The Unseen World of Poppy Malone: A Gaggle of Goblins

by Suzanne Harper

  “It’s a gift, dear,” Mrs. Malone said soothingly. “We can’t expect to pass it down to all of our children.”

  Mr. Malone sighed, but nodded. “At least we have Poppy,” he said. “You wouldn’t abandon a budding investigation just to get a few extra winks of sleep, would you, Poppy?”

  Poppy, blinking, managed to cover her yawn just in time.

  ***

  Still stifling her yawns, Poppy went downstairs, got a flashlight from the kitchen cupboard, and tiptoed outside. A full moon floated in the sky, so she didn’t turn on the flashlight. She stood in the driveway, feeling the warm night air against her skin and letting her eyes adjust to the dark.

  Something moved in the shadows. Poppy held her breath and listened.

  She heard leaves rustle, but that could have been a raccoon or possum. She heard what sounded like a whisper, but that could have been a snake slipping through the grass.

  And then she heard a snicker.

  It was quickly muffled, but she knew she had heard it.

  Quickly, she turned on the flashlight and swept the yard with its beam. She lit up a bush, then a tree, then the ladder still leaning against the side of the house. Nothing unusual. Nothing strange. Nothing remotely goblinish.

  Then she heard the rattle of a window being opened, and she tilted her head back to see Rolly, framed in a square of light on the second floor.

  “Rolly?” she called up to him. “What are you doing?”

  Very slowly, as if he were dreaming, he turned to look at her.

  “Nothing,” he said slowly. His voice sounded sleepy.

  “Close the window and go to bed,” she said. She wondered if he was sleepwalking. Poppy had heard about people who did all kinds of crazy things while still asleep, like driving cars or turning on ovens or starting fires; the thought that Rolly could potentially have eight additional hours each day to create chaos was a chilling one indeed.

  But after a long moment, he disappeared from the window. A few seconds later, his light switched off.

  When Poppy went back inside the house, she found her parents in the living room, trying to encourage each other. They were disappointed that the knocking seemed to have ended for the night.

  “This was probably just the first salvo,” said Mr. Malone. “In my experience, a Dark Presence doesn’t give up after one try.”

  “You’re right, of course,” said Mrs. Malone. “We should go to bed and try to get a good night’s sleep so that we can be rested for Whatever Comes. I’m sure we’ll have to deal with manifestations that are far, far worse before long!”

  Although her mother tried to make her words sound ominous, Poppy could tell she was disheartened.

  But as it turned out, Mrs. Malone was more right than she could have imagined.

  Chapter Eight

  “I foresee disaster,” muttered Will.

  He was sitting at the breakfast table, watching as Mrs. Malone mixed pancake batter with short, irritated strokes.

  “Stop trying to pretend you’re psychic,” Poppy said grumpily. “We all foresee disaster.”

  Mrs. Malone glanced over her shoulder. There was a streak of flour on her forehead and a smear of butter on her glasses. She looked hot and anxious. “What are you two whispering about?” she asked.

  They turned innocent faces in her direction. “Nothing,” they chorused.

  “I keep telling you children, I need to concentrate.” Mrs. Malone was holding a cookbook in one hand and a spoon in the other. “And I can’t concentrate with my own family muttering behind my back like a gang of mafioso.”

  Poppy and Will made expressive faces at each other, but they stopped talking. Nerves were frayed to the breaking point in the Malone household where, for the past three days, it seemed that everything that could go wrong did go wrong.

  If something could spill, it did: Mr. Malone left a can of paint on the porch railing and went inside for some iced tea, only to return and find the can tipped over and paint dripping down the front steps. Mrs. Malone walked into the kitchen one day to discover piles of sugar drifting across the pantry shelves. Will tidily bagged the week’s garbage and put it in cans by the curb, only to find the contents strewn across the driveway the next morning.

  All of that could be explained away, of course. A paint can balanced on a porch railing is likely to fall. The pantry had mice. Raccoons were famous for getting into garbage cans.

