Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great (3 page)

   
I jumped out of bed and ran down the hail to my parents' room. Daddy was snoring. I touched him on the shoulder. He sat right up in bed. "What? What is it?" he asked.

   
"It's just me, Daddy," I told him.

   
"Sheila . . . what do you want? It's the middle of the night."

   
"I can't sleep, Daddy. There's a spider on my ceiling."

   
Mom rolled over. She made a noise like
ummm
.

   
"Shush," Daddy said. "Go back to bed. I'll get it in the morning."

   
"But, Daddy, he could fall on me. Maybe he's poisonous."

   
"Oh. . .all right," Daddy said, kicking off the covers.

   
We walked down the hall together. "How did you notice a spider on your ceiling in the middle of the night?" Daddy asked.

   
"I have my light on."

   
Daddy didn't ask me why.

   
When we got to my room he said, "Okay, where's your spider?"

   
At first I didn't see him. But then he started running across my ceiling. "There he is!" I pointed. "You see?"

   
Daddy picked up one of my shoes.

   
"Hurry," I said.

   
Daddy stood on my bed, but when he smacked my shoe against the ceiling the spider ran the other way.

   
I tried to help. I gave him directions. "That's it," I called. "Now just a little to the left. No, no, now to the right. Hit him, Daddy! Hit him now!"

   
But Daddy missed him every time. He was running up and down my bed, but the spider ran faster.

   
Just as Daddy said, "I give up," he got him. Squish . . . that was the end of my spider. There was a big black mark on the ceiling. But I felt a whole lot better.

   
"Now, would you please go back to sleep!" Daddy said.

   
"I'll try."

   
"And if you find anything else unusual . . . tell me about it in the morning."

   
"Okay," I said, snuggling under the covers.

   
I think I fell asleep then. But a few hours later I woke up. I heard this really scary noise. It sounded like
whooo whooo whooo
. I didn't know what to do. I buried my head under the pillow, but that didn't help. I could still hear it. I thought about what it might be-a ghost, or a vampire, or even an ordinary monster.

   
I got up and ran back down the hail. Daddy was snoring much louder now. This time I walked around to Mom's side of the bed and shook her a little. She jumped up.

   
"Oh, Sheila!" she said, when she saw who it was. "You scared me!"

   
"I'm sorry," I whispered.

   
"What is it?"

   
"It's a noise in my room," I said.

   
"Go back to sleep," Mom told me. "It's nothing."

   
"How do you know?" I asked. "You haven't heard it. It sounds like a ghost."

   
"There aren't any ghosts!"

   
"Please, Mom, please come and see."

   
"Oh . . . all right." She put on her robe and we went down the hall to my room. "Well," Mom said, "where's your noise?"

   
"Just wait," I told her.

   
She sat down on my bed and yawned. Soon it started again.
Whooo. . . Whooo. . .

   
"You see?" I said, throwing my arms around Mom. I could tell from her face that she didn't like the noise either. "You want me to go wake Daddy?" I asked.

   
"No, not yet," Mom said. "First I'll have a look around myself. Hand me that baseball bat in the corner."

   
"For what?" I asked.

   
"Just in case," Mom said.

   
I gave Mom the bat. She held it like she was ready to use it. We waited until we heard the noise again.
Whooo. . . whooo. . . whooo. . .

   
"That's coming from outside," Mom said.

   
"So it's an outside ghost," I told her.

   
She went to the window. She stood there for a minute before she started to laugh.

   
"What's funny?" I asked.

   
"Oh, Sheila. . . just look!"

   
I hid behind her and peeked out the window. There was a beautiful silver moon. And there was also Jennifer, with her head held high.
She
was making those noises.

   
"What is she doing?" I asked. "Is she crazy?"

   
"She's baying at the moon," Mom said.

   
"What's baying?"

   
"It's like singing."

   
"You mean she is going to stand there and make that ghost noise all summer?"

   
"I think so," Mom said.

   
"I told you to get rid of her, didn't I?" I said. "Who needs her? Who needs her making scary noises at me?"

