“Oh, my!” said Ivy’s mom, and she pointed up at the school. “Will you look at that!”
Something was glowing in the top corner of one of the upstairs windows.
“It’s a reflection,” said Bianca’s dad. “The moon or something.”
But there wasn’t any moon in the sky that night. Besides, the thing in the window was more of a green color.
“It looks like a face,” said Martha. “And it’s horrible.”
“There’s somebody in there!” Dad gasped. “We’d better phone the police.”
“But it’s glowing,” said Ivy.
“And it’s far too high up for a normal person,” I said.
As we watched, the face started to drift down and sway from side to side.
Ivy giggled. “I know what it is!” she said. “It’s a balloon.”
“A balloon with a face?”
“Remember that time we made a dummy to look like Martha? We got a yellow balloon and drew a face on it to make the head.”
We all decided Ivy must be right. Somebody must have made a green balloon head and left it floating around the school.
But then the face turned even more horrible and the mouth opened.
“That’s not a balloon!” said Martha.
“Then what is it?” said Ivy.
From up in the school, we heard the sound of a distant groan . . . “Arghhh!”
“I was right all along!” shrieked Ellie. “THERE IS A GHOST!”
EEEKY FREAK!
Mrs. Twelvetrees Has a Brilliant Idea
“I shall say this for the VERY last and FINAL time,” said Mrs. Twelvetrees. “There is NO ghost at Odd Street School!”
It was the next day, and Mrs. Twelvetrees had called everyone into the auditorium for a special assembly. Mrs. Twelvetrees is our principal, who is very hearty and sporty and marches around in big sensible shoes—stomp stomp stomp. We don’t normally have special assemblies, but Mrs. T. had to do something because everybody had heard about what we had seen, and the whole school was totally spooked out!
Martha put her hand up. “What was that green face we saw last night, in that case?” she asked.
“And we’re not lying,” said Ivy, waving her hand in the air. “Our moms and dads saw it too.”
“Oooh!” said everybody. They all sounded jealous, especially the boys!
It was kind of cool, actually.
“Humph,” said Mrs. Twelvetrees. She looked cross. “Anybody who thinks they saw this ghost, put your hand up.”
Me and Ellie and Martha and Ivy and Bianca all put our hands up.
“You too, Bianca?” said Mrs. Twelvetrees. “You’re normally quite sensible.”
“It was scary.” Bianca nodded earnestly. “It made my wees go knobbly.”
HA HA HA HA!
“It did what?” gasped Mrs. T.
“It made her knees go wobbly,” explained Ivy. “In fact, we all had knobbly wees. I mean, wobbly knees.”
Mrs. Twelvetrees obviously didn’t know what to say, but then Gwendoline Tutt put her hand up.
“I know what the face was,” said Gwendoline. Everybody turned to look at her.
Ooooh, she looked SO pleased with herself.
“It was Mr. Motley, the custodian,” she said.
“What would Mr. Motley be doing at school so late at night?” asked Mrs. Twelvetrees.
“My dad phoned him to tell him to make the bell stop ringing,” said Gwendoline. “It kept me awake all night, and the night before that, and the night before that . . .”
Honestly, what a fuss! She lives at number 59, which is quite a ways down Odd Street. I bet she could hardly hear it.
“Thank you, Gwendoline,” said Mrs. Twelvetrees. “In that case, would somebody please fetch Mr. Motley so he can tell us himself?”
“I’ll go!” I said, and whizzed off before I had to hear any more of Gwendoline Tutt’s tuttishness.
Motley turned out to be in Mrs. Twelvetrees’s office. He was fiddling with the glass tank on the windowsill, which is where Tony, the school turtle, lives. I told Motley that Mrs. Twelvetrees wanted him in the auditorium.
“I’m too busy,” said Motley.
“Doing what?”
“Tony’s tank has a leak,” said Motley. “He’s having a vacation in my bucket while I glue it.”
Sure enough, Motley’s red bucket was on the floor, and Tony was sitting in it looking very grumpy.
“I’ve got just the thing to cheer him up,” said Motley.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of Fishpopz. He dropped a few into the bucket and shoved the rest in his mouth.
