The Ghost of Ernie P.

by Betty Ren Wright

  Ernie had been planning to bully Margo Muggin into doing what he wanted. That was his Top Secret Project. If she refused, he’d tell everyone she was a witch, and her new life in Treverton would be spoiled. Maybe he’d wanted her to teach him black magic, so he could cast spells himself. The thought of Ernie Barber with the power to perform black magic made Jeff roll over and bury his face in his arms.

  Now that he’d discovered what the Top Secret Project was, there were still other questions to be answered. Why did Ernie’s ghost want to continue the T S P? It was too late for Ernie to learn black magic now. And why did Ernie need Jeff’s help? Well, a ghost could scare people. He could plant suggestions in their minds and try to influence them. He could make clippings move short distances—from a bag to a jeans pocket, for example. But there must be limits to what he could do by himself. He must need help from a real person to carry out a Top Secret Project. Jeff sighed, sat up, and stuffed the clippings back into their envelope.

  If I burn this stuff, maybe that’ll end it, he thought. Then he remembered the lightning bolts that had come crashing down the day of Ernie’s funeral. He didn’t dare burn the clippings. An angry ghost was a nasty ghost.

  There was one other possibility. Jeff’s first assignment was to “hide the evidence.” I can do that, he thought. I’ll hide the clippings in a place where no one will ever see them again. Including me!

  Would that be enough? He thought of what Margo Muggin had said in those dreadful moments when they were alone in the living room. “I know why you came here,” she’d hissed. “And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll go while you can. Before it’s too late!”

  Hiding the evidence wasn’t going to solve this problem—not if Margo knew about the Top Secret Project. Probably Ernie had visited her himself, before he died. Maybe—Jeff groaned aloud—maybe he’d even told her that one of these days his best friend Jeffrey Keppel would stop in to “arrange the payoff.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “What will it be, your highness, meat loaf or pork chops?” Jeff’s mother asked. “Your wish is my command.”

  “Either one,” Jeff said. “It doesn’t matter.” He was trying to think of a place where he could hide the clippings.

  “Pork chops, then,” Mrs. Keppel said in the same bright tone. “I’ll start them, while you run downstairs and get a jar of applesauce.”

  Jeff nodded and headed for the basement, glad to escape his mother’s determined cheerfulness. As usual, she knew when something was bothering him. He wished he could convince her that he wasn’t sick, but if he told her the truth, she’d be more worried than ever. He was pretty sure no one had written a book on what to do when your son started believing in ghosts.

  The fruit cellar was in the far corner of the basement. Jeff switched on the light and looked over the neat rows of fruits, vegetables, and jams. The applesauce was on a bottom shelf, and as he bent down it occurred to him that this might be a good place in which to hide the clippings. There was a box of empty jars in the corner. He took the envelope from his pocket, rolled it up, and pushed it into a jar. Then he slid the jar under the bottom shelf, as far back as it would go. If a mouse sneaked in and chewed up Ernie’s “evidence”—so much the better.

  His mother was talking on the telephone when he came back upstairs. She rolled her eyes at Jeff. “He just came in, Mr. Morgensen. Hang on a minute, please.”

  She held out the receiver, and Jeff backed away in a panic. What could the principal of Lakeview School want with him?

  “It’s something about Ernie,” Mrs. Keppel mouthed. Reluctantly, Jeff took the phone and listened while Mr. Morgensen explained the reason for his call. He’d decided there should be a memorial service for poor Ernest Barber. It would have to be tomorrow, since that was the last day of school, and he knew Jeff would want to take part in it.

  “After all,” the principal said warmly, “you were Ernest’s best friend, Jeffrey. It would be just grand if you’d share some of your special memories of him.”

  Jeff shot a frantic glance at his mother. She smiled encouragingly.

  “I—I don’t think I can,” he said. “I’m sorry—”

  “Of course you can, Jeffrey,” Mr. Morgensen interrupted. Now there was a little less warmth in his voice. “There’s nothing to worry about, my boy. We’re all your friends, you know.”

  “I know, “Jeff said. “But, see, I can’t think of anything—”

  “Try, Jeffrey,” Mr. Morgensen said. “Try for your poor departed friend’s sake. Have something ready by one-thirty tomorrow. I’ll see you then.”

