Haint Misbehavin'

by Maureen Hardegree

  I gripped the arms of my chair, wondering what I could do to distract the two that wouldn’t get me kicked out of the library. I could pretend to sprain my ankle! I stood up, prepared to twist and land in a heap.

  The mom stared at what must look to her like pages turning on their own, then up at the ceiling air vent. “It’s the air conditioning, sweetheart.”

  I exhaled, not realizing I’d been holding my breath. Thank God most people don’t believe the obvious—there was a ghost turning the pages. It’s been my observation that parents especially try to find a logical conclusion for anything out of the ordinary.

  But I couldn’t exactly let down my guard. The little girl had seen Amy and had confirmed that I wasn’t the only one who could see her; she was broadcasting her frequency big time. I plopped back down in my chair and forced myself to read the instructions for my summer Language Arts assignment all us future freshmen were handed on our last day as middle schoolers. The sooner I made my selection, the sooner we’d get out of here.

  I practically gagged over the earnest words. The primary purpose of Pecan Hills High School's summer reading program is to lead students to an appreciation of good literature and to help them discover that reading is enjoyable.

  Like most of us didn’t already know that reading was enjoyable. We read, maybe not literature, but we weren’t sitting in front of the TV playing video games all the time.

  The Language Arts teachers should have admitted to the real purpose of this assignment—to force us to read stuff outside of popular fiction so that we could pass some test like the CRCT’s with high scores.

  While I’m thinking about it, I want to go on record and say that I never understood how reading a hot romance couldn’t accomplish the same goal.

  I scanned over the study questions I was supposed to answer “thoughtfully and thoroughly.” The teacher actually bolded those words.

  The air grew frigid. Amy poked the paper.

  “Stop,” I whispered under my breath in the most threatening way I could muster. I resumed reading the instructions.

  Write down each character's name as he or she is introduced, and describe each one. As you read, indicate the importance of each character in this book. Summarize what happens in the book. What are the important conflicts? Blah. Blah. Blah. Snore.

  As long as I didn’t fall asleep, I could deal with those questions. At least the theme was something I could relate to—Family: The Ties That Bind. Or choke, as the case may be.

  Amy poked my paper again.

  “Will you quit?” I hissed, earning a “sh-h” from a gray-haired man standing next to what must be his granddaughter. She snapped her gum while perusing the tween paperback display.

  “What are they doing?” Amy asked.

  “Who?” I looked up, and my stomach just about fell out of my butt.

  They were the little boys and girls who’d trooped into Children’s section while I’d been figuring out what I had to do with the books once I read them. Kids were taking spots in the carpeted amphitheater for Story Time, some with their parents, some without, some whining, some running with shoelaces untied, some in the drooling and babbling stage sitting in their strollers. The stroller babies would start screaming soon. I smelled it in the air, or was that a diaper in need of changing?

  You hear about war veterans having flashbacks of battle. Well, I think I might have just had a babysitting flashback. It figured I would pick the absolute worst time to arrive at the library. Story Time could prove scarier than the tie-dye class.

  “Heather, can’t you hear me? I asked you, what are those boys and girls doing?”

  “They’re sitting,” I whispered back, hoping that would satisfy her, but kind of knowing my answer wouldn’t.

  “I can see that. But why are they sitting there? What’s gonna happen?”

  “Someone’s going to read to them.”

  “When?”

  Wishing the storyteller would get her butt down in the big blue chair, I rubbed the back of my neck. “I don’t know. Soon.”

  Come on, lady. I needed a distraction for this ghost.

  Tuning out the evil around me, I darted my eyes down to my list of reading choices: Anne of Green Gables. . . Anything out in DVD couldn’t be that bad. Choice number one taken care of.

  Amy poked the paper again.

  “What?”

  “I’m bored.”

  “You won’t be bored once the storyteller gets here,” I whispered and hoped that saying it made it so. “If you would leave me alone for a couple of minutes, I could finish reading this stupid piece of paper and make my selections. Why don’t you pick a seat?”

