Wrath of the Grinning Ghost (8 page)

Johnny looked around. He and the professor were in almost the last seats in the airplane. An elderly lady across the aisle was asleep. The two seats in front of them were empty. "Who said that?" asked Johnny in a whisper, beginning to feel alarmed.

"I did!" The voice was faint and sounded as if it were coming from far away.

"Brewster!" said the professor. His voice was so loud that the lady across the aisle woke up and gave him a sharp look. He turned away from her, as if he were talking to Johnny, and then went on more softly, "I'd know that voice anywhere! Confound you, you feathery fiend, why didn't you speak to me when I tried to get in touch with you?"

"Keep your hair on, Whiskers!" the voice snapped. "There are good reasons for everything. Look, I can't say much or do anything right now. I'll help you two all I can, but just talking to you is very hard for me. Johnny, don't throw away the carved bird you bought! It's letting me break through to you. And don't despair! There's hope!"

"That's good news," growled the professor. "Tell us about it!"

"Later," said the voice, becoming fainter. "Communicating with you now is difficult. Later, I promise. But I have to warn you—you are both in terrible, terrible danger!"

And then the voice was gone completely. Johnny and Professor Childermass stared at each other. Neither of them spoke.

There was nothing to say.

CHAPTER SEVEN

A few days later Johnny, Fergie, and the professor stepped off an airplane into the humid heat of a Florida afternoon. Johnny blinked in the bright sun. Although the month was only late June, the day was hotter than the hottest August day he could ever remember. "Whoo-oo-oosh!" said Fergie, taking off his Red Sox baseball cap and fanning himself with it. His curly black hair stuck to his skull in gleaming rings. "Talk about an oven! No wonder you were so red when you got back from Florida, John baby. You can get charcoal-broiled just by walkin' around outside!"

"We are not here to discuss the weather, Byron. Come along with me, gentlemen," said Professor Childermass brusquely, pushing open a glass door and bustling into the airport building. "The car-rental agency is supposed to have a nice sedan all ready for us. I, for one, want to get to the island before nightfall!"

"Yeah, sure," said Fergie, lugging his suitcase through the door. "Maybe we can find this Madam Whoozis in a hurry and then get back to a cooler climate. Man, I can't believe how hot it is! This is like living in a steam bath!"

Johnny didn't say much. He was still far too worried about his dad and his grandparents. Major Dixon had been successfully moved to the Duston Heights hospital, where Professor Childermass had given strict orders that the Dixons' family physician, Doctor Carl Schermerhorn—whom he considered a quack—was not to treat the patient. A younger, very serious specialist named Nesheim took the case instead, although he was just as puzzled as the doctors in Colorado had been.

Johnny had last seen his father the previous afternoon, when Gramma and Grampa Dixon had stood helplessly beside their son's bed. Gramma was crying and holding on to the major's limp hand, while Grampa stood quietly with tears rolling down his loose, leathery cheeks. Major Dixon lay as still as death and did not seem to know they were there.

After leaving the hospital, Johnny had spent a half hour at St. Michael's Church, lighting a candle for his dad and kneeling to say prayers for him. He had hoped to talk to Father Higgins, but the priest was away at a conference.

Adding to Johnny's worries was the fact that, despite Brewster's promise, the spirit had not spoken to him again. Johnny wore the thunderbird amulet around his neck all day, and at night he kept it close beside his bed. Still, he had not heard another peep from Brewster. Johnny felt as if he were spending his life on pins and needles. Brewster had warned them, but what was it that he warned them about? When a kid had the kind of imagination Johnny did, he could dream up all sorts of dire disasters. Not knowing what the warning was supposed to be about was far more frightening than anything Brewster could have told him. Johnny lost his appetite and a lot of sleep, and sometimes he feared that he was losing his mind.

At the car-rental desk the clerk handed the professor the keys, and he led the boys outside to a year-old black Pontiac, an automobile the professor said he understood very well.

They stowed their suitcases in the trunk. Then, in a cloud of exhaust smoke, they set off, driving south on a two-lane asphalt highway lined with palm trees. It was so hot that mirages formed on the road ahead of the car, wavery sky-blue patches that shimmered and danced and looked just like shallow pools of water. They magically evaporated as the car sped toward them, without leaving a trace behind. Johnny and Fergie shared the backseat, with both of their windows rolled down so a blast of air washed over them. It was so muggy that Johnny felt as if he had just climbed out of a hot swimming pool, but the breeze did help a little.

