The Ghost of Ernie P. Read online

  Jeff swept the last of the glass into the dustpan and closed the door of the fruit cellar behind him. Pastor Larsen’s voice echoed in his ears. The only way to beat a problem is to meet it head-on.… You’ll be surprised at what you can do.…

  Goose bumps pricked Jeff’s arms as he realized what it was he must do if he was going to be Keppel the Brave. He had to move fast. If he didn’t, he’d lose his nerve and remain Keppel the Coward forever.

  He raced to the kitchen and fumbled through a drawer till he found a book of matches. His mother was still upstairs; once she came down, he wouldn’t have a chance to go outside.

  The manila envelope lay on the counter. It seemed to Jeff that it quivered, ever so slightly, when he picked it up.

  Matches, the clippings—now all he needed was some kind of container. He thought of the metal garbage can in the cupboard beneath the sink. It had a snug-fitting cover. He took it out and dropped the plastic sack of garbage in the sink.

  The floor creaked overhead as his mother moved around her bedroom. Jeff threw open the back door and stepped out, staggering in the wind. Across the yard, the tent bucked and billowed. Tree branches swayed wildly, and Mrs. Keppel’s favorite lawn chair was tipped on its side. The whole backyard seemed to be in motion.

  Jeff knew he couldn’t burn the clippings in the tent—it would be too dangerous—but maybe he could stand just inside while he did it. He dropped the envelope into the garbage can and raced across the lawn. Lightning flickered overhead like Fourth of July fireworks.

  Another thunderstorm with no rain, Jeff thought. It was definitely Ernie Barber kind of weather—lots of noise and showing off.

  Inside the tent, Jeff dropped the garbage can and fastened back the tent flaps. With trembling fingers he opened the can, snatched the clippings from the envelope, and crumpled them into balls. He tossed them into the can and tried to light them with one of the matches.

  The match flared and went out. Jeff cringed as thunder crashed around the tent. Keppel the Brave, he reminded himself. But now brave was just a word. He couldn’t even remember what it meant.

  The second and third matches went out in his fingers. The fourth flared brightly, and he lowered it into the can. One of the clippings began to burn.

  There was a CRACK overhead, like the blow of a giant fist, and then the sound of something falling. Jeff grabbed the garbage can and set it outside the tent. The fire burned brightly now. Another bolt of lightning lit the yard, and Jeff saw bricks scattered on the patio. The chimney must have taken a direct hit.

  Jeff looked up and saw a sight he’d never forget. On the slope of the roof, just above the eaves, a dark column rose. He thought at first that it was smoke, but as he stared, the column began to change shape. A thick body, draped in a long black cape, appeared, then a wide-brimmed black hat above a broad and furious face.

  Jeff dropped the garbage-can lid. After imagining it a hundred times or more, he was finally seeing the ghost of Ernie Barber.

  “Jeffrey!” Mrs. Keppel threw open the window just below where the ghost trembled in the wind. She pressed her face against the screen. “Jeffrey Keppel, what are you doing out in this storm? Get into the house this instant!”

  The ghost raised one arm, and another lightning bolt hit the chimney. A second one struck the maple tree near the garage. The tent lifted around Jeff like a balloon about to take off.

  Suddenly, Jeff was angrier than he’d ever been in his life. Ernie Barber was attacking his house, his favorite climbing tree, even his much-loved tent. “You stop that!” he roared at the menacing figure. “I’m not going to do anything you want me to do, so just stop it!”

  Mrs. Keppel’s eyes went wide with shock. “How can you talk like that?” she exclaimed. “Are you out of your mind, Jeffrey?”

  A lightning bolt smacked the garbage can and sent it dancing across the lawn. Jeff leaped after it.

  “I said Stop!” he bellowed. “I was crazy to let you get away with pushing me around, but I’m not crazy now, so get out! Scram! Get lost!”

  “Jeff, you’re hysterical. What is wrong with you?” Mrs. Keppel sounded hysterical herself. “Come into the house this minute!”

  There was a loud whump. Jeff whirled around in time to see his tent rise from the ground and swoop like a giant bat across the yard.

