by Maureen Bush
At recess, Kara and I huddled by the fence. “Oh, Jane,” Kara said. “Mrs. Von Hirschberg! And us not together!” Then her voice lowered. “And Byron Anderson. Ugh.”
I slumped against the fence, too depressed to say anything.
“At least it’s three bad things,” Kara said.
“Again,” I muttered.
“Yeah, but you should be done, right? ’Cause this is so awful. There can’t be any more.”
“But it’s not done,” I said. “Don’t you see? When the ferry ride was bad and the emu woke us and we had to wait for road construction, they were all a pain, but they’re done now. Over. Ended.” I sighed. “But this! A whole year without you? With the meanest teacher in the whole school? And Byron Anderson?” I groaned. “I feel cursed!”
Kara shuddered. “I think you are,” she said, her voice somber. “I think you’ve been cursed by the Spirit Man.”
CHAPTER 5
Cursed!
Every night I waded through piles of homework for Mrs. Von Hirschberg. She wasn’t gives-low-marks tough; she was do-a-really-good-job-on-every-assignment-or-do-it-again tough. When it’s good, she gives you a good mark, and you feel like you’ve really earned it. But I never felt that way when I was struggling through my mountain of homework while Kara had none.
Plus it was hard to focus on homework in the chaos at my house. It looks mostly normal from the outside—an old brick house with green trim and a green picket fence, shaded by tall trees. It has two full stories, with Mom and Dad’s office tucked under the eaves on the third floor.
Inside, it’s bursting with people and noise and Dad’s toys. Mom and Dad work out of their office, designing websites (Mom’s main job) and writing reviews of science toys (Dad’s favorite task). Some toys he gets for a little while and then has to send back. He keeps his favorites if he can, so we have a growing collection of weird stuff that BB and his friends love to play with.
We couldn’t keep the robot lawn mower—it was way too expensive—but we still have the robot floor washer. It glides around the kitchen, washing and picking up crumbs all day, around and around. Except when we trip on it, or BB flips it on its back like a turtle.
The first time BB flipped it, Lewis called it a churtle. Mom just smiled, but I said, “It’s a turtle, Lewis.”
He said, “That’s what I said. A churtle.”
I wrote them down: Turtle Churtle.
Then I pointed to the first word. “It’s a turtle. With a T. Tuh.”
“Oh,” said Lewis.
Now he calls it a turtle named Churtle.
I like R2D2 and the Dalek better; they’re more like real robots. R2D2 is a copy of the Star Wars robot. It even sounds the same—it’s just a little smaller. Dad uses it to send notes to Mom in their office.
The Dalek lives on the main floor, ready to accost intruders. And mail couriers. Daleks are evil robots from Doctor Who, one of Dad’s favorite tv shows. The Dalek is only knee-high, but he’s scary. He’ll lift one arm—it looks like a little toilet plunger—point it at whoever has just arrived, and say, in a flat voice, “Ex-ter-min-ate. Ex-ter-min-ate!” Well, he does if BB is there to run the remote, which he tries to do whenever possible.
We can always tell if the delivery guys are Doctor Who fans. The fans are excited and want a Dalek too. The not-fans look at the Dalek with alarm, and look at us like we’re cracked.
Between the delivery guys, the Dalek croaking “Ex-ter-min-ate, ex-ter-min-ate,” and BB and his friends playing with Dad’s light sabers, I was going absolutely crazy trying to get through my homework. At school, Byron Anderson was worse than ever, talking and bouncing and constantly teasing. Not being with Kara was miserable. And every time I shut my eyes, the Spirit Man was waiting. Even worse, I was starting to see him when my eyes were open— watching, always watching, and sometimes smiling just a little.
I decided I had to do something about the Spirit Man before anything worse happened. I emailed Grandma, told her all about school and Kara and Mrs. Von Hirschberg, and asked her to say hi to the Spirit Man for me.
Her answer arrived after dinner. She’s usually much slower. She says she has more interesting things to do than check her email every day. She wrote:
Dear Mackenzie Jane,
I’m so glad to hear from you, but sad to hear about your strict teacher. I had one of those, and I didn’t like it either. Of course, she’s the reason I write well.
