The Ghost in Room 11 (7 page)

The wind's coming from up there
, Matt thought.
Right around the sign. But why
.…

The sign twisted again, and for a second it hung straight. In that second, Matt knew why the wind was blowing.

“The Book Fair's being spoiled!” Stephanie cried. She tried to catch a book jacket as it sailed past.

Matt looked around frantically. Nearby, a long ladder lay on its side against the wall. Mr. Beasley must have used it to put up his sign.

“Help me!” he shouted. He ran to the far end of the ladder and started to lift it. Charlie hesitated and then came to help. Together, they braced the ladder against the wall.

“Why?” Charlie yelled, but Matt didn't stop to explain. He had to hurry, or Stephanie would be right. The whole Book Fair would be spoiled.

“Need something sharp,” he shouted. Stephanie, looking close to tears, struggled to a table and found a pair of scissors.

“Hold the ladder steady!” Matt shouted. “I'm going to cut down the sign.”

Charlie stared at him. “That's crazy,” he shouted. “You could be killed!”

Matt started up the ladder. The wind ripped at his clothes and his eyes burned. When he looked down at his classmates, their faces were white with fear. But they all had their hands on the ladder, holding it steady.

He clutched the rungs so hard his fingers ached. He was climbing into the heart of the wind. If he loosened his grip even a little, he would be swept away.

Carefully, he wrapped his left arm around the ladder and reached toward the rope with his right. One more step and he'd be able to touch it. He moved up to the next rung and took the scissors from his pocket. He was shaking so hard that he could hardly close the blades around the rope. Nothing happened. Mr. Beasley had used a heavy rope to make sure his sign wouldn't fall.

Matt closed his eyes and tried again. This time the blades closed firmly on the rope. The ladder swayed as he squeezed the scissors, and for a moment he was sure he was going to fall. Then the rope parted with a
crack
, and the big sign swooped downward.

In an instant, the roar of the wind began to fade. By the time the sign lay on the floor, the gym was silent. Matt scurried down the ladder as book jackets and scraps of paper floated around him.

When he stepped off the ladder, Charlie grabbed his arm.

“What happened?” he demanded. “What's going on?”

Matt couldn't speak. He pointed at the sign lying face down on the floor.

“So you cut down the sign,” Jason said in a quavering voice. “But what stopped the wind?”

The door opened and Miss Bucher came in. “What on earth—” She dropped the box she was carrying.

“What's going on here?” she demanded, when she caught her breath. “What have you done—and what's happened to Mr. Beasley's sign?”

Matt took a deep breath and walked over to the sign. He turned it over, hoping the wind wouldn't start blowing when he did so. But the gym remained silent as they all stared at the huge red letters

WELLCOME

Miss Bucher's mouth dropped open. “Why, it's—it's—”

“It's spelled wrong,” Matt said.

He ought to know.
Welcome
had been on today's spelling list. He'd written it last night, twenty times.

18

Cleaning up the Mess

“But what made it fall?” Miss Bucher wanted to know. “I've been setting things up in here all day.…”

The children glanced at each other. “There was this big wind,” Stephanie said timidly. “It was blowing everything around and twisting the sign and—”

“A big wind? In the
gym?
”

“That's right!” Charlie said excitedly. “But it stopped when Matt cut down the sign.”

“But why?” Miss Bucher seemed dazed. “I don't understand. Why did you cut down the sign, Matthew? Climbing that ladder was a dangerous thing to do.”

Matt wondered if Miss Whipple were hiding close by, listening. She must have been furious when she saw the misspelled sign. After all, Mr. Beasley was one of the people she had “saved.”

“Well,” Miss Bucher said impatiently. “Why?”

Matt tried to think of an answer. “I had to,” he said. “The wind was blowing from up there near the ceiling, and I saw that the sign was spelled wrong, so I thought—I thought I'd better cut it down.”

He waited for Miss Bucher to ask “Why?” again, but she didn't. She looked at him hard, and then she nodded, as if she were beginning to understand and didn't want to talk about it anymore.

“Well, whatever happened, we have a lot to do here,” she said. “Matt, you and Charlie roll up that sign and take it—” she paused “—take it to Mr. Beasley's office. Stephanie and Jason and Kristin, you and I will pick up papers and tape the posters back on the walls. Let's get busy.”

For the next half hour everyone gathered book jackets, taped posters, and sorted the papers that were scattered around the gym. Then they went to the art room to work on the invitations.

Charlie and Jason sat on either side of Matt while they put
READ A BOOK
stickers on the invitations. Stephanie and Kristin put the letters into envelopes.

“Why'd you do it, Barber?” Charlie whispered. “Why'd you cut down that sign? How did you know that would make the wind stop blowing?”

Matt had promised himself he wouldn't talk about the ghost again, and he didn't. It was enough to have Charlie and Jason looking at him as if he were a hero. That felt
good
.

“I wanted to get it down because it was spelled wrong,” he said carefully. “I didn't know for sure what would happen afterward.”

Stephanie and Kristin leaned across the table to listen. “I wouldn't have climbed up the ladder in that wind,” Kristin said. “I hate high places.”

“So do I,” Matt said honestly. “I was shaking!”

As he put a sticker on the last invitation, he realized that, for the first time, he wasn't in a hurry to get away from Healy Elementary.

