The Ghost of Gruesome High (7 page)

BOOK: The Ghost of Gruesome High
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“He wasn’t mayor then,” Mr. Greenwald continued. “In fact, he was almost bankrupt. He was what they call leveraged in gold. That means he’d borrowed a lot of money based on the price of gold and the price of gold was dropping. That meant he owed a lot of money he couldn’t pay back. Not unless a miracle happened. Like a robbery. He used the insurance money from the robbery to start his construction business, and from there he started—”

“Wait a minute! Did his construction company build this school?” I asked.

Mr. Greenwald sat down next to me and looked deeply into my eyes. “You do know something about all this, don’t you?”

Now it was my turn to stand up and pace. I didn’t know what I thought. All I knew was I had a lot of half-ideas running around inside my head. I needed to say some of them out loud. I needed to start putting them together and making sense of them. But now that I was ready to talk about them, I couldn’t figure out how to start. I mean, when you came right down to it, what did I really know?
 

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
 

But ideas were starting to form. Just baby ideas now, but I knew if I left them alone for a while they would group themselves together in my brain and begin to grow. Pretty soon I’d have a notion, then a thought, and then—well, then I’d have this whole ghost thing figured out.

But at that moment I realized I had nothing. I felt terrible! For a few seconds I really thought I had something. Now I looked at the floor sheepishly and sat back down. I glanced up at Mr. Greenwald. He patted my arm and stood up. He crossed to his desk and sat down. He took off his glasses and stared out the window, saying nothing.

I felt as if I’d let him down—but I didn’t know exactly how I’d let him down. I started to get up to leave, but suddenly I realized there was a lot of Mr. Greenwald’s story he hadn’t told me yet. “I still don’t understand what you were doing dressed like that at school last night. What does all this have to do with you?”

Mr. Greenwald put his glasses back on and picked up the pile of papers he had been working on when I walked in to his class. He tapped the papers on his desk, a clear sign that our meeting was basically over. “The policeman whose life was destroyed, that policeman was my father. I’ve sworn to solve the case and clear his name.”

Mr. Greenwald lay the papers back on his desk, took out his red pen, and began reading. He made a quick mark on the top sheet, turned it over and began reading the next sheet. I stood up awkwardly, not knowing if I should say anything or not, not knowing what I could say, and left the classroom. Mr. Greenwald didn’t look up or say another word as I left.

 

Chapter 12

 

Ben Thompson

After I left Mr. Greenwald’s class I was really at a loss for what to do. My mind was reeling from everything he’d told me, but I still felt tired and drained from my experiences with Mr. Greenwald and the ghost last night; my head felt as if it was filled with wet cotton. None of the ideas trying to swim around in there stood a chance right now.

What I really need to do was go home and get some sleep, and then start out fresh tomorrow. But I guess my mind was so tired I just couldn’t see the right path —both literally and figuratively. Suddenly I realized I’d taken a very wrong path and I was standing at the very back of the school where all the trash containers are.
 

I’d never actually been back here before, but I’d heard stories that this is where some of the kids came to smoke cigarettes and pot between classes and after school. The moment I realized where I was I knew I’d made a mistake. I started to turn around when suddenly someone stepped in front of me.

I knew immediately who it was—and my heart skipped a beat. My body went cold all over. I tried to hide my fear, but I’m not a good actress. I’m sure even someone as dumb as Ben Thompson could see the fear on my face.

I could smell the cloying, sweet smell of marijuana coming off Ben and that made me even more scared. But at the same time a little voice in the back of my mind started trying to tell me something. The voice wasn’t quite loud enough for me to hear it clearly, but there was something about Ben that was familiar. I’d seen him somewhere else today, and it wasn’t in class. No. I’d seen him . . . .

“Well, well, lookie who we got here!” Ben said, inching his way closer and closer to me. Ben had been held back at least one year, maybe two. He was big, and mean, and dumb. He was slowly backing me up. Suddenly my back was up against a brick wall. Now I was really scared. “The snoop. So now ya come to spy on me, huh?”

“I’m not spying on anybody,” I said, trying unsuccessfully to push past him. He laid a big, beefy hand on the wall next to my head, blocking my escape.
 

“Is that so?” he said, leaning close to my face. The smell of marijuana was almost overpowering. “Well I hear you’ve been doing a lot of spying. You and your faggot friends. What’s your dorky boyfriend’s name? Jimmy? Jannie? No. Wait. Jason. Jason the nerd. Jason the nerd with two broken legs and two broken arms if you don’t stop your snoopin’. Understand, little girl? Or do you need me to give you a little demonstration?”

“I-I understand what you’re saying,” I answered as I ducked my head below the tattooed tree trunk he called his arm and hurriedly made my way to the walk leading back to the school grounds. For a moment he looked as if he was going to follow me, or stop me. I had the idea that he’d decided to hurt me to show me he meant business. But at that moment two janitors came down the walk pulling wheeled carts filled with trash cans.

One of the janitors looked at me; I’m sure he could tell how scared I was; then he looked at Ben and I could see a hardness come over his face. Both janitors immediately made room for me to get by. The one janitor never took his eyes off Ben as he said to me: “This ain’t no place for a nice girl like you, missy. You get on home.”
 

I didn’t look at Ben. I was so scared I didn’t even look at the two janitors as I slipped past them quickly. I’m not even sure they heard me as I whispered, “Thank you!”

The next thing I knew I was running across the campus, then down the hill. I don’t think I fully stopped running until I reached Wesley’s house.

* * *

I was counting on the fact that the guys would be at Wesley’s, working on his history project, but when I got there, his bug wasn’t in sight and no one answered when I rang the bell.

