by David Lubar
There was a big banner stretched across Main Street right at the start of town. It read: CELEBRATE THISTLE DAYS!
“That could be fun,” Sarah said.
“Right. But I think this will be our first stop.” I pointed to a small building in the middle of the block. I pedaled across the street and coasted my bike to the curb by the Thistle’s Falls Historical Society, right between The First National Bank of Thistle’s Falls and a coffee shop called Drips and Drops.
I expected the historical society to be a dim, dusty place, sort of like my current bedroom. But it looked a lot like the school library, with big wooden tables, lots of bookshelves, and plenty of sunlight streaming in from large windows.
“Can I help you?” the man behind the information desk asked. A nameplate on his desk read: MORTON HOLWORTH.
“We’re trying to learn about local ghost stories.” I said. I was half afraid he’d laugh at me. But his body jolted a tiny bit, like he’d been waiting for someone to push his START button.
“Excellent! We have a whole section dedicated to that. Follow me.” Mr. Holworth dashed to a file cabinet at the other end of the room and pulled open a drawer.
“Here we go. This is a good start. It’s newspaper and magazine clippings.” He handed me a thick folder. “That should keep you busy for a while. If you need more sources, we have several books dedicated to our ghosts and many others that mention them.”
I sat at a table and slid half the material to Sarah. “Let’s split it up. Look for anyone who sounds like”—I glanced over my shoulder, to make sure the man wasn’t close enough to hear me, then whispered—“our ghost.”
Apparently, Thistle’s Falls was a good place to live if you wanted to hang around and haunt people. There was no shortage of ghost stories connected to the town. There were railroad brakemen ghosts, tragic romance ghosts, stranded pioneer ghosts, and pretty much every other kind of ghost you could imagine. Except for my ghost with the vest and the visor.
“I didn’t find anything,” I said to Sarah after I looked at the last article.
“Same here,” she said. “Think we should go through the books?”
“Later. I think we need to build up our strength with some ice cream,” I said.
“I like the way you think, cousin,” Sarah said.
I got up and handed the folder back to Mr. Holworth. “Thanks.”
“Leaving?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Come back if you have any more questions!” he said. “I don’t get a lot of visitors.”
“We will.” I headed for the door.
“I looked up the ice cream store before I left home,” Sarah said. “It sounds great.”
“So did I.” I guess that was another thing we had in common. I pushed open the door and found myself face-to-flank with a horse. I slid to a halt as the horse’s tail swished past my nose.
“Oh my!” Sarah said, as she stumbled into me.
“Run!” I said.
It wasn’t just one man on a horse. It was six of them. And it looked like they were robbing the bank!
The horses blocked us from our bikes. The men, who wore handkerchiefs tied around their mouths to hide their faces, dismounted and charged into the bank.
“This way!” I grabbed Sarah’s hand and ran in the other direction, away from the bank, toward an alley. We could hide there until the police came.
“Wait,” Sarah said. She tugged at my hand, pulling me to a stop.
“Are you out of your mind?” I asked, tugging back. “There’s a robbery.”
“They don’t seem to be concerned,” she said, tugging hard enough to make me decide to stop tugging. She pointed across the street, where two policemen were standing by their patrol car, watching the robbers.
Now, I was totally confused.
“I think this is part of the celebration for Thistle Days,” Sarah said.
I really hoped she was right, because that meant we weren’t in danger. But I also really hoped she was wrong, because that would mean I hadn’t been completely panicking about nothing.
Another half dozen men, dressed as an old-time western sheriff and his deputies, ran toward the bank. I noticed there were a lot of people right down the street from us, watching everything.
“I think you’re right,” I said to Sarah. “This is a historical reenactment.” My parents had taken me to see a group of people reenact a Civil War battle last summer. This was a smaller group of reenactors, but I was a lot closer to the action.
A few minutes later, the lawmen came back out of the bank. They were leading the bad guys, who all had their hands tied.
The spectators whooped and cheered as the bad guys were marched down the street, but the crowd didn’t follow the lawmen. They stayed where they were and watched the bank, as if they knew something else was about to happen.
And then someone different came out of the bank. It was a man, tall and thin, wearing a visor and old-fashioned clothes, including a vest. He had a sack in his hands like the kind banks used for cash in movies and cartoons. He crouched, looked both ways, then slinked down the street.
“That looks like him!” I said. “Our ghost.”
The crowd booed him. He picked up speed and ran right past us, letting out an evil cackle.
“He’s a bank robber,” Sarah said.
“We’re being haunted by a thief,” I said. “And he wants us to help him.” If he was a bad person before he became a ghost, what would he do to us if we didn’t help him?
“Now what?” Sarah asked.
“Ice cream,” I said.
“Of course,” she said. “But after that, what do we do?”
“I have no idea,” I said. We went to the shop and ordered our ice cream. It was hard to choose. The flavors were amazing. I had one scoop of banana-peanut-butter swirl and one of triple-chocolate fudge with nuts, pretzel nuggets, and toffee crunch. Sarah had a scoop of kiwi-mango with cinnamon sugar and a scoop of something called sweet-tea surprise. She said it was great. I took her word for it.
