The Ghost Backstage

by Dori Hillestad Butler

  “Okay,” Andy groaned.

  “Let me show you the control room. Quick! Before the second bell rings,” Mr. Hartshorn said. They hurried to the back of the cafetorium.

  Kaz swam behind them.

  Mr. Hartshorn unlocked a small room and they stepped inside. Kaz hovered in the doorway. He saw a long table with a machine that had lots of buttons and knobs on it. A window above all those buttons and knobs looked out into the cafetorium. There was another door in the back wall. Probably a closet.

  “Do you know how to use this equipment?” Mr. Hartshorn asked.

  “Yes,” Andy replied. “And I’d like to run lights and sound for the play, but I have soccer on Mondays and Wednesdays. Do you need me at every rehearsal?”

  “Not until the week of the play,” Mr. Hartshorn said.

  Kaz backstroked away from the control room.

  “Mom? Pops? Grandmom? Grandpop?” he called as he wafted around the cafetorium. “Finn? Little John? Are any of you here?”

  Kaz spotted another room along the sidewall of the cafetorium. A light shined through an open doorway, and Kaz smelled something interesting. Food of some sort.

  Ghosts didn’t need food, but Kaz had spent enough time with Claire’s family to know that solids did. In fact, solids ate food quite often. Sometimes more than three times a day.

  Kaz swam into the room, and a loud bell rang again. But the solid ladies in this room didn’t even react to the bell. They were busy stirring pans on a stove and talking about their grandchildren. Kaz watched them for a while, but then a shuffling noise outside the kitchen caught his attention. He swam back out into the cafetorium. The shuffling came from behind the heavy red curtain on the stage.

  “Hello?” he said as he swam to the curtain. “Is anybody back there?”

  Kaz didn’t want to pass through the curtain, so he dove down and glided under it. There were even more curtains behind that first one. The whole stage was surrounded by black and gold curtains.

  Kaz heard more shuffling. Then a scratching sound.

  He followed the sounds to a small room behind the stage. A large board that was painted to look like a house rested against the wall outside that room. Inside, the room was piled high with boxes. Two solid girls around Kaz and Claire’s age were folding clothes and putting them into boxes on the floor.

  “It’s not fair,” grumbled the shorter girl. She had a splash of freckles on her cheeks. “I try out for the play every year, but I never get a part. I always get stuck working backstage.”

  “I like working backstage,” the other girl said as she tossed her long hair over her shoulder. “It’s better than being on the stage and having to learn all those lines. Plus, Mr. Hartshorn lets you out of class to clean the storage room.”

  The girl with the freckles wrinkled her nose. “I’d rather be onstage!” she said as she shoved a box across the room.

  Kaz darted out of the way.

  “Besides,” the girl with the freckles went on. “Mr. Hartshorn only lets us out of class because he doesn’t want to clean the storage room himself!”

  “Well, go back to class, then, if you don’t want to help,” the other girl said.

  The two girls worked in silence after that.

  There clearly weren’t any ghosts backstage, so Kaz swam back under the curtain and into the cafetorium. He looked around. There were no ghosts in here, either.

  He drifted over to the open door and streeeetched his head around the doorjamb and into the hallway. Kaz didn’t see any ghosts. Or solids.

  He wafted out into the hallway. “Mom? Pops?” Kaz called.

  Some of the classroom doors were open and some were closed. Kaz swam over to a closed door and peered into the window. He saw a bunch of solid children sitting at tables and reading from books.

  He checked the classroom across the hall and saw more solid children building houses out of those tiny white cubes that Claire liked to put in her hot chocolate. Kaz couldn’t remember what they were called.

  Farther down the hall he heard music. A piano. And some instruments that made clomping sounds.

  Kaz swam into that classroom and watched a solid boy strike a silver triangle. There was a triangle back at the old schoolhouse. Sometimes Grandpop played it for Kaz.

  Thinking of Grandpop made Kaz’s heart ache. It also reminded Kaz that he was here to find a ghost, not listen to music. He returned to the hallway.

