Emilio comes over to inspect. “Nope,” he says, shaking his head. “That one’s poisonous! It’s got to have orange on the under part of the mushroom, not the top.”
Who ever knew picking mushrooms would be this hard? And boring. Rosa was right.
They come to a stream where Emilio cups his hands to get a drink of water. Mischief Season really must finally be over, because there’s mint growing on the bank. Sergio pinches a leaf and sniffs it.
“Why do Janara like the smell of oregano?” Sergio asks. “Mint smells so much better!”
“They like what they like,” Emilio says, shrugging.
“But how do you know that that’s what they like?”
“Because someone told me,” Emilio says, getting annoyed, or agitated, or something.
“The ‘mystery person,’ right?” Sergio says. “But how do they know? And how do you know they know?”
“Because he’s a Janara!” Emilio blurts out.
“He’s a Janara!” Sergio says. “For real?”
Emilio smacks himself on the forehead. “I shouldn’t have told you that!”
“Who is it?” Sergio says. “Come on, you’ve got to tell me!”
“There’s no way I can tell you who it is! I’d get into big trouble. He’d get into big trouble! But . . .” Emilio says, stopping himself. “He did tell me something else. A secret. A BIG secret.”
“A secret? What is it?” Sergio says. “Come on, you can’t just tell me you have a secret and then not tell me what it is!”
“If I tell you, do you promise not to tell anyone else?”
“I promise!”
“Okay,” Emilio says, looking around to see if anyone’s here. But who could be here? Sergio has no idea where here even is.
“Someone we know is a Janara,” Emilio whispers. “Because one of us is living with a Janara!”
“What?” Sergio says. “Are you sure?”
“That’s what this person told me,” Emilio says. “And he was right about the oregano.”
Sergio can’t believe it! One of them, living with a Janara—could it really be true?
“Who do you think it is?” he says.
“I don’t know. It could be anybody!” Emilio says. “Well, anybody except Dino, I guess. And your little brothers.”
That was for sure. Demons, maybe, but not Janara.
Sergio gets a shiver. He looks up and sees a cloud passing over the sun.
“Do you think Janara are doing that?” Sergio says, pointing up at the roaming cloud. Some people say Janara don’t like being talked about and will turn the weather bad if you do.
Emilio looks up. “Nah, it’s just the wind,” he says. “How many mushrooms have you got?”
Sergio looks in his shirt. “Three.”
“Two,” Emilio says, plucking one of them out.
Sergio squints, trying to see what’s wrong with it.
“Don’t worry, we’re in it together, even-steven,” Emilio says. “I’ll get the money from Zia Giltruta and stop by in the morning with your half.”
Heading home, Sergio can’t stop thinking about the money. And the secret! One of them lives with a Janara! This is big news—the BIGGEST. He has to go tell Primo! Oh, wait. Dang! He can’t! It’s a secret. He keeps forgetting. Which reminds him—the candles! Bis-Bis will be furious if he forgets the candles again!
But Sergio is forgetting something else, too.
4
PROMISE NOT TO TELL, PART II
“. . . AND there were twenty soldiers guarding the mule train. It was carrying the month’s pay for the entire army, with one chest of silver coins and another of gold. Then, right as they rounded the mountain into the Forks, BAM! Il Diavolino and his men ambushed them!”
Sergio gulps. Witches are one thing, but bandits are really scary.
“If anyone makes a move, I’ll cut his head off!” Zì Filippo says in a throaty voice, snipping a wick and letting two candles drop into a bag. “That’s what Il Diavolino told them. Then he took everything. The silver, the gold, the mules—even their clothes—and left the whole regiment standing naked on the highway. Then his whole band disappeared—POOF!—back into the mountains.”
As he hands Sergio the bag, the candlemaker says in a whisper, “They say Il Diavolino has a vendetta against the army paymaster and that’s why he attacked them!”
