by Richard Peck
I’d draped and veiled myself in Sybil’s glowing gauze before I heard the Professor approach. He was humming a boozy tune. I nearly gave way to last-minute fright. Though I didn’t fear him, my plans would go haywire if he got a good look at me, for he’d find Sybil greatly changed.
He took a long route across the room and rapped sharply on the cabinet doors, right against my ear. “Well, Sweet Sybil, my little Cockney Immortal, art thou within, you little baggage?”
I rapped once on the inside of the door, meaning yes.
“Come now, my coy little sprite, let us reserve the rapping for the rubes. Answer nicely or I’ll box your ears.”
I spoke directly into the empty bean can for a hollow effect. “Oooiuw,” I whined, “leave orf! I ’ardly ’ad a wink of sleep orl night. Leave me alone, or I’ll be no good at the seance.”
“A restless night, I daresay,” the Professor replied. His furry voice had a dangerous edge on it. “The padlock on the downstairs door is twisted beyond mending. Am I to deduce that you flitted out for a breath of night air? You know the punishment for that!”
“Oooiuw,” I whimpered, thinking fast, “a gang of rough boys pushed in ’ere. But I sent ’em packing wiv a flea in their ear. Scared ’em orf wiv my spirit act.”
“Quite right,” said the Professor. “You had nothing of a more . . . intimate nature to do with these boys, I trust?”
“Not likely,” I whinnied.
“Are you coming down with something, Sybil?” he inquired. “Your voice sounds hoarse.”
“As well it might!” I shot back. “There’s damp in this cabinet, and this ’all is a regular tunnel of drafts. It’s worse than . . . that place in Vandalia.”
“Ah, Sybil, what a little ingrate you are. But for me, you’d be sleeping under a hedge somewhere. And don’t speak lightly of Vandalia. We did well there. I’ll see a tidy profit from our offerings in that village, even at pawnshop prices.”
I watched him through a peephole as he donned his cape and ran a black thread from his knee joint to the table. But he hadn’t finished his preaching.
“The conclusion of yesterday’s seance was suitably . . . dramatic. Particularly for a first performance. It will draw the yokels. The old dame swooning added just the right conclusion—though I have learned at the hotel bar that she’s a well-known local lunatic.
“But we must do better today than a single gold watch, my dear Sybil. I expect you to be on your toes, as it were. Let’s pick this afternoon’s pilgrims as clean as possible. Otherwise I will be forced to take it out of your hide.”
I was spared more threats by voices at the bottom of the stairs. “Hark!” said the Professor. “The first of the suckers approach. Are you suitably attired, Sybil?”
I rapped once for yes.
A short while later he began his pitch. “Ah, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the way station to a Better World! Enter this crepuscular chamber wherein the darkness will reveal more than the light of ordinary day!”
Crikey, I thought to myself and watched through the peephole. Between flutters from the Professor’s cape, I could see the room filling with forms. Chairs bumped, and there was some nervous giggling, quickly stifled. I saw or heard nobody familiar, and I began to think of suitable revenge if Alexander failed to turn up with his brother-in-law, the reporter. I knew I could count on Miss Dabney, though I hoped she would not cave in again.
There was a good turnout, and the Professor’s flowing words had them swaying in their seats at once. My hand went out to various items I’d pulled from the cabinet walls. I lit a match to make a quick inventory.
“Be gone, Worldly Concerns!” the Professor chanted. “Be gone, Doubting Thoughts!” I lost track of Miss Dabney’s papa’s watch. It’d slipped down behind the chamber pot, but I fished it out. “Draw nigh, Spirit of Mystery, Light-Bringer from the Blessed Isles of Forgetfulness.”
I was alert just as he thundered, “IS ANYBODY THERE? If you’re amongst us, make a sign. Rap on this here table, Ethereal Courier! One rap for yes, a couple for no.”
The table rapped once, and a gasp rose in the room. The Professor’s cape flapped, and I lifted the catch on the doors. I also swept up the gold pocket watch. And then I was beside him, and if I seemed unlike Sybil, it was too late. For I was on the stage.
