by Bxerk
"Mom, why is $100.00 all we get for a stall, anyway? The Johnson farm down the road pays us much more for cleaning one," Nova said.
"Look, Nova, that's all I can afford to pay you, kids.” Mom swung her arms, letting some of the laundry fly.
Nova laughed. She was going to have a hard time keeping a straight face. Sometimes her mom was a klutz.
Mom slumped and sighed as she bent to pick up the clothes at opposite walls.
Nova put on her best pouty face.
"Nova, I really don't have to pay my own kids to do work around here. You do get a roof over your heads and food in your stomachs.”
"Fine." Nova sighed.
"All right, I'll see you at breakfast," Mom turned and left with the clothes.
Nova got dressed and strolled into the laundry room to check the dryer for socks. The dryer clothes were still warm and smelled like softener. She tried to find a pair of her own, but they weren’t washed yet. Nova found Scott’s and Wilha’s socks each one missing its twin. One was a pink ankle sock with pink roses on the side, and the other one was a white Nike tube sock. So Nova couldn’t use them either. She called to her mom.
“Mom, can I wear your socks today? I can’t find any to wear but yours.”
“I guess you can.”
Nova put on a blue pair of soft cotton socks. She shuffled up behind Wilha.
"You kicked me out of the bed again."
"I keep telling you, you must've been dreaming," Wilhelmina said while pouring blueberry pancake batter in a skillet on a wood-burning stove. Boy, that smells delicious. And Bacon too? Great!
“I’m not dreaming, Wilha.” Nova trudged outside to do her chores. It was chilly enough to see her to her breath.
She let out the puppies and cleaned their pen, then watered and fed them. She played with them just because they were so happy to see her. She looked at the clock on the wall. Twenty to six. Time to put them back into their pens. Scott wandered back and forth, feeding and watering the pigs, cows and horses. The barn radio was playing hard rock. Nova could hear Scott cussing in the barn, probably at Chocolate. Usually talk was kept to a minimum because everyone was still waking up.
Nova’s mother fed and watered the sheep and chickens. The ice had to be broken out of the rubber water buckets and bowls. Then Mom did what vets do best. She examined all the animals, doctoring when needed and supervising her kids’ work.
After the animals had been taken care of, Nova took a quick shower and blow-dried her hair. Some houses had electricity. Nova’s farm had a generator for the water and a few outlets. She strolled to the dining table and had breakfast. The pancakes were golden brown, and the bacon was crisp and yummy. It almost made up for Wilha kicking her out of bed. Soon an argument ensued about who was going to get the last pancake and strip of bacon. Scott accused Wilha of purposely not making enough. Wilha told Scott he should cook then. As the argument continued, Nova smirked. Throwing on her warm denim jacket, a scarf, and wool hat with a chin strap, she put her book bag on her back and rode her bike to the top of the driveway. She cruised toward school.
As soon as she was on the road, peddling mindlessly through corn fields covered in stubble, Nova tried to recreate the dream she had the night before. She could only see a bit at first.
Nova was in a dark place that looked like the inside of a big tent. She was lying on the ground on a black bearskin rug.
She continued to pedal her bike just moving along as she
remembered what was left of her dream.
A tall, muscular woman crouched over her. Her brown wavy hair was tied back in a ponytail. She offered Nova a warm, red towel. Nova accepted it and dried her face. Three barrel-chested, bearded men stood behind her. They looked much older than the woman.
The woman said, "Nova, are you okay?” It was a familiar New Zealand accent.
Nova nodded. "Where am I?"
"You’re safe for now." She offered Nova a bottle of cold water, but Nova declined because she didn’t know if she could trust this woman.
Nova heard what she thought were howler monkeys like those she had seen at the Madison Zoo. She also noticed the chirps and songs of birds and insects. Mosquitoes buzzed around her head. Foreign smells teased her nose.
"Where am I? In a circus? Or a zoo?" Nova said.
"Neither one."
