Haint Misbehavin'

by Maureen Hardegree

  “I said who’s Drew? What’s this pool?” Amy asked louder than before, making my ears ring.

  From the back fence, Claire shouted. “Hate to tell you, Heather, but I’m going to increase my lead. There’s tons back here. When I win, though, I’ll give you some of my downloads, ‘kay?”

  “Thanks!” I shouted over Amy’s unrelenting questions.

  “Who’s Drew? What’s this pool!”

  “Drew is a lifeguard. A pool is a fancy swimming hole,” I whispered.

  The patio door opened, and Roquefort charged toward us, howling, then scrabbled under the vines to where I was. Roquefort growled at Amy. Amy gave the dog the evil eye. Tucking in her tail, Roquefort skulked around Amy to hide behind me and whined.

  “Where is it?” she asked, twirling a piece of her hair.

  “Down the street. It’s boring.”

  “What? I can’t hear you,” Claire called.

  “Just muttering to myself,” I lied, scratching under that tag on my shirt, and wondering why Amy had stopped with her questions. That couldn’t be good. Heart pounding, I glanced over at her.

  Her gap-toothed grin firmly fixed on her face, Amy bargained, “Take me to the swimming hole, and I’ll forget all about our Hide and Go Seek game.”

  “No,” I said loud enough that Claire showed up at the end of my row, looking at me like she thought maybe there was good reason for people to find me a wee bit odd.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked.

  “Uh, yeah, I just lost a couple of beetles. They flew off,” I lied, then added a little I-don’t-really-care-about-this-silly-competition laugh. “I’m never going to win at this rate.”

  “Please take me,” Amy begged, her voice sweet, her little freckled face quite angelic.

  “So you can leave the yard?” I whispered.

  Amy pursed her lips and squeezed her eyes shut, looking just like the last kid I ever babysat—Hollis McDermott. He used to put on a similar constipated expression right before he’d hold his breath. He somehow thought not breathing would scare me into doing what he wanted. But Amy couldn’t breathe even if she wanted to. She was dead already. Dead. I blinked.

  There was something about that word dead that bothered me. I didn’t want to feel sympathy for Amy, but there it was welling up to the surface of my conscience like oil on a pepperoni pizza. My throat tightened as I wondered what it had been like to die when you’d never really lived. Amy had never finished school. Most likely, a cute boy had never kissed her. She’d never married and had kids of her own. All she wanted was to have a little fun.

  “I can leave the farm if’n you say I can, Heather. Please? I swear I’ll be good. Do you know what it’s like to be stuck back here, year after year, waiting for you to see me again? Please?”

  I squatted down under the vines so Claire couldn’t see me. “Let me get this straight. You’re a ghost, who I thought was an imaginary friend when I was little, and you can’t materialize anywhere but in yard?”

  Amy nodded emphatically. “For now.”

  “And you can only come with me other places if I say you can?”

  Her ghostly gaze focused on the clay at my feet. “Sorta.”

  “Define sort of.”

  “Do I hafta?”

  “If you want me to take you to the pool, you do,” I whispered in a rush of anger, then worried that I’d made her just as angry.

  “You’re meaner than an ol’ sow.”

  “I’m not trying to be mean. I’m trying to use my time efficiently. How can I help you if I don’t know the rules?”

  “All right.” She sighed, stirring the air, making my nose and fingers so cold I wished for gloves and a knit cap. “If’n you let me accompany you, I can go to the swimming hole. But I hafta do something nice for you, first.”

  “Really?” Now that was an interesting wrinkle. I wondered if this good haint deed was sort of like a genie wish. If Amy had to grant my heart’s desire, I knew what I wanted—Drew.

  No, wait. Maybe I wanted Audrey and all her friends to think I was cool. If they did, then he—

  “Who are you talking to?” Claire asked, creating a cloud of red dust as she flip-flopped up my row.

  “To myself—again.” I laughed half-heartedly. “I’m getting as bad as Aunt Geneva.” In so many disturbing ways.

  Claire didn’t dispute the comparison, and the tag inside my shirt began to bother me again, only worse than before.

  “Looks like you should just admit defeat,” Claire said.

