Haint Misbehavin'

by Maureen Hardegree

  The Archdiocese? Wetness spread under my arm and combined its discomfort with the itchy seam; I almost started to scratch right in front of Father. “I didn’t say I was possessed by the devil. I just want you to make this little ghost girl leave, okay?”

  “Thanks a heap,” Amy said, twirling her braid and watching the priest like she wasn’t sure if he could make her leave.

  “Yes, yes.” He fished his cell phone out of his pants pocket. “Perhaps we should call your parents.”

  “No, don’t!” I shouted before he could punch the first digit. “Look. It was . . . all a joke.”

  “A summer prank?” The twinkle returned to his eyes. “Is your friend Xavier in on it?”

  “No. And Xavier isn’t my friend.”

  “Why not? He’s a very nice boy.” His brogue rolled the “r” in “very.”

  Father Flaherty droned on. “A good altar server. From what I understand, Xavier’s brilliant. He led the middle school debate team to victory his mother tells me and he’s a shoe-in to make the junior varsity team as a freshman.”

  Yes, what every girl dreams of—the geeky debate team guy. I almost rolled my eyes.

  “That’s great and all, but I don’t really know him that well, okay?” And I didn’t want to feel guilty about it.

  “You should get to know him. I think the boy could use a friend like you, Miss Tildy. Losing his brother hasn’t exactly been a walk in the park for him.”

  Point Father Flaherty. Now, I felt even worse. Sympathy, empathy, whatever—I didn’t want it.

  “Perhaps you should come to Teen Life, Miss Tildy, then you could know him, and he could have a positive influence on you.”

  The only way I was joining the Teen Life group was if Drew belonged, and he didn’t.

  “I’ll think about it,” I said and practically ran across the parking lot.

  Tip: Always say you’ll think about something you don’t want to do when an adult has you cornered. That way you’re not lying, and they stop bugging you—usually.

  So Amy, and I trudged on, past the hardware store, the drugstore, and hit the sidewalk over by the Assisted Living complex. We crossed the street at the red light in silence, which was really odd for Amy.

  Amy ignored the water fountain at the entrance. Without a peep, she watched me slide the influenza book in the return slot. Why keep it if I wasn’t going to read it? She didn’t even seem to care when the useless Complete Dummies Guide to Ghosts and Hauntings followed its predecessor.

  Even though technically someone might construe it as breaking my parents’ rules, I headed to the computers to check my e-mail before getting to the research. Amy followed without protest.

  I met my ghost’s gaze and spoke under my breath. “Please don’t whammy these until I get my work done.”

  Amy nodded sullenly.

  I opened my e-mail account. Hit the new message icon, put in Tina’s addy. Hey, I just now got to the library and managed to get to the e-mail. I’m on major lock down at home.

  “You’re supposed to be doing your book work,” Amy said.

  “Hush, I’m thinking here,” I whispered. It was hard enough with all the little kids arriving for Story Time. Just my luck that I hit the library during the greatest likelihood to encounter small children. But I couldn’t worry about them now, I had to save my friendship with Tina.

  About the sleepover, I guess I really screwed up. I didn’t mean to scare anyone or get you guys in trouble with my dad. Do you hate me? I can understand if you do. There’s no hope of Suzanne inviting me to her party now, is there? I hit send, then re-read the message.

  Oh, my God. I sounded desperate and needy. I hit new message again. Disregard the last message in the subject line. So what’s up? You didn’t get in trouble with your parents, did you? If so, I’ll make it up to you. And Suzanne. Your oldest and dearest friend. J I hit send again, confident that this message was better. But then I started thinking that reminding her that I was her best friend, therefore Suzanne couldn’t be, was also desperate. Tina and I were growing apart. Suzanne would take my place.

  I hit new message again. Disregard the last two messages.

  After an hour or so of research, all the while keeping an eye out for Xavier so I could avoid him, I copied passages from books for added authenticity from what I prayed Dad thought were credible authorities and tucked them into the growing stack of pre-work in my backpack.

