A Gust of Ghosts (19 page)

Chance and all the other ghosts were gathered together, talking in low voices and looking over their shoulders every once in a while, like spies who were afraid of getting caught.

“Just keep doing what you're doing,” Chance said. “Any time Poppy points that camera at you, vanish! Disappear, evaporate, vamoose! Whatever you do, don't get caught on tape!”

Every ghost nodded with determination. Every ghost except Agnes, who looked (at least from the bit of untidy hair and pink nose that Poppy could see) troubled.

“I'll do what we all agree on, of course,” said Agnes. “Still, it does seem a shame. She always looks so disappointed, poor little thing. And it would be terrible if she and her family did have to leave this lovely house, just when they were getting settled in—”

Bertha turned on her fiercely. “Let me ask you one thing, Agnes: Are you having a good time?”

“Well, of course,” said Agnes, flustered. “I'm having a grand time. We all are!”

“And what do you think will happen once we've helped the Malones get their evidence?” Travis said.

“I'll tell you what happens,” Peggy Sue said. “They won't need us anymore. We'll all be—”

“Banished!” the ghosts said in an unhappy chorus.

Buddy strummed a solemn chord on his guitar.

Chance nodded moodily. “We've had one lucky break, at least. None of them seem to realize that the Gliffenberger Technique actually works.”

“Well, we'd better make sure they don't ever find out the truth,” said Buddy. “We don't want people knowing how to get rid of ghosts.”

“So, we're still agreed?” asked Chance sharply. “We'll make sure that Poppy Malone never makes a film about us, never reveals our existence and, most important, never lets her parents know that we are here.”

The other ghosts nodded solemnly, then, one by one, drifted away. Poppy rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling once more. This time, her thoughts were wonderfully clear. In fact, she felt that her brain was absolutely whizzing along.

She began to smile.

We'll make sure that Poppy Malone never makes a film about us, Chance had said.

And we'll just see about that, Poppy thought.

Poppy enlisted help, of course. Once she told Will, Henry, and Franny what she had heard, they were only too glad to pitch in. (Rolly, who was deemed unable to keep a secret unless it was his own, was sent off to play with Bingo while they worked.)

“I think the porch would be the best place to stage Operation Ghoul,” said Poppy. “And the simplest thing would be to divide into two teams.”

The others agreed. Franny and Will were Team Distraction. Poppy and Henry were Team Installation. (Franny's suggestion that they have T-shirts made was unanimously voted down.)

Once they had their plan in place, they swung into action. Will lured Buddy off the porch by offering to play him recordings of old cowboy songs that Will had downloaded from a folk song website. Franny stood guard, prepared to chase away any other ghosts who might decide to sit on the porch. She did this simply by holding Poppy's video camera, ready to film any ghost who wandered by. Once the coast was clear, Poppy and Henry installed what Henry insisted on calling their “secret weapons” in fifteen minutes flat.

When they were done, Poppy stood in the middle of the porch for one last inspection. Everything looked exactly the way it had before they started.

“Great job, everyone,” she said. “Now all we have to do is get the ghosts to join us.”

That wasn't hard to do (once Franny put the video camera away). The ghosts had gotten into the habit of sitting on the porch in the evening, trading stories and enjoying the sunset. Tonight, Will and Henry sprawled on the front steps, Poppy sat in a rocker, and Franny perched on the railing.

The ghosts were gathered in their usual spots—Buddy on the swing (he had finally convinced Peggy Sue to join him, and looked as if he was about to burst with happiness), Bertha and Agnes in straight-backed wooden chairs, Travis sitting cross-legged on the floor, and Chance standing on the porch steps, striking a dramatic pose. Together they listened to the crickets and watched as Rolly and Bingo played a game of their own invention—it involved creeping through bushes and leaping on each other at unexpected moments—in the gathering shadows. As Bingo barked and dashed around Rolly, Buddy began strumming his guitar. For the first time since the ghosts had arrived at the Malone house, the tune was lively and upbeat.

Poppy found herself tapping her toes. She glanced at Henry and Will, who were smiling, and Franny, who seemed to be humming along. In fact, the music managed to put everyone in a good mood. When the song finally came to a jaunty end, Bertha took several swings at a mosquito that had circled her head a few too many times, and said, “That was right nice, Buddy.”

“Yes, it's lovely to have some entertainment on a summer evening,” said Agnes, gently fanning herself with an embroidered handkerchief. “Maybe you could play ‘San Antonio Rose' again and we could all sing along.”

“A delightful idea,” Chance said. Then as if he'd suddenly had another thought, he added, “Or—”

Bertha rolled her eyes. “Here it comes.”

“I could perform a monologue from one of the Bard's history plays!” he went on.

Will collapsed onto the porch as if he'd been felled by a boxer's left hook. “A monologue,” he said in dreary tones. “The Bard.
History
. That's got to break the record for the most boring words ever said in one sentence.”

“How about ‘I'll perform a monologue from one of the Bard's history plays while playing a harp'?” Travis suggested.

“‘I'll perform a monologue from one of the Bard's history plays while playing a harp in front of a poster of the periodic table of elements,'” Henry added.

“‘I'll perform a monologue—'” Will began.

“Enough!” Chance said, sweeping his arm through the air as if he were casting them into the darkness. “I am surrounded by philistines!”

He glared at Will, Travis, and Henry, who snickered unrepentantly.

“Actually,” Poppy said, “I'd love to see you perform—”

“For the fifth night in a row,” said Bertha under her breath.

“—and I'm sure everyone else would, too,” continued Poppy. She looked around at the others, who all nodded rather unenthusiastically.

