I So Don't Do Spooky (21 page)

We both jump up, like the ground suddenly heated up to volcano temperatures.

We're in front of a shrine, constructed specifically to summon a nasty ghost-stalker. And we don't have any coffee beans to call for help. We're two standing ducks.

Junie hops on her bike. “We have to ride to your house and get them.”

I grab my bike. “And be back here by midnight.”

“We can make it if we don't walk up any of the hills,” Junie says.

My leg is in the air, halfway through the arc that will carry it over my bike seat to the ground on the other side.

Unfortunately, I don't make it.

W
hen you're unathletic, something as simple as climbing on a bike can trip you up.

Instead of my leg arcing over the bike seat, my foot jams against it. Hard. I tumble backward, twisting my body around to land on my front. I stick my hands out to break the fall.

Ouchie ouchie mama.

Best-case scenario: I have broken only one wrist.

Worst-case scenario: I have broken both wrists, both legs, both hips, and all my fingers and toes.

Junie drops her bike and sprints over to me. “Are you okay?”

I explain the two scenarios to her.

All doctorish, she orders me to stand and walk and wiggle my fingers and toes. Quickly. Because a ghost-stalker is on the way. Because the clock is ticking closer and closer to midnight.

When we get to the left wrist, I gasp and whimper.

“I bet it's broken,” Junie says. “It's swelling and your hand's twisted kind of funny. At least it's your left; you can still take the science test.”

With my right hand, I press on my left wrist, massaging it feather-gently. I yelp. “This is the worst pain of my entire life.” My eyes swim in tears. “No way I can ride my bike. No way I can even ride on the back of yours. What're we going to do?”

“Can you smell Dylan yet?” Junie asks.

I stick my nose in the air and sniff. “No.”

“Okay. You stay here. And sit.” Junie claps for each point. “Move as little as possible. I'll get the beans.”

“Don't leave me.” My voice wavers. “We can handle Dylan together, without Mom and Grandpa.”

She touches my shoulder. “Sherry, I'm next to useless. I can't hear him, or smell him, or see him.” She's talking fast and breathless. “But the second I find the beans, I'll summon your mom. As soon as she spots me by myself, in front of your house, waving the bag of beans, she'll know you need help desperately. If your grandfather happens to arrive before her, I'll tell him. Then I'll speed back.”

“Junie?”

She leans in close, her worried-best-friend face right next to mine.

“Pedal faster this time,” I say.

Junie runs her bike to the chain, flings it under, then jumps on and soars down the drive. All that's missing is a superhero cape billowing out behind her.

I drag myself over to the bench, carefully cradling my wrist. Then I sit down, lean back, close my eyes and gulp baby breaths. The stiller I am, the less I feel like I'm at death's door.

“Sherry?”

Ack! Eek! Ike!

My eyelids jerk open. “Sam!”

From behind a nearby bush emerges a dark blur of a brother. Perched on his bicycle, his toes scrape along the bumpy ground, slowly propelling him forward. “Sherry, are you okay?” His forehead is crinkled with concern.

“What are you doing here?” I shriek.

“I heard you and Junie talking in the office today. So I came to help trap the bad-guy ghost.”

“Are you out of your mind?” I shriek again. “Get out of here, Sam. Go catch up to Junie.” I point with my good arm.

“Do you really think your wrist is broken?” His voice is small.

With the back of my hand, I rub sweat off my
forehead. Sweat from pain. Sweat from fear. “Yeah, I do. But you gotta leave, Sam.”

He sets his lips in a thin determined line.

“Go! Home! Now!” In my agitation, I jostle my arm. I bite back a scream. Sam will never leave if he figures out how much agony I'm in.

“Where'd Junie go?” he asks.

“To get magic beans.”

“Magic beans!” Sam says. And the fact that he swallows this bizarro paranormal explanation so easily only goes to prove how much he bought into Harry Potter. “Where are they?”

“Under the streetlight in front of our house,” I say.

Suddenly, all goes still. The small breeze dies. Every blade of grass stands perfectly stiff at attention. Every leaf freezes. Maybe even the blood has ceased swimming in my veins.