As you requested, I said hi to the Spirit Man for you. I’m afraid he didn’t say anything back. He looked rather stern.
Love you all,
Grandma
I groaned. That didn’t help. By bedtime I’d come up with another plan. I emailed Grandma again, and said that if the Spirit Man wouldn’t say hi, perhaps she could give him a cookie for me.
I checked for a reply after school the next day, but there was nothing.
I could hear BB bugging Lewis while he was trying to read. I picked up Old Moby and wandered into their room.
Lewis’s corner was filled with stacks of books, even though he couldn’t read them. He was sitting on his bed, studying another book about Egypt, trying to understand burial customs without being able to read most of the words.
Lewis gets one corner of the room, while BB’s junk—clothes and balls and every toy he could borrow from Dad—covers the rest of the floor.
BB was bouncing a small ball, mostly off the floor, but sometimes off the wall or the door or Lewis. When I walked into the room, he threw it straight at me. I tried to catch it, missed and bent down to pick it up.
When BB saw Old Moby, he groaned. “Jane, if you have to keep that pathetic thing, at least keep it in your room. Don’t bring Old Mopy in here!”
I handed Old Moby the ball. He hung on tight. “‘You’d better be nice, if you want your ball back,’” Old Moby said.
With a cry, BB leaped off his bed and snatched the ball out of Old Moby’s little felt hands. He gave a shout of victory and bounced the ball off Lewis’s book. Lewis tried to ignore him.
“C’mon Lewis,” I said. “Grab your book and come to my room.”
My room was smaller and much tidier. It was the one place where I could control the chaos.
I shut my door behind us. I always do, to block out the endless traffic. Lewis and BB have to walk by my room to get to theirs, and BB never passes up a chance to bang on my door or bounce a ball off it. Mom and Dad walk past to get to the office; then they race down again whenever a package arrives, to collect it before BB and the Dalek exterminate the delivery guy.
Lewis curled up on my bed with his book and asked me to read to him.
“You need to learn to read,” I said gently.
“I know,” he said. “I want to. I’m just too stupid.” He looked down, but I’d seen how sad his eyes were.
“Lewis Jack Bartolomé, you are not stupid,” I said. “You are the smartest person I have ever met. You just can’t read yet, that’s all. I’ll help you.”
I grabbed a pad of paper and wrote: Old Moby.
Lewis studied it. “Old,” he said.
I nodded.
“Ffff,” he said, glancing at me.
I frowned.
“Sssss?”
“Lewis!”
He flushed. “I told you I was stupid.”
“Not stupid,” I said firmly. “It starts with an M. Mmmmm.” I picked up Old Moby.
“Old Mmmmm?” he said.
Old Moby nodded.
Lewis grinned. “Old Moby,” he said with confidence.
Then we worked through Old Mouldy, Old Mopy, Old Baldy—all of BB’s mean names for Old Moby. Lewis read his way through them all, puzzling over the sounds of the different letters, but always understanding the meaning.
When we were done, he laid out a fresh piece of paper. “M words, please,” he said.
I printed carefully:
Old Moby
mummies
monkey
mermaids
Lewis studied them. Then he handed me another sheet of paper. “Bs, please,” he said.
I thought about it, and printed:
Baldy
BB
Brandon
big
brother
bully
Bartolomé
Lewis and I read them together. Then he took both pages and stood. “Can we do more tomorrow?” he asked.
Every day he studied his lists. When he came across interesting words in his books, he’d get me to read them and add them to the right page. Egyptians. Excavation. Sphinx. Tomb.
When he asked me to write down Curse, I asked, “Do you think Grandma’s Spirit Man could curse someone?”
“Of course,” he said, not even looking up from his book. “Grandma’s Spirit Man is very cursey.”
My hand shook as I printed Curse on his C list.
After three days of helping Lewis, I got an email from Grandma:
Dear Mackenzie Jane,
I gave the Spirit Man a cookie. He liked it very much (it really was delicious).