They drove for a long time, and finally they saw a sign that read "Alachamokee 15." An arrow pointed to the right, and the professor steered the Pontiac onto a narrow, rough road that needed repaying. As they jounced and bounced, Johnny, who was sitting on the right, nudged Fergie and pointed through the window. Fergie leaned over to look. The Gulf of Mexico could be seen through gaps in the roadside palm trees. From the glimpses they got, the water looked as flat and shiny as a sheet of scuffed aluminum. Fergie started to hum, and then he burst into song. "By the sea, by the sea, by the bee-yoo-tiful sea," howled Fergie in an ear-splitting tone, missing the tune by a mile.

"Ouch!" said the professor, wincing with his whole body. He turned around and glared over his shoulder. "Mister Byron Q. Ferguson, if you don't want to walk the last twelve miles, kindly pipe down!"

"Aye, aye, Captain," answered Fergie with a broad smirk. He clapped his friend on the shoulder. "C'mon, John baby," he said. "We'll fix up your old man. All we have to do is find the witchy woman, right? She'll know what to do."

"I hope so," said Johnny, although what he felt was more despair than hope.

They rolled into the sleepy town of Alachamokee just after four o'clock. The professor drove up and down the narrow main street until he found Gator Gus's Boating and Fishing, a little sun-baked cinderblock building with a badly faded sign above its door. It had been painted white at one time—Fergie suggested that had been shortly before the Civil War—but now the hot sun and the salt air had blistered and peeled most of the paint off, so the gray concrete blocks showed through, splattered with splotches of green mossy lichen.

"Here's where we're supposed to leave the car," grunted the professor, edging the Pontiac into a cramped alley. "And then the ferry is supposed to be a short walk away. Judging by the accuracy of the information I've gotten so far, I suppose that means it's not quite as long a walk as it would be to Omaha, Nebraska!"

Behind the store was a parking lot with three slots marked "Rentals Park Here." All of these were empty, and the professor pulled into the middle one. The three of them climbed out into the sweltering afternoon and got their suitcases from the trunk. Looking around, Johnny got his bearings and said, "The water taxi is this way."

He led them about a block west, where the alley dead-ended into a highway. On the far side of this road was the Gulf of Mexico—or at least the Alachamokee Bay part of it. Dozens of sailboats and powerboats were tied up at piers along the shore. There wasn't any traffic on the highway, so the three sauntered across and found the booth where they bought tickets for the ride over to Live Oak Key. As they walked down the pier to the bright yellow speedboat, Johnny pointed out the tall white spire of the lighthouse. "I saw Brewster right there," he said. "I thought he was a real bird."

"He's a real pain in the behumpus," griped the professor. "If I'd known he'd shilly and shally the way he's been doing, I would have told Mr. Townsend to drop him down a nice, deep well in Egypt."

"Aw, Prof, I kind of liked old Brewster," teased Fergie. "Even if he was a worse singer than me."

"Fergie," Johnny said,
"no one
is a worse singer than you."

The professor looked surprised, but then he barked a short laugh. "Congratulations, John," he said. "That is the first faint trace of a joke I've heard from you in ages. Keep your spirits up! Now, let's climb into this disreputable craft and pray that it doesn't sink before we reach the distant shore."

They roared across the mile of water separating the mainland from Live Oak Key. "Man, this is better!" announced Fergie, holding on to his baseball cap as the cool bay breezes whipped his shirt. "I could go for this kinda life. If I lived in Florida, I'd have a boat just like this an' I'd stay on the water for twenty-four hours a day!"

Once they reached the island, the professor spied a ramshackle wooden shop called The Sand Dollar Store. A tattered poster beside the door announced that bicycles could be rented, and soon the two boys found themselves on twin red Schwinns with big, fat balloon tires that wouldn't sink into sand. They rode with their suitcases across the handlebars. Behind them the professor pumped along on a slightly rusted blue bicycle. He had lashed his suitcase to the rear fender, and he was quite a sight as he sat upright on the seat with great dignity, his chubby legs moving like pistons to push the pedals.