  He rounded a corner and came to a library. Kaz could tell it was a library because of all the books, tables, chairs, couches, and computers.

  Kaz floated among groups of solid children who were working at different tables. Some had books propped open in front of them. Some wrote in notebooks like Claire’s. Some typed on computers. And some simply talked among themselves.

  All of a sudden, Kaz heard a girl’s voice behind him: “Hey, Ghost Boy!”

  Kaz whirled around. Was that girl talking to him? Could she see him?

  No.

  She was talking to a boy with light hair who sat alone at a table, reading a book.

  “Seen any more ghosts lately?” The girl poked him in the back. Her two friends giggled as they all scurried away.

  The boy’s face turned bright red.

  Can that boy see ghosts? Kaz wondered. Was that Jonathan, the boy who told Claire he saw a ghost in this school yesterday?

  Kaz drifted over to the boy. “Hello?” he said, gazing into the boy’s eyes.

  “Can you see me? Can you hear me?”

  The boy turned a page in his book. He didn’t act like he could see or hear Kaz.

  So why did that girl call him “Ghost Boy”?

  Kaz noticed a wadded-up piece of paper on the floor near the boy’s feet. He saw the word ghost in one of the crinkles.

  Is that a clue? Had the boy written something about the ghost he saw on that paper?

  Kaz tried to open the paper, but his hand passed through it.

  He groaned.

  Kaz could almost hear Beckett’s voice in his head telling him to concentrate. He tried to concentrate. He stared so hard at the paper that his eyes blurred. Then, biting his lip, he reached out and tried again to open the paper.

  Once again, his hand passed through.

  “If you have books to check out, bring them to Mrs. Coombs,” one of the grown-up solids said. “It’s time to go back to the room.”

  “Ghost Boy” grabbed the wad of paper, tossed it into a trash can on top of a bunch of other papers, then joined the crowd of kids around the big desk.

  Kaz would never find out what that paper said now.

  Kaz couldn’t stop thinking about that wad of paper. It could be an important clue. But he couldn’t pick it up. He couldn’t unfold it. And as he floated above the trash can, Kaz wasn’t even sure which wad of paper was the one he wanted anymore.

  What if he was letting an important clue slip away?

  Maybe Claire could help. She said she would be in room 125. All Kaz had to do was find room 125 and tell Claire about the wad of paper. Then she could find the right paper, open it up, and decide whether it was important.

  Kaz read the numbers on the signs outside each classroom door: 108 . . . 110 . . . 112. Claire’s classroom didn’t appear to be down that hallway, so he tried a different one: 120 . . . 122 . . . 124 . . . and across the hall he saw 125. Kaz swam over, but there weren’t any solids in room 125. Just rows of empty desks.

  Where’s Claire? Kaz wondered. He was sure she’d said she’d be in room 125. Was she lost? Did she leave the school without him? She wouldn’t do that, would she?

  Kaz didn’t know what to do. He hovered outside room 125, wondering if Claire would come back.

  He waited . . . and waited . . . and waited . . .

  Soon he heard voices at the end of the hall. He looked up and saw a lin
e of solid children walking toward him. Claire was second in line, right behind a grown-up solid.

  “Claire!” Kaz said, swimming alongside her. “You have to come with me. I think I found a clue in the library, but I can’t open it. I can’t even find it because it’s in a trash can with all these other wads of paper. Come on!”

  “I can’t,” Claire mouthed at him. “I have to stay with my class.”

  “What? Why?” Kaz asked.

  Claire didn’t answer. It was so hard to communicate with Claire when other solids were around.

  Kaz followed Claire into room 125 and over to a desk in the middle of the room. As soon as she sat down, Claire stuck her hand in the air.

  Kaz darted out of the way before Claire’s hand passed through him.

  “Mrs. Galway?” Claire said.

  “Yes?” said the grown-up solid at the front of the room.

  “Can I go to the bathroom?” Claire asked.

