The Ghost of Gruesome High (6 page)

Not my lucky day!

To be truthful, I didn’t remember much of the rest of that morning. My classes just seemed to float by in a haze. I vaguely recall the other kids laughing once when my Home Ec teacher woke me after I’d nodded off in my pie crust.

The only thing that kept me going was the thought that I would be able to talk with Jason and Jennifer and Alan and Wesley at lunch. Naturally I wanted everyone with me when I met with Mr. Greenwald after school. Strength in numbers, and all that.

I waited at our usual lunch table under one of the elms, out near the football field. The five of us had been getting together for lunch at this table for almost a year now. But as I waited I became more and more uneasy.
 

Two things were going on. First, Jason and the others were late. I can’t remember a time when at least one other person wasn’t here by now. But the other thing that made me uneasy was the fact that it felt like someone was watching me.

You know that feeling. It’s hard to explain, but the hairs on the back of your neck just feel funny and you just know that someone’s watching you. Well, my whole body felt like that! I’d never felt someone watching me more intensely in my whole life!

In the best of times I’d find it creepy that someone was watching me. But these were far from the best of times. Who would be watching me? And why? My tired, overly-active imagination started to run wild. Maybe it was the ghost. Maybe it was Mr. Greenwald. Maybe it was— No! I shook my head to drive this crazy string of thoughts clear out of my mind! What was I doing? What was I thinking? All this wild speculation was stupid. What I had to do was find out who was watching me. Then, maybe, I could figure out why.

I didn’t want to scare off whoever it was before I found them out, so I sat down and took a bite of the apple I’d gotten out of one of the snack machines that dot the campus. As I slowly chewed the too-ripe apple I turned and looked around as if looking for my friends. Even though this table was slightly off the beaten path, as they say, there were still a number of kids walking nearby, but none of them seemed to be paying any special attention to me. And the creepy feeling at the back of my neck was getting stronger.

I opened the carton of milk I’d also gotten at the machine and stood as I took a swallow, allowing my eyes to search everyone on the “school” side of the table. I couldn’t spot anyone acting suspicious or looking at me. I even looked at the windows in the classrooms, but I saw no faces peering out at me from them, either.

Suddenly the feeling that I was being watched got even stronger! But it wasn’t coming from the direction of the school. It was coming from the playing field! I turned around quickly, and there, near the heavy sand bags and other training stuff the football players used, was someone. I couldn’t really see who it was—though I did feel a quick tingle of almost-recognition electrify my spine—but whoever it was was staring directly at me. As soon as my watcher realized he/she was busted, he/she took off, sprinting behind the boy’s gym so fast I couldn’t tell who it was. But I quickly decided on one thing: it had been a guy, a big guy.
 

This was too much! I walked the thirty yards or so to the spot where the watcher had been but I found nothing useful, no little clue like they find on TV murder mysteries. There were lots of footprints, but they were trampled all over each other and I couldn’t tell one from the other.
 

I must have spent five or six minutes looking all around. I even looked behind the boy’s gym, but of course whoever it was was long gone. I finally decided there was nothing I could learn here and I glanced back up at the lunch table. Jennifer was standing at the table, looking away from me, searching the school side of the campus. She was probably looking for me, wondering where I was. She was bouncing around from one foot to the other, nervously. I’d known her long enough to know that that meant she was anxious and in a hurry. She looked at her watch, then craned her neck to look around the school again.
 

I raised my arm and waved as I yelled, “Jennifer!” But just as I called, the bell rang, ending lunch and Jennifer evidently didn’t hear me! She dashed off even as I yelled her name a second time.

Damn! I don’t usually swear, but today just wasn’t working out. I really needed to talk to Jennifer and Jason and the other guys. I needed to tell them what had happened last night, and I really needed them to be with me when I talked with Mr. Greenwald after school.

But not to worry, I told myself. Jennifer and I had Spanish class together last period. I could talk to her then. And I was sure I could find Jason and the others after school. After all, we seemed to find each other after school every other day! Why not today?

