by Maureen Bush
By morning I was feeling much more Mackenzie. I was determined to tackle the Spirit Man. We were leaving in an hour, heading home to Calgary, and if I didn’t do it now, I’d have to wait a year. I couldn’t stand that.
But I got dressed and packed my bag before I faced him. I brushed and washed in the upstairs bathroom. I walked the long way around to the kitchen for breakfast. I carried my bags down to the car, struggled to lift my suitcase into the back of the van, and put my backpack and Old Moby on my seat.
“Why do you like Old Baldy so much?” BB asked as he tossed his bags in the back. “What a baby.”
“Old Moby,” I insisted. “Lewis likes him. You can sit with Lewis, if you want.”
BB shut up. He loves to sit in the back by himself.
Finally, I’d run out of time. Dad was getting ready for his rallying cry. Whenever it was time to go, he’d bellow, “Bartolomés, saddle up!” Of course, none of us rode horses. Dad’s into geeky science toys, not big animals. But we all knew what he meant.
I only had a few minutes before the call. My stomach felt full of sand, my mouth gritty and dry. I took a deep breath and squared my shoulders. I walked into the bathroom and shut the door. Slowly I turned toward the toilet.
There he stood, my grandmother’s Spirit Man. He came up to my thigh, carved out of wood so dark it was almost black, wearing a scowl and a ring through his nose and a grass skirt that should have looked silly but didn’t. He looked angry and strong and mean. I tried to swallow, but my throat was too dry.
Kara had said I should make faces, or call him names, laugh at him or mock him.
“Mock him?” I’d said. “I can’t do that.”
“Of course you can—you can do it.”
But I couldn’t! I felt small and scared, staring at him staring at me. What if I made him angry?
“Bartolomés, saddle up!” I heard Dad bellow in a voice loud enough to wake the whales.
I heard voices answering, footsteps on the stairs, and everyone saying their goodbyes to Grandma.
“Jane, let’s go,” Dad yelled up the stairs. “I don’t want to miss the ferry because you’re dawdling.”
“Just a sec,” I called back. Now. I had to do it now.
I stood there, quivering. “Oh, I wish I could be a brave Mackenzie Jane,” I whispered to myself. I shuddered, took a deep breath, and then all in a rush I wiggled my bum, waggled my fingers, stuck out my tongue and did a little dance. “I’m not scared of you!” I said, although I didn’t say it very loud.
The Spirit Man just stared at me, his hands resting on his hips, his shell eyes unblinking.
But it was enough. I did it, I thought. I did it! I spun around and ran out the door, raced down the stairs and dashed outside. I flung my arms around Grandma. “Bye, I love you so much.”
Then I jumped into the van and said, “Okay, let’s go.”
As Dad backed out of the parking spot, I did up my seat belt, my heart pounding. I’d done it. I’d really, really done it!
I leaned back and smiled.
CHAPTER 3
The Worst Trip Ever
A sudden storm swept in as we drove away from Grandma’s house. Sheets of rain blew across the highway. Ocean waves smashed and crashed against the shore, carried in on a high tide. It slowed us, but couldn’t stop us. Mom and Dad love storms.
While BB dozed and Lewis drew, I thought about starting school next week. Kara and I were in Mr. Ryan’s class last year, and he was wonderful. He was moving up a grade, and he’d told us he’d try to keep our whole class together for his new grade-five class. “With a few exceptions, perhaps,” he said, without looking at anyone in particular. But we knew he meant Byron, the biggest troublemaker in the class.
I sat humming. Lewis noticed and looked up at me. I smiled. “I had a good trip, Lewis. And it’s going to be a great year.”
We reached the ferry terminal later than Dad had planned, but the lineup was really short, so we didn’t have any problem getting on.
The woman selling tickets said, “The water’s pretty rough. I think some people have decided to wait out the storm.”
Dad said, “That’s not a problem for us. We like it wild!”
But this was really wild. The wind was nasty and the waves high. The boat rocked and tipped, passengers staggered and babies cried. It was too wild even for the wild Bartolomés. We huddled inside, feeling queasy.
