and smiling at the row of rainbow-colored bottles.