A vendetta is an argument that never ends. It can be over something important—like a murder—or over the littlest insult, like not doffing your cap. Bandits always have vendettas, but so do lots of people in Benevento.
Imagining he’s a bandit making his getaway with a sack of silver and gold, Sergio heads home with the bag of candles under his arm. When he gets there, he opens the door as quietly as he can, to avoid his mother hearing him and giving him something else to do.
Creeping, he sees Primo holding Settimo and singing him a nursery rhyme.
That’s strange, Sergio thinks, and makes a loud noise to alert Primo he’s there.
Primo fast puts down the naked baby, who crawls away.
“Isidora is so weird!” Primo says. “The whole time we were collecting wood she wouldn’t even speak. She’s the total opposite of fun.”
While Primo goes on and on—he always complains about his sister—all Sergio can think about is how much he wants to tell him The Secret. Since he can’t, Sergio tries his best not to think about it. But how can you not think about something you are trying so hard not to think about? It’s like trying not to picture a bear wearing a hat. See? You just did!
“Anyway, forget my dumb sister,” Primo says. “How was mushroom hunting with Emilio?”
“I didn’t go mushroom hunting with Emilio,” Sergio says, not wanting to give anything away.
“What are you talking about?” Primo says. “I saw you go off with Emilio.”
“Oh, yeah, I did,” Sergio says, trying to think quick. “But there weren’t any mushrooms, so I left right away.”
Primo gives him a look of disbelief. “I just ran into Emilio, and he was holding a huge basket of mushrooms. He said you guys were out picking for three hours!”
“Uh . . .” Sergio says.
Primo squints at Sergio. “Are you hiding something from me? A secret?’
“No, I’m not hiding a secret,” Sergio says nervously, and scratches the back of his neck.
“A-ha!” Primo says. “You always scratch the back of your neck when you’re lying! What’s the secret? Come on, give it up!”
“No, I can’t!” Whoops, Sergio thinks. “I mean, there is no secret!”
“Let’s see . . .” Primo says, tapping his chin. “It’s got to be something that happened while you were with Emilio. Or something Emilio told you. Is it about the oregano?”
The way Primo looks at Sergio, it’s like he’s seeing right inside of him.
“He told you who told him, didn’t he?” Primo says. “So who is it? Who’s the mystery man?”
“I don’t know, I swear!” Sergio says. “Emilio wouldn’t tell me who told him about the oregano or anything.”
“What ‘or anything’?” Primo says. “Come on, spill it!”
The thing is, Sergio really wants to tell Primo, even though he knows he’ll get into trouble for it at some point.
“Do you promise not to tell anyone else?” Sergio says. “Especially not Rosa?”
“I promise!”
“Okay,” Sergio says. “The person who told Emilio about the oregano is a real live Janara.” Sergio stops, looks around, and covers his mouth. “And the crazy thing is,” he whispers, “he said that one of us lives with a Janara.”
Primo’s eyes go round. “Are you serious? That’s fan-tas-tic! Does he have any idea who it could—”
“Sergio! Where have you been!” his mom yells from outside the
back door.
“Right here, Mom!” Sergio hollers. He raises a finger to his lips and goes “SHHH!” to Primo.
Mom enters with her usual scowl. Then she sees Primo.
“Oh, Primo!” she says, her whole face changing as she goes to hug him. “My dear, sweet boy, it’s so good to see you!”
Her gushing mortifies Sergio. Primo is his best friend, not hers! Not that Primo seems to mind.
“If I had a son, I’d want him to be just like you, Primo!” she says.
“But Mom, you DO have a son,” Sergio says. “You have seven sons!”
“It’s just an expression.”
“No, it’s not!” Sergio says.
“Hey, what’s that smell?” Primo says.
It’s coming from Settimo. Or rather, the little yellow puddle Settimo just left on the dirt floor.
“Look at that!” Sergio’s mom says. “Sergio! Where are all those diapers I sent you to wash?”
Uh-oh.
