Cursed! (4 page)

I started to worry. This was our worst trip ever, by far. What if
he
had done this? What if I had done this by mocking him? The longer we sat, the more I worried.

As we drove past the blast zone, I could see the piles of rocks the construction workers had pushed out of the way, clearing a single lane for traffic. I felt sick at the thought that someone might have been hurt or killed, and, even worse, that it might be my fault.

As soon as we got home, I phoned Kara, but she was away for the long weekend.

“You'll see her on Tuesday,” Mom said, like that was soon enough. But I wanted to talk to her
now
! I worried all weekend, longing to tell her about the Spirit Man, needing her to reassure me.

Instead, I talked to Old Moby. “What if the Spirit Man did this, made our trip home so awful because I mocked him? Because I was rude to him? What if
I
did this?”

Old Moby didn't answer.

I wanted to close my eyes for a moment, to hide from the possibility, but I knew that if I did, the Spirit Man would be there, smiling.

CHAPTER 4
The Spirit Man at School

The night before school started, a huge thunderstorm exploded over Calgary. Hail smashed against the windows, and wind tore at tree branches. Everyone except me loved it. I wanted to shut my eyes, but I didn't dare—I couldn't bear to see the Spirit Man smirking.

In the morning, I walked outside with Dad to inspect the damage. Hail and leaves and small branches littered the yard.

“We're lucky no big branches came down,” Dad muttered as he looked up into the trees surrounding our house.

I wandered while he inspected the roof. The air was filled with the scent of herbs. I peeked over the fence and saw our neighbor's herb garden, smashed into salad.

Lewis and I walked to school through the park so we could check out the storm damage. We crunched through drifts of hail, some small, some as big as golf balls. Large branches dangled at odd angles, torn by the wind.

As we walked, I had an uneasy feeling that we were being followed. I glanced around. I couldn't see anything, but I still felt strange. I kept watching until finally I caught a glimpse of what I swear was the Spirit Man lurking in the shadow of a tree, his shell eyes gleaming. Just what I need, I thought, the Spirit Man following me to school like a pet dog!

When we reached the school playground, I helped Lewis find the grade-two meeting place, and then I looked for Kara. She's always easy to spot. She's not as tall as I am, but she has golden curls tumbling down around her shoulders, always tangled and a little wild.

I walked up to her from behind and touched her shoulder. She jumped and spun and threw her arms around me. “Oh,
Jane
! I'm so glad to see you.” She bounced with excitement. Then she settled herself and became serious. “How was your trip? Did you
do
it?
Could
you do it?” She watched my face anxiously, her blue eyes bright.

I took a deep breath and nodded. “I did it! I mocked the Spirit Man. At Grandma's, just before we left.”

“You
did
? Oh, Jane, you are so brave.
I
couldn't have done it.” Kara beamed at me.

“But you told me to.”

“Well, sure, but I didn't think you
would
. Not actually
do
it!” She looked at me with a touch of awe in her eyes. “So, do you feel
better
?” she asked in an eager voice.

“No,” I said. I looked down, feeling mournful. “Not at all. Ever since I stuck out my tongue at him, awful things have happened, just awful! The ferry ride was really rough, and Lewis almost got sick while we were waiting to get off.”

“Ooh, gross!”

“We slept at this weird bed-and-breakfast, and an emu woke me really, really early.”

“An emu?” Kara started to laugh. “Jane!”

“No, really!” I hurried to explain. “We were staying at this place that has lots of birds and animals. And emus. This one emu was trying to eat a rubber strip on our bedroom window.
Tap tap tap
.
Tap tap
. It just wouldn't go away.”

Kara grinned. “Okay, what else?”

“Well, when we were driving, we had to stop for a construction project. That happens every year, but this time they had a blasting accident and blew up more rock than they'd planned. We couldn't see it, but we could hear it. And feel it.” I shuddered. “We had to wait for hours while they cleared the highway.”

Kara shook her head. “Wow, this is bad.”

I could feel my eyes widen. BB calls it my deer-in-the-headlights look. “Hey, you're supposed to help me feel
better
!”

“But, Jane, this is so
bad
!”

Suddenly, I felt close to tears.

Kara put her arms around me. “Hey, maybe it's not so bad. Bad luck comes in threes, right? Everyone knows that. And you've had three bad things happen.”

“What about the storm last night? That was bad.”

Kara shrugged. “We always get storms. Dad said the timing is perfect. We need a new roof, and now the insurance company will pay for it.”

I tried to convince myself that she was right, that all the bad stuff was over, but whenever I shut my eyes, the Spirit Man was still there, still staring.

The grade-five teachers arrived and told us to settle down. Mr. Ryan stepped forward and started to call out names. When he read through the As and didn't call out Byron Anderson, Kara said, “No Byron? Yes! No one to pull my curls, to trip us, to call us names.” She did a little dance as Mr. Ryan moved on to the Bs. But her dance slowed and then stopped when he didn't call out Bartolomé.

Kara and I looked at each other, puzzled. We whispered, “There must be a mistake,” as other kids slowly moved into line behind him. Finally he got to the end of the alphabet. “Kara Wishinsky.”

