The Ghost of Gruesome High (4 page)

I crossed to Mr. Bell and took his hand in mine. “Thank you for talking to us, Mr. Bell. I really enjoyed it. You’ve been a big help. Would it be O.K. if we came back again some time?”

Mr. Bell looked at me and his eyes became all watery. For a moment I thought he was going to break down and cry like a baby. But he took one quick breath and shook my hand. “You’re welcome back any time, my dear. Any time. And—thank you.”

I smiled, then turned to the others. They had been watching me with opened mouths, as if they couldn’t understand what I was doing. But I knew I had said and done the right thing, and now it was time for us to leave. With a few quickly murmured “good byes,” we were out the door.

As I closed the aluminum-foil-covered door behind me, I took one last look at Mr. Bell, standing there, stiff as a board, covered from head to toe in aluminum foil. I smiled. He smiled back, and made a small wave with his silvery hand.

And then the door was closed and I walked toward the VW, being careful not to touch any of the hundreds of aluminum foil satellite dishes that grew in Mr. Bell’s yard like silver toadstools. The others were in the car and anxious to leave. But I took one last look at the weirdest little house and yard I’d ever seen in my life, and hoped Mr. Bell would be O.K. And not too lonely.

 

Chapter 6

 

Such a jerk!

“Was that guy nutso, or what?” Jason said enthusiastically as Wesley put the bug in gear and slowly turned around, being extra careful not to touch any of Mr. Bell’s “satellite dishes.”

“And that outfit!” Jennifer said in her snotty, superior, “actress” voice, the one she usually only used around other people. “Couldn’t you just die? I’ve never seen anything so tacky, have you?”

“The aluminum foil is the real tip-off,” Alan said seriously, adjusting his glasses. “Lots of crazy people have an unnatural attachment to aluminum foil. Scientists aren’t sure why, but it’s a well-documented fact.”

“I never want to go back there again,” Wesley said quietly and simply. “That guy’s scary. I’ve never been anywhere so weird in my whole life. I’ve never even imagined anything that weird!”

“Well, I think he’s kinda sweet,” I said. “And sad.”

“Sweet!” Jason said, taking his arm from around my shoulders and looking me in the face as if I was completely nuts, too. “Are you serious? That guy’s a psycho. He should be locked in a nut house and they should throw away the key!”

“Why?” I asked. “He’s not hurting anyone. I think he’s just lonely.”

“What do you expect, living alone in the woods and dressing in aluminum foil?” Jennifer answered matter-of-factly. She suddenly cocked her head slightly to one side as if a new thought had just entered her brain. “I wonder if he sleeps in aluminum-foil pajamas?” Suddenly she straightened her head and got a very definite look on her face, but her eyes were not focused on any of us; I think they were focused on an imaginary audience that she sees in her head sometimes, an audience that’s there just for her. Want to know something really scary? Sometimes I think I can hear them clapping inside her head . . . . “When I have my own line of clothing I’m definitely not doing anything with aluminum!” She said that last part with definite finality, as if we had all been waiting breathlessly for her decision.

You know, in some ways I envied Jennifer. Not for her good looks. I thought my looks were O.K. Not fashion-model looks like Jennifer, but I seemed to do O.K. with the boys; none of them made fun of the way I look, so I guess I’m O.K. What I sometimes envied about Jennifer was just her whole outlook on life. She floated back and forth between wanting to be a world-famous high-fashion model when she grew up, or a world-famous mega movie star, or a world-famous fashion designer or marrying world-famous European Royalty and living in a world-famous castle somewhere.

Me? I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do. That’s not something I like admitting to people, not even myself. Especially myself, come to think of it. I know some people think Jennifer is shallow and stupid (which she’s not!), but even so, at least she has ideas and plans and dreams for her future. My future’s just a big, gray, featureless blob.

Suddenly I realized Jason had said something to me and was waiting for my response. I focused my eyes on his face. “Do you really mean to tell me that you don’t think it’s a little bit crazy to live in the woods all by yourself in a house covered in aluminum foil with fifty million aluminum foil satellite dishes all over the place, and every square inch of your house filled with TV’s? You don’t think that’s weird?”