Mom said she really needed a coffee, so Dad set off to buy hot drinks for all of us. He staggered back, swaying with his tray of drinks, struggling not to drop it in someone’s lap.
Mom sniffed her coffee with a whimper of pleasure. Lewis took a sip of hot chocolate and turned green. I’d never seen anyone actually look green before. He moaned and pushed his cup away.
I tried to dream up a story for him, but when I shut my eyes to concentrate, the Spirit Man was staring at me,swaying slightly with the motion of the ferry, his eyes gleaming. I shuddered and opened my eyes.
The boat was still heaving as we neared Vancouver. We stumbled down the stairs to the car deck. Usually we watch the ferry approaching the dock, but today it was too scary.
We stumbled into the van as the ferry lurched and tipped and tried to line up with the dock. It bumped, backed up, and then was driven forward by a huge wave, smashing into the rubber bumpers protecting the dock. Lewis groaned and turned totally white.
“Oh, Lewis, don’t throw up,” Mom pleaded.
“I’m trying not to,” Lewis moaned. He leaned back, his eyes scrunched tight, holding his stomach.
Once we were on shore, Lewis started to look better. Finally he slept. When he woke, he picked up a book about Egyptian archaeology, not to read, which he couldn’t do yet, but to study the pictures.
“Don’t, Lewis,” Mom said. “It might make you sick again. Jane, why don’t you tell him a story?”
So I picked up Old Moby, and he and Lewis invented a wild tale about excavating tombs and mummies’ curses.
Then Lewis illustrated our story with drawings of pyramids and shrouded mummies. The mummies reminded me of masks, and masks reminded me of the Spirit Man. I turned away and shut my eyes, but the Spirit Man was waiting for me, his eyes staring deep into mine.
We spent the night at a bed-and-breakfast in Sorrento, a strange place just right for Bartolomés. There were birds in cages in the garden, fish in the pond, a couple of cats, and emus in the field. The emus were the strangest birds I’d ever seen: huge, but with legs that looked too thin to hold up their big feathered bodies. Their long curving necks and tiny heads matched their skinny legs. They were taller than I was. Lewis and I stayed away from them.
It took me forever to get to sleep, and I woke at dawn. Something was tapping—light and slow and unstopping. Tap. Tap. Tap tap tap. Tap. Tap tap.
I rolled over and tried to get back to sleep. Tap. Tap tap. I groaned and pulled a pillow over my head. When I closed my eyes, the Spirit Man was staring at me, his head nodding ever so slightly in time with the tapping. Tap tap tap. Tap. Tap. Tap tap.
I finally staggered out of bed to look out the window. I pulled back the lace curtain and stared. An emu stood on the grass outside, pecking at a black rubber strip at the base of the window. Tap tap. Tap. It was totally focused, its softly feathered head down, intent on pecking.
“What is it, Jane?” Mom asked quietly from the far bed she was sharing with Lewis.
I shook my head. “It’s an emu,” I said, trying to whisper.
Tap. Tap tap tap. Tap tap.
“What?” Mom sat up. “What’s it doing?” she asked, keeping her voice low.
I watched a little longer. Tap. Tap tap.
“I think it’s trying to eat the rubber thing on the outside of the window, the thing that keeps water out.”
“It’s eating it?”
“Well, trying. It’s not doing very well.” I tipped my head to one side to see around the window sill.
Tap. Tap tap tap.
“Well, chase i
t away.”
“What?”
“Chase it away. Quietly. Lewis is still sleeping, and I want him feeling better today.”
Chase away the emu? I flicked two fingers at it. It didn’t even look up. Tap tap tap.
“Jane!”
I flapped my hand. Its beady eyes glanced at me, and then it went back to work. Its eyes reminded me of the Spirit Man.
“Open the window,” Mom said.
I stared at her. “Then what?”
“Then scare it away!” she snapped. Then she whispered, “Quietly.”
I swallowed, cranked the window open and flapped my hand again. Tap tap tap. The emu was far too busy to worry about me.
Mom huffed, got out of bed and stomped over. “For goodness sake, Jane, how hard can it be?”
I flushed and stepped back. When Mom couldn’t make it go away either, I started to giggle.