19

The Ghost Appears

“Do you want to go to Milwaukee with me tomorrow?” Matt's dad asked Friday morning. “I have to work for an hour, but after that we can take in the zoo.”

“I can't,” Matt said. “I told Charlie I'd play softball. It's a big game.”

His parents looked at each other across the breakfast table and smiled. “Some other time, then,” his dad said. “Mustn't let the team down.”

Matt wondered if they'd be as pleased if they knew about his adventure in the gym. Matt hadn't told them about it, and he hadn't answered his classmates' questions either.
Just stop lying and losing your temper
, Miss Whipple had told him. If he said a ghost had been trying to tear down Mr. Beasley's sign, people would think he was lying again.

Friday afternoon no one felt like working. Mrs. Sanders let the class read the books they'd bought at the Fair that morning. Matt read the first page of his new mystery three times. He wriggled in his seat, wishing the Book Fair were over. He'd be glad when the gym was just a gym again.

“Merry Monahan's here,” Charlie whispered from his seat near the window. “She's coming in with a real pretty lady.”

Matt sneaked a look. “That's my mom. My
real
mom,” he added. “I was kidding about the stunt-woman.”

“I know,” Charlie said.

A few minutes later Matt jumped as Mr. Beasley's voice boomed over the microphone! “All students report to the Book Fair.”

The gym was crowded when the fourth grade filed in. First, second, and third graders sat on the floor. Behind them were rows of chairs for the fourth, fifth, and sixth graders. In the back sat the parents and grandparents who had come to hear Merry Monahan's talk. Miss Monahan and Mr. Beasley stood on a platform with a microphone and a chalkboard.

“What's the matter with Mr. Beasley?” Jason whispered. “He looks sort of—twitchy.”

Charlie snickered and so did Matt. They stopped quickly when the principal scowled at them.

“We're very happy to have Merry Monahan back with us today,” Mr. Beasley said. “Let's show her what a nice, quiet audience we can be.” He looked at Matt when he said that, as if he were afraid the argument about ghosts might begin all over again.

Matt's face burned. He stared at his shoes while Miss Monahan talked about the books she'd liked when she was a little girl.
Heidi, Treasure Island, Black Beauty, The Secret Garden
—she wrote the titles on the chalkboard. No ghost stories, Matt noticed glumly, but that hadn't stopped her from pretending to be an expert on ghosts.

“And I loved ghost stories,” Miss Monahan went on, as if she'd read Matt's mind. She smiled at Mr. Beasley. “Of course,” she continued, “we all know there's no such thing as a ghost.”

“Right,” Mr. Beasley said. “We all know that.”

As he spoke, the lights flickered and went out. For a moment light streamed through the small windows high above the floor, and then that faded, too, as if clouds had covered the sun. Everyone began to talk at once. Some of the first graders began to cry.

Mr. Beasley and Merry Monahan were staring up at a corner of the ceiling. Matt turned to look, too, and saw a billowing cloud of silvery mist. He jumped to his feet, ready to run.

“What's going on?” Charlie demanded.

The mist grew brighter. A tall thin figure shimmered into view for a moment, and then, as quickly as it had come, it was gone.

“Hey!” Charlie shouted. “What was that?”

“That was Miss Whipple!” Matt shouted back. “She's proving she's real!”

“Sit down!”
bellowed Mr. Beasley. “Everyone please sit down! I believe we have a leaky steam pipe in the ceiling. Nothing to get excited about—”

A beam of yellow light shot out of the mist and lit up the chalkboard behind Miss Monahan. She and Mr. Beasley turned to look at it, and so did everyone else. As they watched, the list of book titles faded, and a message appeared in bold letters:

TRY HARD!

THEN TRY HARDER!

THIS MEANS YOU!

“That's Miss Whipple's motto!” Matt exclaimed. “I told you—she's here!”

The lights came on, and the motto vanished from the chalkboard. When Matt looked back at the ceiling, the silvery mist was gone, too.

“I must be dreaming!” Miss Monahan said to Mr. Beasley, but since she was close to the microphone, everyone heard her. “What in the world happened just then?”

Mr. Beasley didn't answer. His face was gray.

“I want to know what happened,” Miss Monahan repeated, sounding frightened. “Tell me!”

“Steam pipe,” Mr. Beasley mumbled.

He looked as if he were about to faint.

20

Thumbs up for Miss Whipple

Matt sat on a swing and waited for the rest of the team to show up. He didn't mind being alone on the playground—not much, anyway. After all, Miss Whipple didn't have any reason to be angry with him now. She'd even done him a favor by appearing at the Book Fair. Whether his classmates had seen the ghost or not, they knew something weird had taken place.

He pushed the swing and thought about all that had happened since those terrifying moments in the gym. One thing he'd learned was that grown-ups didn't like to admit they'd been wrong. They hated it!

With the lights back on in the gym, Mr. Beasley had announced in a quivering voice that the Book Fair was over. Students who did not have a book to be signed by Miss Monahan were to go to their classrooms.

Miss Monahan had sat at a table just outside the gym door, smiling as she signed books. But her handwriting was so shaky, it took a long time for Matt to figure out what she'd written in his book:

For Matt Barber,