Cursed!

by Maureen Bush

  The Spirit Man sulked. He spent most of his time gazing out the windows. I think he was hoping for a big storm, but didn’t dare make one.

  We waited for Mom to heal, but she didn’t. She kept going to the doctor and getting more tests, but she didn’t get better.

  Finally Dad announced, “Mom can’t travel at Christmas. We’ll have to go to Grandma’s at spring break.” He said it in a voice that didn’t allow any arguing.

  I felt sick. I knew Mom couldn’t travel, but I was desperate to get to Grandma’s. I’d been rude to the Spirit Man and started all this. And I’d suggested the renovation that made Mom sick.

  The Spirit Man was getting restless. He started following us around the house—Bear hated it. When he wasn’t following someone, he stood gazing out the window, hoping for a storm. But it was sunny and cold every day. No wind, no clouds, no snow.

  Finally I joined him at the living-room window. “You could make a few storms,” I said. “Not big ones—no damage—but a little wild, if you’re careful.”

  That night the wind picked up and howled, and it started to snow. The next day a chinook wind blew in and melted the snow into slush. Every day we had new weather. Everyone grumbled about the rapid changes, but no one got hurt and nothing was damaged, so I let the Spirit Man play.

  Christmas was quiet. Mom lived on the sofa, with a heating pad on her chest and a blanket over her legs. BB, Lewis and I helped Dad with the cooking. Dad had ordered most of our gifts off his websites of weird stuff. Mom had ordered books, from her sofa.

  Slowly we worked our way through the pile of presents. Lewis was giggling over a black T-shirt that read Come to the Dark Side when BB unwrapped his own helicopter.

  “This is the coolest thing,” BB said, tearing open the box. “Dad, we could have battles!”

  Mom groaned, and then she shrieked and started to laugh as a mouse dashed across the floor, weaving between the presents. Bear chased it under the Christmas tree. He dove for it, but he was too big to fit under the tree. The tree tipped, and we leaped up to grab it, pull out Bear and save the presents from the water spilling out of the tree stand. As we scrambled, the mouse dashed across the living room, into the kitchen and down the stairs.

  Mom laughed until she collapsed, coughing, while Dad and I reset the tree in the stand, and BB and Lewis mopped up the water and swept up the broken ornaments.

  The Spirit Man was watching from the kitchen doorway. He slipped away when I shook my head.

  CHAPTER 12

  Postpone the Party?

  In early January, Mom got another pocket of air on the outside of her lung. She had another round of tests, and still no answers. Dad was convinced the basement renovation was the problem, and he started to research allergies and mold and dust and mice. Then he started hauling home boxes of equipment.

  “You can’t fix Mom with machines,” I said as he plugged in an air filter beside her bed.

  “Well, the doctors can’t find anything wrong, and we know the problem started when we began our renovation, so I think it’s worth a try.” He turned it on and shut the door as we left the room. “This will give her one really clean room to retreat to,” he said.

  With Mom sick, we spent less and less time together. Mom rested, Dad and BB worked on the renovation, and Lewis hung out with me in my room. Bear paced back and forth between us, trying to connect us all. I couldn’t wait until the Boys’ Birthday Party so we could do something together again.

  When the air filter seemed to help a little, Dad brought the furnace guys back to install a special filter on the furnace. It was another foul day as the Spirit Man brewed up a storm, but eventually the new filter was running.

  Within days, Mom was feeling better and starting to do more. Even so, it wasn’t soon enough or fast enough.

  In late January, Dad said, “Mom’s not well enough to do the Boys’ Birthday, so we’ll have to postpone it until spring break.”

  I dropped my fork. “But we’re going to Grandma’s!” I squeaked.

  Dad smiled. “We’ll invite her here instead,” he said, “and drive out this summer, like we usually do.”

  I sat, stunned. No. I could not possibly wait until summer. I had to get rid of the Spirit Man before then. I closed my eyes, swallowed and said, “I’ll do it.”

  As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I shuddered and almost took them back. I hate organizing people and big parties.

  “What?” Dad asked.