Oh, no! Grandma had eaten the Spirit Man’s cookie!
When I die—which I hope will not be for quite a while, so please don’t worry about that!—when I die, I want you to have the Spirit Man, since you’re so fascinated by him.
I squeaked in horror. She was going to give me the Spirit Man?
Now don’t squeak, Jane. Everyone has to die, but I don’t plan to for quite some time. I just wanted you to know that the Spirit Man is yours.
With lots of love,
Grandma
I’d just made things worse!
When I closed my eyes, I could see the Spirit Man. His face was still, but I could almost see a smile forming at the corner of his mouth. It wasn’t a nice smile.
CHAPTER 6
Bear
I decided I’d have to endure the Spirit Man until next summer, when I could get back to Grandma’s and remove the curse. But I didn’t think it would be so hard.
Byron was awful. Now that Kara wasn’t in his class, he’d decided to pull my hair. Not that I have curls, but he didn’t care—pigtail, ponytail, braid— they were all the same to him. He sat in front of me, where he couldn’t reach my hair, but that didn’t stop him. He’d walk to the back of the room to sharpen his pencil, over and over every day, because that was the one thing that Mrs. Von Hirschberg allowed him to do when he couldn’t sit still any longer. On his way back, he’d pause by my desk and give my hair a tug. Then he’d grin and sit down and work for a while.
After a really awful day with Byron and Mrs. Von Hirschberg, I walked home with Lewis through a late-fall soggy day, gusts of wind dumping showers of water and wet leaves from the trees above us.
Damp and shivery and glad to be home, I opened the front door to a hairy black monster barking hysterically. I grabbed Lewis, and we backed down the sidewalk. I thought I saw the Spirit Man watching from the stairs, but I blinked, and he was gone.
“Bear!” Dad shouted. “Bear, stop it!” He raced down the stairs and grabbed the monster’s collar.
A bear? I thought. Dad has a bear?
The Dalek advanced on the bear, not at all intimidated by his size. “Ex-ter-min-ate. Ex-ter-min-ate!”
Bear barked back.
It’s a dog, I realized, a really big dog named Bear. I shuddered. The name was exactly right.
“Brandon, stop it!” Dad yelled at Brandon, who was running the remote control from the stairs. Dad turned off the Dalek and settled Bear. Then he made Lewis and me squeeze into the front entry with him, Bear and the Dalek.
“Jane, Lewis, this is Bear. Bear, meet Jane and Lewis.”
Lewis and I just stared at Bear.
“You can pet him,” Dad said.
Lewis reached out and scratched his ear.
“You too, Jane.”
“Why is he here?” I asked, hesitantly touching his fur. It was thick and soft, but attached to something much too big.
“I’ll tell you all about him at dinner,” Dad said. “Come on, Bear.” Bear whined at the silent Dalek and followed Dad up to his office.
We talked about Bear at dinner as we sat around the old wooden table in the dining room.
“Bear lives one block over,” Dad said. “His owner, Ted, has a new job in Saudi Arabia and can’t take Bear with him. He hasn’t found anyone to adopt him, and he knows that if he takes Bear to the animal shelter, no one will want him because he’s so big.” He paused. “I’d like to adopt him. What do you think?”
Dad went around the table, checking with each of us. Everyone agreed, one by one. When it was my turn, Dad said, “Jane? What about you?”
I looked at Bear, huge on the floor. He scared me, although not as much as the Spirit Man. “Are you sure?” I asked. “That there’s no other place for him?”
Dad nodded. “Ted’s been looking for six weeks. He leaves in two days. We’re Bear’s last chance.”
“Are you sure he’s safe?” I asked. “I mean, with Lewis?”
Lewis slipped out of his chair and draped himself over Bear. “Of course he’s safe,” said Lewis, as Bear licked mashed potatoes off his chin.
I sighed. “Okay,” I said.
And with that, Bear was ours.
The next day Kara came over after school to work on our Halloween costumes. First, I introduced her to Bear. Then I told her about the Spirit Man. “I keep seeing him,” I said. “Just a glimpse, and then he’s gone. But it’s creepy.” I shivered.