  But there were other little problems. No one could find anything they needed when they needed it. Mr. Malone misplaced his keys several times a day and his solar charger—the one he always carried when his investigations took him to remote locations—was nowhere to be found. Mrs. Malone had to drive to the store three times in three days to buy more batteries to replace the ones that had mysteriously disappeared in the night. Anything that came in a pair, such as socks, sneakers, or earrings, was reduced to a single. Franny constantly flew around the house in a rage, trying to find her favorite lipstick, her favorite necklace, her favorite headband.

  Still, they all knew what it was like settling into a new house. It takes a while to get your bearings, to develop little habits like always putting your keys in the same place. And so much stuff was being moved here and there as the Malones kept unpacking and settling in—it was a wonder, Mrs. Malone said, that they could find their own beds at night.

  Mrs. Malone was, however, annoyed by how forgetful everyone else in the family had become. “Really,” she said one afternoon, “you are all becoming most irresponsible. I came down this morning to find the back door wide open. Yesterday, I walked into a completely empty living room and found that someone had left the TV and all the lights on. And whoever left the faucet running upstairs—”

  “Owes me money,” interrupted Mr. Malone. “The water bill this month is going to be enormous. I should cut everyone’s allowance until it’s paid off! If I were any kind of father, I would!”

  The Malone children kept very still and silent. They usually entered into a spirited and generally friendly debate when Mr. Malone uttered such threats, knowing that they were rarely serious, but he had just stirred two spoonfuls of sugar into his coffee only to discover that the sugar bowl was filled with salt. It didn’t seem like a good time to risk making a wrong move.

  And there were other annoyances.

  The fuses blew three times in one afternoon, plunging the house into darkness; the smoke alarm went off randomly throughout the day; and lightbulbs kept popping at inconvenient times. All this, said Mr. Malone, was undoubtedly the fault of the house’s ancient electrical wiring. He then started making rough calculations about how much it would cost to rewire the entire house, which only deepened his gloom.

  Will’s hard drive went down, wiping out all his songs. A ballpoint pen leaked ink all over Poppy’s logbook (ruining the three goblin photos she had carefully pasted inside, which she couldn’t believe was a coincidence). A bottle of Franny’s favorite gardenia perfume fell to the floor and broke, filling the bathroom with a powerful scent that lingered for days.

  The car tires went flat. The mailbox was pushed over. Nobody’s computer passwords worked.

  And every night, the knocking started shortly after midnight and didn’t let up until dawn.

  After three days, Franny and Will were in open revolt, demanding that the family decamp to a hotel until the Dark Presence could be exorcised. Poppy found herself jumping at loud noises and thinking that she had just seen something out of the corner of her eye. Even Mr. and Mrs. Malone were beginning to look pensive.

  That very morning, after yet another sleepless night, Mr. Malone had decided to take a hot shower to wake up. Halfway through, the hot water went off and he was abruptly drenched with an icy downpour.

  His screams of outrage drowned out Franny’s calls for help. She had arisen, bleary eyed and grumpy, only to have the doorknob come off when she tried to open her bedroom door, trapping her inside. After waiting for fifteen minutes with no sign of rescue, she had be
en forced to climb out her window and down a drainpipe.

  Will woke up to find that all the strings on his electric guitar had snapped during the night.

  Poppy discovered that the wastebasket in her room had tipped over, spilling crumpled papers and pencil shavings across the floor.

  Mrs. Malone staggered down to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee and found coffee grounds scattered on the windowsills.

  So now, as they sat around the kitchen table waiting for breakfast, only Rolly seemed happy, humming an off-key tune and kicking the legs of his chair.

  “Rolly, please.” Mrs. Malone pushed a few damp strands of hair off her forehead, watching closely as a pat of butter melted in the pan. “Stop making that noise, darling, at least until I finish this first batch. You’re making me nervous.”

  “Mom.” Franny had her head propped on one hand so that her hair fell into her face. With a great effort, she managed to flip a strand back and roll her eyes. “Let’s just have cereal. For heaven’s sake. I don’t even like pancakes.”