I frowned. Of course I thought all that was a little strange, but so what? As long as Mr. Bell wasn’t hurting anyone, what difference did it make? Why shouldn’t people have the right to be different if they want to? Don’t we encourage creativity in people? Maybe Mr. Bell was a bit more creative than most people, but so what? I thought he was sweet. “What about your collection of old
TV Guides
?” I asked. “Don’t you think it’s a little nutso to keep every issue of
TV Guide
for the past five years? So what if Mr. Bell is a little weird. Weird can be good.”

Jason sat back and folded his arms, unconvinced. “I still say that guy’s way off the deep end. He’s a lot more than just weird. He’s insane. Certifiable. Sort of like you.”

I let that pass. I suddenly had an idea. “What time is it?” I asked.
 

Alan looked at his watch. “Five thirty. I gotta get home. My Mom has dinner ready at six on the dot every night. If I’m not there the dog gets it.”

“I gotta get home, too,” I said. “But I have an idea. Wesley, can you pick everyone up after dinner? I think—”

“Sorry, no can do,” Wesley interrupted as he slowed down in front of Alan’s house. “I gotta work on my history project. Mr. Stafford called my Mom, told her if I didn’t ace this project I’d get a “D”. My Mom went ballistic. She’s gonna be pissed I didn’t come right home today.”

I sat back and frowned, defeated before I even began. Jason looked at me and frowned before speaking. I think he was still a little annoyed that I didn’t agree with him about Mr. Bell being a total ding bat. “Why? What’dya wanna do?” he asked.

I let out a breath before I answered. “I want to go back to the school tonight and see the ghost again,” I said.

There was silence in the car for a moment. Alan had already opened the door and had started to get out; he stopped half in and half out of the car and looked at me as if I was crazy. They were all looking at me, slightly astonished. “Why would you want to do that?” Alan finally asked.

“I’m not so sure it’s a real ghost,” I said. I hadn’t really known I was going to say that. It just suddenly popped out, springing out of nowhere.

“What are you talking about?” Jason asked, an annoyed edge to his voice. I think he thought I was just trying to be difficult or something. He was getting more and more cross with me every time I opened my mouth.
 

I wasn’t exactly sure what I was talking about. But there was something gnawing at the back of my mind, something Mr. Bell said that just didn’t seem right somehow . . . I just couldn’t put my finger on it yet. But it was there. I’d figure it out sooner or later. “I just want to take another look at the ghost,” I finally said. “None of us really looked at it. You guys ran like rabbits.” Jason and Alan both quickly looked away from my eyes; I wasn’t looking at Wesley, but I bet he did the same thing. And Jennifer and I were too scared to really take an objective look at it. Maybe it’s not a ghost. Maybe it’s something else.”

“Like what? Space aliens? You are as nutso as that Bell guy!” Jason said angrily, sitting back and folding his arms.

As Alan continued getting out of the car I got out of the back seat and got into the front seat, leaving Jason and Jennifer in back. Jason didn’t say a word. He didn’t even look at me. He just sat there with his arms folded across his chest.

I mumbled: “You’re such a jerk, sometimes!” and then I didn’t say another word. No one did. Alan closed the door and Wesley put the car in gear and made straight for my house, even though Jennifer’s house was slightly closer. No one said a word when the car pulled up in front of my house and I got out of the car and walked to my front door.

As I opened my front door I glanced back at the car, but Wesley had already put the little red bug in gear and it was pulling away with a tiny cloud of blue smoke hanging around its tail pipe. I couldn’t really see Jason; he was just a dark shape in the back seat.

 

Chapter 7

 

My teacher is a ghost!

“Self,” said I, “this is the stupidest thing you’ve ever done in your whole life!” I’d like to say that I don’t talk to myself often, but that’s not really true. I talk to myself a lot. Some people say that’s not normal, but I think its perfectly normal. And right now, talking to myself was the most normal thing I was doing!