  With a huff, she headed toward the amphitheater area. I went back to my list. Little Women, now there was a good movie. Choice number two done. Only one more to pick from the list. I ruled out Where the Red Fern Grows and Out of the Dust. Too depressing.

  Cold Sassy Tree. Set in Georgia, that would be a plus. Cold and sassy sounded good to me.

  I looked up to see that Amy had been waylaid on her way to Story Time. Standing next to this boy in skater clothes, she was making his shoulder-length, highlighted hair stand on end. I pushed myself up and out of my chair.

  “Stop it,” I said really loud, earning angry glares from the grandpa and his granddaughter. That’s when I realized I was getting so used to seeing Amy that I was now forgetting almost everyone else couldn’t see her.

  If I could just get her to Story Time, I’d have five minutes to search the nonfiction and grab one of my choices from the adult fiction shelves.

  Amy stuck her tongue out at me, then released the boy’s hair. As she approached me, all the while walking through the waist high bookshelves rather than on the carpeted aisles, the halogen bulbs in the recessed lights in the ceiling above blew in time with her progress. She flew up to the top of three big windows brightening this cozy part of the library. She pushed the clasps, and they released one after the other with a loud zip, zip, zip.

  I walked really fast toward the windows. “What is your problem?” I asked, though I’d really like to try out the old parent standby—yank and spank.

  “I done told you. I’m bored.”

  A little kid with white blonde hair in one of those bowl cuts crawled over to me. “Who are you talking to?” he asked, then stuck a finger up his nose.

  Amy left the blinds and raced toward me like she wasn’t going to stop. I braced for impact, and she splashed into me like a bucket of ice water. I shivered from the cold. “A ghost,” she made me say.

  “Not uh.”

  “Cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye,” came out of my mouth with a rural accent that I, a suburban girl, had never possessed.

  He waved his free hand through the air next to me. His other hand was still employed in booger extracting activities.

  Get out, I thought, hoping she could somehow hear me like I heard her when she was inhabiting me. He’ll tell his mom, they’ll make us leave, and you won’t have any fun.

  “See that book?” Amy forced me to say, then lifted my hand to point to Arthur’s Tooth, displayed prominently on the shelf closest to where I, I mean, we were standing.

  The book slowly rose several inches off the laminated wood top; its pages ruffled.

  The little boy wiped his finger on his shorts, then ran off to find his mom as Amy released the book, which landed on another book standing up. It fell, as did the rest in the row, like a bunch of dominoes.

  “Get out,” I managed to whisper between my gritted teeth.

  No, she responded from inside me.

  Get out now, or no Arthur books.

  My eyes, which apparently were under my control, trained on some lady wearing a pink princess cone hat with a matching sheer scarf attached at the point. Thank God. The storyteller had arrived. She was making a beeline over to the little carpeted amphitheater.

  I guess you don’t want to hear the story, I thought at Amy.

  My little h
aint tried to force me to walk, but I clung to the bookcase for dear life.

  “All right,” Amy said as she floated out, surprising me that our struggle hadn’t gone longer. “You don’t have to be so ornery.”

  She stuck her hands in the pockets of her ghostly pinafore and stared at the volunteer, who’d been intercepted by one of the moms. “Why is she wearing a dunce hat?”

  “It’s a princess hat. She’s probably reading a story about a princess,” I said, almost amused by Amy’s observation.

  “I thought princesses wore crowns.”

  I didn’t want to get into some long explanation of medieval fashion. I was, however, curious about how Amy made the connection between the cones. “Did you ever have to wear one at school?” I asked.

  Amy shook her ethereal head. “Nope. But my friend Martha Carrie did when she missed five arithmetic problems in a row. That old school marm we had didn’t much like her. She made Martha Carrie sit on a stool in the corner with the dunce cap on her head.”

  “Pretty harsh.”