As Nova watched, the woman created a fireball inside her hands, which warmed up the tent. For some reason, Nova wasn’t afraid. In fact, the fireball made her feel much better. But she still had to wonder how did she do that? And what was she going to do with that fireball? Nova reached for it, and the lady quickly held her back at arm’s length.
At that moment, the three men sniffed the air, opened the tent flap and plodded quickly outside into the bright sunshine. Nova caught a glimpse of a little bit of blue sky and some green-leafed tree branches. She looked at the woman again and thought she saw alarm on her face. Then Nova heard voices outside the closed tent but she couldn’t make out what was being said. She also realized who the three men were. They were friends of the tall woman.
And they were Neanderthals.
At that point, she had been forced out of her dream and the bed by Wilhelmina's kicking. She sighed and rolled her eyes.
The really weird thing was that the dream didn’t feel like a dream. Sure, there were some crazy things happening – she didn’t encounter fireballs or Neanderthals in real life. But nobody suddenly sprouted antennae, and she didn’t suddenly shift to the top of a cliff or into one of her classrooms. It all felt real, just… strange.
Of course, was that because she was just dreaming about other strange things happening to her? Or was it another one of the strange things itself?
Nova pulled up to the whale bike rack at the school that the metalworking shop had made a few years ago. Takeesha was already there, trying to lock hers to one of the whale’s ribs. The happy whale spewed a stream of crumpled sheet-aluminum water out of its blow hole.
Takeesha was pounding one of the links of her bicycle chain with the back end of a wrench. "The chain came apart again." She threw down the wrench into her book bag, making a large clanging noise, tugged on the chain, then wrapped it around her bike wheel and locked it. She wiped her greasy fingers on a paper towel.
“Guess what? I saw a ghost in the hallway when I was leaving school yesterday,” Nova said.
“Really? What did it do? Were you scared? Did you throw up?”
Nova told her about the ghost but left out her fight with Brenda. It was still a little embarrassing the way she didn’t stand up for herself.
“Do we want to meet in the library again to contact the ghosts?” Nova asked.
“Oh, shoot, I left the Ouija board at home. I think at the assembly today we can ask Nocturnal Ned.
That’s right. She had forgotten that the famous psychic would be visiting the school.
The first bell rang as they ran for their lockers.
Chapter 7 Threats to Science
The first class of the day was English. As soon as Nova and Takeesha hustled inside, Nova could smell the dry, dusty odor that came from heaters. She took a seat in a rickety old desk near the back of the room. It wasn’t the greatest seat, but it put her behind Brenda the bully, which was a safer place to be. Or it was until Brenda’s sidekick, Amanda, took the desk behind her. Takeesha sat near the front, as she always did. A few other students had already taken their seats. Ms. Chilldress walked to the board and wrote: “RESEARCH PAPER DAY.”
A loud crackling made the hair on Nova’s neck stand up and her stomach churn. Two ghosts in dark suits and fedoras entered the classroom. They stood in the front, their arms crossed over their chests, and glowered at the teacher. Ms. Chilldress glanced at the ghosts, then turned her gaze deliberately on the class. The only sign of worry was the way she played with the erasable marker in her hand. "I propose that we have a great science fair in May. What do you think, people?"
Nova had heard that Ms. Chilldress hate
d teaching English and really resented the fact that nobody was teaching science anymore. The principal felt sorry for her and was going to let her run a science fair in May to make up for it. The students only whined and moaned about more schoolwork.
“We don’t want to irritate the ghosts,” someone in the back said.
"We need to have a psychic fair,” Brenda, the bully, said. “It said so in the horoscopes, you know.”
Most of the students agreed. Some were holding their stomachs and making painful looking faces.
Despite the way the ghosts were making her feel, Nova stood up. "No, you guys, science is a good thing. Besides, Benny is going to enter, and I support his inventions."
All the students started talking back about how the paranormal was a good thing too. Nova felt drowned out and sat down. Why didn’t more people support science?
