Haint Misbehavin'

by Maureen Hardegree

  “I didn’t do this,” I said, glancing back at Xavier for confirmation. “Can you please tell her I didn’t do this?”

  Supergeek turned bright red and remained mum.

  “It doesn’t look like your friend is vouching for you, Miss...?”

  “Tildy. Heather Tildy.” There I went again with the James Bond thing. I had to stop doing that. “And he’s not a friend. I hardly even know Xavier.”

  “Yes, you do,” he said, his formerly squeaky, nasal voice, now deep and manly and mad. “I live in your neighborhood. I was in your Language Arts class.”

  This new voice didn’t fit his average stature, shaggy brown hair, and striped collared shirt, which I now noted had a Gwinnett County Public Library Volunteer nametag. Even better. He worked here. And I thought I was flying the freak flag pretty high.

  My guess was that he also played Sims, read Kafka, and would run for Student Council this fall. All reasons to avoid him if I wanted to change from weirdo to way cool.

  The librarian sniffed. “So which one of you emptied the shelves?”

  Amy waved her arms in front of the woman. “Me. I did it. I did it!”

  I sent her a look that should convey “shut up” even to a ghost from the previous century.

  “Neither of us did,” Xavier answered, and I was almost grateful. I could tell he suspected me of having something to do with the book berm. Then I got worried. The fine hairs on the nape of my neck rose. What if Xavier expected something nice in return for saving me, like public acknowledgement or a date?

  “Okay, I confess,” I blurted. “I emptied the shelves.”

  Supergeek smiled, revealing his braces. “Pretty hard to do with your back turned and the books flying off the shelves five rows behind you.”

  “How would you even know where I was?”

  He pointed to a chair. “I was sitting there, when it happened. No one was in the row. No one that I could see anyway.”

  My palms grew sweaty. Think, Heather. Think. I had to steer him away from the truth. “Maybe it was an earthquake.”

  “Interesting hypothesis. But an earthquake wouldn’t unshelve books row by row.”

  “It could. Maybe. And how would you know? Are you some expert?”

  Yeah, tinsel teeth’s been in the gifted program since first grade. He continued to smile at me.

  “Just leave. Please. You’re not helping,” I said, then looked around for Amy who’d gone all invisible on me.

  The librarian shook her head. “I’ll get a cart. Miss Tildy, if you and Xavier would please place all the books on the cart in numerical order, he’ll have an easier time reshelving them.”

  “I guess my break’s over,” Xavier said with a sigh as his boss stomped down the color-blocked carpet to nab an empty cart for us.

  “Sorry,” I whispered. I’m sure he expected more of an apology on my part or, heaven forbid, me saying I owed him. No way was I giving him that kind of leverage. He could single-handedly destroy what was left of my hopes to make Audrey find me less of a pain and Drew to find me somewhat appealing.

  Xavier met the Library Dragon halfway down the main aisle while I fanned the air around me, trying to locate any pockets of cold that might be my ghost.

  Craning my neck, I looked around for Amy as he wheeled the cart back. Not a sign of her anywhere. Dampness spread under the arms of my shirt, making the seam connecting my sleeve soggy. No telling what trouble she was getting into now. But I had to fix this mess first.

  Quickly, I knelt down and started loading the cart.

  “Are you okay?” Xavier asked. “You look like you’re about to faint.”

  “I’m fine. I just want to get these books put up and head home. You know?”

  “Yeah,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at the librarian who was watching us both from several stacks down the aisle. “So. . . um. . . do you have any vacation plans this summer?”

  “Mm, hm,” I said loading books willy-nilly.

  Xavier rearranged the ones I’d placed on the cart. “Maybe this would work better if you hand them to me and I put them in order.”

  “Fine. Whatever.” I picked up three more, and as I waited for him to place them in the right order, I suspected that he’d suggested doing it this way to keep me here longer. Come on, come on! I had a ghost most likely getting me into more trouble.

  The wetness under my arms spread. The damp feeling was starting to snake down my spine. I could feel the shoulder seams and the collar seam in my shirt rub against my sunburnt skin.