  Once my paper arrived via snail mail, I’d get additional information from the works cited list, locate and copy portions of those books and articles, carefully organize my thoughts, sit in front of the computer with all of it, and Voila! I would fulfill my punishment. I’d be happy. They’d be happy. Life would be semi-normal, with the exception of my little friend following me around.

  Amy was really starting to worry me. She didn’t take advantage of one opportunity to pull tricks on the people here. The kids sitting down to Story Time didn’t lure her, nor did the prospect of frying the computers.

  I wondered if she was coming down with something. Could ghosts get sick? Or was it the conversation with Father Flaherty?

  The current issue of Seventeen had an article about underage drinking that was credible. Yay, me! And I could briefly peruse the rest of it as a reward for all my hard work. I was reaching for the magazine when I saw Xavier walk in, so I hurriedly grabbed it and a stack of Teen Vogues, more reward, and slipped under his radar and into the special collections room, full of old photos and junk chronicling the history of Pecan Hills. I took a seat in a grouping of high-sided carrels in the center of the room smelling faintly of mildew—the perfect place to hide and possibly nap—and yawned.

  Except for Amy, I was alone. It was so quiet, other than the hiss of the air regulator, and the chair I’d picked was so comfortable I nearly dozed off while reading about the fashion trends for spring. Yeah, the magazine was a couple months old.

  Amy perked up right as I was about to start the article which included detailed instructions about how to change my girl-next-door looks to something more glamour worthy. She started tampering with one of the cases displaying old stuff.

  “Stop it. The last thing I need right now is to set off another alarm and get kicked out of the library.”

  “I’m bored,” Amy said, and snuffed her nose like she had a cold and no tissue was available. “I wanna leave.”

  She flitted under the carrel grouping while I checked my wristwatch. “One more hour. Surely you can behave that long. You’ve been doing so well.”

  That’s when she started zipping and unzipping my backpack. Zip, zip. Zip, zip.

  “Cut it out.”

  “It’s wrong what you’re doing, Heather.” Her voice floated up with a definite country twang. “You’re gonna get caught. You’re gonna regret it.”

  I placed my index finger on the last paragraph I’d been able to absorb which recommended wearing your usual clothing but giving it a slightly more daring edge, like leaving more buttons open on your polos for a hint of cleavage. “You aren’t the boss of me, Amy.”

  “I expect not, but that don’t mean I can’t tell you when you’re doing something wrong.”

  “Yes, it does. You aren’t my mom or one of my sisters. You’re not even a real person anymore.”

  Her transparency wavered. “I am real. I lived. I had a real family. I have your family, now.” Then she started to boo-hoo. Loudly. I didn’t know if anyone else could hear her, but I sure could. Even though most people never heard her talking to me, that didn’t mean she couldn’t open a channel if she wanted to. If she could move objects and ruin electronics, she was capable of just about anything.

  “Stop. I didn’t really mean it.”

  That’s when Amy’s cries degenerated into moans that sounded a lot like Jacob Marley in that old black and white Christmas Carol movie, and I got confirmation of my fear. People other than me could hear her caterwauling. This woman with puffed up lips opened the door, poked her head in and glared a
t me as best she could considering the muscles in her forehead weren’t working. When had Botox come to Pecan Hills?

  “What?” I said. Couldn’t she see my mouth wasn’t moving? Did she think I was a ventriloquist?

  She shut the door with a “Hmmph.”

  “Come on, Amy, I don’t want to get in trouble. I don’t know what the limit is, but I think I’m close to getting kicked out of here permanently.”

  How would I explain to my parents that I couldn’t go back to the library? I could see how that would go down. Hi, Mom, Dad. Guess what? I can’t finish researching my topic because I got kicked out of the library for making too much noise, moaning like a ghost to be exact. Yeah, have fun at Jekyll Island without me.

  Of course the librarian with the dandruff was on duty, the one who didn’t like me.

  “You again?” she said, and motioned for me to gather my backpack.

  I grabbed the stack of magazines, too.