  “The last few days have been very difficult. A nice hot breakfast will give us the strength and resolve we will need to prevail over whatever supernatural forces we will be asked to face in the weeks ahead.” She looked over her glasses at her children. “Cereal does not set the right tone at all.”

  “Whatever.” Franny let her hair fall back over her face and put her head back down on her arms.

  As Mrs. Malone poured batter into the pan, Mr. Malone bounded into the kitchen, brimming with good cheer. “Good morning, everyone! Ah, pancakes, wonderful! Just the thing to give us a little extra pep today!”

  “What’s put you in such a good mood?” asked Will suspiciously. “Did the hot water come back on?”

  “No, but I’ve risen above it,” said Mr. Malone. “After all, one’s true character is revealed by how one faces adversity. It’s true that we’ve all had our challenges recently—”

  “Challenges!” Franny cried. “I had to climb down the drainpipe! In my pajamas! In broad daylight!”

  Will said, “My hard drive—”

  Poppy added, “My notebooks—”

  “Get dressed before you climb out your window,” their father said briskly. “Back up your hard drive. Put your pens away.”

  He poured a glass of orange juice with the air of someone who was suffering bravely and in silence. Then he smiled benevolently at his children and said, “While I admit that it’s trying to experience incidents of a supernatural and perhaps even malevolent nature, we must remain strong and resolute. If this case follows the usual course, we should have slime on the walls and howling in the attic within the week.”

  Mrs. Malone turned away from the stove. “Oh, I hope this doesn’t go as far as slime,” she said. “Not that I wouldn’t like to replace the wallpaper in the living room, but it’s always so hard to get the smell out.”

  “We must be strong,” said Mr. Malone. “Slime might very well be the least of it—watch the stove!”

  Mrs. Malone whipped around to find a column of smoke rising toward the ceiling and the charred remains of her pancakes smoldering in the pan. “Oh, drat, drat, and double drat!”

  “The Dark Presence makes himself known once again,” said Will under his breath.

  “As soon as I get my computer fixed,” said Mr. Malone, “I’m going online to do more research—Rolly, stop that right now!”

  “What?” Rolly looked up, his black eyes round with surprise.

  No one had noticed him methodically pouring syrup in an intricate pattern on his plate. Or, when he decided that his plate was too limiting a canvas, pouring syrup on the tablecloth.

  “I can’t believe it,” said Franny, suddenly realizing that strands of her hair had trailed into the syrup. “Now I have to go and wash my hair again!”

  “We don’t have time for that right now,” said Mrs. Malone, looking at the pan, which was again smoking in an ominous manner. “Will, help Rolly wash his face. And everyone stand back while I flip these over—”

  “I don’t know why you always make such a big deal about flipping pancakes,” Will said, grabbing a dish towel.

  “Pancakes are trickier than they look,” said Mrs. Malone.

  “It’s perfectly simple,” said Will, turning on the faucet. “You just need to put some wrist action into it—”

  The water shot up at an angle, hitting him in the face.

  Will yelped and jumped back, dripping and outraged. His foot skidded on the floor, causing him to crash into the table just as Mrs. Malone said indignantly, “I put plenty of wrist action into my pancakes, thank you very much.”

  “Watch out!” Poppy sprang to her feet and reached for the pitcher, but she was too late. Milk flowed across the table and onto the floor.

  “Ye gods and little fishes!” yelled Mr. Malone, who tried to jump out of the milk’s way and bumped into Mrs. Malone just as she was demonstrating her wrist action.

  She stared at him with exasperation. “Really, Emerson! I had everything perfectly under control until you decided to go leaping about the kitchen.”

  With an annoyed glance at the ceiling, she poured more batter into the pan. “Honestly. Sometimes I think that a whole houseful of poltergeists would be less trouble than this family. . . .”

  Chapter Nine

  “How crazy do you think our parents are?” asked Will, who was stretched out on the porch swing, watching Mr. and Mrs. Malone through half-closed eyes. They were wandering back and forth on the lawn, holding their dowsing rods in front of them. “I mean on a scale of one to ten?”