  “So where are you going—for vacation?” he asked.

  “The beach.”

  “Which one?”

  “Jekyll Island.” I resumed handing him books.

  “Me? You ask.” He pressed his hand to his chest. “Well, my parents haven’t really talked about going anywhere. I guess we’re having a staycation.”

  Guilt body slammed me. I remembered that Xavier’s brother had died last October from a peanut allergy. I shouldn’t be so . . . cold. But, seriously, I had to get a move on.

  I doubled the load of books in my arms. “Maybe they’re planning something as a surprise for you.”

  “I doubt it.” Xavier said, his eyes darting to the tall stack in my arms. He cleared his throat as he removed the top three books.

  Before he could ask anything like if I had plans for Saturday night, I jumped in. “Xavier, I know we don’t know each other all that well, but I need to ask you a favor.”

  He eyed me suspiciously. “Okay.”

  “See, I’m already in trouble with my parents and I’ve got to get home in time for dinner.” I glanced down the aisle, still not seeing Amy. “So I was wondering….”

  His smile faded like gum that had lost its flavor. He took the rest of the books from my aching arms. “Go ahead and leave. I’ve got it.”

  “But the—”

  “I’ll tell her I offered. Just go.”

  Yeah, I felt lousy for leaving him with all the work, but I had a ghost to find. I tucked my ghost book under my arm and swung my backpack up on my shoulder. I hurried down the aisle, glancing this way and that for Amy. After ducking briefly into the fiction section for a copy of Little Women, I proceeded to the automated check out, all without a peep or a poke from her.

  Worried that she’d headed home without me, I glanced out the main doors into the light-filled entrance way and saw her playing in the water fountain. A liquid sheen spread over the tile floor, darkening the pale gray grout. I actually felt the sweat rise from pores and bead on my upper lip as I headed toward the doors at a fast, increasingly sweaty clip, determined to take my wayward ghost home.

  The library’s alarm system sounded as I passed through the bar code sensors. Every eye in the whole stupid branch must have been on me. Humiliated, I raised my arms and the two books I’d just checked out, like a surrendering criminal in a Cops episode. I didn’t have time for this crap. We’d need an ark in a few minutes.

  “Now what?” my favorite librarian said loud enough that several people in the magazine section near the door turned and told her to hush.

  “I checked these out,” I said, waving the books in front of her. “Your scanner must be malfunctioning.”

  “Give me your card, please.”

  I fished my card from my pocket, and the woman fed it to the slot reader. The books in my hands showed up on the computer screen.

  “See? Can I go now?”

  “Backpack,” she said, motioning for me to hand it over.

  I swung it off my shoulder and realized it felt heavier than it should with a binder, a wallet, and house keys. Amy!

  “Unzip it,” she ordered, holding the bag and looking more smug than she should considering the amount of dandruff on the shoulders of her dark cardigan.

  With dread and a real need for another shower, I did as she asked, discovering a thick book about the 1918 Influenza pandemic—the book Amy’d been reading while emptying the shelves. It had to be over three hundred
pages—not exactly what I’d call fun reading.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t realize it was in there.”

  I glanced over to the entrance again. The water in the corridor hit the half-inch mark. Biting my lip, I scanned Amy’s book. She had to have a reason, and I was going to find out what it was.

  “So,” I started my interrogation, “Was almost getting me kicked out of the library forever your idea of a good time?”

  “Huh?” Amy asked, floating through the sidewalk, her feet hidden in the concrete. I don’t know why ghosts do that. It’s like they have to prove where the natural elevations are.

  “Our deal, remember? You told me you wanted to have fun. This day seems to have hit the humiliation meter at a slightly lower level than the pool, but I’m wondering if you consider it a good showing.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking on about, Heather. I reckon the li-berry was tolerable.”

  Tolerable? After what I’d just been through, after putting some sort of hoodoo on the computers, visiting with other kids who could see her, and attracting the attention of Xavier?