  “Leave them,” she said, nostrils flaring wide enough that I could see the hairs in her nose she hadn’t bothered to clip. When I got home, I was checking my deformed nostrils for hair.

  She escorted me past the fiction stacks and the information desk and scanners, where she stopped. “Do you have any books you’ve forgotten to check out today?”

  My backpack didn’t feel that much heavier than when I arrived. I mean, I did have a stack of copies in there. I eyed Amy, who was examining her scuffed up, oxblood boots like she’d never seen them before. “No, ma’am, there’s nothing but paper and pens in here,” I said, pretty confident Amy’s zip-zipping earlier hadn’t involved any pilfering.

  The literal Library Dragon pointed me toward the doors. Xavier walked out of the circulation room, and I didn’t need any greater incentive to leave and leave fast.

  As I passed through the bar code detectors, the alarm beeped. Crappola. Amy’d done it again.

  With a loud sigh, I backed up, turned around to face the Library Dragon, and unzipped my backpack to find a ratty old book alongside my copies of articles on underage drinking. I stomped over to the scanner, fed it my card, which it spit out because I had a fine of one dollar and eighty-five cents.

  “Pay your fine, Miss Tildy, then you can check out your book.” The scent of mothballs nauseated me as she reached for the book.

  Amy pushed against my arm so that the backpack and what lay in it swung out of the woman’s reach.

  “I, um, don’t have any change on me,” I said. “I spent it on my copies, ma’am.”

  “Let me see that book.”

  “Don’t let her,” Amy piped up.

  Before she could do anything else, I placed the book on the closest counter. “You know what? I don’t want the book anymore.”

  The librarian dabbed her nose with tissue, then motioned for me to bring the book to her. She wadded up the tissue, shoved it up the sleeve of her dandruff-covered cardigan, and flipped the book open to one of the inner pages stamped in red ink with Property of Gwinnett County.

  As she examined it, her eyebrows met her low hairline. “How dare you try to take something from special collections! I have a good mind to call the police.”

  Do people ever have bad minds? Just curious.

  My skin itched. Oh, yeah, it was hive time. I crossed my arms to scratch both forearms at the same time. “I swear I didn’t know I couldn’t check it out. I mean it was sitting out in that room,” I lied. “And I was so upset you were making me leave, I forgot I had it.”

  “Go, Miss Tildy. And don’t come back here for at least two weeks.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said.

  This penalty put a huge, freakin’ dent in my paper-writing plans.

  I took one last glance at the Library Dragon pursing her lips as if she was sucking on a straw, then scanned the room for Xavier, who’d watched my latest humiliation go down and was now making a bee-line to intercept me. By my calculations, I’d make it to the door before he would . . . if I ran.

  Through the bar code detector, the inner doors, the outer doors, I sped forward, not looking where I was going, and slammed into a hard, warm body, that smelled like it had just emerged from a shower with a fresh-scented soap.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Sorry,” I said, then looked up into Drew Blanton’s gorgeous, icy blue eyes. I had propelled myself into Drew’s fantastically muscular chest. My breath caught in my throat, and I made this weird gurgling sound.

  “Do I even want to know?” he asked, taking a step back.

  “No. You don’t. Trust me.”

  He smiled, and all residual itchiness from setting off the alarm left me.

  “Please?” he asked, looking at me like I was keeping the best secret in the world from him.

  How could I deny Drew? I shrugged. “Someone was making moaning noises, and they thought it was me, and then I tried to check out a book that no one can check out. And that wouldn’t have been a problem if I hadn’t . . . let’s just say, it’s complicated.”

  He scratched the side of his head. “Wait. Moaning like you’re—”

  Yeah, I saw where his mind was going. “No! Like a ghost.”

  Speaking of which, where was Amy? I was realistic enough not to hope she’d moved on permanently.

  That’s when I regained enough of my senses to hear the automatic doors opening and shutting behind me and realized I was activating the sensor. I moved far enough away that it shut for good.

  Drew was nodding like the weird things that happen to me all made some sort of sense to him. And why wouldn’t they? He’d placed me in the funny category. I had to break free of these confines. Show him that there was so much more to me.