But today just wasn’t my day. Jennifer wasn’t in last period Spanish class. I had no idea where she was. For a moment I started to get worried that her disappearance, and the fact that the others hadn’t shown up for lunch, were all connected to the ghost in some mysterious way. Were we all being kidnapped, one by one, to keep us from talking?

“Keep us from talking?” I said to myself. “Talking about what, and to who? I must be going nuts!” I think my mind was just working in this crazy way because I was so tired. I shook my head and smiled at myself. Boy, was I starting to get crazy about all this, or what?

It seemed like forever before the final bell rang. I hurried out of the class and toward the school parking lot, where I figured Wesley’s bug would be. If I could grab Wesley, then I could get him to help me find the others.
 

When I got to the parking lot, there was Wesley’s car and there were Jason and Wesley and Alan, all piling in. As I hurried over, Jason spotted me. For a moment it looked as if he was still mad from last night, but then he smiled and waved—but continued getting into the car.

I was out of breath by the time I got to the little red bug, dodging half a dozen other cars being hurriedly driven out of the parking lot by teenagers eager to be anywhere other than school. Finally I made it. “Jason,” I said, “get out. I need to talk to you. Mr. Greenwald.”

Wesley had already started the engine and had put the car in reverse. He leaned part way across Jason so he could yell at me through the passenger window. “No time!” he yelled. “We gotta get to the art supply store for my history project. Get in!”

“I can’t!” I yelled over the roar of his engine. “I have to . . . .”

But Wesley wasn’t listening. Jason looked up at me and smiled and threw me a quick kiss. He always does that when he’s going somewhere with the guys and he thinks I’m going to be mad at him for not being with me. As if throwing me a kiss made any difference! Boys!

Wesley was already backing out and there was no way I could make him listen to me. He kept the engine running loudly on purpose, I think, just so he couldn’t hear me! “Where’s Jennifer?” I yelled toward the passenger window. Jason leaned out as Wesley put the bug in first and screeched away. “Doctor’s appointment!” he yelled and then waved as my friends disappeared in a sea of other cars. I was left standing alone in the middle of the parking lot, with cars streaming by me. One actually touched me and honked! I nearly jumped out of my skin!

I just couldn’t believe my luck today. Nothing had gone right!

Chapter 11

Mr. Greenwald’s unexpected story

I thought about not showing up in Mr. Greenwald’s class at all. After all, there wasn’t anything he could do to me if I didn’t show up. It’s not like he wanted to discuss anything having to do with school. Well, anything having to do with my work at school, anyway.

But I was curious. I had been thinking about last night a lot, all day, and now that it was light and I wasn’t so scared, I was really quite curious about what he had been up to last night. After all, he had as much—or more—to explain than I did!

I walked into his class and found him seated at his desk, correcting papers. He looked up and gave me a tight-lipped smile. “Oh good,” he said in a relaxed, casual tone, “I was afraid you might not show.”

“I’m here,” I said curtly as I took a seat near the door, at the back of the class.
 

He looked at me and gave me another tight-lipped smile. “You can sit up front. I won’t bite. I promise.” With that he gave me a full smile.
 

I had decided to keep my distance and let him do most of the talking, but seeing him sitting there, his slightly longish hair, tinged with gray, looking messy like it usually did, with those gold-colored wire-rimmed glasses and that old sports coat with the leather patches at the elbows that he seemed to wear to school every single day, and especially those blue jeans and white tennis shoes that he wore, somehow I couldn’t find in me to be afraid of him. Slowly I got up and walked to the front of the class, directly in front of his desk and sat down.

He stood, walked around his desk and sat on the front corner of it. He leaned forward slightly. “There. That’s better,” he said. “I suppose you know why I asked you to stop by?” he asked.
 

His voice sounded slightly hopeful, as if he was uncomfortable and wanted me to make the first move. I realized at that very moment that I was in charge of this meeting. I had all the power. He was a lot more afraid of me than I was of him.
 

