Wrath of the Grinning Ghost

by John Bellairs

  Johnny saw Gramma and Grampa Dixon standing on the front steps. They smiled and waved as the professor brought the Pontiac to a halt with a screech of brakes and a pungent blue-gray cloud of smoke from the overheated tires. "Here they are, safe and sound, just as promised!" the professor bellowed as he flung open the driver's door. "Stuffed to the gills with tales of the fish that got away, no doubt! Come on, you two! We'll help you carry your bags inside, and then we want the whole story."

  That was a happy homecoming. Johnny's grandmother was a short, white-haired woman who was a fanatical housekeeper. A speck of dust never had a chance in the Dixon house. She also happened to be a fabulous cook. In honor of the occasion, Gramma Dixon had made a delicious meal, a New England pot roast.

  Professor Childermass, who taught history at Haggstrum College but whose hobby was baking, contributed a yummy, gooey Black Forest cake.

  Johnny and the major distributed the souvenirs they had picked up in Florida: a hand-painted plate for Gramma, showing a marlin leaping from the water; a fancy leather spectacle case for Grampa with Seminole beads worked into it; and for the professor, a jaunty, long-billed red fishing cap, which he popped onto his head and wore for the rest of the afternoon. Gramma liked her plate, and Grampa seemed pleased too. Henry Dixon was a gaunt, tall, slightly stooped man with just a few strands of hair combed over his bald, freckled head. He also wore old-fashioned gold-rimmed spectacles, which he took off and slipped into the leather case. "Perfect fit!" he announced happily.

  Later that afternoon Johnny's best friend came over. His real name was Byron Ferguson, but he hated to be called that and allowed only a few people, like the professor, to refer to him as "Byron." Most knew him as Fergie. He was a tall, skinny, dark-haired kid with a long, droopy face, jug ears, and big feet. Fergie was as good at sports as Johnny was at history and English, and the two of them got along really well. Fergie was kind of a smart aleck too, but Johnny could take his kidding and dish some of it right back at him. They had liked each other almost from the moment they had met at Boy Scout camp, and Johnny had picked out a dandy souvenir for his friend. It was a pocketknife with mother-of-pearl handles, but it had hidden talents. A little fork and spoon folded out of it, along with a saw blade, a file, and a regular knife blade. Fergie grinned as he thanked Johnny and shoved the knife down into his jeans pocket.

  As twilight fell, Johnny and Fergie went for a long ramble down Fillmore Street. It was a clear New England evening, very cool after the muggy Florida weather. They strolled past old houses, going from one little yellow island of light to the next as they moved from lamppost to lamppost. Fergie had told Johnny that their friend, Sarah Channing, still wasn't home. Her dad taught English at the same college as Professor Childermass. He had taken Sarah and her mom on a long vacation to England. They wouldn't be back until the beginning of July.

  "So, Dixon," said Fergie, "how was Florida this time?" The two walked by the weathered brick buildings that had once been shoe factories. Just ahead was the old iron bridge over the Merrimack River.

  "Great," returned Johnny. "Dad and I went fishing on the Gulf just about every day."

  "I noticed you were kinda red," said Fergie with a chuckle. "Just a little bit, sort of like a hard-boiled lobster. Wait'll that sunburn starts to peel. I'm gonna have to call you 'banana nose'!"

  Johnny shrugged. "People with blond hair don't tan, I guess," he said. "On the other hand we are lots smarter than you poor souls with black hair!"

  "Says you!" howled Fergie. He laughed, then asked, "Seriously, Dixon, did you get to hunt any pirate treasure? Did you learn about any crumbling, mysterious old parchment maps? Or at least bring home a new model ship?"

  Johnny felt in his pocket. The coin the old woman, Madam Lumiere, had given him, lay cold and round there. He ran his thumb over the surface. The metal was so worn that it felt slick, almost greasy. He took it from his pocket and stopped beneath a streetlight. "I got this," he said, holding it out.

  Fergie took it from him and examined it under the light. He gave a low, impressed whistle as it glinted in his grasp. "Cool! This is one of those old Spanish dollars. It's pirate loot, Dixon! This is what they meant when they said, 'Pieces of eight'!"