“These fishy chews are very nice, by the way,” he said. “We love them, don’t we, Tony?”
“Forget the Fishpopz,” I said. “Mrs. Twelvetrees wants you to come and talk to everybody.”
“Me?” said Motley with his mouth full. “Talk to everybody? Oh, no, I couldn’t do that. What would I say?”
“She wants to know if you were at the school last night.”
“Oh, dear,” said Motley, chewing away. “Oh, deary dear!”
Soon me and Motley were back in the auditorium and he had to go up to the front.
“Aha! There you are, Mr. Motley,” said Mrs. Twelvetrees. “Can you PLEASE tell everybody what you were doing at school last night?”
Poor Motley looked really nervous. He was a bit shy and didn’t like being in front of everyone. He just shook his head.
“Come on, Mr. Motley, we won’t bite you! Tell us what you were doing.”
“I can’t,” said Motley.
“Yes, you can,” said Mrs. T. “Show some gumption!”
“No, I can’t,” said Motley. “I wasn’t at school last night.”
GASP! We all looked at each other.
“He’s lying!” snapped Gwendoline. “A ton of people saw you.”
“How do you know what we saw?” said Martha.
“It was a green face flying around,” said Ivy. “How could that be him?”
Mrs. Twelvetrees raised her hands to make us quiet down, and then she turned to Motley. “Did Mr. Tutt call to tell you to make the bell stop ringing?”
Motley looked uncomfortable. “Yes, but it stopped by itself,” said Motley. “So I wasn’t at school. Nowhere near school. You can’t make me say that I was.”
Gwendoline looked shocked—ha ha!
“There has to be a sensible explanation,” said Mrs. Twelvetrees. “Maybe Miss Barking can tell us what’s going on?”
Miss Barking got a funny look on her face. She opened up her folder and shuffled through all her pieces of paper. “There’s nothing here about ghosts,” said Miss Barking. “And Miss Pingle’s window did close by itself.”
“Humph,” said Mrs. T. again. She came over to where our class was sitting. “Is that the truth?”
None of us wanted to get Ivy into trouble, so we all nodded.
“Well, I’d like to see this ghost for myself,” said Mrs. Twelvetrees. “So why don’t we have a little fun with this? We’ll have a GHOST WATCH! Anybody who wants to help has to write a ghost story, and then we’ll meet here tonight. We’ll tell our stories to bring the ghost out. If there IS a ghost, we’ll see it, and if we don’t see a ghost, then we’ll know there isn’t one. How’s that?”
It was 10/10 UTTERLY AWESOME!
The Door in the Ceiling
After the assembly, it was recess. I wanted the others to come with me to look in the library, because that’s where we’d seen the ghost in the window.
Poor Ellie started to shake. “I’m not going in there!” she said.
“Me neither,” said Martha. “I’m banned from the library. It’s a pity, because those bookcases make great goalposts.”
Ivy laughed. “That’s why you were banned!”
So me and Ivy and Bianca set off, but first we stopped by the music room so Bianca could get her trombone.
“Why do we need that?” asked Ivy.
&n
bsp; “If Bianca’s practicing, then nobody will come in,” I said.
A few minutes later, some terrifying sounds were coming out the library door.
BWARB BWEEB BOOP!
Bianca was blowing her trombone, trying to get a new high note she’d never gotten before. Anybody outside who was going past would think it was the ghost getting his finger trapped in a drawer—ha ha, awesome!
While Bianca was busy blasting away, me and Ivy had a look around.
Everything seemed perfectly normal. There were no ghosts or balloons with faces on them or anything like that. We looked up to try to figure out which part of the window we’d seen the face in and noticed a square panel in the ceiling.
“It looks like a cabinet door,” said Ivy.
“A cabinet in the ceiling?” I said. “Don’t be crazy. I bet that’s the way up to the clock tower.”
“Let’s find out!” said Ivy.
Next to the window was a big tall bookcase full of fat books that nobody ever read. Before I could stop her, Ivy was climbing up the shelves and the whole thing had started to wobble! I clung to the bottom of the bookcase to hold it steady, and Ivy nearly kicked me in the eye.
“It’s not safe!” I warned her.