  “Maybe, but it’s a sight better than getting paddled.” Amy sailed over to the big blue chair and sat in it before the storyteller could. The ghost must have forgotten people other than me couldn’t see her, too, because when the lady reached the chair and turned to lower her generous behind, Amy didn’t move.

  Panic turned my blood to ice. Amy couldn’t enter this woman. Could she?

  I was about to scream “Don’t do it,” when Amy exited the chair and moved to the left second row, carpeted in rose.

  With my heart beating at what must be an irregular rhythm, I grabbed my backpack from where I left it by the chair and rushed to the computer terminals. I typed in my card number and searched for books with the words ghost or haunting. The long list that displayed was mostly fiction. I scrolled down.

  Bingo. The Complete Dummies’ Guide to Ghosts and Hauntings. And the Five Points Branch had a copy on the shelves. I clicked on the title to get more information including the call number. As I reached for the scrap paper and pencil in the acrylic container to my left, my screen started blinking like it had the hiccups. I clicked the mouse again. I pressed control, alt, and delete. Nothing changed.

  I moved over to the next terminal, and started over again. I didn’t even finish typing the word ghost when this terminal froze, too. Amy? No, it couldn’t be her, I’d be cold. Plus, I’d see her.

  Not seeing my ghost or feeling her presence close by, I proceeded to the next empty terminal. As soon as I touched the mouse, the whole screen blinked. That’s when I felt a chill behind me and, suddenly, the road grit between my toes from the walk to the library in sandals started rubbing me in an extremely dissatisfactory way.

  Had she seen the words I’d typed?

  I glanced over at the now empty spot in the amphitheatre where she’d been sitting, then to the space behind me that seemed empty.

  Amy illuminated, then waved toward the kids listening to the storyteller.

  A girl in the pit elbowed the boy next to her and pointed at Amy. He looked, his large brown eyes widening as Amy did some sort of hoe-down dance.

  “They see you,” I hissed, then looked around to make sure no one else was aware of the conversation I was having.

  “’Course they can see me.” She pointed to me and made the crazy sign.

  “How?” I asked.

  “Well, I’m letting anyone who can see me, see me right now. And those two have their own ghosts. So I figured why not show myself to them? I was nearly bored out my mind.”

  More ghosts? Didn’t I have enough to deal with already? A little dizzy and nauseated, I slumped back against the computer carrel. “Okay. So if there are more ghosts here, why can’t I see them?” I asked, hoping I’d somehow caught her fibbing.

  “They don’t want you to see them,” she answered like it was the most natural thing in the world.

  “They meaning the kids, or the ghosts?” I qualified.

  Her young twang sharpened with irritation, as if I was the one in need of a dunce cap. “The ghosts.”

  At this point, the suspicious stare of a tall librarian stationed at the information desk fixed on me. Just below the sign with lettering stating the obvious, i.e. Information, she stood there wearing a sour expression and an old black cardigan matted with little balls all over the front.

  I figured the best thing to do was tell her the truth, so I fought the rising tide of itchiness and raised my hand like I was in school. “The computers keep freezing on me.”

  She sped over, smelling faintly of mothballs and cigarette smoke (not a good combination by any stretch of the imagination, especially since I was already a little queasy). She pressed some keys, checked the keyboard cord. Hit control, alt, delete, like I had. Nothing changed. The screen continued to blink.

  Another librarian, this one with fat upper arms, short gray hair, and an assistant-in-training name plate, waddled over to the circle of computer terminals and started trying to unfreeze the other computers Amy had whammied.

  “Were you able to type your number in?” she asked, her voice very sweet Kindergarten teacher-like.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I answered, following my rule of always using ma’am and sir when it looked like I was about to get in trouble. Being polite sometimes worked the same way as a get out of jail free card in Monopoly. “I just wanted the call numbers so I can check out some books.”

  “So why did you move to the other computers when the first one stopped working?” the tall, mothball lover demanded.

  I wanted to say Duh, but I didn’t. “Because the one I was using froze. What was I supposed to do? I have to find my books.”