“It’s your imagination,” Kara said firmly.
“I’m not so sure.”
“Jane, you have a really great imagination. There’s no way he’s actually here. Email your Grandma— she’ll tell you he’s still there.” She paused. “But it does sound like you’ve been cursed.” Then she grinned. “I’m going to be a Spirit Man for Halloween. You could be Cursed Jane.”
“I already am,” I said. “I want to be something different.”
What I really wanted was to be Jane Mackenzie, my great-great-grandmother, to find out what it was like to be brave. Or maybe I could borrow one of Dad’s light sabers and be a Jedi knight. But you have to feel brave to pretend to be brave. I felt more like a mouse.
When I told Kara, she giggled and said, “Mice are nice. You could be a really big, scary mouse.”
I kind of liked that idea. “A mouse like me, but brave,” I said. “A Mackenzie mouse.”
“Then you won’t be afraid of my Spirit Man,” Kara added.
I shuddered.
Mom and Dad and Lewis joined us in the kitchen for milk and cookies and pickles. Well, Lewis had pickles. They’re his favorite.
Bear came too, hoping for crumbs. When Churtle got to them first, Bear started to growl and follow Churtle around the kitchen floor.
The robot headed under the table. Bear followed. We pushed Bear out, but the robot kept circling around, trapped by table and chair legs. Bear struggled to squeeze under, desperate to reach any crumbs first.
Finally Mom groped under the table and grabbed Churtle. “Send it back,” she said, handing it to Dad. “We’ll let Bear clean the floor.”
“I want to be Bear,” said Lewis.
We stared at him.
“For Halloween,” he said, giggling. “I want to be a dog like Bear.”
Mom shook her head. “I don’t have time to sew any costumes right now. You’ll have to choose something you can make yourself.”
“My mom can help,” said Kara. “If we can find everything we need here, she’ll help us sew.”
Grabbing extra cookies, Lewis, Kara, Bear and I trooped down to the basement to look for supplies. Our basement is mostly used for storage, with stuff piled everywhere. Mom and Dad have plans to renovate, but they keep waiting for the right time, and the right time never comes. So BB and Lewis share an upstairs room, and the basement is ignored.
We have piles of dress-up clothes on a clothes rack, with more stuffed in baskets. Toys and books are stacked on shelves i
n a dusty, musty muddle. The shelves that aren’t loaded with books are spilling over with fabric and craft supplies.
As we pawed through the dress-up clothes, Kara sighed in ecstasy. She held up a Spanish veil, a pair of Arabic pants, and a handmade string bag from Papua New Guinea. “This is why I love your house,” she said, grinning.
We found fabric for a Spirit Man and a mouse, and a big roll of black fake fur for a Bear costume.
We spent Saturday at Kara’s house, cutting and sewing and painting. Kara’s mom showed me how to pull my hair up into knobby pigtails for mouse ears, and to draw on a nose and whiskers with face paint. By the end of the day, Kara and I had wonderful costumes, and Lewis had a promise for a Bear costume to be delivered in time for his school party.
Later I remembered what Kara had said about checking in with Grandma. I sent her an email asking if the Spirit Man was up to anything.
“No,” she wrote back. “He’s just hanging around.”
I assumed that was her way of saying he was still standing beside the toilet, not lounging on the sofa. But knowing that didn’t really help. I still felt like he was watching, planning new ways to torment me.
CHAPTER 7
Halloween
The night before Halloween, snow started to fall. It snowed all night, wet and deep and silent. Dad walked with Lewis and me to school. He wasn’t sure Lewis could get through on his own, but Dad didn’t want to drive, even though it wasn’t very far. Bear came too, leaping ahead to break trail. We played explorers caught in a terrible snowstorm, struggling to make it to safety.
The day was mostly chaos, with everyone wet from the snow and excited about the afternoon Halloween parties. None of the teachers tried to get anything done except Mrs. Von Hirschberg. She wasn’t going to let snow or Halloween interrupt our learning!
After recess she gave us a snap math test. “I know it will be a waste of time to do this tomorrow.”