  “So why are you here?” I asked, trying to extend our conversation. I turned to the side so I could get a clear view of the water fountains. Not that I could exactly go back in there to drag Amy out if she was playing in the water.

  “I’m here to pick up Morgan,” Drew said.

  So much for being clever. “I should have figured that. It being Story Time and all. I mean, I’m not stupid. I just thought maybe you could have been checking out a book, or . . . I don’t know.”

  My face heated. Why couldn’t I channel my inner cool chick?

  “I guess I gotta look at that list soon. I bet you’ve started your summer reading.”

  “Yeah.” So now I was not only funny but a real dork. “I mean I checked it out. But I haven’t started reading it yet. But I will. Little Women. It seemed like it was interesting, but I can’t seem to . . .” I glanced up at those pale blue eyes and forgot what I was saying. Oh, yeah, Little Women. “Maybe you’ve read it . . . or seen the movie?”

  “No,” he said, smiling. “Haven’t seen you at the pool lately, either.”

  He’d noticed. Oh, my, God. Breathe, Heather. Think. Say something. A movement by the window caught my eye. Not Amy. Xavier. No. No. No.

  “Yeah, well I haven’t been able to do the whole fun in the sun thing, lately.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re being punished again,” Drew said.

  “Don’t tell me Audrey hasn’t already given you the lurid details.”

  He smiled. “She said something weird about you having a sleepover and drinking and taking drugs with your friends, but that didn’t sound like you.”

  “Because it isn’t. Like me, I mean.” I squeezed my hands into fists. “She makes me so mad. Okay, I admit to taking the wine from the basement. We were playing Truth or Dare. No big deal, right? And she dared me. But then she somehow got it in her head that I took some of my grandmother’s pills, which I didn’t. Be glad you don’t have an older sister.”

  He squinted at me. “I always thought it’d be nice. Don’t you ever go to her for help and stuff?”

  “That would be a big no. In case you haven’t noticed before now, she doesn’t like me.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “Yeah, but I have Claire.” I smiled at the thought of my nice sister and how excited she’d be when I got
home and told her about this conversation. “We talk about everything.”

  He nodded. Xavier stopped pacing inside the expanse of window and looked like he was heading out the doors to join our conversation. I wasn’t waiting for Amy. She could find her way home on her own. I had no doubt she would, fond of me as she was.

  “I gotta go. Oh, and whatever you do, Drew, don’t tell Audrey I got kicked out of the library today. She’s already lobbying my parents to take away my vacation. I will die if I have to stay home with Aunt Geneva.”

  “Don’t worry. It’s cool.”

  I started to walk away, and I could feel him looking at me.

  Was it only because I amused him? Or was I right about my butt looking good? I might have a shot at a real, honest to goodness date.

  That’s when I stumbled over a crack in the sidewalk.

  Yeah, I had to do something about the goofball factor.

  On the long, potentially stroke-inducing walk home, Amy never turned visible, but I felt a cool breeze blowing behind me every time my pace slowed so I knew she was tagging along.

  As I turned the corner on to Red Bud Road, someone in a red VW bug honked, then pulled half-on-half-off the shoulder about ten feet in front of us, churning up some pebbles. My evil sister, her friend Karen, who was driving, and one of their minions—I think her name is Vanessa. If that wasn’t the girl’s name, it should be. She looked like a Vanessa.

  In case you forgot, Karen’s threat of cutting my sister out of her posse due to my ghost’s and my spectacular performance at the movie theater was still registering at high orange. What was it that my Language Arts teacher always said—“The better part of valor is discretion?” Engaging with them could end badly. I kept going.

  Audrey stuck her head out of the passenger window as I attempted to walk past. “You’re on restriction. What do you think you’re doing?”

  “I had to go to the library.”

  “Oh, that’s right. You have to write that paper.” Audrey and her friends laughed like my punishment was a thigh-slapper.

  Karen leaned forward over the wheel, past Audrey. “Get in. We’ll give you a ride home.”