  Wait a minute. I thought she couldn’t see Amy. “But how. . . I thought you. . .”

  She stuck her jar next to mine. Claire’s beetle layer was somewhere between two to three inches. Mine? Maybe a little over an inch.

  Okay, she meant the beetles, not the ghost.

  Where had Amy gone off to?

  I didn’t have long to wonder. Cool air rushed from behind me. My whole body tingled like it did that time in the mountains when I jumped into water so cold it hurt. That tight jeans feeling came back, too. My teeth set to chattering, my stomach growled, and I had a sudden hankering for sausage, biscuits, and sawmill gravy.

  Hankering?

  Amy was inside me again.

  I gave in to the urge to scratch the skin under my hateful tag, which I knew would only bring temporary relief, and afterwards, my skin would itch more. But I couldn’t stop myself. Several mosquito bites chimed in, and I scratched those, too.

  Amy took control of my free arm, forcing me to reach for Claire’s jar.

  No way was I letting her win. I fought back, probably looking like I was having what Amy would call a conniption fit.

  Claire’s eyes, the same shade of hazel as Dad’s, grew large. “What are you doing?”

  My hand gripped the bottom of her mason jar and yanked it from her grasp. Claire’s mouth gaped open as I upturned the glass, spilling the beetle juice and dead beetles onto the furrowed ground, where it splashed onto a clump of crabgrass and wet the lower half of my right pajama leg. Several beetles caught on the thin printed cotton.

  Claire stared at me unblinking, a poster child for slack-jawed horror.

  Now you’ll have a better chance at winning, Amy’s thought intruded. Having someone else’s perceptions flash through my brain was beyond disturbing.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  Hurt lent a harsh edge to Claire’s normally pretty voice. “To think I was going to give you some downloads if I won. I never expected you to do something like this to me.”

  Translation: She might expect Audrey to do it to me, or vice versa.

  “I’m really sorry. Here, take mine.” I fought Amy’s resistance and shoved my jar into Claire’s hand. “I’ll post zero as my count for today.”

  Without so much as a thank you, Claire stomped off, my jar in her hand.

  “Will you get out of me?” I hissed, rubbing my freezing arms and wondering if I could get hypothermia from ghost possession.

  Amy stayed right where she was. Why should I?

  “Maybe because I won’t take you to the pool if you don’t leave my body alone.” Of course, if she stayed inside me, she’d come along wherever I went. And who knew what she’d make me do.

  So you’ll take me?

  “You’re forgetting you have to do something nice for me, and you haven’t.”

  I did do something nice. I dumped your sister’s beetles.

  “That’s a pretty screwed up view of nice. I may not even get to go to the pool today if Claire tells Mom about what you made me do. Now get out of me. I didn’t give you permission to use my body for your dirty work.”

  You noticed me. You’ve been talking to me. So I can enter you without so much as a howdy-do.

  Yet another rule. I needed to write these down. “Don’t you want to do something more interesting than go to the pool? Don’t you want to move on? Can you see the light? Move toward it if you do.”

  I want to go to the dadblame pool. Amy’s voice vibrated w
ithin me, more peevish than before.

  I tried to will her out. I tried reasoning. “Hey, if you’re so into pools, you should really appear to Audrey. She goes there almost daily. You’ll get along great.”

  Audrey can’t see me. No one else in your family can see me, just you and your ol’ dog.

  “Why?” I asked right before our beagle delivered her infamous three part howl and shot off toward the patio, where there was good chipmunk hunting this time of day.

  I don’t rightly know. Please, I want you to take me to the pool, Heather. I swear on my Mama’s teacakes I won’t do nothing contemptible.

  “And why should I trust you?”

  Your daddy loves his muscadines, don’t he?

  That’s when she reached out with both of my hands and started plucking the miniscule fruit clusters. Try as I might, I couldn’t stop her. Amy could destroy his entire crop if she chose to do so, and everyone would think I did it. If she could do that, what else was she capable of?

  Everything inside me screamed, don’t give in, but I had to for Dad’s sake. It was what someone who wanted her parents to think of her as an adult would do—sacrifice her own happiness for someone she loved.