“Well,” said Chance modestly. “If you insist. Perhaps a short scene from
Henry the Fourth
…”

“That sounds great,” said Poppy brightly. “Where do you want to stand?”

Chance bounded up the steps to the middle of the porch and spread his arms wide. “Here, of course!” he said. “Center stage.”

“Of course,” murmured Poppy as she casually moved a potted geranium a few inches to the right. Every night for a week, Chance had acted a different part and he always stood in the same spot, where he could be the focus of attention. She sat down again, careful not to block the geranium behind her, and said, “I think we're ready to start.”

“Ah.” Chance cleared his throat, then gave her a glinting look. “Perhaps you would like to give me my cue, Poppy?”

He said this as if he were granting an immense favor, so Poppy did her best to look honored.

“What is it?” she asked.

“‘I can call spirits from the vasty deep,'” he recited.

For a moment, Poppy thought he was making fun of her. Then she saw the glint in his eye become even stronger, and she realized he was giving her a private smile, as if they shared a secret.

So she smiled back and repeated the line.

“‘I can call spirits from the vasty deep,'” she said.

Chance gave her a flashing look, then said the next lines in the play, “‘Why, so can I, or so can any man, But will they come when you do call for them?'”

He paused, as if waiting for applause.

Instead, Bertha jumped in. “The answer is no! We aren't dogs, after all.”

A look of pain crossed Chance's face.

“He was quoting from Shakespeare,” Franny explained. “
Henry the Fourth
. We did it at theater camp two summers ago.”

Chance brightened slightly. “And did you like the play?”

“Ye-es,” Franny said. “But
Romeo and Juliet
was better.”

That was all Chance needed to hear. “‘O Romeo, Romeo,'” Chance proclaimed in a deep, resonant baritone. “‘Wherefore art thou Romeo?'”

Then, in his regular voice, he added, “Did I ever tell you about my tour of the Rockies back in 1888—”

“Yes,” chorused the rest of the ghosts.

He ignored them. He put one hand on his heart, the other reaching up toward the sky. “‘But soft! What light through yonder window breaks—'”

“Why do you keep askin' that?” said Buddy. “It's Juliet.
You
know it's Juliet,
I
know it's Juliet, every goldarn person on the planet knows it's Juliet. It's time to shut up about that light through yonder window.”

“Oh, stab me through the heart!” Chance cried, leaping to his feet. “Heap hot coals upon my head! Stick needles in my eye! You could not hurt me more!”

Agnes cast her eyes to heaven. “I'd think that sandbag hurt you a lot more than anything Buddy might say to you.”

Chance raised his head and turned it ever so slightly to the right. Poppy caught her breath. Whether it was because he had just watched twenty-two classic movies in a row on the Malones' TV or because of Chance's natural instincts as an actor, he had managed to present his profile perfectly to his audience. A slight breeze lifted a lock of hair off his noble forehead. And then he turned to her and began to speak....

“All my life,” Chance said, “I wanted to play Hamlet. It is the ultimate role, the pinnacle of any career, the part every actor wants to play. And finally—finally!—I had my chance. I was chosen to play the Danish prince in one of the largest theaters in Texas.”

Poppy hardly dared to interrupt him, but she knew she would need facts that could be verified later. “Where was the theater?” she asked carefully.

“It was right here in Austin—the Alameda Theater, a grand old place,” Chance said. “After weeks of rehearsal, at last my big moment came. I stepped out onto the stage. I could tell from the first words I spoke that I held the audience in the palm of my hand. And then—and then … it was time for The Speech. I stood center stage, a lone spotlight shining on me. I began.”

Chance raised one hand and stared up over Poppy's head. She knew that, in real life, he was probably looking at the burned-out porch light that her father still hadn't gotten around to replacing.

But his eyes were blazing as if he were gazing into the heavens. “‘To be,'” he said in a deep, thrilling voice, “‘or not to be—'”

“Then bang!” Bertha interrupted. “He wasn't.”

Chance dropped his hand. The light went out of his eyes. He looked just like an ordinary person (or an ordinary ghost) again.

“Thank you, Bertha,” he said coldly. “I'm glad that my death affords you so much enjoyment.”

“But what
happened
?” Franny asked impatiently.

Chance sighed. “As it turns out, a stagehand did not tie a sandbag securely enough. It plummeted from overhead just as I had said the first few words of my speech. But now—” He stood up straight, stretched out his arm, and put on his stage voice once more. “Now I can finally finish it. ‘To be or not to be—'”

Poppy held her breath as, behind her, the camera she and Henry had put in the geranium pot kept rolling.

S
everal days later, Poppy's film was complete. She took her laptop to the tree house to show everyone her movie. Henry, Will, and Franny actually applauded, even though they had circles under their eyes and looked ready to fall asleep.

“It's great,” said Henry through a huge yawn. “Really. I'm just tired. It's a triumph. Two thumbs way up.”

She smiled, even though she was exhausted, too. Once she knew how she was going to foil the ghosts, she had spent hours making more camera traps. Then she and Henry had hidden them in the geranium pot on the porch railing and the bird feeder that hung right in front of the porch swing where Buddy liked to play his guitar.

They had emptied a flour canister and made it into a camera trap, too, then placed it on a kitchen counter where it could record Bertha and Agnes as they baked cookies and bickered. They had used a vase that sat in the hall outside the bathroom to spy on Peggy Sue as she wafted in and out, trailing steam in her wake. And they had planted another camera trap on the desk in Will's bedroom (cleverly disguised as a computer modem) to capture Travis in action, playing video games.

The camera traps had shot hours of footage without the ghosts knowing, then Poppy had stayed up after midnight for three straight nights to edit the film.