  “Go quickly,” Mrs. Galway said. “Everyone else, please take out your math books.”

  Desks creaked open all around the room as Claire got up from her seat and hurried to the door.

  Kaz swam behind her.

  “Remember, I can’t talk to you when other people are around,” Claire whispered once they were out in the hallway.

  Kaz knew that.

  “And I can’t go with you whenever I want to,” Claire added. “I have to stay with my class unless I have permission to go someplace by myself.”

  “Oh,” Kaz said. He didn’t know that.

  “But we’re alone now,” Claire said. “So, tell me about this clue.”

  Kaz told Claire all about the boy in the library and the wad of paper with the word ghost on it.

  “That sounds like Jonathan,” Claire said as they turned a corner. They were outside the library now. “I heard people calling him Ghost Boy in the hall this morning.”

  “We have to find out what he wrote on that paper. You have to come in here and find the paper he put in the trash can,” Kaz said.

  Claire glanced up and down the hallway. “Okay,” she said. “But we have to do it quick. If Mrs. Galway finds out I went to the library instead of the bathroom, I could get in trouble.”

  There wasn’t anyone in the library now. Kaz led Claire over to the trash can. “It’s in there,” he said.

  Claire reached into the trash can and pulled out several wads of paper.

  “That’s not it,” Kaz said as she unfolded the first one.

  She tossed it back and opened another.

  “That’s not it, either,” Kaz said.

  Claire opened a third wad.

  “That’s it!” Kaz exclaimed as he saw the word ghost.

  Claire smoothed the paper against her leg, then held it up so she could read it. She frowned. “It’s a book report. Or the start of one. It’s about a book called The Ghost at Mike’s House.” She dropped the paper back into the trash can.

  “So it’s not a clue?” Kaz asked.

  “No,” Claire said.

  Kaz groaned. “I’ve been all over your school and I haven’t found any ghosts or any clues.”

  “We need more information,” Claire said. “I’ll talk to Jonathan at lunch. He’s the one who saw the ghost. Maybe he’ll give us a clue.”

  The cafetorium was a lot noisier now. A lot more crowded, too. Kaz had to swim up near the hot lights in the ceiling so no one would walk through him.

  Claire stood in the middle of the room with her tray and looked around for Jonathan.

  “There he is!” Kaz pointed at a boy who was sitting by himself at a table in the far corner of the cafetorium. “That’s the boy I saw in the library.”

  Claire nodded. “That’s Jonathan.” She walked over to him.

  “Is it okay if I sit here?” Claire asked Jonathan as she set her tray down on his table.

  Kaz floated above them.

  Jonathan glanced up at Claire in surprise. “I guess,” he said with a shrug. Then he turned back to his lunch.

  Claire sat down. “I heard you saw a ghost during tryouts yesterday,” she said as she opened her milk carton.

  Jonathan looked weary. “I know you don’t believe it,” he said.

  “No, I do!” Claire said right away. “I do believe it.”

  “You do?”

  Claire nodded. “I’ve seen ghosts before, too.” She opened her bag and pulled out one of her notebooks. “Here,” she said, sliding it across the table. “These are all the ghosts I’ve seen.”

  Jonathan opened the book. He studied each page.

  “Tell me about the ghost you saw,” Claire said as she stirred the mashed potatoes on her plate.

  Kaz thought mashed potatoes were very interesting. He knew they were food. And solids ate food. But whenever Claire had mashed potatoes on her plate, she stirred them into mountains and volcanoes. And they stayed that shape until Claire ate them.

  Jonathan slid the book back over to Claire. “She didn’t look like any of the ghosts in there,” he said.

  “She?” Claire said. “So the ghost was a girl?”

  “More like a lady,” Jonathan said.

  “What did she look like?” Claire pushed her tray away, then grabbed a pencil from her bag and turned to a blank page in her notebook.

  “Like a mom,” Jonathan said.

  Like my mom? Kaz wondered.

  “She was kind of bluish-white,” Jonathan went on. “Or whitish-blue. Really shimmery.”