  “The Boys’ Birthday. I’ll organize it.” My stomach twisted, but I tried to sound sure of myself.

  “Just you?” asked BB, his voice scornful. “Just you and Old Mouldy?”

  “No, me and Old Moby and Lewis. You and Dad make sure the house is clean, and Lewis and I will plan the party.”

  “Jane, you can’t do it,” Mom said. “You hate that kind of fuss.” She stopped in a fit of coughing.

  “Mom, I can. We can do this. You won’t have to do a thing.”

  “I can’t get the house clean and make the salsas by myself,” Dad said. “That’s a lot of work.”

  “Then it won’t be a salsa party,” I said.

  “What will we eat?” asked BB.

  I shrugged. “What do you like, Lewis?”

  “Pickles,” he said.

  The Spirit Man grinned.

  I glared at the Spirit Man, grabbed a piece of paper and wrote down Pickles. “We’ll have a pickle party,” I said.

  “And olives,” said BB.

  I looked up at him, frowning.

  He shrugged. “I like olives,” he said.

  Olives, I wrote down.

  Then I looked at Dad.

  “Pickled beets are my favorite.”

  I added Pickled Beets to the list. “Could you take us shopping?” I asked Dad.

  He nodded. “We’ll go the day before the party.”

  “We can’t just have pickles,” Mom said.

  When everyone turned to her and said, “Why not?” she started to laugh and then to cough. When she was finished, she said, her voice hoarse, “Pickles it is!”

  Of course, we didn’t just have pickles. When I invited our friends, every one of them asked, “What can I bring?”

  “An appetizer would be lovely,” I’d answer politely.

  Lewis and I bought paper plates and cups and napkins, pop and juice, taco chips, and lots and lots of pickles. Dill pickles, pickled beets, olives, baby pickles, pickled onions. But no pickled eggs.

  We decorated with all of Dad’s silly toys, and brought in the robots, dressed in party hats.

  Just before the party, I found the Spirit Man and had a chat. “You have to behave. No hurting people. No mischief. No trouble.” I stared into his eyes. “No trouble, do you hear me?”

  He just stared back, but I could feel a nod. Just a tiny one. “Thanks,” I said. “I am trying to get you home, you know.”

  He turned to stare out the window.

  The closer it got to party time, the more nervous I felt. Somehow this had become my party—my plan, my invitations—and now I was expected to host it.

  “Just answer the door and welcome people,” Dad said. “I’ll be in the kitchen, and Mom will be enthroned on the sofa. Just send them in.”

  I groaned.

  The bell rang, and I jumped up, my stomach knotted. I pasted on a smile and opened the door. Friends of Dad’s. “Hi,” I said. “Come on in. Dad and BB are in the kitchen. Mom’s in the living room.” And then they were gone. I let out my breath in a big whoosh. Okay, I can do this. Then more friends came, and more. Each one brought presents and a plate of appetizers, and soon the tables were loaded with goodies.

  Lewis played on the stairs with his friends and Bear, and BB and his buddies settled in to eat as much as they could before being chased away.

  Finally Kara arrived to keep me company.

  “I’m so worried the Spirit Man will find a way to ruin the party,” I said.

  “You worry too much,” said Kara.
r />   “Well, he scares me.”

  “So make him less scary.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “Think of him with a pink parasol.”

  I smiled. “With pretty white lace all around the edges?”

  Kara grinned. “Exactly!”

  The party was wonderful. One of Mom’s friends brought a huge chocolate birthday cake, with Brandon and Lewis and Tomas written on it in green icing, with pickles dancing around the edges.

  When everyone had a slice, Mom stood and held up a hand for silence. “First of all, to pickles!” She raised her glass. “Thank you, Lewis, for that inspired idea.” Everyone either laughed or helped themselves to another pickle.

  Then Mom spoke again. “I’d like to thank Jane for this party. Without her, it would never have happened. To Mackenzie Jane.” She lifted her glass and toasted me, and everyone joined in.

  “To Mackenzie Jane.”