  There was a sharp little click, and the principal was gone.

  “He wants me to talk about Ernie at a memorial service,” Jeff moaned. “I can’t do it.”

  Mrs. Keppel gave him a hug. “Of course you can, darling,” she said. “You mustn’t be afraid of showing your feelings. Let them out—that’s what all the books say. If you break down, people will understand that you miss Ernie very much. Even the President of the United States gets tears in his eyes sometimes.”

  “I’m not worried about that,” Jeff told her. “It’s just—”

  “Just what?” his mother asked. “Are you nervous about getting up in front of all those people?”

  Jeff hated giving speeches, but that wasn’t what was bothering him either. “I just don’t know what to talk about,” he said in a rush. “Mr. Morgensen wants memories.”

  “Well, that shouldn’t be a problem,” Mrs. Keppel said. “Let me see—you can tell them how nice it was to have Ernie wait for you every morning. And you can tell them what he talked about on the way to school, and what he was especially good at. You probably knew him better than anyone else in Lakeview School.”

  Jeff thought about the things Ernie Barber had been good at.

  Playing mean tricks.

  Making fun of people.

  Having his own way.

  The Top Secret Project.

  What great stuff all that would be for a memorial service!

  Still, Jeff knew his mother was right: No one else at Lakeview could make the speech. After the first couple of weeks of Ernie’s insults, sneers, and sneaky tricks, the other students had left the new boy alone.

  When dinner was over and the table cleared, Jeff went up to his room and sat down at his desk with a pencil and paper. He had to find a way of talking about Ernie without really talking about him.

  The first sentences were surprisingly easy. Jeff had noticed that when his mother didn’t know what else to say about an ugly painting or a dull book or a funny-looking baby, she said it was “interesting.”

  Ernie Barber was an interesting person—that made a good beginning. He had lots of interesting ideas that he talked about when we walked to school together in the morning. It would be better not to give examples. Mr. Morgensen wouldn’t want to find out at the memorial service who had poured molasses in all the bathroom soap dispensers. He wouldn’t want to hear who stole the mice from the science lab and set them loose in the teachers’ lounge.

  Ernie had interesting plans for the future. He had an interesting project to work on this summer, but he didn’t tell me much about it before he died: That sounded harmless, as if Ernie had been thinking about a camping trip or skateboarding or helping his father paint the garage.

  Writing the speech wasn’t so hard after all. Jeff tried to remember the stories Mrs. Barber had told him when they were looking at the photos in Ernie’s bedroom.… Ernie probably would have had an interesting life. He might have been an engineer. When he was a little kid he liked to fool around with his father’s car. Or he might have been a fireman. He once helped his folks put out a fire. He might even have become a magician. He dressed up as a magician every Halloween.

  Jeff eyed the last sentence doubtfully. Maybe he shouldn’t mention the magician part. Magic reminded him of witches, and witches made him think about the Top Secret Project. If Ernie had lived long enough to take magic lessons from Margo Muggin
, he might have grown up to be a witch himself. No, he would have been a warlock; a male witch was called a warlock. He would have collapsed his neighbors’ roofs and made wallets disappear and done a lot worse things than that.

  A board creaked behind him, and Jeff whirled around. His mother was in the doorway watching him anxiously.

  “How’s it going?” she asked. “Have you thought of what you want to say at the memorial service?”

  Jeff read her what he’d written. The whole speech took less than a minute.

  “It’s fine so far, but it’s kind of short, isn’t it?” Mrs. Keppel said. “What else are you going to tell them, dear?”

  Jeff hunched over the paper. “Don’t know,” he mumbled. “Can’t think of anything else.”

  “Well, there must be something,” Mrs. Keppel insisted. “Maybe you could—oh, I know! How about finishing up with a nice little essay on friendship? Friendship in general?”

  Jeff thought it over. He disliked writing essays almost as much as he disliked giving speeches, but he was desperate. Maybe he could write an essay about friendship if he thought about Art Patterson instead of Ernie Barber.

