The Shade Riders and the Dreadful Ghosts (5 page)

Holy chaos! How did she lose two hours?

A large group of bike riders pulling
rickshaws and peditaxis rode past her as they tried to get their
passengers somewhere on time. They were probably going to work, as
second shift started soon. Some of the carts had roofs, and some
had them folded down. An old bay horse trotted by pulling a wagon
with a family of Christians who sang religious songs loud and
clear. Maybe they saw the rainbow too.

Nova rode hard now and got sweaty as she
watched the sun sink. She stared at her front tire, and then
changed her thoughts to the rainbow. Suddenly the front bike tire
popped!

"Dear Vulcan."

As Nova got off and pushed her bike along the
shoulder of the road, she thought that something like this had
happened before. She had concentrated on one thing, and her mind
shifted to something different, and…weird things happened.

Maybe she could shoot lasers from her eyes?
Could she be like one of the heroes in the comic books? Nova
thought for a while. She had to walk home anyway. Did she want to
try to burn a hole into the back tire? No, she didn't want to patch
two tires tonight.

She picked up a dead maple leaf by the side
of the road, concentrating on making a hole in it. Nothing
happened. Nova threw down the leaf and ground it into the muddy
gravel next to the road. “I wonder if I’ll ever show promise in
anything I do.”

After trudging up the final hill, Nova came
to her family

farm's gravel driveway. She ran her bike all
the way down, to the white-washed, century old barn, where she
dropped the bike and her books and ran inside.

Nova stumbled past the milk house door to her
left. Lambs and a steer in separate stalls were on her right. Down
the corridor she ran, throwing open the two doors, one right after
the other. Behind her the lambs bawled.

Blue Belle, the family's Australian Shepherd,
rushed to greet her wagging her entire rear end. In her excitement,
the dog jumped up to lick a bit of sweat from Nova's face.

"Hello, Belle." The dog jumped again, this
time missing the target. Nova grabbed and pinched her own nose as
the smell of the rotting straw, hay, and sawdust mixed with manure
struck her. When the stalls finally thawed out enough to be mucked
out in the spring, the odor was always bad enough to peel paint.
She had tried to clean out a stall in the winter but the manure was
frozen, and she would need a jackhammer to get it up. If her mother
made enough money, they could buy barn heaters and another
generator and not have the barn turn into a giant outhouse for a
third of the year.

Her mother was in the barn shoveling out a
horse stall, finishing the job Nova had started two days ago.

"Where were you, young lady? Wilha and Scott
are out looking for you on their bikes." She put her hand up. "And
please don't run in the barn. How many times do I have to remind
you?"

"I'll explain later. Did Chocolate have a boy
or a girl?

"It's a little filly, honey.” Mom leaned the
pitchfork up against the wooden stall. “Now where were you?”

"I was at school...and I... I…The stupid
Monarch gang was bullying me again." She wanted to tell her about
the ghosts, but her mother was so skeptical she could not bring
herself to say anything. But then again her mother had gone to
school for a long time and read up on all sorts of things, so maybe
she would know what to make of them.

Nova choked back tears and stared inside the
semi-dark stall where Chocolate, the mare, and her new foal were
going to stay temporarily. The filly came out of the shadows behind
her mother and into the light. "Hello beautiful," Nova said.

The filly nodded and mumbled a
salutation.

Nova gasped. Also, were those tiny golden
wings on her horse? The shadow of wings disappeared like the face
in the puddle, when the filly ambled into the light that shone into
the stall.

Nova blinked. It must be a trick of the
shadows and light. Or maybe there was something wrong with her
eyes.

"Wait a minute." The filly had come when she
was called. Her experiment actually worked! Nova had spent hours
everyday grooming and talking to Chocolate and her big belly in
hopes that the baby would recognize Nova's voice. She started to
open the sliding door.

"No, Nova!” her mom yelled, “She'll bite
you!"

Chocolate lunged forward and bared her huge
yellow teeth. She arched her neck to rip and tear Nova or anyone
who wished to harm her filly.

Blue Belle rushed over, jumped up, and bit
Chocolate hard on her sensitive nose. The surprised mare backed and
cried out in frustration. The dog danced back ready for another
attack. Nova used her leg to try to hold the Australian Shepherd
back and then with shaky hands slammed the door and latched it.