  It was the last straw. “You’ll be sorry!” he howled, shaking his fist at the ghost. “You’re nothing but a bully. I should have told you a long time ago to go jump in the lake!”

  Mrs. Keppel staggered back from the window as if she’d been struck. “You’ll be sorry for that, young man,” she shouted when she reappeared. “This has gone far enough. One more word, and you’re grounded. And if that’s not enough, there’ll be other punishments as well.”

  Punishment! Jeff thought. That’s what was needed here. He wanted to punish Ernie Barber for all the mean tricks he’d played. But how could you punish a ghost?

  He glared up at the threatening figure on the roof, and Ernie glared back at him. The ghost seemed to be—Jeff blinked—he seemed to be growing taller, wider, darker. Jeff took a couple of steps backward and then stopped. He was not going to let Ernie Barber scare him ever again. Scaring people was what ghosts liked to do, and this ghost liked it better than most.

  Right then, Jeff knew how he could fight back. There was one weapon a bully—especially a ghost-bully—couldn’t stand.

  Laughter!

  “You know what?” he shouted. “You look real silly wobbling around up there. You look like a Halloween scarecrow. Don’t you know it’s the middle of summer?”

  “Oh, Jeff!” Mrs. Keppel gasped. Overhead, the ghost towered against the sky. Lightning crisscrossed behind him.

  Jeff tried to laugh. “I’ll tell you what you are,” he yelled above the thunder. “You’re smog, that’s what! Just a big blob of smog!”

  It was working. Jeff was almost sure that the towering figure was starting to change color. “Just smog,” he shouted again. “Just dirty old pollution that’s going to wash away as soon as it starts to rain!”

  Now he was certain the ghost was smaller. The black cloak had faded to gray. Jeff dashed to the corner of the lawn where the garden hose lay coiled like a green snake. He twisted the nozzle, and a jet of water leaped across the yard.

  “Why wait around?” he demanded, and this time his laugh came more easily. “You make the thunder and lightning, Ernie, and I’ll take care of the rain!”

  He pointed the nozzle upward. “Don’t dissolve all over the roof,” he yelled. “Those are brand-new shingles.”

  The ghost was silvery now and almost transparent. For a moment more it lingered, and then it was gone. Jeff played the hose back and forth across the roof, hardly aware that the wind was dying and the thunder had stopped.

  The back door burst open and his mother marched across the patio. She looked frightened but determined.

  “Put down the hose, Jeff,” she said in a soothing voice. “That’s a good boy.”

  Jeff twisted the nozzle and dropped the hose on the grass. “It’s okay,” he said, “I did it.”

  “Did what?” Mrs. Keppel followed his gaze to the roof. “Oh, my, there’s a hole in the chimney. You didn’t do that, for goodness’ sake. The lightning hit it.”

  “I know,” Jeff said. He couldn’t stop smiling, even though his mother’s expression was grim. “But I kept it from getting worse.”

  Mrs. Keppel started to say something and then changed her mind.

  “It’s okay, Mom,” Jeff said again, “it really is.” For the first time he realized that his mother must have thought he’d been shouting at her when he was talking to Ernie’s ghost. That’s why she was so upset!

  “You’re probably wondering what this is all about,” he said, searching desperately for an explanation. “I was just—just—I was just letting out my feelings! You’re always telling me to do it—so I did it.”

  Mrs. Keppel looked doubtful. “With a garden hose?” she d
emanded. “With a garbage can? What were you burning in there, anyway?”

  Jeff was inspired. “My troubles,” he said. “It was sort of—sort of like a symbol, see? I burned up my troubles, and now I feel fine.”

  “And you weren’t calling me a bully? You didn’t mean all those dreadful things you said a few minutes ago?”

  “I wasn’t talking to you, at all,” Jeff told her truthfully. “I was talking to—to my troubles.”

  “Well, then.” Mrs. Keppel still looked uncertain, but she was beginning to get her color back. “Well, it sounds very peculiar to me,” she said. “It’s not normal behavior at all.” She gave Jeff another searching look and then started back to the house. At the kitchen door, she stopped and turned again. “We’ll have soup for lunch,” she said firmly. “It’s that kind of day.”