I was still scared to death. My run-in with Ben Thompson had been the ultimate caper to a really bad day! I sat on Wesley’s front porch and I could feel my body shaking with adrenaline-tinged fear. I tried taking several slow, deep breaths, like I’d seen people do in movies when they wanted to calm down, and I felt myself getting calmer and calmer with each breath. Who says it doesn’t pay to go to the movies?

Now that I was calming down that little voice in the back of my head started making annoying noises again. There was something about Ben Thompson. Someplace I’d seen him. And then it came to me!

Of course! The figure hiding near the boy’s locker room at lunch! The one spying on me! Now that I thought about it, it was Ben Thompson!

But why? Why was Ben Thompson spying on me?
 

I could only think of one reason. If I was right . . . .

At that moment, Wesley’s red bug came around the corner, toward the front of the house. I could see Jason sitting in the front seat, and I could see him smile as he realized it was me sitting on the porch, waiting.

Jason really has a great smile, I thought to myself. A really great smile!

 

Chapter 13

 

Gruesome!

I ran to the driveway and opened the door of the car before Wesley had even come to a full stop. Jason looked surprised and a little scared as I leaned into the car, put my arms around his neck and gave him a big kiss, right on the lips!

I don’t know why I did it, except that I was just so happy to be here, with him, and all of us O.K. I guess my run-in with that Neanderthal, Ben Thompson, really affected me.

I knew the kiss was a mistake the moment I’d done it. That was the first time I’d ever kissed Jason quite like that before. He and I had gone out together lots of times in all the years we’d known each other, and there were a couple of times we even called them dates, but we’d never really gotten physical.
 

We’d hugged a few times, and kissed once or twice—but not like I’d just kissed him. I knew he wanted us to get more physical, but I still wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
 

But now-now I had kissed him Big Time. And I wasn’t even sure why. And he certainly didn’t know. When I stopped kissing him I saw he had a really surprised look on his face for a moment, but then I felt his hands grab me and pull me down to him again.

This time he kissed me!

Now I was mega confused! I liked it—but I didn’t want to like it. I panicked and pushed away from him so hard I hit my head on the top of the bug’s door frame.

Jason looked at me and smiled in a confused sort of way. “What was that all about?” he asked. Then he leaned toward me and said: “Whatever it’s all about, I like it!”
 

“Well, forget it! It’ll never happen again, not in a million years!” I yelled. “So don’t start thinking it will!” I was mad. Not at Jason, but at myself. I had just done something really stupid and now everything was going to get all messed up. And I knew, I absolutely knew that my getting mad would just make things worse, but I couldn’t stop myself!
 

Suddenly it was as if I was floating above Wesley’s driveway, looking down on all of us, watching myself screw things up and completely unable to stop myself! I’d like to think that a large part of what was going on had to do with my lack of sleep and how worried I’d been all day about my meeting with Mr. Greenwald and how scared I’d been because of my run-in with Ben Thompson, and how happy I was now that everything was O.K.
 

But I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that I’d just blown everything. Nothing would ever be the same again.

I tried to get my unreasonable anger under control as I stood back and watched Jason and Wesley slowly get out of the car. They just stood by the car, staring at me as if they’d never seen me before in their lives.
 

Alan finally pushed the front seat of the bug forward and climbed awkwardly out. He looked at me, then looked at Jason and shook his head. “You two are crazy,” he said. Then he reached back into the car and pulled out a bag of art supplies. “If we’re gonna help with this project we’d better get started. My Mom has dinner ready at precisely six every night, and if I’m not there—”

“The dog gets it,” Jason finished, not taking his eyes off me.

“That’s right,” Alan said, lamely. “So, let’s get busy. It’s already four thirty.” Alan started walking toward the door. Wesley hesitated, then began following him. Jason and I didn’t move. We just kept looking at each other. Finally Alan stopped, turned, and shouted back: “You two coming, or what?”

I forced myself to look away from Jason, toward Alan. “We’ll be right there,” I tried to say brightly and lightly, as if nothing at all had happened. I half ran, half skipped toward Alan and Wesley, trying my best to make it seem as if everything were quite normal. Of course, when things are normal I don’t usually skip.
 

I could have kicked myself for the way I was acting! What was wrong with me? Why was I doing and saying all these dumb things? Everything I was doing was just getting dumber and dumber. I hated myself!
 

I glanced back at Jason as I caught up with Wesley and Alan and he was just standing there by the car, his mouth open, totally bewildered. I smiled and said as brightly as I could: “Aren’tcha coming?”

Jason shook his head and began following us toward the house.

* * *

Wesley’s house has a great basement, which his father had made into a den/game room. There was a pool table and off in one corner an air hockey table. Right now the guys had the pool table covered with newspapers; in the middle of the table was a piece of plywood about three feet long and two feet wide. Wesley had bough a couple packages of ready-mix paper mache and air-dry modeling clay and he and the guys were trying to build Fort Sumpter and recreate one of the early battles of the Civil War.
 

They didn’t really seem to be getting very far. Wesley had probably fifty or so soldiers, half in blue uniforms and half in gray uniforms and the guys kept stopping their work to have mock battles. Looking at them making total fools of themselves playing soldier like eight-year-olds made me feel a little better about the way I had been behaving earlier.

I was sitting in a big, deep, worn, comfortable chair. I’m sure it was Wesley’s dad’s favorite chair; it just had that feel to it. I had a couple of Civil War books open in my lap and I was supposed to be directing the guys on how the fort looked and where the soldiers should be placed, but I was so tired I could hardly keep my eyes open.

My mind just kept wandering back and forth. One minute I was fighting the Civil War, and the next I was talking to Mr. Bell, the Aluminum Man; then I was in Mr. Greenwald’s class, listening to his story about the coin robbery; then I was ducking under these ugly hairy tattooed tree branches and feeling really scared . . . .

BOOK: The Ghost of Gruesome High
4.28Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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