“What’s that tapping?” Lewis murmured from deep under the covers. “I can’t sleep.”
We were back on the road early that day, after a huge breakfast the bed-and-breakfast owner made for us to apologize for the emu. “We’ll fix the fence today,” she promised.
We only drove for a few hours before we had to stop, caught in a huge row of cars and vans and really big trucks, lined up behind a woman with a Stop sign and a construction hat.
Construction workers were widening the highway near Golden, and they’d stopped traffic to blow up rocks. Suddenly an explosion shook the car—I could feel it right through my body. While the roar echoed off the mountains around us, I gasped and shut my eyes. The Spirit Man was there waiting, nodding. I snapped them open again.
“That didn’t sound right,” Dad muttered.
“Why not?” I asked.
“Too big. They usually have small, controlled blasts.”
Soon we could see a construction worker walking down the line of cars, pausing to talk with each driver. When she reached us, she said, “The last blast brought down more rocks than expected, so it’ll take longer to clear.”
“Was anyone hurt?” Mom asked.
“No, luckily.” She smiled as she said it, but she looked a little pale.
“How long will we be here?” Dad asked.
She checked her watch. “Probably about an hour.”
We all groaned. Then Mom said, “Let’s eat lunch now so we won’t have to stop later.”
Mom dug out hats for her and Lewis while I helped Dad with the food. BB tried to sneak past the construction worker controlling traffic to see the blast site, but she sent him back with a scolding.
We leaned against a rock wall beside the road and ate, watching heat waves rise off the pavement.
While we sat, I stewed. Not because of the heat, which was awful, but because of the Spirit Man. Every time I closed my eyes he was there, staring, not moving except for a slight lift at the corner of his mouth.
I started to worry. This was our worst trip ever, by far. What if he had done this? What if I had done this by mocking him? The longer we sat, the more I worried.
As we drove past the blast zone, I could see the piles of rocks the construction workers had pushed out of the way, clearing a single lane for traffic. I felt sick at the thought that someone might have been hurt or killed, and, even worse, that it might be my fault.
As soon as we got home, I phoned Kara, but she was away for the long weekend.
“You’ll see her on Tuesday,” Mom said, like that was soon enough. But I wanted to talk to her now! I worried all weekend, longing to tell her about the Spirit Man, needing her to reassure me.
Instead, I talked to Old Moby. “What if the Spirit Man did this, made our trip home so awful because I mocked him? Because I was rude to him? What if I did this?”
Old Moby didn’t answer.
I wanted to close my eyes for a moment, to hide from the possibility, but I knew that if I did, the Spirit Man would be there, smiling.
CHAPTER 4
The Spirit Man at School
The night before school started, a huge thunderstorm exploded over Calgary. Hail smashed against the windows, and wind tore at tree branches. Everyone except me loved it. I wanted to shut my eyes, but I didn’t dare—I couldn’t bear to see the Spirit Man smirking.
In the morning, I walked outside with Dad to inspect the damage. Hail and leaves and small branches littered the yard.
“We’re lucky no big branches came down,” Dad muttered as he looked up into the trees surrounding our house.
I wandered while he inspected the roof. The air was filled with the scent of herbs. I peeked over the fence and saw our neighbor’s herb garden, smashed into salad.
Lewis and I walked to school through the park so we could check out the storm damage. We crunched through drifts of hail, some small, some as big as golf balls. Large branches dangled at odd angles, torn by the wind.
As we walked, I had an uneasy feeling that we were being followed. I glanced around. I couldn’t see anything, but I still felt strange. I kept watching until finally I caught a glimpse of what I swear was the Spirit Man lurking in the shadow of a tree, his shell eyes gleaming. Just what I need, I thought, the Spirit Man following me to school like a pet dog!
When we reached the school playground, I helped Lewis find the grade-two meeting place, and then I looked for Kara. She’s always easy to spot. She’s not as tall as I am, but she has golden curls tumbling down around her shoulders, always tangled and a little wild.
I walked up to her from behind and touched her shoulder. She jumped and spun and threw her arms around me. “Oh, Jane! I’m so glad to see you.” She bounced with excitement. Then she settled herself and became serious. “How was your trip? Did you do it? Could you do it?” She watched my face anxiously, her blue eyes bright.