From somewhere, a clock starts gonging midnight.

The silver box hums in my pocket.

The smell of honey + dirty socks swirls gently through the air.

“Get out of here!” I scream at Sam. “Go home!”

Sam crosses his stubborn twiggy arms over his stubborn sunken chest and plops down on his stubborn bony butt. “I'm not leaving my big sister with a broken wrist all alone in a cemetery to face an evil ghost.”

Sam, my math-whiz younger brother, responds to
logic. Not to screaming. I switch tacks. “I need you for a very, very important task. It's not something I'd normally ask my
younger
brother to do. But with this wrist …”

His face goes all intent and focused, like a cat getting ready to spring.

“It's the beans. You've seen Junie ride a bike?”

He nods.

“You're, like, a thousand times faster. Even with the head start she's had, you could easily pass her and leave her in the dust.”

He stands, arms straight at his sides. Like a soldier awaiting orders.

The sickly smell of honey + dirty socks is stronger.

It takes all my willpower to speak slowly and evenly. “When you get to the beans, open the bag and hold it up high above your head. The magic beans will banish the ghost.”

He grabs his bike, hops on and is gone, a hair before the twelfth clock gong.

The ghost-stalker's smell surrounds me. The silver box is fighting to get out of my pocket. My wrist throbs like it's going to fall off. The last gong echoes.

It's midnight.

“S
o, this is how you got me here,” Dylan says. “Impressive.” The Popsicle-stick craft thingie floats in the air. “My pencil holder from Boy Scouts.”

Boy Scouts? I was thinking preschool. Hard to believe he went from that lame pencil holder to award-winning robots.

“So, did you get Ms. Paulson to quit robotics?” He gales around me, chilly like air-conditioning. “Is that why you summoned me?”

I sit up straighter, getting ready for business. The small movement wrenches my wrist. I squeeze my eyes shut briefly, to get a handle on the pain.

I position my broken wrist on my stomach and
slowly walk my good hand into my pocket. The silver box is cold. I ease it out.

“You
brought the silver box?” Dylan's voice hikes up in shock. “What kind of freak are you?”

“I'm a freak?” I'd put my hands on my hips, if I could. “This from a ghost who won't move on. Who just hangs around bugging people.”

“You're not talking me in.” Dylan spits out the words.

The box is dull. Not one single sparkle glints off it.

“Why
won't
you move on?” I say. “Don't you have better things to do?”

“Better than making sure the Donner Dynamos beat Saguaro?” Dylan truly sounds shocked, like he never considered there might be more to life after death. “I want to see the Dynamos back on top and at the world championships for robotics.” The team buttons flip over on the bench where he's examining them. “Which means we need your school's team to take a nosedive.”

“So you thought poltergeisting The Ruler, er, Ms. Paulson would freak her out and she'd quit mentoring the Saguaro team?” I say. “In a million years that would never happen. She doesn't do backing down. She's kind of a terrier that way. I speak from experience.”

“I have more plans for her.”

I shiver at his words. And yelp at the wrist pain. A one-armed negotiation is not for sissies.

“Why'd you overfeed my fish and take the lid off
their tank?” My blood boils at the thought. “Fish! Innocent fish!”

“Because you were a mole on my team.”

“I never did anything bad. I'm useless at robotics.” I roll my eyes. “You know what, Dylan? You are a bully. You bullied Ms. Paulson and you bullied me and you bullied my fish.”

“I have a cause.” Dylan sounds defensive. “Winning at robotics is important for Donner.”

“Winning by cheating isn't the same as plain old straight-out winning.” The silver box is warm, like banana bread just out of the oven. “Besides, cheating is unfair to Claire.” The box gleams.

“Really?” he says, a huge question mark in his voice. Like I've said something he never considered before.

“Claire saw your outline last night at Donner. Did you know that?”

“No,” Dylan says, the
o
all drawn out. “She saw me?” He pauses. “For real?”

“For real.” I pause, thinking Sam must be halfway to the beans, which means I need to talk Dylan into the silver box quickly, before my mom and grandpa show up. I hold the box a little higher in the air.

“What was she doing at school so late?” he says.