  “I’m so glad to hear it,” I said. “You know, I haven’t yet heard a thank you from you for checking that flu book out. You could’ve asked me and saved me a little embarrassment. I don’t really want to add the title thief to my repertoire of weirdness.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Sorry enough that you’ll tell me the secret to making you vamoose?” I asked.

  She paused and rolled her ghostly little eyes at me. “What do you think?”

  Quite frankly, I thought I was in deep doo-doo. I’d tried the pool, craft camp, the library. What else was there for a girl who couldn’t drive and had never been on a date? Date. That reminded me.

  “And another thing,” I said. “Why’d you have to get Xavier’s attention?”

  Drew, who was uber easy on the eyes, brawny, yummy, was the guy I wanted. Xavier wasn’t. I couldn’t make myself feel something I didn’t. Riding the high school bus this fall was going to be excruciating. Unless . . . unless Audrey liked me enough by the end of the summer that her friends would give me a ride home from school, and I wouldn’t have to ride the bus and endure more of Xavier’s stares.

  Oblivious to the trauma she’d caused, Amy crossed Five Points Road. After looking both ways, I followed her across the car free asphalt.

  See? I did listen to my mom sometimes. Plus, I really didn’t want to end up like the flattened squirrel jerky in the gutter.

  But I had to focus, to get to the bottom of Amy’s pilfering.

  “You know that flu book looks kind of hefty for a ten-year-old. I’m thinking you might need a dictionary or you’ll have to ask me what some of the words mean.”

  “I ain’t a dunce,” she said in a surly tone. She floated faster.

  “Geez, I didn’t say you were, but this book was written for adults. The point being that you might need me to help you read it, and I’m offering to help you.”

  Amy faded a bit as a cloud blocked the sun. “Truly?”

  “Sure. It’s what the friend of an imaginary friend would do. And maybe in return you can tell me why you tried to steal it. So did someone in your family die from the flu?”

  Rather than answer, she looked through me. It was almost as if I was the one who was transparent. The air around me cooled, and I actually shivered in the early evening heat.

  Maybe I shouldn’t push the kid, but she had to be lonely. She had to miss her family. All those years she’d spent trying to get me to notice her again. And the years before that, when no one saw her.

  I should put more effort into helping her, not just for my own sake. I guess when it came right down to it, I’d been going through the motions, saying that I was providing her with stellar amounts of fun, but not really doing it. I’d try harder. Well, as hard as I could considering I was grounded.

  I suspected something about the flu was bothering her. Otherwise, why would she steal the book? I had to get her to trust me enough to tell me what made that book so important to her, too. Trust would come from her believing I was trying to give her fun.

  We arrived home to the scent of a spaghetti dinner and tons of barking by Roquefort, who circled Amy repeatedly then went on one of those crazy beagle runs throughout the house, the kind that makes you wonder if what dogs feel is similar to what you felt when you were a little kid and you’d spin until you fell down.

  Glad that I was home and could take my sandals off, I bent down to remove them and their irritating clasps from my feet.

  “Heather,” Dad called from the top step of the back staircase. “Your room hasn’t been cleaned.”

  The skin on my shoulders, which had bothered me before, now started itching like crazy. Yup, my shoulders must be peeling. My bra straps rubbed against the tender new skin distracting me as I tried to think of some valid excuse. Amy stuck with me, but didn’t offer any suggestions.

  “I told her not to leave until she got it done,” Audrey chimed in from the vicinity of the dining room, where she should be setting the table since it was her night according to the schedule.

  Detour time. Avoiding the back stairs and the dining room, I grabbed the saltshaker off the kitchen countertop and shoved it in my pocket. Amy didn’t seem to care. The salt definitely wasn’t like kryptonite. I cut through the den only to be outflanked.

  As I swung into the foyer, Dad blocked me from the front staircase. He raised his eyebrows in expectation of some sort of explanation about the state of my room.

  “I know. I’m sorry. I woke up really late, then I had to get started on my summer reading list, and I sort of got tied up at the library.” Surely being at the library would score me some points.