  I stood blinking back tears. She never called me Mackenzie Jane!

  Kara elbowed me. “Say something,” she whispered.

  I looked up. Everyone was staring at me. I swallowed and mumbled, “Um…To Lewis. And Brandon. And Dad. Happy Birthday.”

  While everyone cheered and drank, I added softly, “And to the Spirit Man, who hasn’t done a single bad thing today. I hope.”

  Lewis and BB joined me while we ate our cake.

  “Oh, I didn’t get you presents,” I said, suddenly remembering. “I was so busy planning the party, I forgot.”

  Lewis looked around at the party—especially at Mom, happy and flushed and chatting. “This is your present,” he said.

  BB draped an arm over my shoulder and gave me a quick squeeze in agreement.

  CHAPTER 13

  Waiting for Spring

  As Mom healed, the basement renovation continued. BB’s room was the first one completely finished. Once it was painted, with carpet on the floor and blinds on the window, we moved BB downstairs, with Mom directing where everything should go from a chair in the corner.

  “We’ll change things a bit later,” Mom said. “But this will do for now.”

  With BB gone, Lewis’s room was half-empty. He was promised a big shelf for books, but he said he didn’t mind waiting. For now, his books were stacked on the floor.

  Finally things were calming down; I just needed to hang on until spring break. The Spirit Man didn’t make it easy. He left my family alone, but he loved creating wild weather, and sometimes he’d come to school with me.

  One day he walked with us to school and disappeared. I thought that was a good thing, until the fire alarm went off.

  At first we thought it was a drill, but as soon as we stepped into the hallway, we could smell smoke. Mrs. Von Hirschberg was suddenly extra strict, snapping out instructions in a voice that demanded obedience. Even Byron stayed in line and didn’t say a word.

  Staff stood at all the hallway intersections, directing traffic and hustling us outside as fast as they could without letting us run.

  We gathered on the lawn in class groups, far from the building. From there, we could see smoke pouring out of a science-room window. It was thick and black and smelled disgusting.

  Soon we could hear sirens. Two fire trucks pulled up in front of the school. One fireman conferred with the principal, and then they headed inside, bright in their yellow suits, big boots clumping.

  Mr. Ryan’s class was right beside mine. Kara and I worked our way close to each other.

  “I heard a science experiment blew up,” Kara said.

  “I bet it was the Spirit Man.” I looked around, trying to find him.

  “Really?”

  I nodded. “I made him promise to leave my family alone and not to hurt anyone, but he gets bored. You know all those storms?”

  “Jane!”

  “I told him he could play with the weather as long as no one gets hurt and there’s no damage. He loves wild weather!”

  Kara shook her head. “I can’t believe you’re giving the Spirit Man orders!”

  “I know,” I said. I shivered. “And I can’t believe he’s following them! Well, sort of.” I looked at the school. “At least no one was hurt.”

  “You still think he’s with you?”

  I spotted him lurking near the fence, far from the kids. “Standing right over there,” I said in a low voice.

  Kara gasped and backed away. “Are you serious?”

  We played outside while the school aired out and the firemen made sure everything was safe. We didn’t have any outdoor clothes, but it was a warm day, so we didn’t mind. It started to snow—big soft flakes coating our hair and our shoulders. The Spirit Man watched in approval. We were all disappointed when we had to go back inside.

  We finally made it to spring break. According to the newspaper, we’d had the most snow, the strongest winds and the nastiest early spring in twenty years. But I didn’t care. Mom was getting better, and we were going to Grandma’s.

  It wasn’t easy getting out the door. First we had to figure out what to do with Bear.

  Mom and Dad checked with every relative, friend and neighbor, but no one wanted a huge dog, even just for ten days.

  Lewis and I talked about it one afternoon while we walked Bear to the park with Byron, for their run.

  “Dad told me we just can’t take him to Grandma’s,” Lewis said. “She doesn’t like dogs enough to manage with such a big one.”

  “Bear would hate being stuck in a kennel,” I said. “But he has to go somewhere. We have to get to Grandma’s!”

  “I could take him,” Byron said.

