Pleasing the Ghost (3 page)

Uncle Arvie must have pinched Colin again, because Colin was saying, “Hey! Hey!” Colin swung at the air and slapped at his neck. “I'm going!” he said, rushing for the door.

“Oh, goodness,” Aunt Julia said.

“Aunt Julia,” I said, “I was looking at one of your books and I found something. I think it's for you.” I gave her the letter.

“Oh!” She kissed the envelope. “It's from Arvie!” She tore open the envelope and read the note inside. “Look,” she said, “it was written the day before Arvie died.” She read:

“Heartfoot a lalley

Heartfoot a sweel

Pin Heartfoot pin Heartfoot

Pin Heartfoot a teel
.

“Oh, how lovely, how sweet,” she said.

Uncle Arvie was staring at her.

“What does it mean?” I asked.

“Well,” she said. “I'm not entirely sure.
Heartfoot
—that's me. That's what he called me after his stroke. And
pin
—that usually meant
me
or
my
. But I don't know what
lalley
or
sweel
or
teel
mean. It's still lovely, though. I'm sure it's a love poem.”

Bo put his head on her foot and slobbered.

“I bet this was for my birthday,” she said. “He didn't forget it after all.”

She read the poem again and again. Once she looked up and sniffed the air. “That smell,” she said. “Doesn't it smell like—like Arvie?”

Uncle Arvie leaned down and kissed her cheek. She couldn't see him, but she must have felt something, because she put her hand to her cheek.

“I'm feeling a little peculiar,” she said. “I think I'll lie down. But thank you for finding this. I might never ever have discovered it.”

I thought Uncle Arvie might stay with Julia, but he followed me and Bo out the door. He looked tired and sad.

“You miss her, don't you?” I said.

“Pin sweel Heartfoot,” Uncle Arvie said.

“I didn't much like that Colin guy, did you?”

“Beany booger!”

“Exactly,” I said.

We were nearly home when Uncle Arvie said, “Two please?”

I had nearly forgotten about the three pleases. I had done the first one, by finding the book with its letter and giving it to Aunt Julia. Now what would the next please be?

A
s we were crossing the park on our way home from Aunt Julia's house, a boy on a bike stopped us. The bike was spectacular, but the boy was not. It was Billy Baker, the one who had called me a liar when I had told him about my ghosts.

Billy Baker said, “Hey, Dennis. Is that your stinking dog?”

Bo growled a long, low, menacing growl.

“It's my dog,” I said, “but he's not stinking.”

“Oh yeah?” Billy said. “I bet he is.”

“Beany booger?” Uncle Arvie said.

“Yes,” I agreed. “A beany booger.”

“What?” Billy demanded. “Who are you calling a beany booger?”

“Nobody.”

“You'd better not be calling
me
that—”

Bo snapped Billy's jeans in his teeth and pulled at them.

“Hey, get your stinking dog off me!”

“You shouldn't have called him stinking,” I said.

Bo pulled at Billy's jeans, making him lose his balance.

“Get this dog off me!”

“Come on, Bo. Let him go.”

Reluctantly, Bo let Billy loose. Billy hissed in my ear: “You'll be sorry for this! I'll catch you sometime when you don't have your stinking dog or your father to protect you.”

What?
I spun around. My
father
? Was
he
here? And then I realized that Billy must have thought Uncle Arvie was my father.
What?
Had Billy Baker actually
seen
Uncle Arvie? I spun back around to ask, but he was gone.

“Beany booger,” Uncle Arvie said again.

“Exactly,” I agreed. “He likes to cause trouble.”

Back in my room Uncle Arvie mentioned the second “please” when I opened my desk. He whisked his hand in the drawer and fluttered through it.

“What are you looking for?” I asked.

“Hammertoe.” Uncle Arvie's fingers flickered through pencils and pens, paper and a ruler. “Nod hammertoe?”

“I don't know. What exactly is a hammertoe?”

“Hammertoe!” Uncle Arvie moved his hand in the air. “Hammer a needle. With hammertoe and needlinks.”

I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.

Suddenly, he shouted, “Ha! Hammertoe!”

“A
paintbrush
?”

“Hammertoe! Yin!” Uncle Arvie said. He rummaged some more, flipping out a twisted tube of blue oil paint. “Needlinks! Hammer a needle with needlinks!”

“You want me to paint a picture with the brush and paint?”

“Pin needle. Dinosaur flannelate,” Uncle Arvie explained.

“
Your
picture? You want me to—to—what?”

“Flannelate!” Uncle Arvie was frustrated. He didn't know how to explain.

“Can't you show me?” I asked. “With the paintbrush and the paint?”

Uncle Arvie thought a minute. He took a piece of paper and placed it on the desk. Next he opened the paint tube and squeezed a drop onto the paper. He dipped the brush in the paint and started to draw, but an odd thing happened. There was paint on the brush, and the brush was moving across the paper, but the brush was leaving no marks.

“Hey!” I said. “Invisible paint?”

Uncle Arvie slammed his fist on the desk. “Nod fraggle.” He dropped the brush and covered his face with his hands.

“Let me try.” I dipped the brush in the paint and stroked it across the paper. “Look, it works for me.” I painted a thin blue line across the paper, added a few strokes, and drew a house.

Uncle Arvie tapped at the picture. “Dinosaur needle.” He jumped up, took the paintbrush, and pretended to paint a picture in the air. “Pin needle.” Then he dropped the brush. “Nod flannelate.”