“Be still, my soul,” Professor Regis boomed, “for we poor mortals gathered here are honored by a ghostly guest. Is it you, Little Sybil, who passed over centuries before yet return to lead us lest we fall down in darkness?”
I held my tongue while the table verified me.
“Then go forth to comfort one or more in this company. Preferably more.”
My foot tangled in a trailing veil, so I did not float to the back of the hall with Sybil’s grace. Still, I made it there, flatfooted. Several people were impressed enough to bury their faces in their hands. I moved along behind several tight collars and quivering hats, looking for my confederates.
Then I spotted Miss Dabney, though she was better disguised than I was. A black mantilla was pulled over her old head. Her idea of concealment was to forsake anything English. She seemed to be impersonating Queen Isabella of Spain. I waved a ghostly hand at the Professor over her head.
“Well, Sybil,” he bellowed, “have you found an earthling divided by death from a loved one?” I raised one finger, and the table rapped once, right on cue.
“And has this poor soul suffered a loss and a wound never healed?” One of my fingers went up in reply, and the table rapped again. “And is there a sacred memento of the Departed this sad lady, wrapped in her mourning veil, carries on her person?” Up went my finger again, followed by a knee rap. Then I drew out the gold watch from my sleeve and held it, turning in the air, for all to see. Miss Dabney reached up for it, and it disappeared into her reticule.
“Oh, what a thing is a sacred keepsake!” chanted the Professor. He blinked in the dark, disbelieving that his game had been turned around on him. I floated up the center of the hall, making for the cabinet. At this particular seance, speed was my chief ally. As I brushed past the Professor, he reached out and grabbed my sleeve, but it came away in his hand. The crowd stirred, and I was soon back inside the cabinet.
In a strangling voice the Professor pressed on. “Dear Sybil, thou antic sprite!” His elbow thumped the cabinet doors. “Speak a message from the . . . ah . . . Great Beyond to prove your . . . extraordinary powers!”
“Oiuwww,” I began in Sybil’s voice, “I’m the Ghost of Christmas Past!” As it was December, this was a timely, seasonal touch.
“What in the hell,” groaned the Professor. Otherwise silence filled the hall.
“I’m the Ghost of Christmas Past,” I insisted, “come back to distribute Sacred Mementos to the earthbound believers, ’ere in this sacred sanctuary, rubes, yokels, and suckers though they be.”
With that I burst through the doors past the Professor, who was witless with shock. I was stocked with everything in his treasure trove. My bust had a new, irregular shape, for everything was stuffed down my middy blouse under Sybil’s glowing costume.
Floating up to a farmerish-looking man in the nearest chair, I whipped out a solid silver cigar box and handed it over. “I hope you smoke,” said I in a cheerful voice. Meaning to be a moving target if the Professor went into action, I flitted across to a shabbily dressed woman and dropped a garnet brooch in her lap. She made a grab for it. “A little something to remember me by,” I said in my own voice.
Then I spied Alexander sitting beside his brother-in-law, who seemed to be writing blind on a note pad. “And have you been a good little boy this year?” I inquired of Alexander, tossing him a pair of tortoise-shell combs set with diamond chips.
By now several in the crowd were on their feet, and the seance mood was shattered. Some rough type yelled out, “Throw something my way, girly!” I pitched him a pair of cuff links in mother-of-pearl. And I let fly with a moonstone ring in the direction of another outstretched han
d, looming up like a catcher’s mitt. The air was full of the Professor’s profits.
“Stop thief!” he shrieked. But the black thread connecting him to the table seemed to chain him to the spot. “I am being robbed blind! Cut that out, Sybil!” And then again in a different tone . . . “Sybil?”
I had a double strand of pearls with a coral clasp still left in my front. I bore down on a slender lady in a heavily veiled hat, not stylish. “Here you go, sweetie,” I said to her, very pert, “a small token of my esteem.”
And great was my surprise when her hand shot out, locking around my wrist. The pearls rattled to the floor while the Professor sobbed in the background. The lady threw back her veil with her free hand. Even in that light I saw it was my teacher, Miss Mae Spaulding.