  “I want it dusted, vacuumed, and the piles of dirty clothes washed by bed time tomorrow.”

  “I will. I promise,” I said and watched Amy slowly ascend the stairs and head toward my room. She was definitely depressed—not exactly what I was hoping for—especially since not having fun was a deal breaker.

  Audrey chimed in. “That’s it? God. If I didn’t clean my room when I was supposed to, I’d have my allowance cut off.”

  “Well, you’re the one who suggested I go to the freakin’ library as punishment,” I reminded her, in a way too saucy tone, considering one of my goals for the summer was to get her to like me. I did not remind her that she was supposed to start her summer reading, too. I could have, but I didn’t.

  “Mind your own business, Audrey!” Mom yelled from the kitchen.

  “But it’s not fair,” Audrey whined.

  “What’s not fair?” Claire asked, bebopping down the front stairs with her bedazzled cell phone in hand.

  “Don’t get her started,” I warned.

  “Pour the milk, Heather,” Dad said.

  I almost said no that it was Audrey’s job as table setter, but I didn’t. Helping her might score a few points. I needed to keep a running list, so I could remind her or maybe present it at the end of summer and prove my worthiness.

  So without complaining, I left my backpack on the bottom post of the staircase and headed into the kitchen, where Mom was tossing the salad. Her shirt today said Am I getting older, or is the supermarket playing great music?

  Older. Definitely, I thought as I poured regular milk for me and Claire and chocolate for Audrey.

  Grandma handed me the basket of toasted garlic bread.

  Looking forward to spaghetti and meatballs, I took my seat next to Claire in the dining room. She set her cell phone next to her plate and kept looking at it. I guess she was expecting an important call—not that we were allowed to take calls during dinner.

  In the time I’d consumed three meatballs and about half my pasta, Claire was still pushing her food around her plate. Maybe one forkful had made it into her mouth.

  “Aren’t you hungry?” Mom asked.

  Claire looked at her cell phone. “No. Not really,”

  Mom reached over to feel Claire’
s forehead. “Are you sick?”

  “No,” Claire said, then sighed.

  “So what’s the deal? What’s wrong?” I asked, cutting to the chase and noting that Amy was now lurking by the front stairs, listening to our dinner conversation, which in my opinion, was far from scintillating.

  “Well . . . the new Tanner Chatham movie’s been out for a couple weeks,” Claire said, tucking her hair behind her ears. She glanced at her cell phone again. “I really want to see it, and normally Heather would go with me. But she can’t because she’s in trouble. So I called all of my friends, and no one was home.”

  The great vacation exodus struck again. My best friend Tina was on a cruise somewhere in the Caribbean. Lucky her.

  “Can you wait a week?” Dad suggested, helping himself to more salad. “Surely one of your friends will be back by then.”

  “It’s closing, like, tomorrow.”

  A-ha. You’d think if she’d been that fired up to see this movie, she would have said something sooner, like last week. But no, a day before it leaves theaters and enters the twilight zone before release as a DVD she must see it.

  Audrey’s overly drawn eyebrows came together in a scowl. “No way! You have to do the dishes.”

  “I’ll do it another night,” Claire offered.

  “So sorry, but I’ve had plans to go with my friends to movies for over a week,” Audrey said. “You’re not horning in at the last minute.”

  “Please,” Claire said, looking pitiful, which as the baby of the family usually worked to her advantage. She had Mom and Grandma wrapped. Dad not so much.

  “I don’t want to see the Tanner Chatham movie,” Audrey argued. “And you and I both know you won’t sit in the theater by yourself.”

  “Maybe Heather can sit with you,” Grandma suggested, not recalling that I, with the exception of the library, was on restriction from going anywhere for the sunburn.

  Hope kindled in me for about a second. Part of me was grateful to Grandma, and part of me was seething. I mean how fair is that? Whatever Claire wants, Claire gets?

  Audrey slammed her half-full glass on the table. Chocolate milk sloshed over the sides and formed a ring, quickly soaking into the tablecloth. “Heather isn’t going anywhere.”