Sergio forgot all about the diapers!
He and Primo quickly run—clop clop clop, the horns, and spit!—down to the river and right to the spot where Sergio left the diapers. But they aren’t there!
“So who do you think the Janara could be?” Primo says excitedly.
“Forget about the Janara!” Sergio says. “What happened to the diapers?”
They search and search, but can’t find so much as a trace of them.
“This is not going to be good,” Primo says, leaving Sergio back at his door.
“So?” his mother says, tapping her foot as he comes in. “Where are they? Where are all the diapers?!”
“Uh, I think a Janara took them?” Sergio says. “You know how bad the mischiefs have been. . . .”
Unfortunately, this is not a good excuse. Janara don’t steal stuff—they just ruin things—and they never do mischiefs in the middle of the day.
“Now what am I supposed to do? Just let the babies go caca all over the floor?” his mom says. “Do you have any idea how much that many diapers cost?”
She throws her hands up in the air and shakes them. She only does this when she’s really mad.
“You can’t do a single simple thing I ask of you,” she says, “and yet every day, you do exactly what that ghost of yours wants!”
“No, I don’t!” Sergio says. “I screw up everything he wants, too! Go ask him—he’s always mad at me for getting his orders wrong.”
Just when it looks like her eyes are about to pop out of her head, his mom suddenly calms down. Then her face turns sweet.
That is a bad sign.
“You know, dear,” she says. “It has become awfully crowded in this apartment. I mean, doesn’t it just break your heart that your little brothers have to sleep in crates and baskets? And isn’t it awful for you to sleep on that table?”
Sergio thinks about getting stabbed in the ribs by the knife this morning, but he doesn’t like the way this conversation is going so he just says, “Well, it’s not so bad actual—”
“And really, there is so much room upstairs. It’s just that ghost, after all, and he doesn’t even have a body! I really think it would be better for you to move in with him,” she says. “Upstairs.”
“But, Mom—”
“And then you’ll be able to take care of his needs more easily, and you will have more time during the day to come down and help me.”
“But, Mom—”
“No buts!” she says, all smiles. “Why, I can’t believe I never thought of this before!”
She pushes him out the door and slams it shut with Sergio still But-Mom-ing her.
Sergio stands there, unable to believe it. He’s nine years old and he just got kicked out of the house. By his own mother!
But that’s not the worst part of it. The worst part is that now he has to go tell Bis-Bis he’s coming to live with him.
“WHAT? Your mother told you to WHAT?”
Bis-Bis’s reaction is even worse than Sergio feared.
“Why, why, why, that’s impossible. Impossible!” Bis-Bis sputters. “It’s that mother of yours—she’s infuriating! I TOLD your father he shouldn’t marry her!”
“But if my parents never got married,” Sergio says, “then I wouldn’t exist.”
“Exactly!”
No matter how much he gets insulted, Sergio has to take it. As for why, look no farther than the house next door, which has been abandoned for a hundred years—and all because the family made their ghost mad and she chased them out.
If Sergio doesn’t want to wind up sleeping with the rabbits in the garden shed, he has to figure out some way that Bis-Bis will allow him to move in.
He starts by begging.
“Please, please, Bis-Bis,” he says. “I promise I won’t be any trouble!”
“Impossible, I said!” the ghost says. “I can’t have some child running around my house all day long.”
“I’d mostly just be sleeping here,” Sergio says.
“Well, I’m a night person,” Bis-Bis says, crossing his arms. He farts loudly.
Then Sergio remembers the bag he’s carrying.
“I’ve got your candles,” Sergio says. He holds them up and smiles. “The yellow ones, just like you like.”
Bis-Bis looks at them, simmering.
“Oh, all right, FINE!” Bis-Bis says, throwing up his arms so violently they pop off. “I can’t say no to that stupid smile. All those teeth!” He sits down in his chair and motions toward the corner. “I suppose you can sleep on the floor over there.”