  Jeff started to follow but headed to the garage for a ladder instead. He had to rescue his tent before he did anything else. It was hanging from the pickets behind the rosebushes, and even from here he could see that there was a tear in the canvas.

  The sun broke through the clouds as he steadied the ladder and climbed to the top rung. He balanced there for a moment, feeling great in spite of the damage to the tent.

  Keppel the Winner! he thought proudly. No more ghost of Ernie Barber! He could hardly believe what he’d done.

  He was still standing on the ladder when his mother came back to the door. “You’ve had a phone call,” she called. “I took the message.”

  Jeff waited. He didn’t want to hear about the phone call. He just wanted to go on being Keppel the Winner!

  “It was that niece of the Muggins’,” Mrs. Keppel continued. “You know, the nice nurse-niece. She and her aunt have been baking cookies and they want you to come over to get some this afternoon. Isn’t that sweet? She sounds like such a dear!”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “What I simply cannot understand,” Mrs. Keppel said crossly, “is why you don’t want to visit the Muggins. If you’ve unloaded all of your bad feelings and burned up your troubles—and I still think there’s something very odd about all that!—you should be happy as a clam now. So why won’t you take a few minutes to pick up a batch of homemade cookies?”

  Jeff looked down at his soup. He looked out the window at the bright blue sky. He looked at the counter where The Problems and Joys of Raising Boys was propped open to a chapter called “Rude Behavior.” He looked everywhere except at his mother.

  “I’m trying very hard to be patient,” Mrs. Keppel went on. “I realize boys your age are often moody. But that’s no excuse for rudeness, Jeffrey. It would be rude to ignore the Muggins’ invitation.”

  “I didn’t say I won’t go,” Jeff mumbled.

  If only he knew what this invitation meant! It could be that Margo Muggin wasn’t his enemy anymore. Maybe by this time she was convinced that Jeff wasn’t ever going to give away her secret.

  Maybe.

  “Call Art and ask him to go with you,” Mrs. Keppel suggested. “I’m sure he appreciates cookies.”

  Jeff put down his spoon. “That’s not fair,” he complained. “You’re twisting everything around. I like cookies.”

  Mrs. Keppel shrugged. “I’m not going to argue,” she said coolly. “You might start shouting mean things again.”

  They finished lunch in silence, and then Jeff hurried to the phone. He hoped Art was at home. If Margo Muggin was ready to be friends, she wouldn’t mind if Jeff brought a pal with him. If she was still his enemy, having a stranger there might keep her from behaving like a witch.

  A half hour later Art was in the backyard, leaning his bicycle against the garage. He looked Jeff over critically. “Hey, man,” he said, “jeans on, shoes on—you’re improving, Keppel.”

  “And you’re a wise guy,” Jeff said. “But you give pretty good advice.”

  “Like what?” Art looked pleased and puzzled.

  “Like, you said if I had a problem, I’d have to hide out or just face up to it. I tried hiding out, and that didn’t work. So then I tried fighting back, and I won. So far, anyway.”

  “Just call me wizard,” Art said modestly. “And if you don’t have the problem anymore, now you can tell me what it was.”

  Jeff thought it over as they biked along the road toward the Muggins’ house. “Not yet,” he said, finally. “If this afternoon goes all right, then I’ll tell you.”

  Art slowed down abruptly. “What do you mean, if this afternoon goes all right? I thought we were just picking up some cookies.”

  “We are,” Jeff said. “There’s nothing to worry about.” He hoped he was right.

  “Who are these people, anyway?” Art demanded. “Why are they giving you cookies? I don’t get it.”

  “No big deal,” Jeff said. “My mom gave the Muggins some of her sauerkraut rye bread so they’re sending her some cookies. Fair trade.”

  They rode on in silence till they reached the tall iron gates that enclosed the Muggins’ property. Art followed Jeff inside, then stopped again.

  “Listen, man,” he said, “this doesn’t look to me like the kind of house where they hand out cookies. I mean, I bet they don’t even know what a cookie is. They probably eat caviar and pheasant-under-glass and stuff like that.”

  “Mrs. Muggin is a nice old lady. And she’s probably a first-class cook.” Jeff knew he sounded nervous, but he couldn’t help it. “Come on, Art,” he coaxed, “let’s get it over with.”