I know this might sound really stupid, but this was the very first time in my whole life I’d ever felt that way when I was talking to an adult. Especially a teacher! It felt great! I liked being in charge! I loved having the upper hand! I didn’t want to do or say anything that would give the power back to Mr. Greenwald. “Why don’t you tell me?” I said, folding my arms and looking him square in the eye. A little voice inside my head said: “Wow! That was great! That was the perfect thing to say!”

Mr. Greenwald looked uncomfortable and got up from the corner of his desk. He quickly sat in the chair next to mine. We were now on the same level. He looked into my eyes and I could see he was troubled. “That was you last night, wasn’t it?”

I decided to play this for all it was worth. The feeling of power this situation had given me was going straight to my head! I was feeling pretty invincible! “Was it?” I asked, keeping my gaze firmly on his eyes.

Now he really started to squirm. He broke eye contact with me. On some level I knew I had just won the first round in some strange, undeclared contest. My feeling of invulnerability was soaring!

He sighed and looked very tired. He took his glasses off and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. Suddenly I was beginning to feel sorry for him. “Look, we’re not going to get anywhere if we keep playing this cat and mouse game, and I’m really worried you’re going to get hurt.”

“Get hurt?” I asked, genuinely curious.

He got up out of the chair and began to pace back and forth in front of me, as if he was very nervous. “Yes, hurt. I’m not totally sure yet who all is involved in this ghost business, but I have an idea, and these people don’t want anyone messing around in all this. They have a lot to lose and they’re not above hurting people to stop them. I want you and your friends to stop trying to find the ghost.”

“Who is it?” I asked. “And why are they pretending there’s a ghost at the school?”
 

“I can’t answer all your questions yet, but I guess I’d better tell you as much as I know, though there isn’t really all that much to tell. ” He sat back down on the corner of his desk and look his glasses off. He didn’t look at me, instead he seemed to be looking at a spot in the distance, somewhere over my head. “The whole thing started about ten years ago. There was a big robbery of a coin store downtown. Thompson Coin and Jewelry. Whoever robbed the place knew exactly what they were doing. They got away with close to half a million dollars in coins, mostly old gold coins.”

Despite my resolution not to give away anything and to keep the upper hand I couldn’t help but look up at the mention of gold coins. “Gold coins?” I asked. “Like twenty dollar gold pieces?”

He looked at me very deeply. “Yeah. How did you know that?”

I knew I had just made a big mistake. Now he was asking the questions. I mentally kicked myself! When would I ever learn to just keep my mouth shut. I hoped maybe I could salvage the situation. “I’ll explain later. Go on with your story.”

He put his glasses back on and looked at me again over the tops of the lenses. Then he stood and began to pace around the room. “Where was I? Oh yeah, the robbery. The thief, or thieves, got away with gold coins and gold jewelry worth more than half a million dollars ten years ago. Today they’d be worth well over three million. To this day only a couple of coins have ever been recovered.”

I thought about Mr. Bell’s twenty dollar gold piece, but this time I did keep my mouth shut. Mr. Greenwald was looking at me as if he hoped I would say something. When I didn’t he gave a tiny shrug of his shoulders and continued. “There was one policeman back then who had an idea who had taken the coins, but he was never able to prove it. He thought Mr. Thomas A. Thompson had robbed his own store for the insurance money. When he couldn’t prove his case, that policeman not only lost his job, he was sued by Mr. Thompson. Thompson lost his law suit, but the cost of the case wiped out that police officer and destroyed his family.”

I didn’t know what to say. Mr. Thomas Thompson was now Mayor Thompson. He owned a big construction company, a new car dealership, a discount electronics store, a small chain of frozen yogurt shops, and I’d seen his name on some kind of stock brokerage firm downtown. Thomas Thompson was the richest and most powerful man in town. His son, Ben Thompson, was in my civics class; he was dumb as a post and one of the school’s biggest bullies. “Are you talking about Mayor Thompson?” I asked, just to be sure.