The Ghost and Mrs. Hobbs (2 page)

“So, Dub,” Allie persisted, “who are you going to pick?”

“I'm going to ask Mr. Henry if it's okay to do the interview over the phone,” Dub answered eagerly. “If he says yes, I want to call this cool old guy I met at the Cape last summer. He invents stuff using seaweed. So far he's made spaghetti sauce, wrinkle cream, and dog bones. Last summer he was making paste to hold his false teeth in.”

“Gross!” squealed Pam Wright.

“He figures he's going to make millions on it,” Dub added.

“Sure he is,” said Karen scornfully.

“I think I'll bring my grandfather to school again,” said Joey. “He was there the day that blimp, the whatchamacallit—the
Hindenburg
—blew up. It's a great story, the way he tells it.”

“No fair,” protested Karen. “You have to do the interview and make the presentation yourself.”

“Nice try, though, Joey,” said Allie with a smile.

“I think my aunt used to be a nurse in the coal mines or something,” said Pam. “That could be kind of interesting.”

Karen gave Pam a look, as if to say, You're not actually getting into this dumb idea, are you? She leaned back in her chair and tossed her braid over her shoulder. “I have no clue who to interview,” she said. “I mean, my grandmother lives with us, but she's a total vegetable. All she ever does is watch the home shopping channel and order useless stuff that my mother has to send back.”

Allie felt sorry for anyone who had to live with Karen. She figured Karen's grandmother kept the TV on so she wouldn't have to listen to Karen complaining all the time. But she kept her thoughts to herself.

Allie didn't care if Karen thought Mr. Henry's idea for Elders Day was boring. She had always been interested
in people's stories, especially in the things they usually kept hidden. She was curious about what lay beneath the surface. She decided that she was going to find someone really fascinating to interview.

“Maybe I'll pick my Uncle Hal,” said Brad Lewis. “Once he ate forty-seven pickled eggs and won a hundred bucks, and he won another contest for smashing beer cans on his forehead. I think he demolished thirty-three cans before he knocked himself out.”

Everybody laughed, and Dub said, “Mr. Henry said this project might teach us about some milestones in history, and it looks like he was right.”

“And get this,” Brad added. “Every time he smashes a can, he hollers, ‘Recycle
this
!' ”

Allie was just opening her mouth to speak when a voice blurted, “Well, my subject is going to be Mrs. Hobbs.”

Allie felt her eyes widen in astonishment. She looked around the lunch table to discover who had said such a foolish thing and saw that all of her classmates were turned toward
her
, their faces registering shock and disbelief.

Horrified voices whispered, “
Mrs. Hobbs
?”

“You've got to be kidding!”

“You're going to interview the Snapping Turtle?”

“Old Hobbling Hobbs?”

“That's not even funny, Al,” said Dub, looking worried. “She
hates
kids.”

Allie's hand flew to her mouth. Was she really the one who had spoken? What in the world was she thinking? Why had she said such a thing?

Mrs. Hobbs had worked in the cafeteria as long as Allie could remember. All the kids, even the sixth-graders, were terrified of her. Many of them, like Allie, brought their own lunches from home just so they wouldn't have to pass through the food line under her unblinking glare.

Allie glanced toward the front of the cafeteria and shuddered. There stood Mrs. Hobbs, her thin, wrinkled lips tightly clamped and her beady eyes darting from side to side, like a snapping turtle sizing up its next victim. As she ladled glops of food onto trays, her eyes seemed to devour each child who crept by.

The nickname Hobbling Hobbs referred to her peculiar, lurching gait, which had caused some kids to speculate that she wasn't human at all but a robot whose inner controls had gone haywire. Allie had seen kindergartners burst into tears at the mere sight of Mrs. Hobbs.

What was even more unsettling than the prospect of a one-on-one, face-to-face interview with Mrs. Hobbs was that Allie had blurted out this startling information without having any idea she was going to do it.

The last time something like that had happened was three weeks before, when Allie was being haunted by Lucy Stiles's ghost. The same chill she had felt then was creeping down her neck. A familiar feeling took hold of her, a mixture of excitement and dread.