  “Fine!” I yelled. “I’ll take you.”

  Amy left my body and took on her ethereal form, braids swinging as she skipped joyfully in front of me.

  After the trip to the pool, she’d have had her fun, and she’d go away. Unless the pool wasn’t enough fun.

  The skin underneath my shirt tag started itching again. Okay, if going to the pool didn’t do the trick, I’d just have to find some other activity that would. Not that I needed anything else to worry about now. I was already over the limit and well on my way to neurotic as I prepared to explain to my mom why I’d dumped Claire’s beetles.

  Chapter Three

  Two days later, after I’d fulfilled my sentence. Dad was at work at the state environmental protection division, Mom was teaching a potholder weaving class at the craft store, and I worried myself into a mild rash. Today was the day I not only had to take Amy to the pool as promised in hope of getting rid of her, but I also had to attempt tampon use. With dread akin to sitting next to Supergeek on the bus, I managed to insert the stupid thing. But I have to say I felt like I’d been corked. I tried not to focus on the little paper plug inside me and the string hanging out. I didn’t want to start itching there.

  Unfortunately, Audrey was working at the pool snack bar today, which meant if Amy decided to do something like break the webbing on all the lounge chairs, I wouldn’t exactly ingratiate myself to my older sister. My skin prickled in dread.

  Loaded down with over-stuffed pool bags and a small cooler, Claire and I started off on foot in the sweltering heat. Amy was with us but she wasn’t floating close enough to prevent me from perspiring. And let me say right now, there’s nothing like a long, sweaty walk uphill on a scorching day to make a person appreciate air-conditioning. Since I couldn’t exactly talk to Amy in front of Claire, I kept mouthing the word “behave” like a mantra as we trudged up the big hill to the pool.

  At last. the swim pavilion rose before us amid the waves of heat rising from the asphalt. It shimmered like a mirage. Claire’s chin-length bob swung as she slid the electronic key into the wrought iron gate and pulled it open. Relieved to be out of the sun, I entered the shaded picnic area, stood off to the side by one of the faded red plastic trashcans, and scoped out the best vantage point. My Drew-dar picked up the lifeguard of my dreams on the other side of the pool, in the chair high above the diving well, his life-float at the ready if he should have to save some lucky someone.

  Drew Blanton, hot lifeguard extraordinaire, had to notice me. And I had to watch Drew wind his whistle lariat around his index finger, first one way, then the other. I know it’s lame, but he’s that cute.

  For a moment, I toyed with pretending to have cramps in the deep water, so that he’d save me. But faking something so serious would be uncool. It wouldn’t exactly score any points with Audrey either.

  Drew’s mirrored lenses reflected the blue sky and rippling water, where some boys from middle school were playing Sharks and Minnows. I wished his sunglasses would reflect me.

  “Hey, you!” he called out, adjusting the backwards brim of his navy blue cap and pointing in my direction. He waved.

  “Princess and the Pe-ea,” a kid with pale white skin and freckles crooned as he ran past me and earned several short bursts on the whistle from Drew.

  “Walk!” he yelled, then cupped his mouth and called out, “Hey!” He made some sort of motion that looked like he was either conducting a symphony or writing and pointed toward the pavilion.

  Claire poked me in the arm with her bony finger. “I think he means you.”

  I rubbed the tender flesh that would be a full-fledged bruise by tomorrow. “No, duh, Claire. I’ve been called Princess and the Pea since Young Three’s at preschool.”

  “That’s not who I meant. I think Drew is trying to get your attention.”

  Now he was waving both gorgeously muscled arms. Surely not at me.

  The plastic fastener on the back of my halter-top started to irritate the skin underneath. Oh, my, God. At long last, Drew Blanton, the hottest rising junior at Pecan Hills High, knew of my existence. Should I walk over to him, or should I remain aloof?

  Just to be sure, I looked behind, noting Mandy Shepherd in a hot pink and orange string bikini signing in her short blond friend—also in a string bikini. See, other moms let their daughters who are my age wear them.

  “Uh, no, Claire,” I said. “He’s waving to the pretty girls.”