They rode down the dirt road toward the Pirate's Cove cabins. "Look at me, John baby," crowed Fergie, leaning back. "No hands!" He raised his hands off the handlebars and rolled along with a smug smile on his face. Johnny was always too afraid of falling to try that trick. It was not so much that he feared getting a bump on the head. He was far more scared of getting a bad scrape and coming down with a deadly tetanus infection. Johnny was terrified of tetanus, or lockjaw. He held on tight to his handlebars.

"One side, amateur!" roared the professor. Fergie grabbed his handlebars and swerved over to the right, ahead of Johnny. He looked around in bug-eyed astonishment as the professor pedaled serenely past, his arms folded across his chest. He stuck out his tongue at Fergie and winked mischievously. "I was doing the no-hands trick before your father was born!" he announced. "Watch me and learn a thing or three!"

Just by leaning this way and that, the professor made his bike swoop gracefully from side to side. Fergie laughed his head off. "Better get a grip, Prof," he yelled. "If anybody sees you, they'll think a performing bear escaped from the circus or something!"

"Says you!" returned the professor, but he did put his hands back on his handlebars. "John, unless I'm mistaken, that is our destination just ahead. I've reserved the same cabin that you and your dad stayed in. I hope that won't bother you."

"No," said Johnny truthfully. In fact, he felt comforted by being back on Live Oak Key, where he and his father had enjoyed their vacation so much.

They went into the main cabin, the one with the little newsstand and store and the check-in desk. A skinny, sour-faced, middle-aged man was behind the counter. He wore a loud Hawaiian shirt with pink and purple parrots all over it. The man was even shorter than the professor, and he had a head of spiky, rusty-red hair that bristled in all directions like a worn-out broom, except for a shiny pink bald spot right on the top of his head. As the professor asked for the key to the cabin, the man said in an irritable, whiny voice, "You din't say there was gonna be three o' you. That's an extry five dollars a night!"

Johnny braced himself for an explosion, and indeed the professor began to puff himself up like the frog in the fairy tale, the one that tried to pump himself up to the size of an ox and finally blew himself to pieces. But the professor ground his teeth so loud that Johnny could hear the grating noise. Finally the old man simply grunted. "Very well," he snapped, and he pulled out his wallet and counted the money, slamming every bill on the counter. "And I shall certainly be sure to tell all my many Florida-bound friends of your hospitality!"

Fergie said he had never seen a house raised up on stilts before, and he clambered up the steps, unlocked the door, and plunged right in. Before Johnny had even crossed the porch, he heard the air conditioner clatter to life.

The professor took the bedroom that Major Dixon had used, and Johnny got his old room back. Fergie happily announced that
he
planned to sleep on the sofa, right in front of that magnificent air conditioner. As soon as they had unpacked their bags, they changed into more comfortable clothing. The professor had brought his red fishing cap along, and he perched it right on top of his head. He wore baggy tan walking shorts, a bright blue T-shirt, knee-high white socks, and tennis shoes.

Fergie stuck with his jeans, but he did change to a plain white short-sleeved shirt. Johnny wore his shorts and a cool, jacket-like denim shirt his dad had bought him on their previous trip. Beneath it, the thunderbird charm hung around his neck on the leather thong. It felt odd against his chest, as if the carving were somehow warmer than it should be. And it made his skin feel tingly, not quite itchy and not quite sunburned.

"Well, gentlemen," said the professor as he looked at his gold pocket watch. "It's time to decide on our next tactical move. Now, I for one am starving. Before I waste away to a mere shell of myself, shall we first find a place to dine and then begin snooping around to find some trace of this Lumiere person? Or—"

"Hey, Whiskers!" called a voice from thin air. "You can stuff your face later! The first thing you have to do is get the grimoire! In case you don't know what that is, it's a book of magic spells. Be careful, because this one is very ancient and extremely evil! Johnny knows what I'm talking about. Well, glom on to that little booby prize! And do it pronto!"

Fergie laughed out loud, and Johnny felt relief well up inside him, as welcome as cool water in the middle of a burning hot desert. There was no mistaking that quarrelsome, raspy voice.

Brewster was back.