“Don’t worry, I’m fine,” said Ivy, and then she stepped on my fingers.
“YOW!” I shouted, so Bianca did an extra-loud BARROOOB to drown me out.
Ivy grabbed the top of the bookcase with both hands, then pulled herself up with her legs flying everywhere.
“Hey, Agatha!” she said, waving down at me. “It’s filthy up here. I bet nobody’s cleaned it for years.”
Ivy had managed to lie flat on top of the bookcase. That would have been enough for most people, but not Ivy. The next thing I knew, she was standing up. The bookcase was wobbling even more, so I had to grab on even tighter.
When Ivy reached up, she could just touch the square panel and push it up a tiny bit.
“I’ve done it!” she said proudly. “Hey, Agatha, if you pass me some of those big books on the bottom shelf, I could climb on them and get in there.”
“No way!” I said. It was bad enough watching her as it was.
“Spoilsport,” said Ivy. Then she tapped on the panel to test it for ghosts, but none came out.
By this time Bianca was going purple.
BWEEP BWURP went the trombone.
“Come on, get down,” I said. “Bianca can’t play much more.”
Ivy started to slide off the bookcase, but then lost her grip.
“Argh!” she shouted.
I made a big mistake. I looked up and Ivy fell on me, along with a ton of dust and bent thumbtacks and old candy wrappers and DEAD SPIDERS, which all landed on my face. Yuck.
Me and Ivy brushed each other off to try to get clean.
“What’s that stuck in your hair, Agatha?” asked Ivy. She pulled out a little gray wrinkled triangle. “It looks like an ancient chip.”
I took it from her and gave it a sniff. “That’s not a chip,” I said. “I know exactly what it is!”
I’d recognize that fishy wet-dog smell anywhere.
Bianca had packed up her trombone and was standing next to Ivy. They were both staring at me.
“Agatha, you’re pulling your hair!” said Ivy.
She was right—I was. It’s what I always do when I’m waking my brain up. I needed to know . . . what was a Fishpopz tail doing on top of the old bookcase?
The Dark Auditorium
That night after dinner, I rounded up the others and we set off back to school in the dark for the ghost watch. It was very exciting—WOO-HOO!
The best part was that we didn’t think Ellie would come, but she told us she’d written a really good ghost story and didn’t want to waste it.
Even though she was scared silly, she wasn’t backing out. YO, ELLIE—WHAT A STAR! It’s always better when the five of us are together.
When we got to the school gates, there was a whole bunch of other people already there, but the bad news was that they included Gwendoline and Olivia.
“Oh, look, it’s Ellie Jelly-Knees!” sneered Gwendoline. “I warn you, we’ve got a ghost story that’ll completely freak you out, don’t we, Olivia?”
“Hur, hur,” sniggered Olivia, which didn’t sound nice, but then she never does.
When we got inside, just Motley, Mrs. Twelvetrees, and Miss Pingle were waiting for us.
Motley was holding the main door open, but once we were all in, he shut the door and locked it.
“Thank you, Mr. Motley,” said Mrs. Twelvetrees. “Are you going to join us in the auditorium for the ghost watch?”
“Not me,” said Motley. “I’ve got work to do.”
We all dumped our coats in the coatroom, then went into the auditorium. It was really dark—oo-eee! All the main lights were off. There was just a little electric candle flickering away in the middle of the floor, and we had to sit around it in a circle. Me and Ellie and Martha and Ivy and Bianca all huddled together.
“Keep a sharp lookout, gang!” said Mrs. T. “Now, who’s going to tell the first ghost story?”
Ivy’s hand shot into the air, and she started bouncing around on her bottom.
“Oh me please let me yeah WOW me please me WOW please pleaseyplease PLEASE?”
“Golly!” said Mrs. Twelvetrees. “All right, then, Ivy. Go ahead!”
Ivy took a deep breath, then spoke in a very low voice: “Many years ago, there was an evil school receptionist called Miss Wizzit.”
HA HA HA!
Everybody laughed, but Mrs. Twelvetrees made a face. “That’s not very kind,” she said.