  “Ten being the craziest?” Franny asked. She was sitting on the porch railing, her head back against a column, her eyes closed against the afternoon sun. She opened one eye just long enough to see Will nod, then she closed it again. “I’d say they rate a twenty-three at least. Twenty-five if you count the way they’re dressed.”

  Mrs. Malone wore shorts, a T-shirt, sneakers, and an enormous straw hat draped with a veil. The hat had belonged to the subject of Mrs. Malone’s very first haunting case: a fashionable young Victorian woman who had caught a fatal chill after insisting on wearing a taffeta gown to a winter dance. Mr. Malone was dressed in a neon orange Hawaiian shirt, khaki shorts, and a pith helmet he’d brought back from a South American trip to research werewolf cults.

  Poppy watched as her mother’s dowsing rod suddenly pointed down at the ground, then began quivering. Mrs. Malone zigzagged across the lawn as the rod seemingly pulled her along. She looked as if she had a large, ill-trained, and invisible dog on a leash.

  “I can’t believe they’re still at it,” Poppy said. “You’d think they’d get tired. You’d think they’d get hot.”

  Will yawned. “They keep saying they’ve seen something out of the corner of their eyes . . . wooooo!” He mustered up enough energy to flutter his fingers mysteriously in the air before letting his hand drop to his side.

  “So much for starting over in a new town where nobody knows us,” Franny said bitterly. “So much for trying to at least pretend that we’re normal.”

  “Maybe people will think they’re doing lawn work,” said Poppy. “They could be measuring space for a flowerbed.”

  “Or for a grave,” said Will in a hollow voice.

  “Stop it, Will.” Franny took a barrette out of her hair and threw it at him, which was a sign of extreme displeasure. Under normal circumstances, she jealously guarded all her accessories and was known to break down in hysterics if she lost an earring or favorite ponytail holder. “It’s bad enough that I can’t go to sleep at night without wondering who might have died a gruesome death in my bedroom.”

  “Franny! Will! Poppy!” Their father seemed to catch sight of them for the first time. “Grab a dowsing rod and come help us!”

  Franny looked appalled at this suggestion. She quickly slipped back inside the house, muttering something about making lemonade.

  Will quickly closed his eyes and began massaging his temples, as
if he were trying to tune into a sudden vision.

  Poppy simply called out, “In a minute, Dad!” She kept rocking and thinking about goblins as she watched her parents stagger around the lawn. Last night, she had snuck downstairs and dug through a half-dozen unpacked boxes of books before finding the one she wanted. It was a book called The Little People: A Comprehensive History of Hobgoblins, Pixies, Brownies, and Sprites. She had been reading bits and pieces in secret whenever she could snatch a few moments alone. Now, she opened the book again—she had covered it with the dust jacket from an astronomy book—and picked up where she had left off.

  “The people there are much like ourselves, only they are very small and roguish,” she read. “They enjoy making mischief, but can be placated through small gifts. A Scottish minister in the seventeenth century noted in a pamphlet on this subject that people in his parish often left bowls of milk or freshly baked bread by their back door as a peace offering. Other observers have noted that the little people are particularly fond of small, shiny objects such as jewelry and silver teaspoons.”

  Poppy curled her lip at that. As if she would stoop as low as bribery!

  She kept reading, but gradually the heat, the steady creak of the porch swing, and a large lunch began to take their toll. Poppy’s eyes began to close. . . .

  Then something rustled in the bushes next to the porch.

  Her eyes snapped open. Very slowly, she turned her head in the direction of the noise. There was an overgrown, untidy bush between the porch railing and the side of the house. There was only one flower on the bush, a pink one the size of a saucer. It was quivering in the still air as if something—or someone—was moving stealthily through the foliage.

  Of course, it could be a cat, Poppy thought, even as she eased herself out of the rocker and moved, ever so slowly, over to the railing. Or maybe a squirrel . . .