  Twenty minutes later the speech was finished. Jeff read it over with satisfaction. He’d written about friends having fun together and telling secrets to one another. He talked about sharing ideas and jokes, and he mentioned that friends could even get mad at each other without spoiling the friendship. He wished Art were going to be in school tomorrow to hear that last part.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “Right this way, Jeffrey,” Mr. Morgensen said. “Follow me, and don’t trip over those wires.”

  Jeff had never been backstage before. All around him were reminders of past school plays—a painted section of the yellow brick road from The Wizard of Oz, a cornfield from Oklahoma, an expanse of stone wall that looked as if it might have been part of a castle or a prison. He would have liked to have looked around more, but Mr. Morgensen was charging like a buffalo through the maze of scenery.

  “Shame!” The principal stopped so suddenly that Jeff almost crashed into Mr. Morgensen’s broad back. Just ahead, the red-and-white-robed members of the school chorus were gathered in a corner. One of the boys was standing on his head, blue-jeaned legs waving, his robe dropped down over his face. Some of the girls were giggling.

  “Stand up, young man.” Mr. Morgensen’s harsh whisper brought instant silence. “Right side up, do you hear? How dare you behave like this on such a solemn occasion?”

  The upside-down boy collapsed, and Tony Scaffidi’s face peeked from under the robe. “Sorry,” he muttered, “I was just—”

  “I know what you were doing,” Mr. Morgensen snapped, “and I don’t want you to do it. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, Mr. Morgensen.” Tony stood up, smoothed his robe, and stuck out his tongue at Jeff as the principal turned away. Jeff knew how he felt. It was a pain, being scolded in front of a lot of people. Still, Jeff thought glumly, he’d rather get a scolding any day than give a speech.

  “Come along, Jeffrey,” Mr. Morgensen moved on, majestically, and the members of the chorus stepped back out of the way. Jeff followed. Somebody—probably Tony—whispered, “Come along, Jeffrey,” and everyone snickered.

  Suddenly they were on the stage. Jeff was shocked at how big the auditorium looked from this angle. The noise was deafening. Mr. Morgensen gestured toward a folding chair close to the podium, and Jeff collapsed with a thunk. Just the thought of standing up and speaking in front of all these people turned his knees to jelly.

  The principal sat next to Jeff, and soon they were joined by Mrs. Vogel, Jeff’s homeroom teacher, and a youngish man in a dark suit. The young man looked familiar, and after a moment Jeff realized this was the minister who had almost been hit by lightning at the cemetery. That gave him something else to worry about. What if the minister mentioned Ernie’s middle name during the memorial service? Ernie’s ghost might think that deserved a punishment far worse than lightning and thunder. Could a ghost stir up a tornado—or an earthquake?

  The next half hour seemed endless. Mr. Morgensen spoke first. Then the chorus filed in, sang two sad songs, and filed out again. The minister gave a long prayer, but to Jeff’s relief he didn’t mention Ernie’s middle name.

  After the prayer Mrs. Vogel went to the podium. She had been Ernie’s homeroom teacher, and she said she was going to miss having Ernie in her class. Jeff thought she must have had as much trouble with her speech as he’d had with his. Obviously, she couldn’t say why she’d miss Ernie. He wouldn’t be there to put a cockroach in her desk drawer. He wouldn’t be around to paint the blackboard erasers with colorless nail polish, or glue together the pages of the attendance book. Oh, she’d miss Ernie Barber, all right.

  By the time it was his turn to talk, Jeff had begun to pick out people he knew from the blur of faces in front of him. The rest of Mrs. Vogel’s homeroom were seated right down in front because it was their classmate who was being honored. Across from them he saw Mrs. Barber, looking very solemn. She nodded sorrowfully to Jeff and whispered to the man next to her, a big, round-faced fellow who had to be Ernie’s father. Jeff remembered seeing him at the cemetery. Jeff supposed she was telling him that this was Jeffrey Keppel, the boy Ernie had been tutoring.

  “And now,” Mr. Morgensen announced, “we will hear from Ernest’s classmate and closest friend Jeffrey Keppel.”