  I stared at him. “Are you kidding?”

  “No, I really like him. And my parents like dogs. I’ll ask.”

  Soon my dad and Byron’s dad had it all worked out. Dad was even going to pay Byron for taking care of Bear.

  The forecast for the day we were leaving was snow, starting around noon.

  “We’ll leave early, before it starts, and miss the whole thing,” Dad said, sounding satisfied.

  But the Spirit Man had other plans. When we woke up Saturday morning, snow was beginning to coat the ground.

  Dad checked the forecast; a storm warning had been posted. “They’re forecasting a big snowfall in the foothills, beginning later this morning. But it looks like it’s already started.”

  “We can’t let a little snow stop us,” I said. “We’re Bartolomés.”

  “Jane, if it’s not safe…,” Mom said.

  “But if we leave quickly, we can get to Banff before it gets too deep. We can buy breakfast on the road.”

  Dad put down the frying pan and put away the juice. “Absolutely,” he said.

  So we grabbed essentials and flew out the door.

  By Canmore, the world was blanketed in white. The only sound was the van’s wheels whooshing through the wet snow on the highway. As we drove, snow seemed to fall straight at us in a mesmerizing pattern. Lewis and I pretended we were in a spaceship, traveling at warp speed.

  As the snow fell faster and thicker, Mom and Dad started to talk about turning back. “If it gets any worse, it just won’t be safe,” Mom said.

  I glanced to the back of the van. The Spirit Man was watching the storm out the back window. “I don’t want anyone getting hurt,” I said, frowning at him. Then I asked, “Did the forecast say where the storm would hit?”

  “Yes,” Dad said. “It’s starting in the foothills east of the Rockies and moving farther east through the day.”

  “So we might be almost past it,” I said, hoping I could keep us heading west.

  Dad nodded. “There’s no place to turn around here, and we don’t want to drive back into it, so we might as well keep going until we find a safe place to stop.”

  By Banff, the sun was shining, so we kept driving. We stopped for breakfast at a coffee shop in Lake Louise and feasted on fresh baking. As we left, we stocked up with sandwiches and cookies, since we hadn’t packed the cooler.

  The highway was quiet,
so we made good time; Dad figured the storm had kept everyone else off the road. The mountains were beautiful, covered in gleaming white. We could see big overhangs of snow, just waiting to come crashing down as avalanches.

  We drove around a curve in the highway, and Dad yelled and slammed on the brakes. I looked up to a wall of snow smashing down the mountainside. We screeched to a halt, just in time to not be swept down to the river far below us.

  We all sat back, gasping and shaking. Mom jumped out to signal to any other traffic, while Dad backed the van around the corner, far from the avalanche and in sight of oncoming cars. He made us get out of the van and stand well back from the road, in case someone drove up and couldn’t stop in time. Then he and Mom dug under all the luggage, found some safety triangles and set them on the road behind us.

  There was no cell-phone service, but soon a truck arrived with a radio, and the driver contacted the Mounties.

  We waited to talk to them. Mostly they wanted to know if anyone was ahead of us, caught in the avalanche. Dad told them it had been really quiet and he hadn’t seen anyone for a while.

  Finally they let us go. We turned around and headed east; the highway would be blocked for days.

  “Can we get to Grandma’s another way?” I asked.

  Dad said, “Well, we could take Highway 97 south and drive west along the southern route. But that’s a lot of extra driving.”

  “There’s no other way?” I asked.

  “The Golden Triangle,” Mom muttered as she started rustling through maps in the glove compartment. “I’m sure that will work.”

  “Of course,” said Dad. “The avalanche was this side of Golden, so if we drive back to Castle Junction, we could go south to Radium and then head west to Golden from there. The highways form a triangle. Cyclists like to ride it.”

  We stopped at the National Parks Visitor Centre in Lake Louise. They checked and told us the route should be fine.

  Before we climbed back into the van, I opened the back and pretended to look for something while I muttered to the Spirit Man, “Behave yourself, or I’ll leave you in a snow pile at the side of the road!”