  Johnny took it back from him. "You know why they called it that, don't you?"

  Fergie shrugged. "I guess 'cause it was worth eight American dollars or something."

  "Wrong!" Johnny told him. "It was because these coins could be split up into eight pieces. You could break it apart into eight little wedges, just like carving up a pie.

  Fergie gave him an uncomprehending look. "Huh? Why would you want to do a crazy thing like that?"

  "To make change," explained Johnny patiently. "If you bought something that cost a quarter of a dollar, you'd break off two of the pieces and hand them over. You know the football cheer, don't you? 'Two bits, four bits, six bits, a dollar'?"

  "Sure," Fergie said. His eyes lit up. "Oh, I get it now! That's what each piece of the pieces of eight was, right? A bit! Touché, Dixon, you got me! If I was wearin' a hat, I'd tip it! Say, where did you get this beauty, anyways?" Fergie returned the coin to Johnny, who put it back into his jeans pocket.

  Feeling vaguely uncomfortable, Johnny said, "I got it from a strange old woman. She told my fortune for a quarter, and she gave me this coin when she had finished."

  Fergie snorted. "It can't be real, then. I mean, she'd hafta be out of her jug to swap you a real Spanish dollar for a measly quarter!"

  "It wasn't exactly a swap," said Johnny slowly. Something was needling his brain. He felt as if he were right on the edge of learning something new, or of realizing that he knew more than he thought. But whatever it was buzzed away like an annoying mosquito as Fergie started to talk about the Red Sox, the school year they had just finished, and what they might do with the rest of the summer.

  Finally he went home no wiser than he had been before they started the walk. That night, when he went to bed, he put the shiny Spanish dollar on his night table, right beside his glasses. He stared at it for a long time before he turned off the light. Somehow he slept a little better just knowing it was there.

  * * *

  Major Dixon left for his base in Colorado a few days later. He promised to be back home at Christmas, and Johnny said good-bye to him at the train station. For the rest of that day Johnny knocked around on his own. Fergie was busy helping his folks paint their bedrooms, and Johnny felt too lazy to volunteer to help.

  He fooled around with his wooden model for a while, carefully painting the little fiddly bits: the ship's wheel, the cannon, the bell, and the lanterns. This time he was determined to do a shipshape job. He hoped to have a beautiful model schooner to show his dad when he came back in six months.

  When Johnny got tired of that, he got a snack from the kitchen, Ritz crackers spread with pink pimento cheese, and a glass of chocolate milk. He took these out to the screened-in front porch, where he settled back in the swing and munched happily as he started to read. He had found In Deadly Waters, a dandy book on pirate lore, in the Duston Heights library.

  Sipping his chocolate milk, Johnny read wide-eyed about the town of Port Royal, which had been wrecked by an earthquake in 1692. The book's author said that a whole section of the waterfront, a notorious pirates' den, had slipped right into the Caribbean Sea! Whole streets of taverns, inns, and stores lay there under thirty feet of water. Who knew what treasures were just waiting to be found?

  That reminded Johnny of the Spanish dollar that Madam Lumiere had given him. He took it from his pocket and studied it. For some reason he had kept it pretty much a secret so far, showing it only to Fergie. Thoughtfully, Johnny nibbled the last of his crackers. He looked across the street at the big stucco mansion where Professor Childermass lived. Then he put a marker in his book, closed it, and hurried off the porch.

  Banging on the professor's front door produced no answer, so Johnny went around back. There he found Professor Childermass on his knees, with a t
rowel in his hand. He wore his red fishing hat, and sweat poured down his face as he planted a whole crate of orange and yellow flowers. "There!" he snarled as he ripped out a wilted nasturtium and tossed it aside. "Die on me, will you! Faw! I'll put in a better flower in your place, you withered weed! To the rubbish heap with you, you vile vegetative vermin! Oh, hello, John."

  "Hi, Professor," Johnny said. "Can I help?"

  The professor settled back on his heels and nodded. "You most certainly can. The watering can is over there by the spigot. Fill it up and lug it over! I was hoping someone would come along and save my aching back!" He brandished his trowel. "Meanwhile," he growled, "I shall be rooting up these impertinent plants. By heaven, I'll force something to grow in these flower beds of mine, or I'll pave over the whole yard and paint the concrete green! See if I don't!"