“Checking on the robot. She knew something was up with its performance at the practice competition.”

“Wow.” He's impressed.

“She's working hard, Dylan.” The box is hot. One end cracks open. “She wants to be just like you and take the Donner Dynamos all the way to the world championships.”

“She can't.” I can just imagine him frowning and shaking his head.

“She can. If not this year, then next year. You don't give her enough credit. Probably because she's your little sister,” I say. “Lots of people believe in her. She's smart. She's dedicated. She gets the importance of bling on a robot.”

“Yeah, but there's knowledge and a whole philosophy I didn't get a chance to pass on to her,” Dylan says.

A philosophy of robotics? Puhleeze. I think we're taking ourselves a little seriously here.

Dylan must still be at the shrine because the cruise photo, the picture with his entire family, hangs in the air.

The silver box sizzles. I try to visualize Sam's whereabouts. Three-fourths of the way to our house?

“I met your mom.” I hug my wrist in closer.

“You saw my mom?” Dylan asks wistfully.

“She seems really nice. A great baker too. I love her frownies.”

The silver box glows and sparkles and bounces up and down on my palm.

Dylan's waiting for me to make the next move. He must sense it'll be huge.

He's right.

It is huge.

I know exactly how to talk him into the silver box.

S
ometimes, even when you know what to do, you don't want to do it. Sometimes, you have something someone else needs more than you. But it still kills you to give it up. This is one of those times.

“You miss Claire?” I say.

“Uh-huh,” Dylan says.

“And you have unfinished robotics business to share with her?”

“Uh-huh.”

I take a deep, shaky breath. This is it. Once I say it, there's no going back.

The box glitters and shines, the brightest it's ever been. Like it was polished up for this very moment. This moment of connection for me, the box and Dylan.

“I'll give you my five minutes of Real Time,” I say quietly.

No response.

“If you go in the silver box. Willingly. With the intention of moving on after.”

Still no response.

“You know what Real Time is, right?”

Still no response.

There's a gentle breeze that moves above me. I look up to see Dylan's shape. His face is vague but visible. He's sad and emotional with glistening eyes. “Every ghost knows what Real Time is,” he says softly, like dew on grass. “It's like the Holy Grail for us.”

“The Holy Grail? My dad watches that movie. Monty Python. Or Ponty Mython. Or—”

“Why're you doing this for me, Sherry?”

I sigh. “You need it more than I do. To help you move on.”

There's a whisper of a thank-you as a tornado of air whizzes around me. The air is thick with the smell of honey + dirty socks. Then, tail first, the tornado spirals toward the silver box. With a click, the lid flips wide open. A white light shines from within. The tornado leaps into the light. The light and the tornado spin down into the box. The lid snaps shut.

The silver box settles, completely still on my one good palm. Protecting its precious cargo.

Whoosh. Whoosh. Flap
.

Smells of coffee and cinnamon rolls announce the arrival of my mom and Mrs. Howard. Grandpa lands on the grass beside me.

Mrs. Howard tweezers the box gently from my grasp.

I force myself to let go. The box is all proud and polished like silverware ready for Christmas dinner.

“Thank you, Sherry,” Mrs. Howard says. “Congratulations, you did it.”

“Pumpkin, you are amazing,” Mom says.

“Good job,” Grandpa croaks.

“How difficult did you find it?” Mrs. Howard asks.

I shake my head, my throat closing up. Finally, I cough out, “It cost me.”

“It always does, honey,” Mrs. Howard says sadly. “It always does.”

Tears pool in my eyes. “He was mean to The Ruler and my fish. But now I know him and I get him. He had to let go of all that anger and give Claire a decent shot at robotics without his shadow hanging over her. Still …” Tears roll down my face, and my throat's totally closed so that I can't choke out any more words.

Mrs. Howard rubs my back. “You did a wonderful thing for him, honey. You freed him. He was lucky to have you. And I think you got something valuable from the experience too.” She rises in the air. “I need to get Dylan to Dairy Queen.” Looking over her plump shoulder, she says, “Don't worry about returning the
Greenes' belongings. I'll send someone from the Academy to take care of that.”