Was it happening again?

On the way home from school that day, Karen and Pam caught up with Allie and Dub.

“I don't believe you, Allie,” said Karen. “You have to announce you're going to interview the Snapping Turtle because you're so desperate to be the center of attention!”

“I am not!” said Allie indignantly. “I—” She stopped, flustered by the unfairness of Karen's attack. Besides, she couldn't explain why she'd blurted out such a bizarre thing, even if she'd wanted to do it.

“As if you're really going to talk to her,” said Karen disdainfully.

“Don't let her get to you, Al,” Dub said under his breath.

Allie knew Dub was right, but it wasn't easy to follow his advice. To make matters worse, Karen was
accompanied by her faithful sidekick Pam, who went along with everything Karen said and did. Allie kept walking, waiting for Pam to chime in with her own nasty comment.

Sure enough, Pam did speak up next. “I think it's a pretty cool idea.”

Allie was so surprised, she stopped walking to stare at Pam. It was amazing enough that Pam had contradicted Karen, but had she also said she thought the idea of interviewing Mrs. Hobbs was cool?

“It's awesome, actually,” Pam went on, giving Allie what seemed to be a genuine smile. “
If
you survive, that is.”

Allie let out a burst of laughter, both at Pam's unexpected friendliness and at the expression on Karen's face. She looked as if she'd just opened a beautiful package only to find it filled with used tissues.

“Way to go, Pam,” Dub murmured. Louder, he said, “Of course we understand
you
wouldn't have the guts to do it, Karen.”

“It isn't a question of guts, Dub Whitwell,” said Karen furiously. “It's a question of brains. I'm not stupid enough—or desperate enough for attention—to even think about it.” She turned to Allie and smiled wickedly. “But now that you've made your
big announcement, I can't decide which will be more fun: seeing you try to worm your way out of it or watching you go through with it. Either way, it'll be entertaining.”

She turned to leave, calling over her shoulder, “Come on, Pam. Let's go.”

For a moment Pam looked from Allie to Dub without moving.

“
Pam
, come
on
.”

Pam smiled uncertainly. “Okay, well, I'll see you guys.”

“Bye, Pam,” called Allie as Pam hurried away to catch up with Karen. She turned to Dub and said, “Wow. That was weird.”

“Maybe Pam is a vertebrate, after all,” mused Dub.

“Huh?”

“I just mean she showed a little backbone there for a minute.”

Allie laughed. “Yeah. That was nice the way she stuck up for me.”

“True,” Dub agreed. “But let's not get carried away. We can't expect a leopard to change her spots overnight.”

Allie laughed again. “Listen, I've got to talk to you about what happened today.”

“What
did
happen today? What the heck were you
thinking of, saying you're going to interview the Snapping Turtle?”

“That's just it, Dub,” Allie answered in a small voice. “I wasn't thinking. I didn't say it. I mean, I didn't mean to say it. It just came out.”

Now it was Dub's turn to stop walking. “You mean—” His eyes grew big. “Like before?”

Allie nodded.

“Another ghost?” Dub asked in a hushed voice.

Allie shrugged. “I don't know. But it seemed . . . the same.”

“It's so weird, Al. It's like you attract ghosts. Like you're some kind of—
ghost magnet
.”

“That's one way to put it, I guess,” said Allie, not sure if the idea made her feel proud or uncomfortable. She recalled how confused and frightened she had been a few weeks earlier, when the ghost of Lucy Stiles had first appeared to her, asking for help. Compared to the way she'd felt then, she was relatively calm about the possibility that another ghost was contacting her. At least now she had some experience.

“Dub,” she said slowly, thinking as she spoke. “I had a dream last night . . . about somebody who was trapped in a fire. It was sort of like the dream I had before, about Lucy Stiles falling from the cliff in Fossil Glen.”

“Oh boy, here we go again,” said Dub. “Let's see . . . Lucy's ghost came to you because she needed your help to prove she'd been murdered.”

“Yeah. And now this ghost—”

“If it is a ghost,” interjected Dub.

“—makes me blurt out Mrs. Hobbs's name.”