  Jeff stood up. His mouth was dry as dust, but when he walked to the microphone his knees no longer wobbled. Now they were stiff and unbending, as if they were carved of wood. What if he opened his mouth to talk and nothing came out? What if he’d lost his voice in the last half hour? You can’t lose your voice on such a solemn occasion, Mr. Morgensen would say. Try again, Jeffrey. Remember, we’re all your friends here.

  Jeff cleared his throat. “Ernie Barber was an interesting person,” he began. “He had lots of interesting ideas.”

  Now it seemed to Jeff that there were two Jeff Keppels. One of them clutched the speech and read it slowly, the way he’d practiced at home. The other one stood a little way off, listening as if he’d never heard any of this before. It sounded pretty good, he decided, especially when he came to the part about friendship.

  “Having a friend is very important. You can talk to your friend about your problems, and you can do stuff together, like camping out. You can go places and tell jokes. You can even fight once in a while. That doesn’t matter if you are really good friends.…”

  One more paragraph to go. Jeff turned the final page, and it was then that the two Jeff Keppels became one again—one stammering, sweating, red-faced nothing. Because the last page of the speech was gone. In its place was the newspaper clipping about Margo Muggin.

  Frantically, Jeff shuffled the pages, trying to make the final paragraph reappear. He closed his eyes for a second and opened them again. The newspaper story was still there. What was worse, he realized that he wanted to tell the audience about the clipping. He wanted to read it to them and tell everyone whose picture it was.

  “Suburban witch accused by—” he began, then stopped, horrified. He was actually reading the headline of the article, and he didn’t know why. He just felt as if he was supposed to do it. The way his mother had felt she was supposed to make sauerkraut rye and send Jeff to the Muggins’ house with the recipe. The way Coach Peretti had suddenly remembered that Ernie’s gym locker had to be emptied, and had asked Jeff to take care of it. Now Jeff was getting a ghostly command of his own. Instead of hiding the Top Secret Project, he was supposed to tell everyone in Lakeview School about the witch named Margo Muggin.

  With a smothered groan, Jeff hunched over the podium. He knew Mrs. Vogel, Mr. Morgensen and the minister were watching him with concern.

  If only he could remember how he had ended the essay on friendship! All he could think of was the newspaper article lying there in front of him. With every bit of strength he had, he fought to keep from reading it aloud. Slowly, the urge faded. />
  “Thank you, Jeffrey.” Mr. Morgensen was beside him, gently elbowing him away from the microphone. “That was a fine tribute to your friend. We all know how hard it is to talk about our deepest emotions.”

  Jeff looked around helplessly. There was no way he could explain what had almost happened, or how he actually felt. He stumbled to his chair, grateful for the chance to escape. Of course, now his classmates were going to be more sure than ever that Ernie had been his best friend, but he couldn’t help that. The lie just kept getting bigger.

  Mr. Morgensen announced that the memorial service was over, and, since this was the last day of school, he wished everyone a pleasant summer and suggested they read a book a week during vacation. Jeff listened numbly. On the last afternoon of school you were supposed to feel great, but he didn’t feel anything. Ernie’s ghost was ruining his life.

  The numbness lasted through the final hour in Mrs. Vogel’s homeroom. His classmates told him he’d given a good speech, but he knew they thought it was weird the way he’d stopped so suddenly. He didn’t care. He didn’t even wince when Mrs. Vogel walked to the classroom door with him and said she hoped he’d feel better soon.

  When he reached his locker, the halls were almost empty. He opened the locker and took out his notebooks and his jacket. There was something else he ought to take home with him, but what was it? Something he’d brought to school this morning. Something important.… Then he knew what it was he’d forgotten. He didn’t have his speech. He’d left it, with the clipping about Margo Muggin, on the auditorium stage.

  Jeff leaned against his locker. He didn’t want to go back to the empty auditorium, but he’d have to do it. Ernie’s ghost had whisked the clippings from the Keppels’ fruit cellar to the folder containing Jeff’s speech, and Jeff had carried the folder to school. Now the clipping was lying around for anyone to read. That might please Ernie’s ghost, but it wouldn’t please Margo Muggin one bit. Jeff shuddered at the thought of what she might do to him if she found out. Which was worse, he wondered, an angry ghost or an angry witch?