  That was definitely the wrong thing to say. Art veered off the road and rested his bike against a tree. “If she’s such a nice old lady, I don’t know why you’re scared,” he said. “And you are scared, Keppel—don’t try to kid me.”

  Jeff couldn’t deny it. He looked at the big house and wondered if Margo Muggin was watching them from behind a curtain. The thought made him want to turn around and run. Facing up to the Margo half of his problem was turning out to be even harder than facing up to Ernie Barber’s ghost.

  Art watched him with narrowed eyes. “Okay,” he said suddenly, “I’ll go with you if you tell me the truth. Coming here has something to do with the big problem you can’t tell me about, right?”

  Jeff nodded.

  “And if we get the cookies and leave, that means your problem will be over, right?”

  Jeff hesitated. “I think so.”

  “Well, then.” Art stood up and started walking his bike toward the house. “Let’s get it over with,” he said with a little grin.

  What a pal! Jeff hoped he could do a special favor for Art someday—save his life, maybe.

  As they climbed the steps to the wide front porch, the feeling of being watched grew stronger than ever.

  “Why are you walking on your tiptoes, man?” Art asked. “And why am I whispering? Maybe we’re both cracking up.”

  Before Jeff could reply, the front door swung open. Margo Muggin, arms outstretched in welcome, smiled warmly at them from the dim hall.

  “Jeffrey!” she exclaimed in a high, sweet voice. “How lovely to see you again! And you’ve brought a friend with you.” She held out her hand to Art. “I’m Margo and you’re—”

  “Art Patterson.” The words came out in a kind of croak. Art looked stunned.

  “Well, Art, you and Jeff come on in and see what Aunt Celia and I have been up to today. I guarantee you’ll like it.”

  She stepped back, and the boys followed her inside and along the hallway to the back of the house.

  “I thought you said she was an old lady,” Art whispered. “Either you don’t know an old lady when you see one, or I don’t.”

  “That’s the Muggins’ niece,” Jeff whispered back. He’d hardly recognized Margo, himself. She wore blue slacks and a bright red top, and she looked younger than Jeff remembered. Her cheeks were pink, and her eyes shone.

  “She’s neat!” Art rolled his eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Ahead of them, Margo was darting around the big, old-fashioned kitchen, turning on more lights and peer
ing into the oven. On the table, three trays of cookies had been set out to cool.

  “Just look!” Margo exclaimed. “Chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin and lemon surprise. I bet you thought I didn’t know how to bake, Jeffrey.”

  This was such an accurate guess that Jeff could only gulp. Fortunately, Margo didn’t seem to expect a reply. She danced around the boys and chattered merrily as she lifted another pan of cookies from the oven. In spite of himself, Jeff began to relax.

  “Actually I’m not much good in the kitchen,” Margo giggled. “I’m just filling in for Aunt Celia at the moment. She and Uncle James are up in the attic checking on the roof. There was a terrible windstorm this morning, you know. It blew away some shingles, and now Uncle James is afraid we’ll have a flood the next time it rains. Aunt Celia was right in the middle of her baking when he insisted she come upstairs with him and have a look.”

  She pulled two chairs back from the table and motioned the boys to sit down. “You can have a snack while we’re waiting for them to come downstairs,” she suggested. “Milk and fresh cookies—doesn’t that sound good?”

  “Sounds great!” Art exclaimed.

  Jeff glanced at the counter and saw two glasses of milk already poured. When had she done that? It must have been before she let them in. And that meant that she’d been watching them, as he’d suspected, from the moment they came through the gate. Maybe even before. He started to worry all over again.

  If there was something suspicious about the poured milk, Art didn’t notice. Margo’s pretty face and her lighthearted welcome had clearly won him over. He picked up one of the glasses.

  Jeff lunged across the table. He pretended to be reaching for an oatmeal cookie from the tray in front of Art, but at the same time he tipped the glass of milk before his friend could taste it.

  “For pete’s sake, Keppel, were you raised in a barn?”

  “Sorry,” Jeff mumbled. He thought he saw a flash of anger in Margo’s eyes, but it was gone as quickly as it had come. She laughed and brought a cloth to wipe up the spill.