“Thank you thank you thank you!” Sergio says. “It’s only temporary, I promise! My mom probably wasn’t even serious. I mean, who would send their nine-year-old boy to go live with a—” Sergio doesn’t finish the sentence.
5
CATCH A JANARA BY THE HAIR
SERGIO thought the table was uncomfortable, but sleeping on the floor is worse. Not that he even slept, not with Bis-Bis knocking and banging around. What does he do all night?
Opening the door outside, Sergio allows himself to hope. Maybe his mom really isn’t serious about making him stay with Bis-Bis. Maybe it’s just for one night. To prove a point!
At the bottom of the steps, however, a basket is filled with all of Sergio’s clothes. Emilio is standing there looking at it.
“Hey, why is all your stuff out here?” Emilo says, pointing.
Sergio tells him the whole story.
Emilio says he’s sorry. “But here.” He hands Sergio twenty-three quattrini. “Your half of the mushroom take.”
Wow! Sergio thinks, looking at the coins in his hand. He’s never had this much money of his own before.
“One other thing,” Emilio says, lowering his voice. “I should have never told you about . . . y’know. The secret. There could be real trouble if anyone finds out.”
He looks at Sergio crossways. “You haven’t told anybody else about it, have you?”
“No,” Sergio says, fighting the urge to scratch the back of his neck. “No way.”
“Are you sure?” Emilio says. “Not even Primo?”
“Definitely not Primo!” Sergio says.
“Thank Plutone,” Emilio says. “I just started to get worried. Because what if you did tell Primo? Then everyone would know!”
“I told Maria Beppina,” Primo says.
“You what?!” Sergio says.
Standing next to Primo is Maria Beppina, turning red.
Sergio ran into the two of them at the fountain by the arch, filling up water pails. Before Primo even said anything, Sergio had a sinking feeling.
“I had to tell somebody that one of us lives with a Janara,” Primo says. “And Maria Beppina is the only person I could trust not to tell anyone else. Isn’t that right, Maria?”
“Yes,” she say
s, placing a hand on her chest. “I swear!”
Sergio sighs as he fills up his water buckets. “Just make sure Emilio doesn’t find out that you know. He’ll kill me!”
“Emilio told me something,” Primo says, his mouth hooking into a smirk. “He said your mom kicked you out of the house and you have to live upstairs with your ghost now.”
“Is it true?” Maria Beppina says, genuinely concerned.
Now Sergio tells them the whole story.
“But who would steal all those diapers?”
“I have no idea!” Sergio says. “Manalonga?”
“Do Manalonga have babies?” Maria Beppina scrunches her face up, trying to imagine a Manalonga in diapers. “Do they even have bodies?”
“I don’t care,” Sergio says. He picks up a full bucket in each hand and starts heading home. “All I want is to move back downstairs.”
“What are you complaining about?” Primo says. “I’d love for my momma to kick me out! No one to tell you when to go to sleep, no one to tell you where to go or what to do at night!”
“But I don’t want to go anywhere or do anything!” Sergio says. “Not at night, anyway.”
In front of the bakery, they stop and put down their buckets to give their aching arms a break.
“So I was thinking,” Primo says, leaning in and whispering. “If we can figure out who the Janara is, we can trap him!”
“Or her,” Maria Beppina says.
“Why would we want to do that?” Sergio says.
“Because Nonna Jovanna says if you catch a Janara by the hair, they have to grant you seven generations of good luck.”
“How can you grab a Janara’s hair if they’re made of wind?” Maria Beppina says. “Maybe we need a sack to trap them. If only Rosa knew the secret, she could definitely catch one.”
“I can catch one faster!” Primo says. “Let’s go tell her and I’ll prove it!”
“No! If we tell Rosa the secret, Emilio will kill me twice!” Sergio says. “Listen, forget about Janara and help me figure out how to get my mom to let me back into the house!”
Respect Your Ghosts Page 2