Somebody ripped the window blinds down, and light flooded in. People were standing on chairs. Others, unwilling to be seen at a seance, real or false, were ganging for the door. The cabinet was thrown open as pilferers rifled it for more treasure. Its unhinged doors smacked the floor, raising dust. The Professor punched the air with small fists, crying out for justice. The entire hall was a true beehive.
I meant to be out of my drapings and gone by then. But Miss Spaulding had me in one of her hammer locks. The sight of me in the grip of our teacher sent Alexander scurrying behind his brother-in-law. But of course in the long run there is no escaping Miss Spaulding.
Though the racket in the room was deafening, I heard her plain. “What a lot of explaining you have to do, Blossom,” said she in an even tone.
11
BEFORE LOWELL SEAFORTH’S STORY hit the next morning’s newspaper, Professor Regis was long gone. He skipped directly from the Odd Fellows Hall to the depot with a mob behind him, half mean and half jeering. The public does not mind being cheated, but they like it to be convincing.
Alexander had seen fit to alert his gang, and they yapped at the Professor’s heels like a pack of dogs. Les Dawson tried to shy a rock through a parlor-car window of The City of Joliet. It was reported that the Professor left the county cowering in the baggage car.
He went very short of baggage. His clever cabinet was kindling wood. He’d lost track of the Spirit Sybil. And his valise waits at the Cornhusker Hotel to this day.
None of this good work made me a heroine to Miss Spaulding. To her, tardiness is a misdemeanor, but truancy is a felony, and for every crime she has a punishment readymade. Mine was to serve one hour detention after school every day till Christmas.
She dropped her net over Alexander on the same charge, but we served time in separate rooms. Alexander was not speaking to me anyhow, and said so. As we were being led away, he snarled, “I don’t come near you, Blossom, but what I get up to my hips in trouble.” Though hips was not the word he used.
When Miss Spaulding put me in her office that first afternoon, I meant to soften her up by satisfying her curiosity. She’d asked for explanations, and I had plenty. Thinking she had some Second Sight herself for knowing where to find me, I put a careful question. But she waved it away. “Rumors have been flying, Blossom, that you are dabbling in the occult these days. Doubtless this is just a phase you are going through. But when you and a certain other party did not show up at school on a day when a seance was advertised, I put two and two together.” She was not talking of arithmetic.
Then she left me alone in her office to cool my heels and contemplate my crime. This brought back the earlier time I’d been carried in there half strangled by Les Dawson, which was a picnic compared to the present situation.
There’s no outguessing Miss Spaulding. She returned with Alexander’s brother-in-law, Seaforth. “Well, Blossom,” she said, glittering at me through her pince-nez glasses, “though I am about half tired of your highjinks, I have given your case long thought. And I will review it to refresh your memory. You recall how you played the part of a ghost in a certain outbuilding Halloween night. Which ended in gunplay.”
Lowell Seaforth scribbled quick notes, suddenly informed of earlier news items that got past him.
“And that event led to violence in this schoolyard, bringing matters under my jurisdiction.”
I nodded, remembering Les attacking Letty and Miss Spaulding attacking Les.
“Then, if rumor can be credited, you found yourself in the company of a little club of girls, Blossom—the Busy Fingers or whatever. And you convinced them you had some sort of . . . supernatural powers. This led to an even odder association with an elderly lady given to . . . mental quirks.”
“If you mean Miss Gertrude Dabney, she—”
“Silence, Blossom!” commanded Miss Spaulding. “You will have your day in court, in about two minutes. Somehow, by all this frenzied activity, you insinuated yourself into the shady machinations of an itinerant seance medium doubling as a confidence man.”
Seaforth’s pencil stumbled after Miss Spaulding’s words. She’s a very well-spoken, scholarly woman. I marveled at her nose for news. As a reporter she could wipe the floor with Seaforth.
“All this ended in your playing truant. It was inevitable,” she said sadly. “And I mean to nip it in the bud. It is crystal clear to me, Blossom, that you are hungry for attention.”
I was just plain hungry, but I said nothing and hung my head at a suitable angle.