Nova stared at her friend – the mare. Or at
least she thought she was her friend. The other dams never did
that.

"Chocolate is just protecting her young," Mom
said. "Come over here, Nova."

Nova was too stunned to move.

Mom grabbed Nova arm just as Chocolate
attacked the bars on the door. Belle barked a warning; then
Chocolate huffed.

Mom led her to a couple of bales of straw,
and they sat.

“Okay,” she said, "what happened with the
Monarch gang that made you late?"

"They called me a boy. When I wouldn't fight
back, they pushed me up against the lockers, then knocked my books
out of my hands, and kicked them down the hall."

"You know, I've just about had it with that
bunch of girls. Will you want to stay home for a couple of
days?"

"No, I'll be all right."

"You sure? Last time you got pretty
sick."

"I'll manage somehow. I think."

Mom blew air out. “What else happened in
school?”

“Well this morning, a boy named Dayton was
rushed to the hospital because of his heart. He died.”

“I’m sorry. Did you know him?”

“Naw,” Nova said. “Kids say it was because of
a pirate ghost.”

"What? Between ghosts and the Monarch gang…
I’m calling the principal that school is out of control. I won’t
have my daughter walking around in a fog. Your school work is too
important."

"No, Mom."

"Now not another word. I'll take care of it.
I'll also radio Scott and Wilhelmina and tell them that you're home
safe."

Mom’s rubber boots squished as she stomped
toward the house. Nova cried a little. She should be old enough to
handle the stupid Monarch gang herself without her Mommy fighting
her fights for her.

“I should have kept my big mouth shut!”

Nova took out her half-eaten candy bar and
took a huge bite.

Through her tears, Nova watched the sunset
out a side barn door, saw a flash of the rainbow, heard a tiny
whisper, and smelled herbs. What had happened in those two missing
hours that whoever was behind the rainbow was not her friend.

Nova strolled into the
heated milk house and let the puppies out to run all over the floor
as she cleaned the puppy pens with old newspaper. She put out some
puppy food and gave them fresh water. When she was done playing
with the puppies, she put them back into their pens. Nova cleaned
the floor, entered the farmhouse, and took a warm shower to wash
away that dog smell. Nova dried off, dressed, and opened the
bathroom door. The comforting smell of spaghetti – made her mouth
water. She found Mom standing over the stove top stirring the
sauce.

“Hi, Mom, that smells so good. Is it Grandma
N’s secret recipe?”

“Yep.” Mom removed the noodles and drained
them in the sink. In a big pot she tossed the sauce with the
noodles, then carried it out to the dining room.

“Call Scott and Wilha, would you?”

But she didn’t have to. The phone jumped out
of its cradle as it rang. Wilha and Scott raced to get it. Nova
didn’t quite see how it happened, but Wilha grabbed it, and Scott
fell onto his butt with a thump. He slid across the tile floor, his
feet in the air and crashed into Mom.

“Whaaa.” Mom fell onto Scott. Noodles and
tomato sauce flew everywhere.

“Ahhh, hot! hot!” Scott yanked at his
sauce-plastered shirt trying to pull it away from his skin.

Nova covered her mouth with her hand and
tried to keep a straight face. She looked over at Wilha who had
rolled her lips back over her teeth and clamped down to hold back
the laughter. Finally, they couldn’t hold it anymore -- they
roared. Nova fell to the floor --wiping tears away. Wilha slapped
her legs and held her stomach.

“This is not funny.” Mom got up and picked a
few stray noodles from her hair.

True, their dinner was now spread across the
kitchen floor and Hazel, Nova’s kitten, began to nibble on some.
Mom shooed her away and picked up the pot.”Well, there’s still
about three-fourths of it here. No seconds, I guess.”

Scott stripped off his shirt and walked to
the sink to wash off his bare chest. When he turned around, Nova
could see it was pink in a couple spots. He moved to the table and
sat down to eat spaghetti at the table when Mom said, “get a shirt
on.”

“Yeah,” Nova said, “I don’t want to look at
your hairy armpits while I’m eating.”