“Not
finished
? Is that it? Your painting isn't finished?”

“Yin, riggle! Dinosaur flannelate!” Uncle Arvie shouted.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Let me get this straight. You've got a painting—an unfinished painting—and you want
me
to finish it?”

“Riggle!”

“I can't do that,” I said. “I don't know how to paint.”

Uncle Arvie held up my drawing of the house. “Dinosaur hammer,” Uncle Arvie begged.

“Where
is
your painting?” I asked.

Uncle Arvie shrugged. He wasn't sure.

“Well, I guess we'll go back to your house tomorrow and see if we can find it. But I don't guarantee anything. Like I told you, I really don't know how to paint.”

Uncle Arvie looked relieved. He cleared off the top of the desk. “Stamp!” he said, and he lay down on the desk and fell asleep. Bo curled up at the foot of the desk and he, too, fell asleep.

Uncle Arvie slept all day, and I was glad. It was very hard keeping up with a ghost who spoke his own language and asked for favors. I wondered where his painting was and how hard it would be to finish it.

That night, as I lay in bed, I remembered Billy Baker. If Billy really had seen Uncle Arvie, then Billy, too, had seen a ghost. Wouldn't Billy be surprised to know that?

I stared out the window and searched the sky for a bright star. When I found one, I wished for my pepperoni.

O
n Sunday morning I heard, “Dinosaur?” There was Uncle Arvie, floating near the ceiling again. “Good carpet, Dinosaur!”

“Good morning.” I could smell pancakes, and it occurred to me that I hadn't seen Uncle Arvie eat since he had arrived. “Aren't you hungry?” I asked him.

“Nod.”

“Do ghosts eat?”

“Nod.”

“What do you do all day—when you're not visiting me, I mean? You don't eat. What do you do?”

“Stamp.”

“Sleep? Is that all?”

“Nod.” Uncle Arvie flapped his arms. “Mailer.”

“Sleep and fly. I'd like that. Can you go wherever you want?”

“Nod.” Uncle Arvie wiggled his arms and twirled and fell over. “Pailandplop.”

“Oh, right. You can't steer. But you can aim, right? And then you just have to go where the wind takes you, right?”

“Yin.”

Maybe that was why my father had not come to see me yet. Maybe he was aiming, but couldn't find his way.

“Dennis?” my mother called. She tapped at the door and came in. “You awake?”

Uncle Arvie smiled at her. “Feather macaroni.”

“What
is
that smell?” my mother said. “It's so
familiar
, and yet—”

“Does it remind you of someone?” I asked.

“Yes, I think it does, but I can't exactly say who—”

Uncle Arvie jumped up and down. “Pin!” he said. “Pin! Pin!”

“So what are you and Bo doing today?” my mother asked.

“Hammer a needle!” Uncle Arvie said. “Dinosaur flannelate!”

“I thought maybe we'd go over to Aunt Julia's for a while,” I said.

“That's good of you. She's so lonely now that Arvie is gone.”

Uncle Arvie looked sad. “Pin Heartfoot. Pin sweel.”

“I bet he's lonely too,” I said.

My mother looked surprised. “But Dennis, he's in heaven. He won't be lonely.”

“Maybe you don't stay in heaven all the time,” I said. “Maybe sometimes you ride around on the wind all by yourself and—”

“Dennis, what an imagination you have!”

“Do you think my pepperoni is lonely?”

“Your
what
?”

“I—I meant Dad. Do you think he's lonely?”

My mother sat down on the bed beside me. “I don't know for sure, but no, I don't think he's lonely.”

“I hope not,” I said. “I hope he isn't lonely, but I bet he does miss us.”

“I'm sure he does, Dennis.” She stared at her wedding ring. “I miss him
terribly
. Most of the time I'm too busy to be lonely, but at night—”

“I know,” I said. “At night it's harder.”

After breakfast Uncle Arvie dusted off his boots and straightened his hat. “Pin mailer,” he said, and he waggled his arms, lifted a few inches off the floor, and then came back down again.
“Foomf!”
he said. He waggled his arms again. Nothing happened.
“Foomf!”
Again he tried, and this time he lifted smoothly into the air and sailed through the window and over the trees, settling down in the grass across the road. At least he could steer for short distances, it seemed.

Aunt Julia was happy to see me and Bo again. “I love to have company,” she said.

“Pin Heartfoot,” Uncle Arvie sighed.

I said I had to use the bathroom. I knew the painting would not be
there
, but it would give me a chance to look in the bedrooms. I'd have to be quiet and quick about it, though.

I slipped into the spare bedroom and looked under the bed, behind the dresser, and in the closet. No paintings, except for one on the wall that looked completely finished.

In Aunt Julia's bedroom I checked under the bed and in the closet. I felt terrible, like a spy.

“Dennis?” Aunt Julia called.

I hurried back down the hallway to the kitchen.

“I thought maybe you got lost,” she said, laughing.

I had an idea. “One time when I was here, I think I left something in your garage.” I had to think fast. “Remember those little plastic dinosaurs I had? Do you think I could check if I left them here?”

“Your dinosaurs? I don't remember seeing them out there,” she said. “But you can go look.”

The garage was stacked with boxes, gardening tools, an old bicycle, and paint cans. When I asked Uncle Arvie how big the painting was, he held out his arms to show how wide and then swiveled them to show how tall.