The tables at the ice cream parlor had flyers on them that looked like old-time newspapers, telling all sorts of stories about Thistle’s Falls in honor of Thistle Days. I found one with a picture of our ghost and the story of the bank robbery.
“Joshua Thistle, son of town founder, Ishmael Thistle, was a sickly child, prone to nightmares and fevers,” I said, reading the first sentence to Sarah.
“The message!” Sarah said. “It’s not about the town. It’s about a person.”
“That makes sense,” I said.
“I thought the town was named after the thistle plant,” she said.
“Me too,” I said. I read the rest of the story out loud. It was written in old-fashioned language, but I understood the basic idea. Joshua Thistle was terrified of many things, including thunder and the outdoors. He’d even flee a room if someone let out a loud, shrill scream. But he was good with numbers and took a job with the bank. During the robbery, he disappeared with the money from the safe, right before the storm of the century struck the town.
“That explains the visor,” Sarah said after I’d finished reading. “People who worked with their eyes a lot used to wear them. He was probably staring at numbers all day.”
“And plotting crimes,” I said. I turned my attention back to my ice cream. All too soon, it was finished. We left the shop and got back on our bikes.
“I’m not helping him,” I said as we pedaled to the farmhouse. “He robbed a bank.”
“We don’t know that,” Sarah said.
“What are you talking about?” I asked. “You saw the reenactment.”
“Just because you see something in a play doesn’t mean it’s true,” she said. “There are lots of plays where they changed the facts to make the story more interesting. Besides, you have to prove someone is guilty. That’s one of the most important things about the law. We learned that in school.”
“Innocent until proven guilty?” I said.
“Yeah. I remember.” Our teacher had also taught us the word presume. It means the same as assume, so I’m not sure why they need two different words. But basically, everyone is presumed to be innocent.
“We can’t presume anything,” Sarah said. “We have to find out the truth.”
I wasn’t sure about that. The people in town seemed pretty certain that Joshua Thistle was a robber. “We’ll do more research tomorrow,” I said. I figured the guy at the historical society would be happy to see us again. And we’d be happy to see the ice cream shop again. There were plenty more flavors I needed to try. Though none of them involved tea.
When we got to the house, Gramps was waiting for us on the porch. As soon as we reached him, he said, “I presume you have a good explanation for what you did.”
He didn’t look happy. And I had no idea what he was talking about.
I looked at Sarah. Sarah looked at me. We both looked at Gramps. “What did we do?” I asked.
“Follow me.” He opened the screen door and went inside. We followed him.
“Notice anything?” he asked.
I looked at the floor. Back home, I was a notorious mud tracker. I didn’t mean to be messy. Sometimes, I’d forget to wipe my feet. But it hadn’t rained, and the floor was clean.
“I don’t see anything,” I said.
Something flew past my face. I swiped at it.
“Notice anything buzzing?” Gramps asked.
Now I saw it. There were flies in the hallway. A lot of flies. They were zipping through the air and crawling on the walls. “Flies?” I asked.
“Numerous flies,” Gramps said. “Someone left the screen door open.”
Sarah and I exchanged another set of glances. I thought back. I was pretty sure we’d closed the door. It wasn’t our fault the flies got in. But how could we prove it? I didn’t want Gramps to blame me.
“I know they’ll be more careful next time,” Grandma said as she walked up to us.
BANG!
We all looked over as the screen door popped open.
“What in the world was that?” Gramps asked. He pulled the screen door closed before more flies got in.
I wondered whether the ghost was trying to help us. But my arms didn’t itch. I hoped this didn’t mean we had another mysterious visitor to deal with.
BANG!
The door popped open again, swinging wide enough to show us two very frisky squirrels who were chasing each other around the porch, bouncing off the walls, tumbling down the steps, and slamming into the screen door hard enough to make it pop open.
“I’m sorry,” Gramps said. “I shouldn’t have assumed you were guilty.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “It’s an easy mistake to make.”
“Well, let me make it up to you kids. How about I take you into town for ice cream?” he asked.
“Sure!” Sarah and I shouted. I know we’d just had ice cream, but this was a vacation.
Grandma joined us and we all went to the car. As I was sliding into the back seat, I whispered to Sarah, “I think we need to try to help the ghost.”
“Presumed innocence,” she whispered back with just a bit of a smug smile.
I tried a different flavor, this time—almond-butter cookie dough with cherry jam. But I only had one scoop. Sarah had sweet-tea surprise again. She has no imagination.
When we got home, Gramps let us help fix the latch on the screen door so it was safe from being popped open by frisky squirrels.
After dinner, which we had a whole lot later because everyone was pretty full from the ice cream, we played games again.
“You seem worried about something,” Grandma said when we were putting away the game pieces.
“Me?” I asked.
“You keep looking over your shoulder, like you expect to see someone standing there,” she said.