   
"Come on, Sheila," Mom said, putting the baseball bat back in the corner. "Get into bed."

   
She tucked me in. I felt very tired.

   
"Now go to sleep."

   
"I'll try," I said.

   
When Mom left I heard the noise again.
Whooo whooo whooo
.

   
"Oh shut up, you dumb old dog!" I called.

   
And she did.

   
THE next day I met Mouse Ellis. She is also ten and going into fifth grade. I was sitting on the front steps wondering what to do until it was time to go and register for day camp. Then I saw this girl walking up the road. I watched until she got to the front of my house. She looked at me and waved. I waved back.

   
She came up our driveway and over to where I was sitting. She held up a purple yo-yo. "I'm Mouse Ellis, Junior Champion of Tarrytown," she said. "I can do eleven different tricks without stopping. How many can you do?"

   
"I never stopped to count," I told her.

   
She opened her eyes very wide and offered me her yo-yo. "Go ahead and show me," she said.

   
"I don't feel like it."

   
"I'll bet you can't do Shotgun six times in a row."

   
"I'll bet I can," I told her.

   
"Okay, let's see you do it then."

   
"After you," I said.

   
"Okay." Mouse wound up her yo-yo, held it close to her hip, and next thing I knew, out it flew, right at me, six times in a row.

   
"Very good," I said.

   
She handed me her yo-yo. I examined it all over.

   
"It's a Duncan Imperial," she told me. "The very best yo-yo made."

   
"It's not bad," I said.

   
"I'm ready any time you are," Mouse said.

   
I stood up, held the yo-yo to my hip, threw it out, and whacked myself in the head on my first try.

   
"Hey, are you okay?" Mouse asked.

   
"Oh sure," I told her. "But I guess I'll have to tell you the truth now. I didn't want to hurt your feelings before. But where I come from, yo-yo's are for babies. I haven't done Shotgun for about eight years now. That's why I missed."

   
Mouse looked at me for a while and I gave her one of my best stares right back. Then she sat down next to me and said, "You'll never know how glad I am that you moved in for the summer. I'm so sick of those Egran boys!"

   
I couldn't help smiling. She wouldn't have stayed if she didn't believe I really was a yo-yoer when I was a little kid. "I'm sleeping in one of the Egran boys' bedrooms," I said. "And guess what I found in the desk?"

   
"What?" Mouse asked.

   
"Six tubes of Testor's glue and twenty-seven jars of model paint!"

   
Mouse laughed. "You must have Bobby's room. He's a model maniac."

   
"He left a note for me," I said. "He signed it
B.E.
"

   
"That's Bobby!"

   
"He wrote that if I touch any of his models he'll get me someday."

   
"Ha ha!" Mouse said. "He's all talk."

   
"That's what I figured. Anyway, who'd want to fool around with his dumb old models?"

   
"Not me," Mouse said. "I've got better things to do."

   
"Me too. Say, is your real name Mouse?"

   
"No, it's Merle, but everybody calls me Mouse."

   
"You better watch out," I said. "My father's name is really Bertram and everybody
still
calls him Buzz."

   
"Well, I don't care if people call me Mouse forever. I like it a whole lot better than Merle. And if you ask me, Buzz is a much better name than Bertram. Bertram sounds awful. Nothing against your father, of course."

   
"I didn't mean that I don't like your nickname," I said. "As long as you
like
to be called Mouse. Personally I think it's a very nice name. It's much better than Sheila."

   
"If you don't like Sheila you should call yourself something else," Mouse said.

   
"Like what?" I asked.

   
"Oh . . . maybe Sugar or Sunny or something like that."

   
"I don't like Sugar," I said. "But Sunny sounds pretty good. Sunny Tubman . . . yeah, I kind of like that."

   
"Okay, then that's what I'll call you from now on," Mouse said.

   
I told Mouse about Libby then, and how she says
Mother
and
Father
and pretends to be very grown-up. And Mouse told me about her little sister Betsy, who still wets the bed every night. We found out we are both going to the same day camp and the same pool.