  Mandy walked past us, tossed her long, glossy black hair over her shoulder and smiled. “Great suit, Heather.”

  “Thanks.” I couldn’t hate Mandy. Sure, she had skin the color of a Starbuck’s latte and most every guy liked her, but she was nice. Not once in all the years we’d been in school together had Mandy called me Princess and the Pea. She’d never made fun of my husky voice either.

  Pleased as a girl with a ghost could get, I eyed my new halter bikini, not a string, thanks to Mom’s rules. But this soft turquoise and chocolate hipster was a more revealing cut than I’d ever worn before. Mandy liked it. I couldn’t wait to tell Audrey.

  Right behind Mandy, Amy materialized semi-opaque and agog. Her eyes wide, she stared first at the kids in the pool and then at the mommies talking. I think she was horrified by the display of skin. I had been, too, the first time I saw Mrs. Cheever’s cellulite and stretch marks. Thank you, Lord, for giving me a mom who not only hates the pool but also knows when to hang up the two-piece for one of those skirted jobbies.

  Amy managed to tear her gaze from Mrs. Cheever and gawked at the expanse of water free of kids. She was so entranced, I wondered if maybe she was afraid, if maybe she’d drowned.

  “That pool ain’t muddy a’tall,” she said, the awe in her voice as clear as the water refracting the sunlight. And awe was good, I thought. I hoped. I prayed.

  One of the lifeguards blew his whistle long and loud.

  “Seriously, Heather, Drew’s pointing at you,” Claire said. “I think you’re in trouble.”

  “Me? What did I do? I just got here.”

  Drew stood in the stand and blew his whistle. “You!”

  I pointed to myself, then raised both hands and shrugged, which was really hard to do considering I had four towels in my pool bag strapped to one shoulder and I was holding the full mini-cooler.

  “Sign the book!” he yelled.

  “Oh, sorry!”

  “God!” Audrey shouted from the snack bar forty feet away. “It’s not enough that you make my life a living hell at home, now you have to do it here, too!”

  And here I thought I was the one in hell. In my defense, I’d like to point out that three days ago, we only had to sign in guests. We also had to pay additional fees for these guests, which I think is totally unfair considering the bazillion bucks our parents pay to be members. The
powers that be must have changed the procedure while I was serving time.

  Luckily, Amy was ethereal. She wouldn’t cost me any money, but I wasn’t sure about other costs I might incur, like my dignity. So far, all of maybe five minutes, Amy hadn’t stirred up any trouble. That boded well, right? She had to have fun in the sun. Who didn’t?

  “So where do you want to sit?” Claire asked. “How about there?” She pointed to the row of white plastic lounge chairs on the far side of the pool.

  Claire’s spot would give us plenty of profile gazing, but I wanted full frontal Drew viewing. Now, the row of chairs lined up by the fence fulfilled that requirement and also provided us with the added bonus of the lifeguard office prospect. “How about there?” I said, and started walking fast, without running, to stake out our territory.

  My sweet sister followed, her flip-flops slapping on the wet cement behind me. “Don’t you think it’s too close to the kiddie pool?”

  “But look at the maximum view potential,” I said and placed my cooler, pool bag with tags and multitude of towels on three loungers in the full sun.

  I know what you must be thinking. Yes, bringing at least four towels every time I go to the pool is a little odd. You would, too, if you got rashes from wet towels. Once, I even got hives and had to take Benadryl.

  “What view?” Amy asked, squinching up her freckled nose.

  I pointed to Drew, then turned my lounger around and lowered what was now the front so it was barely tilted. I could pretend to read and tan my backside. Truth be known, I was starting to get a butt and was proud of it.

  “Why’d you wanna look at him?”

  I gathered my unruly hair into a clip and whispered under my breath, “Because he’s really, really hot.”

  “Course he is,” Amy said. “He’s sitting full out in the sun while everybody else is splashing in the water.”

  Tempted as I was to roll my eyes, I didn’t. Amy had to have fun today, and I had to behave like I was normal to prove to my sister that I wasn’t as much of a weirdo as she thought. With that in mind, I devoted my attention to getting tan, slicking my body down with the low SPF oil I’d secretly purchased at the drug store.