Brenda made fists like she was wringing something out under her desk. Amanda gave Nova a scowl. How could Amanda, her best friend when she first arrived at the school last year, even consider liking Brenda, let alone follow her? The way Amanda looked at her now made Nova feel awful and hurt even more. She probably told Brenda everything that Nova had told her.
"Yes, some of you have worked very hard on a science experiment of some sort already." Ms. Chilldress handed out a paper on science fair experiment ideas. Behind the teacher, the ghosts grabbed her desk and dragged it across the floor toward the wall. Her chair crashed backward. Ms. Chilldress whipped around with a pinched face and threatened the ghosts with a hard stare. She turned back to face the class and strolled to the back, past the bullies. Brenda looked around the room whistling, and Amanda buried her face in one of her books.
Some of the kids wadded up their papers as she handed them out.
Another loud crack. Three more ghosts appeared wearing dark suits. They entered the classroom stood in the back and stared at Ms. Chilldress. Nova bit her nails. How could she get rid of the ghosts?
"Fine students,” Ms. Chilldress said, “you think about it. And as for the rest of you…” She met the ghost’s stare. “I'm standing firm on the science fair. Now let's have your research papers.” Nova’s heart lifted. She had never seen anyone heroic enough to confront the ghosts like that.
As the students came up one by one to read their reports in the front of the class, Nova’s mind wandered to possible names for her filly. Her eyes brightened as she came up with the perfect name. Shade.
When Nova looked at the teacher's desk, still shoved
against the wall, she just felt so mad. It was awful the way the ghosts thought they could lord it over the living. She grunted.
All of a sudden, one of the ghosts fell backward and hit its head on the floor. Nova wasn’t sure if she should laugh or not.
A loud Rrrrrrrriiiiiipppp like a sheet tearing echoed off the walls. The ghost disappeared in a burst of greenish vapor. The other ghosts looked worried. So did the class.
Had she done that?
Nova tried to make the grunt from her mouth again, but it didn’t sound right. Did she do it? Or was it just a coincidence?
Ms. Chilldress laughed. “Class did you see that? We lost one of the ghosts. Well, I’ll be.”
Some of the students were moving and shifting in their seats. Others were watching the clock and whispering to each other.
"Does anyone know why we are having the problems we are having today?” Ms. Chilldress strode back and forth in front of the class, a huge smile on her face.
"We need to know science! You could be a millionaire if you invented a new gadget."
This didn’t seem to impress the class as much as she hoped.
"Okay,” she said, “let’s have two more papers then we will quit for today."
One of the papers was about ghosts, and the other one was about witches.
When the bell rang, the Ms. Chilldress said, "Write on a sheet of paper a list of projects that you could do for the science fair. It’s due when I see you again next Friday. Choose three ideas. Put them in order: one is your favorite, and three is your least favorite."
Students moaned as they shuffled out the door. Some reached into the wastebasket by the door to retrieve their balled up sheet.
When the ghosts disappeared, Ms. Chilldress laid her head on her desk.
Nova ran to her. “Should I get the nurse?”
"That’s all right, Nova. I just wish the ghosts would let me teach science."
After math class, Nova followed her classmates to the auditorium to watch, “The Great Nocturnal Ned.” The strong odor of disinfectant assaulted Nova’s nose. Nova crawled up the bleachers and took a seat in the back against the cold brick wall. The air around her throbbed with excited kids talking all at once. Nova looked all over for Takeesha. Where was she? Nova saw her come in from gym class, from another doorway on the far side of the auditorium and take a bleacher seat. Nova hoped they could sit together, but it wasn’t going to happen.
The room was so packed there didn’t seem to be room for any more kids, but they kept coming. When Nova noticed Takeesha looking around, she stood up and waved to get her attention. It took a while, but they finally saw each other. Takeesha waved back, and Nova could see her slump in her seat. There was a good chance they wouldn’t be able to talk to Nocturnal Ned before or after the show.
