The Red Ghost (4 page)

She started down the steps. “We could give it to your brothers,” she said. Dallas’s little brothers were rough. They didn’t play with toys. They destroyed them.

“To use for target practice?” Dallas asked. She followed Jenna.

Jenna shrugged. “Sure, if that’s what they want to do. Why should we care? Miss Tate doesn’t want the thing. She hates it.”

But Dallas shook her head. “No way. I don’t want it at my house, either.”

Jenna didn’t argue. She didn’t really want to see the fragile old doll in the boys’ hands, anyway. If something bad was going to happen to it, she didn’t want to have to look at it afterward.

Jenna and Dallas crossed the street. As
they approached Jenna’s house, Jenna saw it. Right in front of them. It was the perfect solution. She would never have to see the doll again!

“Hey!” she said. She put a hand on Dallas’s arm. “What do you think of
that
for an idea?” She nodded toward the large plastic garbage can at the curb. Dad had set it out for trash day.

“What do I think …?” Dallas frowned at the garbage can. When she looked at Jenna again, her eyes were wide. “You can’t be serious!”

“Why not?” Jenna marched up to the can. She lifted the lid. It was full of white plastic bags fat with garbage. The one on top had split. Some stuff poked through.

She looked back at Dallas to see what she would say.

Dallas pulled off her baseball cap and pushed her hair back. She settled the cap on her head again. “You’re going to throw Miss Tate’s doll in the garbage?” she asked. “Really?”

“Of course!” Jenna said it cheerfully, as though she threw away dolls every day.

“Well … okay.” Dallas shrugged. “I guess.” She came closer and peered into the can, too. “I mean … why not?”

Dallas was right. Why not? Jenna pressed down the top bag to make more room.

“Nobody wants this old doll,” she said. She was talking to herself as much as to Dallas. “Not Miss Tate. Not even Quinn. That’s what you do with stuff nobody wants, isn’t it? You throw it away.”

“Sure,” Dallas said, though she seemed anything but sure.

It didn’t feel quite right. But it was the only idea Jenna had. So she laid the doll on top of the garbage. The velvet dress and
bonnet seemed to glow a deeper red against the white plastic. A curl of browning potato peel poked out of the slit in the top bag. It wrapped around the doll’s arm.

Jenna shuddered and picked away the peel. Then, before she could change her mind, she lowered the lid.

Dallas gasped. “Are you really going to leave her there?” She said it as if they hadn’t talked about it. As if she hadn’t agreed.

“Of course.” Jenna tried to sound more certain than she felt. It was just an old doll after all. A doll nobody wanted. What was the big deal? “Come on,” she added, and she headed up the driveway. She tried to ignore the fact that Dallas wasn’t following.

“Jenna,” Dallas called. “Did you hear—”

“No!” Jenna interrupted. Her voice came out too loud. “I didn’t hear anything.” And she hadn’t. She was certain she hadn’t!

Dallas didn’t reply. For once she must have decided not to argue. She started after Jenna.

That was when Quinn came around the corner of the garage. “Where is she?” she cried. “I heard her. What did you do with Miss Tate’s doll?”

Dallas stopped again. “You heard the doll? What did you hear her say?”

“‘Help me!’” Quinn said. She made her voice small and thin. “‘Please, help me!’”

Dallas whirled to face Jenna. “That’s what I heard, too,” she said.

A shiver crawled up Jenna’s spine. What
choice did she have? She ran back to the garbage can and lifted the lid.

When she picked the doll up, the blue eyes came open with a sharp clunk. This time Jenna could have sworn they were saying,
Gotcha!

“W
hat are you going to do with her?” Dallas and Quinn said it in one breath. Then they both stood there, waiting for an answer. And Jenna hadn’t even been the one who had wanted the doll in the first place!

It was Dallas who had told Miss Tate that Jenna wanted to buy the thing. It was Quinn who’d decided the doll was “full.” But there they both stood, waiting for Jenna
to do something. She looked down at the doll. The doll looked back at her.

And while Jenna stood there, staring right into the doll’s eyes, she heard it. This time it wasn’t a wail. It was a whisper, as soft as rustling leaves. But Jenna heard it perfectly.

“Help!” the doll begged. “Please, help me!”

Jenna jumped so violently the doll almost flew out of her hands. And even as she scrabbled to keep from dropping the thing, her hands were still trying to get rid of it.

She would have thrown it. She would have done exactly what her hands wanted except for one thing. Miss Tate. At that instant, their neighbor stepped out onto her
front porch again. She came down the stairs and stood there on the other side of the street, her arms crossed, watching.

“Let’s go!” Jenna cried. And holding the doll as far away from her body as possible, she began to run.