“Just stop climbing, turn around, and go home,” I said to myself quite calmly and rationally. But for some reason my feet kept going, kept climbing further and further up Grissom Hill toward Gruesome High. I mean, Grissom High. No. At ten minutes until midnight it could only be called Gruesome High!

A part of me still couldn’t believe I was actually doing this. Just because I had told the others I wanted to get another look at the ghost was no reason to be climbing up this hill, all alone, at midnight, armed with nothing but a tiny flashlight.

When I put it that way, this really was the stupidest thing I’d ever done in my whole life!

But for some reason I felt there was no turning back now. I’d already sneaked out of my parent’s house—something I don’t normally do, though I have to admit I’ve done it once or twice before—and I’d already made it almost to the top of the hill, and it was already almost midnight. There hardly seemed any point in turning back now.

Besides, there was something about this whole ghost thing that just wasn’t adding up. I wasn’t quite sure yet what it was that was screwy, but something kept buzzing in the back of my mind, telling me that something wasn’t right.
 

I tried to keep my mind busy attempting to figure out what was bugging me about all this so I wouldn’t have to think about the fact that I was out here all alone, at midnight, with a ghost, and no one knew I was here. But I couldn’t help but think about it.

I was scared. My mouth felt as dry as a cotton ball. I felt the small flashlight in my pocket and suddenly wondered if it had batteries. I had been so nervous and excited as I sneaked out of the house I hadn’t even bothered to check. I thought about checking it now, but decided I was too close to the top of the hill and I didn’t want to risk the ghost seeing me before I saw him.

As the dark shapes of the school buildings came into sight, almost seeming to flow down the hill toward me as I climbed up toward them, the wind picked up slightly. Even though summer was almost here and the days were getting hot, the wind at the top of Gruesome Hill was cold. Suddenly it seemed to get even colder.

I looked at my watch by the light of a distant bulb somewhere in the school. It wasn’t like the school was completely dark. There were lights here and there, they just weren’t very bright, and most of them were either way up high, or way down low. They seemed to cast more shadows than light.

11:58. Two minutes to go. It was a fairly large school and I had no reason to expect the ghost to show up at the same place it did the other night, but I hid behind some bushes in a planter near the spot where we’d seen it, resting my back against a large metal trash can painted in the school’s colors, black and gold.

I was getting cold and now that I wasn’t moving my mind had even more free time to scare me. This really was the stupidest thing I’d ever done in my whole life!
 

And suddenly another thought struck me. The scariest thought yet! I didn’t really believe in ghosts. So if what we all saw the other night wasn’t a ghost, then it must have been something even scarier than a ghost.

It must have been a man. A man sneaking around the school late at night so no one would see what he was doing! And here I was, a fifteen-year-old girl, all alone with some guy who was pretending to be a ghost so he could do—well, whatever he was doing.
 

Now that I thought about it that way, I decided this really was a bad idea. A very bad idea. I glanced at my watch again, but couldn’t see the face in the dark. I carefully started to reach into my coat pocket for the tiny flashlight, planning to take just a quick peek at my watch and then leave, when I saw a movement!

I froze! I stopped breathing. I think my heart stopped beating. My eyes opened wider and I looked hard at the spot where I’d seen something move. I stayed perfectly still, staring at the spot for what seemed like half an hour, but was probably only a full minute. Just as I began to relax, thinking it was just my over-active imagination, I saw a movement again!

What I saw wasn’t a ghost. At least, it wasn’t any ghost I had ever heard of. I’d always heard that ghosts were white, like mist, or they wore white sheets or something. But what I saw was dressed from head to foot in black, which made it difficult to see hiding among the many pools of darkness on campus.

The figure was half way across the quad, hugging the shadows, and making its way slowly and carefully right towards . . . me! I had a suddenly panic attack! What if whoever, or whatever, this thing was knew I was here? What if it was after me?

Other books

Over the Threshold by Mari Carr
Vigilante by Laura E. Reeve
Parts Unknown by Davidson, S.P.
Harsh Lessons by L. J. Kendall
Returning Home by Karen Whiddon
The Inner Circle by Kevin George
Dinosaur Trouble by Dick King-Smith


readsbookonline.com Copyright 2016 - 2024