“It'll be okay,” Kara said as she gave me a quick hug and walked over to Mr. Ryan's growing line.

Mr. Ryan paused, looking over the rest of us. I held my breath, waiting, praying for him to laugh and call me over. But he just turned, gestured for his class to follow, and walked away. The class trailed behind him, Kara last, walking backward, her sorrowful eyes on mine.

But that meant I was with—I was with Mrs. Von Hirschberg! She was so strict, so tough, so mean. She even looked strict, tall and thin in a dark jacket and skirt, with her brown hair pulled into a twist at the back of her head.

This couldn't be right, I thought. There must be some mistake. I looked around for someone to ask, anyone but her. As I turned, I saw something out of the corner of my eye. The Spirit Man? I spun and stared, but there was nothing there. Someone poked me.

“Mackenzie?” Mrs. Von Hirschberg called out. “Mackenzie Jane Bartolomé?”

“Oh,” I said. “That's me. But it's Jane. Just Jane.”

Mrs. Von Hirschberg nodded and made a note. Then she looked down at me. “Into line, Jane.”

I nodded and dragged myself into the line behind Byron Anderson.

Before she went back to her list, Mrs. Von Hirschberg looked over at us. “I want a nice straight line,” she said, sounding stern.

“Mr. Ryan never worries about straight lines,” I muttered. No Kara. Mrs. Von Hirschberg. And Byron Anderson. She'll probably make us sit in alphabetical order too, and in this class that means right behind Byron.

At recess, Kara and I huddled by the fence. “Oh,
Jane
,” Kara said. “Mrs. Von Hirschberg! And us not
together
!” Then her voice lowered. “And Byron Anderson. Ugh.”

I slumped against the fence, too depressed to say anything.

“At least it's three bad things,” Kara said.

“Again,” I muttered.

“Yeah, but you should be done, right? 'Cause this is so
awful
. There can't be any
more
.”

“But it's not done,” I said. “Don't you see? When the ferry ride was bad and the emu woke us and we had to wait for road construction, they were all a pain, but they're done now. Over. Ended.” I sighed. “But this! A whole year without you? With the meanest teacher in the whole school? And Byron Anderson?” I groaned. “I feel cursed!”

Kara shuddered. “I think you
are
,” she said, her voice somber. “I think you've been
cursed
by the Spirit Man.”

CHAPTER 5
Cursed!

Every night I waded through piles of homework for Mrs. Von Hirschberg. She wasn't gives-low-marks tough; she was do-a-really-good-job-on-every-assignment-or-do-it-again tough. When it's good, she gives you a good mark, and you feel like you've really earned it. But I never felt that way when I was struggling through my mountain of homework while Kara had none.

Plus it was hard to focus on homework in the chaos at my house. It looks mostly normal from the outside—an old brick house with green trim and a green picket fence, shaded by tall trees. It has two full stories, with Mom and Dad's office tucked under the eaves on the third floor.

Inside, it's bursting with people and noise and Dad's toys. Mom and Dad work out of their office, designing websites (Mom's main job) and writing reviews of science toys (Dad's favorite task). Some toys he gets for a little while and then has to send back. He keeps his favorites if he can, so we have a growing collection of weird stuff that BB and his friends love to play with.

We couldn't keep the robot lawn mower—it was way too expensive—but we still have the robot floor washer. It glides around the kitchen, washing and picking up crumbs all day, around and around. Except when we trip on it, or BB flips it on its back like a turtle.

The first time BB flipped it, Lewis called it a churtle. Mom just smiled, but I said, “It's a turtle, Lewis.”

He said, “That's what I said. A churtle.”

I wrote them down:
Turtle Churtle.

Then I pointed to the first word. “It's a turtle. With a
T
.
Tuh
.”

“Oh,” said Lewis.

Now he calls it a turtle named Churtle.

I like R2D2 and the Dalek better; they're more like real robots. R2D2 is a copy of the
Star Wars
robot. It even sounds the same—it's just a little smaller. Dad uses it to send notes to Mom in their office.

The Dalek lives on the main floor, ready to accost intruders. And mail couriers. Daleks are evil robots from
Doctor Who
, one of Dad's favorite tv shows. The Dalek is only knee-high, but he's scary. He'll lift one arm—it looks like a little toilet plunger—point it at whoever has just arrived, and say, in a flat voice, “Ex-ter-min-ate. Ex-ter-min-ate!” Well, he does if BB is there to run the remote, which he tries to do whenever possible.

We can always tell if the delivery guys are
Doctor
Who
fans. The fans are excited and want a Dalek too. The not-fans look at the Dalek with alarm, and look at us like we're cracked.

Between the delivery guys, the Dalek croaking “Ex-ter-min-ate, ex-ter-min-ate,” and BB and his friends playing with Dad's light sabers, I was going absolutely crazy trying to get through my homework. At school, Byron Anderson was worse than ever, talking and bouncing and constantly teasing. Not being with Kara was miserable. And every time I shut my eyes, the Spirit Man was waiting. Even worse, I was starting to see him when my eyes were open— watching, always watching, and sometimes smiling just a little.