“Go on, then; I’ll watch the show from here.”
Gilda used a menu to conceal her face as she sauntered slowly toward the judges’ table. Peeking over the menu, she saw Professor Maddox leave the table for the ladies’ room. In her absence, Professor Waldgrave reached across the table to feed his cat a morsel of fish from her plate.
Gilda found a spot at the end of the bar and climbed onto a bar stool. She did her best to act as if she was the sort of local person who simply happened to stop into her local watering hole for a drink while her dogs waited outside yelping in the rain. She perused her menu and was pleased to see that both “bangers and mash” and “spotted dick” were available.
A barmaid approached to take Gilda’s order. “I’ll have an Old Tubthumper, please,” said Gilda, copying an order she had heard someone else make and forcing herself to avoid looking in Julian’s direction for fear of bursting into giggles. “The warmer and darker, the better,” she added. One of her guidebooks had mentioned that “unlike Americans, the English prefer their beer warm and dark.”
“Half pint or pint?”
“Pint.”
To Gilda’s surprise, the barmaid actually slapped down a beer that looked as thick and dark as molasses into a glass, large enough for the heftiest pub-goers in the room. Now Gilda couldn’t help glancing in Julian’s direction, and could barely stifle her laughter when she saw his jaw drop with disbelief and outrage. For Julian’s benefit, she pretended to take a sip and decided that the drink smelled like warm fungus or something that might be used to lubricate a machine.
“What’s the matter?” Professor Waldgrave asked.
Gilda’s ears perked up at the sound of Professor Maddox returning to her table.
“Rhiannon, Sophia ate only a few bites of your fish. I thought you didn’t want it.”
“It isn’t the fish.” Professor Maddox’s voice sounded hoarse.
Is Professor Maddox crying? Gilda wished she could turn around to observe the two professors more directly.
“Rhiannon, we have our differences of opinion, but we’ll sort it out. That’s why they asked both of us to judge—because we come from such opposite orientations. Besides, Winterbottom will be here to help judge the final round.”
Who in the world is “Winterbottom”? Gilda wondered.
“Despite our differences, I think the group we’ve pulled together for the finals is a fine selection of performers,” Waldgrave continued. “There will no doubt be some raised eyebrows when Professor Heslop announces the list tonight, but so be it.”
They’ve picked the finalists! It was all Gilda could do to keep from swiveling around in her seat and demanding to know whether Wendy and Julian had made it. Mention some names! she thought. Mention some names!
“I’m not thinking about the judging either,” said Professor Maddox.
“What, then?”
“Being at this competition again . . .” Professor Maddox suddenly spoke in a softer voice, and Gilda had to strain to hear her. “Well, I keep thinking about him. Don’t you?”
THINKING ABOUT WHOM?! Gilda wished people wouldn’t use so many vague pronouns, and she wondered why there was such a very long silence following Professor Maddox’s comment. Why wasn’t Waldgrave saying anything in reply?
Still wearing her sunglasses, Gilda stealthily turned to peek behind her. Professor Maddox sat with her hands flat on the table, on either side of a virtually untouched plate of fish. Her eyes looked red, as if she had just recovered from a crying spell. Waldgrave’s mouth was a thin line; his face stony and drained of color. He rubbed his bald head with one hand, as if trying to remove a smudge he had discovered up there.
“Rhiannon,” Professor Waldgrave finally said, “Charles Drummond has been gone for five years now.”
CHARLES DRUMMOND! Hearing this name, Gilda felt so excited and agitated, she accidentally knocked over her entire pint of dark beer, which sloshed across the bar and onto the floor. Luckily, the barmaid was too busy ringing up orders at the other end of the counter to notice.
“I know it’s been five years,” said Professor Maddox. “But I’ve had this odd feeling ever since I arrived in Oxford this week. We can’t deny the fact that if you hadn’t—”
“If I hadn’t what? Why don’t you go ahead and say it, Rhiannon?”