“Where?” Dallas asked.

Jenna didn’t answer. She didn’t know where. She just let her feet choose the path. And as if they knew no other place to go, her feet took her across the lawn … up the front steps … through the door … down
the hall … and into her room. Dallas and Quinn followed.

When she came through the door to her room, Jenna threw the doll. Hard. She couldn’t help it. She had to be rid of the thing.

The doll landed on her bed, leaning crookedly against the headboard.

Jenna stepped back. Her breath stuttered and gasped. Had she heard Miss Tate’s doll speak? Really?

If the doll had spoken, though, she said nothing now. She just sat there. Her round baby cheeks glowed, reflecting the red of the bonnet. Her blue eyes looked deep and knowing. They stared right at Jenna.

Suddenly a throaty wail pierced the air.

Jenna’s hands flew to cover her ears. She stepped back, away from the doll, away from the noise.

But the noise only got louder.

Then she saw. The sound wasn’t coming from the doll this time. It was coming from her cat. Rocco stood at the foot of the bed, howling!

Until that moment, Jenna hadn’t noticed him curled in his usual place on her bed. But if his reaction had been strong when he saw the package that held the doll, it was even more violent now.

He didn’t bother with hissing and spitting this time. Instead, a moaning growl came from his throat. His legs stiffened. His body went rigid. If he had been all black, he
would have looked exactly like a Halloween cat. His head was low, his spine arched. He arched his tail, too, and laid back his ears.

He approached the doll sideways, crablike.

“Don’t, Rocco!” Quinn cried. She reached for the cat.

“Don’t touch him!” Jenna warned. And in the same instant, Rocco’s growl rose to a scream.

Row-w-w-w
!

Quinn jerked her hand back.

They all stepped away from the bed, their gaze glued to the cat. Jenna put her arms around her little sister and held her close.

Rocco’s yellow eyes were slits. Jenna had never seen her sweet cat look so mean.

Just when she couldn’t stand the suspense for another instant, Rocco sprang!

He swiped at the doll’s face. His claws caught in the lace edge of the bonnet. They caught and held.

Rocco spat and hissed. He pulled his paw back. The doll tumbled toward him.

Rocco jerked harder. He yowled. He pulled the bonnet free. The doll rolled off the bed and hit the wooden floor with a loud
thwack !

Rocco backed up. He shook his paw, dropping the bonnet onto the bed.

Once Rocco was free of the doll’s bonnet, he stopped yowling. He crept back across the bed. Crouching, he peered over the side.

Jenna, Dallas, and Quinn moved around the bed to look, too. They all stood, staring at the fallen doll. A crack had opened across the top of her head. It ran from ear to ear.

“Oh,” Quinn cried. “Look!”

Jenna looked. Something red was drifting through the crack in the doll’s head. It seemed like red smoke.

At first the smoke had no shape. It was just a wisp, a curl. Then it began to take form. What was it?

Rocco yowled again.

“It’s her!” Dallas cried.

Jenna didn’t have to ask who Dallas meant by “her.” Now she could see, too.

The red smoke had shaped itself into a girl. She wore a red-velvet dress, a red-velvet bonnet. Even her face was flushed red. And her hair was a bright coppery orange.

The red girl stayed joined to the broken doll at first. She didn’t seem to know where to go. Then slowly, slowly she broke free. She
rose into the air. She floated toward the open window.

Rocco leapt to the floor and followed, moaning and keening the whole way.

“Shut the window!” Dallas cried.

But Quinn said, “No. Let her go!”

Jenna didn’t move. She didn’t think she could have stopped the gauzy figure if she had tried. And she didn’t want to try.

Rocco had no such hesitation. As the wisp of a girl rose toward the open window, he leapt. His outstretched paw passed through the red mist. Then he was back on the floor, still howling.

And just like that … the red ghost was gone.

J
enna stood in the doorway of Quinn’s room, watching her play. Miss Tate’s doll had joined Raggedy Ann and Barbie.

“Do you like your birthday present now?” Jenna asked.

Quinn picked up Miss Tate’s old doll and hugged her. “I love her,” she said. “Raggedy Ann and Barbie love her, too.”

“So what have you named her?” Jenna
asked. And then—she didn’t know why exactly—she held her breath.

“Shannon,” Quinn replied. She held the doll out in front of her, smiling at it. “Her name is Shannon.”

The breath Jenna had been holding leaked away. “Oh,” she said. Was she disappointed? No, of course not. What was there to be disappointed about? Shannon was a perfectly good name. Perhaps it was even too good for an old doll with a cracked-and-glued head.

Still, she couldn’t help saying it. “Are you sure it’s Shannon? Not something more … well, old-fashioned?”