  “She was glowing!” Kaz exclaimed. Which meant Jonathan saw a real ghost.

  And that ghost wanted Jonathan to see her. Ghosts never glowed unless they wanted solids to see them.

  Claire drew a face in her ghost book. “What was her hair like?” she asked.

  “Curly,” Jonathan replied. He popped a forkful of meat into his mouth.

  “Like this?” Claire drew long corkscrew curls all around her ghost’s shoulders.

  “No, it was shorter than that,” Jonathan said, his mouth full of half-chewed food. “And the top of her hair stood straight up.”

  Claire drew an X over her drawing and turned to a new page in her notebook. “More like this?” she asked as she drew a new face with tight curls around the forehead.

  “Yes.”

  “What was she wearing?” Claire asked.

  “I don’t know,” Jonathan said. “Regular mom clothes. Pants and a shirt. Oh! She had a necklace with a really big heart on it.”

  “My mom wears a necklace with a big heart on it,” Kaz said as Claire drew a necklace with a heart on the ghost.

  “Bigger than that,” Jonathan said.

  Claire erased the heart and drew it bigger.

  “Yeah, like that,” Jonathan said. “She had big earrings, too. They were shaped like keys.”

  Kaz could hardly believe his ears. “My mom wears earrings that are shaped like keys!” he cried. How many other lady ghosts wear earrings like that?

  Jonathan had to have seen Kaz’s mom. He had to have.

  “Ask him where he saw the ghost,” Kaz said to Claire.

  “Where did you see her?” Claire asked.

  “Up there.” Jonathan turned in his chair and pointed toward the top of the red stage curtain. “She floated through the curtain and then all around this room. And then she disappeared.”

  Kaz swam to the stage. “Mom?” he called as he darted under the curtain. “Mom? Are you here?” He’d already searched back there, but he had searched down low. He had not searched up high.

  Kaz drifted slowly to the ceiling. He didn’t see any ghosts, but he did see something else floating high in the air.

  A bead. A whitish-blue ghost bead.

  Just like the beads on the necklace Kaz’s mom wore.

  Kaz grabbed the bead and sque
ezed it in his hand.

  “Mom!” he called, looking all around. “MOM!”

  Kaz swam back under the curtain, through the cafetorium, and out into the hallway. “MOM! It’s me, Kaz. Where are you?”

  “Did you find her?” Claire asked as she joined Kaz in the hallway.

  There weren’t any other solids around, so Kaz could talk freely. “No, but I found this.” He opened his hand so Claire could see the ghost bead. “It’s from my mom’s necklace.”

  Claire’s eyes grew large. “Where did you find it?”

  “Up by the ceiling on the other side of that curtain.”

  Claire’s eyes grew even larger. “That’s where Jonathan saw the ghost yesterday. He must have seen your mom.”

  “I think so, too,” Kaz said.

  Claire grinned. “Well, don’t just hover here in the hallway. Go find her!”

  “Okay!” Kaz said. He put the bead in his pocket and swam away.

  “Mom?” he called as he swam up one hallway and down another. “Mom? Are you here?”

  But his mom didn’t come out when Kaz called her. And Kaz couldn’t find her anywhere.

  He checked all the classrooms a second time. He checked the library. He checked the bathrooms. Even the bathrooms that said GIRLS on the door. He called for his mom again and again.

  But he never found her. Or any other ghost.

  That could mean only one thing: His mom wasn’t at Claire’s school anymore.

  So, where did she go? Kaz wondered.

  Did she accidentally blow into the Outside through an open window? Did Jonathan scare her away? Or did she go into the Outside on purpose? Maybe she was searching for Kaz and the rest of their family just like Kaz was. Maybe she went into the Outside because she wanted the wind to carry her to another building.

  A loud bell rang. Classroom doors banged open and kids poured into the hallways. Kaz really hated those bells. He swam to the ceiling so no one would accidentally pass through him. He wrapped his hand around the ghost bead in his pocket.