Gilda grabbed some napkins and tried to soak up the brown puddle of beer that now spread in front of her on the counter while doing her best not to miss a moment of the drama unfolding behind her. Go ahead and say WHAT? she wondered.
“If I hadn’t killed him,” said Professor Waldgrave, in a slightly lower voice. “That’s what you were going to say, wasn’t it?”
Gilda sat motionless with a wad of beer-soaked napkins in one hand, trying to will every cell in her body to become a listening device.
“No. That’s not what I was going to say.”
“It’s what you were thinking.”
“Nigel, you’re projecting your own guilt onto me.”
“I could say the same to you!” Professor Waldgrave’s voice grew louder. “You’re projecting your guilt onto me.”
Gilda glanced behind her and glimpsed Professor Waldgrave pointing at Professor Maddox with an accusing index finger, as if it were a handgun.
“Don’t point at me that way, please.”
“You’re not so innocent, you know. You had your role to play, and you know that if you hadn’t gotten involved, it never would have turned out this way. Never!”
“Not being able to accept responsibility is a sign of immaturity, Nigel.”
“And I think we’re both very immature, sad people.”
Professor Maddox stood up at the table and Gilda quickly turned around in her seat. She found the barmaid mopping the puddle of beer on the other side of the counter and eyeing Gilda’s empty pint glass irritably.
Rhiannon Maddox breezed out of the pub. Gilda wasn’t the only person who watched her leave: many eyes were drawn to the strikingly dramatic hooded black cape she wore—a cape so long, its muddy edges dragged across the pub floor.
35
The Finalists
Gilda and Julian drew resentful stares as they walked into the Dennis Arnold Hall, several minutes late for the announcement of the competition finalists. It didn’t help that their hair was wet from the rain and that Gilda’s knees were stained with mud.
Mrs. Mendelovich shot Gilda a withering glance but quickly turned around in her seat, too excited to hear the list of finalists to bother reprimanding a tardy page-turner. Julian’s teacher beckoned to him with a stone-faced “you’d-better-get-over-here-right-now!” look, pointing at the empty chair next to him.
“See how his ears turn red when he’s angry?” Julian whispered. “I’d better go sit next to him.”
Gilda slipped into a chair at the back of the room as Professor Heslop stepped up to the microphone.
“First, I would like to commend every musician here,” said Professor Heslop. “Most of you gave your very best performance in the first two rounds, and it was a difficult decision, indeed. The judges tell me their criterion was simply picking the ten individuals they would like to hear from again—students whose artistry intrigued them the most. The ten names I will announce will compete in the final round of the competition at the Sheldonian Theater. If I call your name, please walk to the front of the room and draw a performance number. I will now begin announcing the finalists.”
The room fell silent with anticipation.
“Ming Fong Chen!”
Ming Fong let out a squeal of delight and bounced to the front of the room as if she were a participant in a televised game show. After she turned around to face the stony stares and false smiles of her rivals, however, she walked more slowly as she returned to her seat.
Professor Heslop called out a series of names Gilda didn’t recognize. Each announcement triggered flurries of hugs and whispered congratulations along with the silent stomach-tightening of those whose names had
not yet been called. Across the room, Julian chewed his thumbnail and tapped his foot on the ground.
Professor Heslop frowned and hesitated before calling out the name. “Jenny Pickles!”
Jenny smiled brightly and sashayed to the front of the room with a kind of fashion-runway smoothness. Ms. Pickles sat up very straight, her eyes glued to her daughter as she applauded and smiled fiercely.
“Julian Graham!”
Weary relief relaxed Julian’s face at the sound of his name.
He tries to act like he doesn’t care about this competition, Gilda thought, but he obviously would have been devastated if he didn’t make it.
Only one more finalist remained.
“And last but not least,” said Professor Heslop, “we have Wendy Choy.”
“YES!” Gilda didn’t care that her outburst caused half the room to turn and stare. Wendy looked stunned, as if she hadn’t quite recognized the sound of her own name. Mrs. Mendelovich had to nudge her to hurry up and claim the last number in the hat.