Dub frowned. “So you're thinking the ghost, if that's what it is, wants you to discover something about Mrs. Hobbs.”

Allie nodded.

“Maybe old Hobbling Hobbs killed somebody!” Dub exclaimed. “It wouldn't surprise me, actually.”

“You know what's weird?” said Allie thoughtfully. “Just a little while ago I was messing around, saying there must be a reason why Mrs. Hobbs is so crabby and scary. I was kind of feeling sorry for her, imagining some great tragedy in her life. Maybe there
was
something . . . like a murder.”

“Did you see the way she looked over at our lunch table today?” Dub asked with a shudder. “Like she knew we were talking about her.”

“I'm glad I didn't,” said Allie. It wasn't so much the things Mrs. Hobbs did that made her so scary, she reflected. It was the way she looked at you, hungrily, with her odd, beady eyes, that made you imagine all the awful things she
might
do.

“Well,” Dub went on, “if this ghost wants you to
find out stuff about Hobbsy, having an excuse to interview her is pretty handy.”

Allie brightened. “True. What a lucky break.”

“Lucky for the ghost, maybe,” Dub replied with a grin. “Not so lucky for you.”

When Allie got home from school, she decided to take some shots at the lacrosse goal her dad had set up in the back yard. Her father would be home from work soon, after he picked up Michael at the baby-sitter's. Mr. Nichols had played lacrosse in college, and he'd bought both Allie and Michael sticks and started teaching them the basics.

Cradling the ball in the pocket of her stick the way her dad had shown her, she ran toward the goal and fired. Nothing happened. With disgust, she realized she'd let the stick drop too far in the back, and the ball had fallen out before she even took the shot.

She looked around the yard, relieved no one was there to see such a dumb display, and picked up the ball. After a few misses, she made a beautiful shot right in the corner of the net.

“And Nichols
scores
!” a voice boomed from the
window. “The rookie from Seneca, New York, has done it again, ladies and gentlemen!”

“Hi, Dad!” Allie called. “Come on out and play.”

Soon she was joined by her father and Michael, who carried his own little stick, perfect for a four-year-old, and they played catch until Mrs. Nichols, too, came home from work and called them in to help with supper. Allie, her father, and Michael headed inside, laughing at Michael's last wild shot, which had gone over to the neighbors' yard and in the door of their doghouse.

At that moment, Allie heard the voice. It came from inside her head, and she knew from past experience that no one else could hear it. It was a male voice, not that of a kid or an old man, but somebody in between. There was an incredibly sad tone to it, and the sound caught midway in what Allie thought must be a sob.

“
A happy family, like yours. That's all I ever wanted. But
she
ruined everything
.”

Allie stopped dead in her tracks to listen, but there was nothing more. Her father and Michael were staring at her quizzically.

“You look funny,” said Michael with a frown.

“Are you all right, Allie-Cat?” asked her father.

“Yeah. Yes. Really. I'm fine,” Allie hastened to reassure him. What was she supposed to say? Oh, it's nothing, Dad. Just the voice of a ghost in my head.

She'd been able to explain her discovery of Lucy Stiles's murder to her parents and the police and reporters without mentioning that she'd been tipped off by Lucy's ghost. As she'd said to Dub, who would believe the truth, except him? She just didn't see the sense in worrying her parents over it, because worry they certainly would, even though she was perfectly fine and everything had worked out for the best.

She'd almost written the whole story in her journal for Mr. Henry to read: he'd asked her to, and she had the feeling he'd understand. But she'd chickened out at the last minute, fearing that teachers had to report crazy stuff kids said and did to the school psychologist. Then her parents would be called in, and they'd get all worried about her overactive imagination, the way they had before, and talk about having her “see someone.”

The thing was, she didn't need a psychiatrist. But how could she tell her parents that, for some reason, she was a—what had Dub called her?—a ghost magnet?

She laughed as if nothing unusual had happened and said, “Everything's fine, you guys. Let's go eat.”

“Let's eat! Let's eat! Let's eat!” cried Michael.

Allie's father touched her shoulder. “Okay, Allie-Cat. If you say so.”