“It must be the ghost stories,” I said. “Sarah and I did a lot of research.”
“Well, I hope this doesn’t give you nightmares,” Gramps said. “If we send you home all jumpy and jittery, your mom will never let you come back. And that would make me sad.”
“Me too,” I said. “But don’t worry. I know those were only stories.”
Grandma pointed at my arms. “Is that a rash?”
“I don’t think so,” I said.
“Well, let’s keep an eye on it,” she said.
That night, as Sarah and I were walking upstairs, she said, “I’ve been thinking about it. The ghost is here because something needs to be fixed. He has some kind of unfinished business that he wants help with.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“I read all about it in the book I took from downstairs,” she said.
“What kind of business?” I asked.
“Clearing his name,” Sarah said. “That’s my best guess. That would mean that he didn’t steal the money—and his problem is that everyone thinks he stole it. Does that make sense?”
I nodded. “We just have to figure out how to clear it.”
“We will,” Sarah said.
As I got into bed, I thought about what Gramps had said. He didn’t want me to get all jittery and jumpy. I wasn’t worried about that. I’d gotten all of my screaming—I mean, shouting—out of me. I was more worried about getting all rashy.
So naturally, right after I turned out the light, my arms started to itch, and the ghost showed up again. I hoped his appearance wasn’t going to turn into a nightly event. I really didn’t enjoy this spooky version of getting tucked in.
“We want to help,” I told him. “We know you were accused of stealing money. And we’re pretty sure you didn’t steal it. So we have to figure out what happened.” I paused to see if he was going to give me any sort of reply. But he just stood there. I guess the only way he could communicate was with the rash writing. I wasn’t thrilled about that. But he needed our help, and I needed to get him to go away forever.
I held my arms out. “Can you give me a clue? A really, really, really short one.”
He drifted closer to me and reached a finger toward my left arm. I gritted my teeth and closed my eyes. My arms itched. And then they hurt. And then the pain moved past hurt into places I don’t want to describe. Because describing the feeling would remind me of it. I tried to stay still, but when I knew I couldn’t hold back my scream any longer, I yanked my arms away.
When I opened my eyes, he’d already backed off. I hoped he’d had time for the whole message. On my arms, I saw two words. CAVE on one arm. FELL on the other.
That was it? It didn’t seem like enough, but it would have to do. Each new message hurt more than the last one. I definitely didn’t want to go through this again. Cave fell was the last clue I could handle.
First thing the next morning, I told Sarah what had happened.
“So he fell into a cave, or fell while he was in a cave,” Sarah said.
“That could have happened anywhere,” I said.
“I don’t think so,” Sarah said. “ It has to be near here. The book said that ghosts stay close to places that are important to them.”
That would definitely make our search a lot easier. “When we find the cave, we’ll find the money,” I said. “And then we’re done. Bye-bye, ghost. And bye-bye, rash, I hope.”
“We need more than just the money,” Sarah said. “We also need proof that Joshua Thistle didn’t steal it. That’s how we’ll clear his name.”
“How are we going to get proof?” I asked.
“We’ll worry about that after we find the money,” she said.
When we finished breakfast, I told Grandma and Gramps, “We’re going to hike around and explore.”
“Have fun,” Gramps said.
Grandma looked at my arm. “I think your rash is getting worse. Maybe I should call your mother. She knows about these things.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “Really.” I glanced at my arms. They definitely didn’t seem fine. And then, as I looked back at my grandparents, my right a
rm started to feel a whole lot less fine. Another word was forming there!
The ghost had sneaked up behind me and reached over my shoulder.
“Gotta go!” I screamed as I leaped from my chair. “I promised Mom I wouldn’t sit around inside all day.”
As I raced outside, I looked at my arm. LEDG was written there. Another clue. I hadn’t given the ghost time to finish it, but I still got the message.
I showed the fading message to Sarah when she joined me. “So we know there’s a ledge involved,” she said.
“That will help.” I looked back at the house. “They must think I’m totally weird. Were they worried when I ran out?”
“They both laughed,” Sarah told me. “Then Grandma said, ‘That boy is just like his mother.’ ”
I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or worried. I turned my attention back to our task. “So, somewhere there’s a cave with a ledge, or below a ledge, or near a ledge, with a bag of money and an explanation for Joshua Thistle’s disappearance,” I said.
“If he ended up in a cave around here, we know he didn’t run off,” Sarah said.
“And we know he became a ghost,” I said.
“He must have had an accident,” Sarah said. “That’s the only reason he wouldn’t have returned the money.”
“That has to be it. Maybe he fell off a ledge and ended up at a cave.”
“We need to find a cave and a cliff,” Sarah said.
We started searching for a cliff that had a cave in it. Or beneath it. There didn’t seem to be any cliffs. There were plenty of hills. None of them had a cave.
An hour later, we stopped, dropped to a seat on a fallen log, and faced each other. We’d only covered a fraction of the property, but we were hot, sweaty, and thirsty.