Gilda grinned broadly at Wendy from across the room, but Wendy didn’t smile back. Why did Wendy’s face have that familiar tormented look as she walked back to her seat?
Wendy received Mrs. Mendelovich’s forgiving bear hug and muttered perfunctory congratulations to Ming Fong, who eyed her warily. Gary stuffed his hands in his pockets and did his best to regard Wendy and Ming Fong with calm benevolence; he had not made it into the finals.
Wendy knew she should feel euphoric. Instead, she simply couldn’t believe that she had actually been selected for the finals. She thought how very strange it was that she had beaten the odds—but not necessarily in a way that felt the least bit lucky.
Once again, she had drawn the number nine.
36
Substitute Ghosts
I have a very strong feeling about this Charles Drummond, Wendy. I think he might be the key to this mystery.”
“And you actually think the competition judges might have killed him?” Wendy sat on her bed, twirling her hair and clutching a pillow as if it were a teddy bear.
“I’m not sure what happened—but I definitely smell foul play.”
“It’s just so hard to imagine. I mean, Waldgrave is mean and everything, but I wouldn’t think of him as a murderer.”
Gilda noticed Wendy’s pallor. “You’re doing the hair-twirling thing again, Wendy.”
“I know.”
“Are you okay?”
“I guess.” Wendy nibbled on a lock of her hair.
“Wendy—”
“I know, I know. ‘Watch out for giant hair balls.’”
“Believe me, you really don’t want them.”
“I’m glad we both agree that hair balls are my biggest problem right now.”
Gilda was crouching down on her knees to peer under Wendy’s bed.
“Gilda—what are you doing?”
“Just checking. We don’t want to miss any new clues—like another tarot card or something.”
“I don’t even want to know what’s under there.”
“It’s pretty gross under here, actually. I don’t think this place has ever been cleaned.”
Wendy examined the tips of her hair for split ends. “Anyway, I was just remembering a weird story my mom told me once.”
“What story?”
“She said that in China, there were ghosts who would find someone to take their place.”
Gilda stood up abruptly. “What do you mean?” She brushed the lint from her knees and sat on Wendy’s bed.
“Like, a person who died an ‘unclean’ death because he or she was murdered or committed suicide or something like that would automatically become a ghost. But this person wouldn’t want to be a ghost; she’d be looking for some living human being to take her place in the ghost world—a substitute.”
“Like a substitute teacher?”
“Yes, Gilda. Exactly like a substitute teacher.”
“Sorr y.”
“I thought you were serious about this.”
“I’m totally serious.”
“You don’t seem serious. In fact, you seem a little abnormal—kind of giddy.”
“I’m listening. Tell me the story.”
“As I was saying, the ghost might pick anyone at all to take his or her place—any random person who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. And here’s the spookiest part: after finding someone to influence, the ghost leads that person into a situation where he or she will die in exactly the same way the ghost died.”
The dim, yellow lamplight in the room flickered, and Gilda couldn’t help sharing Wendy’s unease. “Your mom tells the creepiest stories,” Gilda whispered, meaning this as a high compliment. At the moment, the idea seemed to have a very unpleasant plausibility. “So, you think you might be haunted by a ‘substitute ghost’?”
“Well, if this Charles Drummond got killed . . . and if he’s the one who’s haunting this competition—I don’t know. What if the same thing could happen to me?”
“No way. You aren’t going to die, Wendy.”
“But ever since we arrived here, I’ve had this feeling that something has been following me.”
“Wendy, if it makes you feel any better, I’ve never read about ‘substitute ghosts’ in my Psychic’s Handbook. Maybe they exist only in China.”
“Yeah, probably just another one of those crazy Chinese things.” With sudden impatient energy, Wendy jumped up from the bed, picked up her toothbrush, and turned on the water in her tiny sink.
“Just don’t freak yourself out, okay? There’s no way I’m going to let any ghost use you as a substitute.”