“It’s not the Miss Wizzit that we have now,” explained Ivy. “This is a completely different Miss Wizzit, who went nuts if you leaned your elbows on her desk when you talked to her and kept a mug full of rubber bands to zap flies and spiders with.”
It sounded like our Miss Wizzit!
“Anyway,” said Ivy, “this evil Miss Wizzit never let anybody use the photocopier.”
It sounded exactly like our Miss Wizzit! But before Mrs. Twelvetrees could object, Ivy hurried on with her story.
“The evil Miss Wizzit put a dreadful curse on the photocopier so if anybody used it, something really bad would happen.”
“Ooooh!” we all said.
“Then one day an evil teacher called Miss Barking . . .”
HA HA HA!
“IVY!” said Mrs. Twelvetrees. “That is not nice.”
“I don’t mean our Miss Barking,” said Ivy. “I meant another Miss Barking, who kept everybody from having fun and wore silly clothes.”
“That’s enough, Ivy,” said Mrs. Twelvetrees. “Has anybody else got a ghost story?”
“But I haven’t told you about when Miss Barking used the photocopier without asking and it printed out lots of skeletons and she was really scared,” said Ivy.
“Oh, go ahead,” said Mrs. T. “What happened?”
“Miss Barking used the photocopier without asking and it printed out lots of skeletons and she was really scared,” said Ivy. “And that’s it. The end.”
WAHOO! Good one, Ivy. We all gave her a round of applause—clap, clap, clap. Even Mrs. Twelvetrees laughed.
“You see, children?” she said. “Ghosts are just for funny stories. Has anybody else got one?”
Nobody really wanted to tell a story after Ivy because she was so funny, but then Miss Pingle noticed Ellie was holding a piece of paper.
“Is that your story, Ellie?” asked Miss Pingle.
Everybody looked at Ellie, so she got all shy and tried to fold her paper away.
“Chin up, Ellie!” said Mrs. Twelvetrees. “At least tell us what it’s about.”
“It’s about a ghost called Nosy Rosie,” said Ellie.
“Goodness!” said Mrs. Twelvetrees.
We all cheered, which made Ellie feel braver. She took a deep breath and began to read aloud.
“Nosy Rosie never minded her own business a
nd always used to stick her nose in where it wasn’t wanted. Then one time she stuck her nose around the kitchen door, and the cook grabbed a knife and chopped Rosie’s nose off. Rosie screamed and picked her nose up and put it back on, but she did it so fast, she put her nose on upside down. She always hoped that nobody would notice, but there was one thing that always gave her away: whenever she sneezed, her hat blew off.”
HA HA HA HA HA!
We all had a good laugh, and Ellie looked very proud. The only person who spoiled it was Gwendoline, who pretended to yawn.
“That is the stupidest story I ever heard,” she said. “It isn’t funny. It isn’t even scary.”
“That’s the whole point,” said Mrs. T. “Ghosts are NOT scary.”
“Oh, no?” said Gwendoline. “I’ll tell you a scary story. It’s called ‘The Crawling Hand’!” Gwendoline looked very smug.
I didn’t like the sound of this.
“One time a boy was feeling really cold, so he went to hide in the school coatroom.”
Typical Gwendoline. She was obviously going to make a joke about what Olivia did to Ellie. We could feel Ellie shivering, but we didn’t want Gwendoline to know, so we kept quiet.
Gwendoline continued. “He wrapped himself in all the coats and then sat on the hottest radiator and then . . . he melted away to nothing! The only part left was his hand.”
“Urgh!” we all said.
“And the hand still crawls around the coatroom today. If you get too close, it reaches out and GRABS YOU!”
“ARGHHHHHHHHHHH!” shrieked Ellie. “ARGHHHHHHHH!”
Suddenly Ellie was clinging to me. Behind us in the darkness, two people were having a wrestling match.
“Let me go!” shouted one of them. It was Olivia.
“What is going on?” Mrs. Twelvetrees demanded. She lifted up the electric candle. We all saw Olivia lying face-down on the floor. Martha was sitting on top of her and wasn’t getting off.
“She sneaked up behind us,” said Martha. “And when Gwendoline finished her story, Olivia grabbed Ellie to scare her.”
Agatha Parrot and the Odd Street School Ghost Page 3