  The tall librarian turned to the gray-haired one with the assistant-in-training tag on. “Call computer support. Get a technician out here.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” I said, just to make sure the literal Library Dragon didn’t think I had, then snuck away to the stacks while Amy stayed with the computers, earning the ire of other library patrons and vindication for me. They couldn’t blame me now that I was nowhere near the scene of the crime. I did feel a little guilty, though, that my ghost was well on her way to destroying the system the library would probably have to hire an expert to fix.

  My shirt tag made itself known again as I methodically trolled up and down the stacks stopping to read titles with bumblebee-colored spines until I found the one I needed, The Complete Dummies Guide to Ghosts and Hauntings, sitting by its lonesome on the shelf, a huge gap between it and its closest neighbor, a guide to extraterrestrials.

  As I took hold of my prize that was almost as thick as the SAT prep book Mom bought Audrey, I wondered if there was some recent paranormal phenomenon in the area that was causing people to check out all the other ghost books.

  I flipped past the table of contents to the history chapter and learned that ancient civilizations used to have festivals honoring the dead. They’d invite the spirits of their ancestors into their homes to eat. Afterward, if they politely asked the ghosts to leave, they did.

  Okay, so Amy wasn’t a relative, but maybe this party idea had merit on some level.

  There was an entire chapter on exorcism, but involving the church would mean people would hear about it and label me as beyond weird. Not my goal. I put that idea on the backburner. A little side note mentioned silver was a deterrent to ghosts, but I couldn’t wear silver since I was (surprise) allergic to it. Salt, too, had protective properties. Now that I could do.

  I poked my head out from the stack I was in and searched the computer area for Amy. I didn’t see her. Not good. Before I took another step down the aisle, I heard the plunk, plunk, plunk of books dropping to the floor somewhere behind me, like heavy out-of-tune piano keys.

  Certain it was Amy up to no good, I tucked my book under my arm to hide the title and hustled down the stacks until I found her, five rows away. She was levitating some book, whose back cover quotes touted the thing as “a gripping, thought-provoking read” and �
��a thorough examination.”

  “What are you doing?” I whispered.

  Amy continued to read what must be the preface, which must have been difficult for her, since she hadn’t turned the page yet. The books beside her kept sliding off the shelves to drop to the carpeted floor. If she thought I was rewarding her bad behavior with Arthur books, she was sorely mistaken.

  So I wouldn’t get blamed, I set my ghost book down and my backpack on top of it to keep Amy from seeing the title. I started picking up tomes about health, vitamins, herbal supplements, and the bubonic plague? My skin crawled at the thought.

  Right as I was about to tug whatever she was reading from the air, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the supergeek who rode my bus standing at the end of Amy’s row staring at me. Just what I needed. Xavier Monroe.

  Mind you, he didn’t offer to help me pick up the mountain of books. He just leered at me with either spit or drool dribbling out of the corner of his mouth just below his wannabe mustache, like I was the latest Texas Instruments calculator.

  As if my summer couldn’t get any worse. Now, thanks to Amy, I was an object of geek lust.

  Chapter Seven

  “I could use some help here,” I said, raising my voice enough to, hopefully, snap Xavier out of his trance-like state. I didn’t want to be mean, but I didn’t want to encourage him either. It’s not like I was jonesing to seal my fate with a label worse than weird. And trust me, in Audrey’s book, Supergeek was not a step up.

  He blinked at me, then removed a couple of the books from the giganto pile. He examined the call numbers on their spines and glanced up at the mostly empty shelves. I guess he was trying to figure out where to put them.

  The scent of camphor wafted toward me.

  “You? Again?”

  I turned to face the tall librarian who’d been dealing with the frozen computers. She tapped her loafered toe softly against the carpet and glared.

  The clasp on my sandals, the ones I’d been assured were nickel free, irritated the skin underneath. Itching and blistering would follow, sure as thunder followed lightning.