  Johnny brought the water over, and before long they stood up. The professor put his hands on his hips and nodded with a satisfied air. "Now, that's more like it," he said. "Nasturtiums are nasty! Anyone can grow a marigold, though. And I like them better, anyway!" He clapped Johnny on the shoulder. "How about a nice cool glass of lemonade?"

  "Sure," said Johnny, smiling.

  They went inside, and the professor went upstairs to the bathroom to scrub his hands and dash some cold water on his face. Then he came back down, took a frosty pitcher from the refrigerator, and poured two tall, icy glasses of lemonade. "You look as if you have something dark and desperate on your conscience, my fine feathered friend," said the professor as he handed Johnny his glass. "I suggest we retire to the study and then you can unburden yourself. Or if life has really got you down, you are welcome to use my fuss closet."

  Johnny chuckled and shook his head. Professor Childermass was firmly persuaded that at times he simply had to let loose and roar and rant and rave about all the troubles in his life. He had fixed up the closet in his study for just that activity. He had lined the closet with athletic mats to soundproof it, and he had tacked a sign to the back wall: "To Fuss Is Human: To Rant Divine!" Whenever he got a traffic ticket or banged his thumb with a hammer while trying to do one of his many carpentry projects, he would go into the closet and scream, yell, and, well, fuss, for an hour or so. He claimed that the fuss closet kept his blood pressure down and gave him his unusually even disposition.

  Johnny saw that, with college over for the summer, the professor had tidied up the study. He had swept out the huge drifts of blue-covered exam booklets and term papers that normally cascaded off his desk. He had even put some of the books back into their places on the bookshelves. Others still lay piled on the desk and stacked on the floor. The professor pushed some of the books on the desk to one side, put his lemonade down, and settled back in his chair with his hands behind his head. "Now, John," he said, "what's on your mind besides your hair?"

  "This," said Johnny, putting the coin on the desktop, where it lay gleaming in the light from the window. "Do you think it's real?"

  The professor's eyebrows shot up. He picked up the coin and held it close to his face, squinting at it as he turned it around. "Interesting," he murmured. "Very interesting, indeed. Do you know what you have here?"

  "A Spanish dollar," said Johnny promptly. "The kind that they talk about in the pirate stories when they write about pieces of eight."

  "Bingo," replied Professor Childermass. "Also bull's- eye, home run, and A-plus. If I recall, this is a type of coin called a 'cob.' I can barely make out two numbers here. I think they're a five and a six, which means this little beauty was probably stamped in 1756 or 1656. I think I have a book on old coins somewhere that might tell us more. Let me find it."

  Professor Childermass went to a tall bookcase beside the door. He stood on tiptoe, muttering to himself as he read the titles on the spines of the books. While he did that, Johnny sipped his lemonade and looked at the professor's stuffed owl, a wise-looking bird whose wisdom seemed slightly under par because of the miniature Red Sox baseball cap it wore at a rakish angle.

  And as Johnny looked at the bird, something went click! in his head. He suddenly saw, in his mind's eye, at least, the dark shape of the bird hovering above Live Oak Key Lighthouse. And he heard again the voice that had warned him in Madam Lumiere's tent.

  "Aha!" roared the professor, dragging a tall book from the top shelf in a billowing cloud of dust. He sneezed hard and then said, "I knew that I—"

  "Professor!" shouted Johnny at the same moment. He leaped to his feet and gave Professor Childermass a wild glance. "Brewster! Whatever happened to Brewster the Rooster?"

  Johnny had yelled louder than he intended. His shout must have startled the professor, because he dropped the heavy book right on his foot. The old man squinched his eyes and whistled. He didn't yelp in pain, though. Instead, he turned slowly. "That," he said, "is a very curious question. Very curious, indeed. John, why on earth did you choose this exact moment to think of Brewster?"

  Johnny now knew why the bird and the voice had seemed so familiar. They belonged to a being, a spirit who claimed to be Horns, an ancient god of Upper and Lower Egypt. Some years before, the professor had discovered a wonderful time-traveling trolley in his cellar. He had brought a black bird statuette back from the temple of Abu Simbel in ancient Egypt, and the figure turned out to house the spirit of Brewster. The professor had called him that because the statue reminded him of "Brewster the Rooster," the trademark of Goebel's Beer. After the professor had gotten rid of the Time Trolley, Brewster had also gone away.