“Fine.” Scott stomped to his room.

As soon as Scott was back, and Wilha was
ordered off the phone everyone sat down to enjoy what was left of
Grandma N’s secret recipe.

“So Nova, why were you so late getting home?”
Scott shoved a giant slice of garlic bread with spaghetti on top
into his mouth.

Nova told them about the Monarch gang and the
pirate ghost that maybe scared a boy to death.

“I don’t really believe that a ghost can kill
a person though,” she said between mouthfuls “‘cause Dayton had a
heart condition, and I don’t know of anyone who has died.”

“Speaking of someone who will die,” Mom said,
“why didn’t you feed or water the dogs, Scott?”

“Oh, I did.”

“Then why were the bowls all bone dry and not
a dog food morsel anywhere?”

Scott threw the napkin down on his plate,
shoved his chair out with a loud squeal, and stomped away from the
table. He pounded the stairs as he lumbered up to his room, slammed
the door and turned the hard rock music way up.

“What is the matter with that boy?” Mom said.
“Can’t he help out more around here? All he can think about is
girls and cars.”

Nova grinned and grabbed more garlic bread.
“Maybe you need to pay him more.”

Mom glared at Nova. She picked up Scott’s and
her own plates and took them to the kitchen sink.

Nova shrugged and turned to Wilha.

“Want to play Monopoly tonight?” Wilha
asked.

“After we clean the table and do the dishes,
I guess,” Nova said. “Mom, speaking of cars, didn’t we have a lot
of them on the road like twenty years ago?”

Mom came out of the laundry room and stood in
the doorway with a mound of wet wool in her arms. She was drying
the wool that would soon need to be carded. Then it would be felted
and used in blankets for calves next winter. “That’s a long story.
I think it started with the gas rationing, which drove people to
drive more electric cars. But then electronic training began to
move overseas so that fewer and fewer engineers were trained in the
U.S. anymore. Then those that did started to work for the
electronics industry in India and China. In the end, -- we’ve lost
all our cars and other vehicles. We have learned to make do.”

Nova wiped down the table. “So Scott may
never get the car of his dreams?”

“It doesn’t look that way. Can you make sure
I got all the spaghetti off the tile and wall? Thanks, honey.”

After twenty minutes of cleaning—-,spaghetti
kept showing up in the most unlikely places-- Nova left the kitchen
and brought her bike into the house from the barn. She sat on the
living room couch, greased the chain and patched the tire. Then she
examined both wheels for any worn spots. They looked if not brand
new, evenly worn and sound. They should have lots of miles on them
yet.

Could she really have popped the front tire?
She didn’t know. It would be so nice if she could do something that
people thought was incredible.

Suddenly there was a loud bang. Nova thought
Scott was up to something, but another bang was definitely in the
same room with her. Wilha was banging on the television to get it
work, but the picture flipped so badly that she gave up and kneeled
down in front of the upside down bike and watched Nova work.
Besides, Scott’s music was still blasting from upstairs.

When Nova was done with her bike, she set it
outside on the cement slab porch, then came back in and played
chess, Monopoly, and Parcheesi with Wilha on the dining room
table.

Nova didn’t discuss the rainbow with her
family.

She wanted to climb in bed early hoping for a
good night’s sleep. Wilha was propped up in their bed with three
pillows behind her, reading a book. Nova caught a glimpse of
someone carrying a bloody ax on the back cover.

“What are you doing reading that kind of book
again?” She said. “They give you nightmares and you kick me out of
bed.”

“Oh, you’re silly. I don’t do that. Look, you
interrupt me I’ll never get to the end and find out how the two
housewives survive. Then I’ll have nightmares.” Wilha turned a page
and eagerly read.

Nova grabbed the book and looked around,
trying to find a place to destroy it.

“You little brat, give it back.”

Wilha jumped out from under the blankets and
landed on Nova smashing her to the bed. Wilha reached for the
book.

With a muffled cry, Nova slid out from under
Wilha, still hanging onto the novel. She thought about throwing it
out the window and into the bushes but decided against it because
the weather had changed, and rain was coming down. She ran through
the doorway and out into the living room, where she threw it into
the cold ashes of the fireplace.