“All my educational training has decided me on a solution to your case. As you hunger for attention, you are about to have it. Mr. Seaforth here, of the Bluff City Pantagraph, is going to interview you on this entire seance business. It is newsworthy in its way and thus not a waste of his time. And you may claim all the attention your story merits. In tomorrow’s paper you will receive exactly the degree of acclaim you deserve. No more. No less. After you have this out of your system, I expect you to settle down to a quiet life and be a team player. And as Mr. Seaforth is kind enough to interview you, stick to the truth, Blossom, and nothing but the truth.”
Lowell Seaforth is quite a good-looking fellow, with an Arrow Collar shirt and clean fingernails. What he ever saw in Alexander’s big sister, Lucille, is the deepest mystery of this account.
I cleared my throat, ready to begin. “Take a chair,” I told Seaforth, “and let me know if I go too fast for your note taking.” Miss Spaulding’s eyes rolled heavenward, and I began.
My detention hour was up and the sun was long down before I finished my story. I told it all just as it happened, with an occasional flourish. About how Professor Regis was immune to the law, since nobody would ever testify against him. And even if Miss Dabney took him to court over that watch and fob, nobody would believe her. So I naturally had to take the law into my own hands and dispense a certain rough justice of my own. I spoke a few words in Sybil’s voice to show how I could take her place. And I gave Alexander just the amount of credit he deserved. No more. No less.
Seaforth took it all down, right back through Minerva to my vision of Newton Shambaugh falling off the streetcar. The only parts I omitted were the vague ones. I made no mention of the ghost boy I’d seen out by the car tracks by our house—the tow-headed kid strapped down on the ice. That would have been pushing my luck.
Miss Spaulding and Lowell Seaforth exchanged glances. I was well pleased with my own account. Rumors wither in the presence of untarnished truth, as the poet says. But Miss Spaulding was far from satisfied. It stuck out all over her.
Sighing, she said, “Well, Blossom, I greatly fear you have overstepped yourself again. What you say about that repelling seance business has a factual ring about it, though there are some moral questions still outstanding there.
“But, Blossom, is it not enough to tell us of your many actual . . . activities . . . without fabricating?”
I opened my mouth to protest but closed it again.
“In short, Blossom, you may play at being a ghost, as you seem never to tire of, but you cannot see one. This flies in the face of science.”
I’d sooner not fly in the face of science if it meant flying in the face of Miss Spaulding. So I sat
swinging my feet and examining my boots, which were my old ones.
“And so, Blossom, for your own good and in the presence of the press, we must have one final confrontation with the truth. You have said that you have Second Sight, can see the Unseen, and have conversed with spirits. Is this true and will you go on record for it?”
I would and nodded.
“Very well, Blossom. Then prove it. Now.”
I surely was between a rock and a hard place. Miss Spaulding turned her desk lamp full on my face. Lowell Seaforth poised his pencil. This was no two-bit challenge from the likes of Letty Shambaugh. Miss Spaulding was out to settle my hash. I’d have gladly negotiated for a thrashing, but she doesn’t make deals.
I sat there, swinging my feet and trying to invite one of my fits. Squinting up my eyes, I thought hard about thunder and blue lightning. I’d have settled for another quick flash of Newton or a whiff of Minerva’s gingerbread baking. Anything to get me going. But nothing came to mind. I thought this was a devil of a time for my Second Sight to quit on me.
Then I heard the first rumble. The sound I’d heard once before. The rasp of two great objects grinding together—iron against ice. It was deeper than thunder and at first farther off. But the roaring was soon in my ears and then in the room.
The office began to throb and pound, like engines in the earth running out of control. I had hold of the chair arms to keep from pitching out. If this was not the San Francisco earthquake, it was near kin of it.
The lamp with the green glass shade on Miss Spaulding’s desk began to vibrate and then caper at the end of its cord. Books slid about, and a class picture swung out from the wall. Lowell Seaforth braced his boots on the floor where the boards popped and strained. Just before the desk lamp fell over, I saw Miss Spaulding’s pince-nez glasses slip down her face. Her hand clamped over her mouth. The bulb in the lamp exploded. Lowell Seaforth’s voice came up strong: “Damnation! What have we unleashed?”