When everyone was seated and hushed, Nocturnal Ned came out from behind the black curtains. From a distance, he looked pretty impressive. He wore a sea-green velvet tuxedo with lacy cuffs, puffy front, and dark green bow tie. Buster Brown saddle shoes were polished on his feet.
He gave a long, flowing bow then quickly rotated his hands in circles and pointed to various audience members, closed his eyes, and breathed in deeply. Meanwhile any girl he pointed to either screamed or fainted.
The audience applauded. When the clapping died down he introduced himself. “Girls, boys, teachers, friends, welcome to ‘The Great Nocturnal Ned Spirit Medium Show.’ The first spiritual link I have is the name of Heidi or Helen or… In this area up front here?” Ned gestured to about four seats in front of Nova. Students there looked around, and some either raised and lowered their shoulders or shook their heads. Ned turned away from them.
“Never mind. In the spirit world, I’m seeing a male person who died recently from the flu…”
Across the room, a teacher assistant raised his hand. “My sister died from the flu.”
Ned turned quickly to face the young man. “Did it happen suddenly?”
This was wonderful. Nova was glad she hadn’t taken a sick day.
“Yes, our carriage broke down. We couldn’t get her to see the doctor.”
“Was she older than you?” Ned leaned toward the boy.
“No. Two years younger.”
“Ah, I thought not.”
Clash. Ned was the greatest. Nova also leaned forward not wishing to miss anything.
“She is talking to me about…” Ned gestured with his hands. “… her favorite teddy bear.”
“Yeah…” the boy said.
“She had one, right?”
“No, well…she was dating Teddy Snow.”
Well, sort of. Nova laughed quietly.
“She says she misses you and the family.”
The psychic turned. “I’m sensing a brown dog in the audience. Anyone recently lose a brown dog?” Ned gestured toward a bank of bleachers to his right. “Over here in this area?”
“Yes, here.” A voice came from the opposite direction in front of Nova on the bleachers.
Oops, wrong kid. Nova looked at Takeesha, who was yawning.
“How did it die?” Ned asked.
“She fought a bear when my dad and I were hunting,” the boy said.
“Well, guess what? She is visiting here today.”
This brought a round of applause.
“Where?” the boy stood up.
“Over there.” Ned pointed. It was as simple as that.
“Come here girl. Pwsssst.” The boy patted his leg
and sat down again.
The audience laughed.
“Here she comes. She is sitting next to you.”
The fifth grader pretended to pet the dog on his left side.
“No, the other side,” Nocturnal Ned said.
More giggling.
The boy put his hand on the other side and started petting. His face turned red as he slumped frowning.
“Now, I’m sensing a woman who had an accident with a pitch fork. Anyone?” He gestured to the whole audience.
“Over here.” A male teacher said.
Ned turned to the area. “What happened?”
“Well, she’s not dead yet.”
“No, I’m sensing someone had an accident in a barn and crossed over.”
“My Grandpa had a heart attack right outside the barn,” a teacher with a purple sweater said. She had been standing against the far wall farthest from Ned.
“He died when you were very young, right?”
She nodded.
“He says, ‘Don’t worry about the piggies. They will be all right.’”
She wiped tears from her eyes.
Another hit. Yay for Ned.
“That’s all for my show today. Please pick up a flyer when you leave. The flyer has a coupon for one free visit as long as you bring an adult.”
He bowed, rotated his hands and pointed to people, and strode into the curtain fumbling for a way out as girls screamed and fainted. Finally, the applause died down.
All in All the show went very well. Nova really wished she could be psychic. Nova stood up to stretch her legs and amble off the bleachers and out of the auditorium, where teachers were handing out the flyers.
After school, Nova, Takeesha, Benny, and Max Kim met up in the hallway near Benny’s locker. “You guys,” Nova said, “let’s go on a picnic tomorrow. It would just be the four of us.”
“You mean like a date?” Benny sat in his wheelchair next to Max Kim. “I don’t do dates.”