“I’ve never felt safer.” Wendy brushed her teeth vigorously, as if attempting to channel her anxiety into good dental hygiene. She spat into the sink. “Anyway, if anything like that did happen to me, I guess you’d be next in line.”
“What?! You’d kill me if you turned into a ‘substitute ghost’?”
“Well, I’d be looking for someone to take my place, and there you’d be, pestering me with your Ouija board—a perfect target.”
“Why not Jenny Pickles or Ming Fong?”
“You’d be more convenient.”
Gilda knew the timing wasn’t right, but she couldn’t help it: she had been itching to tell Wendy all the details of her experience with Julian, and she simply couldn’t wait any longer. “So, Wendy . . . this is a little off the subject, but do you notice anything different about me?”
“Well, aside from your sudden attention deficit disorder and the mud stains on your knees, that shade of lipstick is pretty dark.” Flossing her teeth, Wendy viewed Gilda’s reflection in the mirror.
“You haven’t noticed anything else?”
Gilda looked bedraggled from walking in the wind and rain, but she also bore the flushed, happy appearance of someone who’d been outdoors having a stimulating adventure. Wendy again felt a twinge of annoyance; she knew Gilda had been out doing something with Julian. In contrast, her own reflection looked anemic and housebound.
Gilda pointed at her mouth. “It’s not the lipstick that’s different. Can’t you tell that these lips have finally been kissed by a cute boy? My first kiss—on English soil!”
Wendy turned to face Gilda. “You kissed him?”
“Well, he kissed me.”
“And you kissed him back?”
“No, I slapped his face and ran away giggling.”
“Why?”
“I’m kidding, Wendy. Of course I kissed him back!”
“But you always told me that your first kiss was with Felix in the school play.”
“That was acting. This was the real thing.”
Wendy dropped her used dental floss into the wastebasket with a gesture of disdain. “Well, was he a good kisser?”
“The best. His mouth was like a tiny plunger over my lips.”
Wendy folded her arms and frowned at Gilda.
“That’s how it’s supposed to feel, right?”
“That sounds kind of unpleasant, to be honest.”
“You don’t seem very excited.”
“I’m excited, okay? The main thing is; I’m glad someone is having fun here in England. Other people are dealing with the pressure of an international competition and a psychopathic ghost, but that doesn’t mean that my best friend shouldn’t be out snobbing with English boys.”
“Snogging.”
“Whatever.”
“Wendy, I wasn’t just rolling around in a graveyard with Julian. The whole reason I was there in the first place was because I was working on this investigation to help you.”
“You and Julian were ‘rolling around in a graveyard’?”
“Not exactly. We were actually standing up, and there was this tombstone between us.”
“That better not have been Charles Drummond’s tombstone.”
“What if it was?”
“You kissed a boy over the grave of the ghost who wants to murder me?!”
“Wendy, we don’t have any evidence that the ghost wants to murder you. Besides, you make it sound so cheap and sordid.”
“It does sound a little tasteless.”
“Well, it wasn’t. It was really romantic, with the rain falling and old mossy tombstones around us everywhere.”
“The worms, the corpses . . .”
“It was very Gothic.” Gilda watched as Wendy twisted her long hair into a tight, angry ponytail. “Hey, maybe I could ask Julian if he has a friend you could meet. Then we could go on a double date! I also think Julian could really help us with this investigation. I mean, this ritual I was telling you about seemed to really work—”
“I’m not jealous, Gilda. The last thing I have time for right now is a boyfriend.”
“I didn’t say you were jealous.”
Wendy sighed. In truth, she was a little jealous: she was weary of the competition pressure, and she couldn’t help envying Gilda’s freedom to do something as zany and adventurous as kissing an English boy in a graveyard. “I guess I just don’t feel like talking now. I’d probably better get some sleep,” she said. “I have a ton of practicing in front of me tomorrow if I’m going to be in shape for the final round.”
The Ghost Sonata Page 17