I took a deep breath and nodded. “I did it! I mocked the Spirit Man. At Grandma’s, just before we left.”
“You did? Oh, Jane, you are so brave. I couldn’t have done it.” Kara beamed at me.
“But you told me to.”
“Well, sure, but I didn’t think you would. Not actually do it!” She looked at me with a touch of awe in her eyes. “So, do you feel better?” she asked in an eager voice.
“No,” I said. I looked down, feeling mournful. “Not at all. Ever since I stuck out my tongue at him, awful things have happened, just awful! The ferry ride was really rough, and Lewis almost got sick while we were waiting to get off.”
“Ooh, gross!”
“We slept at this weird bed-and-breakfast, and an emu woke me really, really early.”
“An emu?” Kara started to laugh. “Jane!”
“No, really!” I hurried to explain. “We were staying at this place that has lots of birds and animals. And emus. This one emu was trying to eat a rubber strip on our bedroom window. Tap tap tap. Tap tap. It just wouldn’t go away.”
Kara grinned. “Okay, what else?”
“Well, when we were driving, we had to stop for a construction project. That happens every year, but this time they had a blasting accident and blew up more rock than they’d planned. We couldn’t see it, but we could hear it. And feel it.” I shuddered. “We had to wait for hours while they cleared the highway.”
Kara shook her head. “Wow, this is bad.”
I could feel my eyes widen. BB calls it my deer-in-the-headlights look. “Hey, you’re supposed to help me feel better!”
“But, Jane, this is so bad!”
Suddenly, I felt close to tears.
Kara put her arms around me. “Hey, maybe it’s not so bad. Bad luck comes in threes, right? Everyone knows that. And you’ve had three bad things happen.”
“What about the storm last night? That was bad.”
Kara shrugged. “We always get storms. Dad said the timing is perfect. We need a new roof, and now the insurance company will pay for it.”
I tried to convince myself that she was right, that all the bad stuff was over, but whenever I shut my eyes, the Spirit Man was still there, still s
taring.
The grade-five teachers arrived and told us to settle down. Mr. Ryan stepped forward and started to call out names. When he read through the As and didn’t call out Byron Anderson, Kara said, “No Byron? Yes! No one to pull my curls, to trip us, to call us names.” She did a little dance as Mr. Ryan moved on to the Bs. But her dance slowed and then stopped when he didn’t call out Bartolomé.
Kara and I looked at each other, puzzled. We whispered, “There must be a mistake,” as other kids slowly moved into line behind him. Finally he got to the end of the alphabet. “Kara Wishinsky.”
“It’ll be okay,” Kara said as she gave me a quick hug and walked over to Mr. Ryan’s growing line.
Mr. Ryan paused, looking over the rest of us. I held my breath, waiting, praying for him to laugh and call me over. But he just turned, gestured for his class to follow, and walked away. The class trailed behind him, Kara last, walking backward, her sorrowful eyes on mine.
But that meant I was with—I was with Mrs. Von Hirschberg! She was so strict, so tough, so mean. She even looked strict, tall and thin in a dark jacket and skirt, with her brown hair pulled into a twist at the back of her head.
This couldn’t be right, I thought. There must be some mistake. I looked around for someone to ask, anyone but her. As I turned, I saw something out of the corner of my eye. The Spirit Man? I spun and stared, but there was nothing there. Someone poked me.
“Mackenzie?” Mrs. Von Hirschberg called out. “Mackenzie Jane Bartolomé?”
“Oh,” I said. “That’s me. But it’s Jane. Just Jane.”
Mrs. Von Hirschberg nodded and made a note. Then she looked down at me. “Into line, Jane.”
I nodded and dragged myself into the line behind Byron Anderson.
Before she went back to her list, Mrs. Von Hirschberg looked over at us. “I want a nice straight line,” she said, sounding stern.
“Mr. Ryan never worries about straight lines,” I muttered. No Kara. Mrs. Von Hirschberg. And Byron Anderson. She’ll probably make us sit in alphabetical order too, and in this class that means right behind Byron.