  Until now, anyway.

  Johnny blurted out his story. "I'm almost sure it was him," he finished. "Brewster, I mean, trying to warn me."

  The professor picked up the book about ancient coins and went to sit in his chair. He took a long drink of lemonade. "Strange, very strange," he murmured. "Also uncanny and unsettling. You see, John, I've been having weird dreams for the last couple of days. And guess who has been the featured player in them all?"

  "Brewster?" asked Johnny.

  "Brewster," replied the professor in a grave, troubled voice.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Johnny asked, "Whatever happened to Brewster, Professor? He was with us when we went back in time to Constantinople, but after we got back, he disappeared."

  Professor Childermass crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. The light from the window behind him made his white hair glow almost like a halo in a picture of a saint. A crabby, red-faced saint. He cleared his throat and said, "Well, John, you remember Aurelian Townsend, the inventor of the Time Trolley, and how he took his blasted contraption back into the past. As for me, I had had my fill of time traveling. You may not know, though, that Mr. Townsend visits me from time to time. On his first visit I asked him to take Brewster's statuette back to Egypt, around the year 3000 B.C., and drop it off in a nice little temple. I knew Brewster would enjoy being worshiped as a god far more than he would be willing to endure being gawked at as an exhibit in a museum."

  "But now Brewster's come back to the present," said Johnny. "How did he manage that without the Time Trolley?"

  Professor Childermass tapped his chin with his finger. "I don't think he really has returned, John. Brewster is a spirit, and spirits don't live in time quite the same way you or I do. Evidently he is trying to communicate with us. That is why you're seeing visions of him and why I'm having peculiar dreams. Yes, Brewster wants to attract our attention, but I gather that, without the onyx statuette, he is having great difficulty in getting through. The falcon statue gave him his focus and let him speak to us."

  Johnny thought for a moment. "Maybe the statuette still exists in the ruins of that temple in Egypt."

  With a snort the professor said, "Oh, certainly. By now, no doubt, the statuette is cozily buried under fifty or a hundred feet of Egyptian sand. And a fat chance we'd have of finding it too! Hmm. Too bad Aurelian Townsend took the Time Trolley with him when he moved permanently to the 1890's." He drummed his fingers on the desk and hummed an unmusical tune. "Maybe I can do so
mething about Brewster's problem and help him get in touch with us," he said at last. "I have a friend in New York, and you can find practically anything in New York."

  "What are you trying to find?" asked Johnny.

  With a smug look Professor Childermass said, "Never you mind. If I can pull it off, it will be a surprise for you. I'll call my friend later today. However, first we have the problem of this rare Spanish coin to look into." He opened the book and began to leaf through the pages.

  Johnny came around to stand beside him. The book had columns of black-and-white pictures of coins, showing both the front, or obverse, side and the back, or reverse, side of each one. Paragraphs described each set of photographs. The professor found a section on Spanish coins from the New World and went through the pictures of the gold and silver pieces very carefully. "That one looks a lot like it," Johnny pointed out.

  "Right you are, John," the professor said, bending close to the page. He put his stubby forefinger on the text below the picture. "Let's see.... The types of coins called cobs were cut from a one-ounce bar of silver or gold. The word 'cob,' by the way, is a shortened form of a Spanish word meaning 'cut.' Well, an ounce of silver was cut up into eight pieces. Then the pieces were heated, flattened out, and roughly shaped into a circle. Very roughly in some cases. In fact, yours looks decidedly more like a coin than most of these do. The designs were then hammered into the metal with steel dies. Hmm. This coin of yours probably dates from 1656, because the design on it wasn't used in 1556, and by 1756 they were minting regular milled coins. So your souvenir is three hundred years old! Real history right in your pocket, John!"

  Johnny felt very solemn at the thought of owning something that had existed before the United States had even been a nation. "It's more than just a coin, though, Professor. It was supposed to be pirate booty, and Madam Lumiere said it was a good-luck charm," he said.