Humbug Holiday (5 page)

“At this time of the year I suffer most!” Marley went on. “Oh, why did I walk through crowds with my eyes turned down? Why did I never raise them to the star which led the Wise Men to Bethlehem?”

“You mean why didn't you ever get into the Christmas mood?” I asked. “For me, it's always my mom's special chocolate-chip cookies that jump-start the Christmas season. But now they're lost—”

“Devin?” said Frankie. “Focus. There's a story going on here, you know.”

“Scrooge, hear me!” said Marley. “You still have a chance and hope of escaping my horrible fate! A chance and hope that I have arranged for you, Ebenezer!”

Scrooge perked up at that, and nearly smiled. “You were always a good friend to me, Jacob. Thank you.”

“You will be haunted,” said Marley, “by three spirits.”

Scrooge's smile faded. “Haunted by three spirits? Oh, then, I think I'd rather not. I don't care for ghosts and goblins and such.”

“Include me out, too,” I said. “One ghost is plenty.”

“Expect the first tomorrow, when the bell tolls one!”

“But can't we take them all at once and get it all over with?” said Frankie. “Sort of a three-for-one deal?”

The ghost's cold eyes didn't blink. “Expect the second on the next night at the same hour. The third upon the next night at the last stroke of twelve!”

When he had said this, the spirit began to walk backward away from us. What was weird was how with each step he took, the window across the room raised itself a little. By the time Marley reached it, it was wide open.

“He's going out the window,” I whispered. “Ghosts really can fly. I've always wanted to fly, but not if you have to be a ghost!”

Before Marley flew out, however, he called us over with a wave of his hand. At the same time, we started to hear a bunch of strange moaning noises coming from outside. It was like a chorus of people who couldn't sing very well, but did it anyway at the top of their lungs.

Frankie clutched my arm. “I don't want to look out there. It'll be scary. I know it will be scary—”

I felt the same, but we couldn't not look.

What we saw scared us, all right.

The air outside the window was filled with phantoms, all of them rushing around, throwing their arms up, pleading and howling. Even as we watched, Marley's ghost floated out the window and joined them. Every one of them wore a chain as heavy and long as Marley's.

“I know those people!” said Scrooge, the cold night air whooshing around him. “They were all good men of business.”

“I guess they went bad,” I murmured.

There was one old ghost in a white vest who had a humongous safe attached to his ankle. He was crying and pleading from the air. He seemed to be trying to reach a poor woman huddled with her baby in a doorway on the street below. The snow was covering the woman, and the ghosts swarmed all around her trying to reach her, but they couldn't. And because they couldn't, they howled and screamed even louder.

“They can't do anything to help her,” I said.

“It's too late for them,” said Frankie, her eyes wide in fear. “Because they're all … dead!”

As we watched, the woman wandered off into the night, and the creatures seemed to fade into the mist and fog. Their voices faded together, and the night became as it had been when we got to Scrooge's place.

“Where did they all go?” I said.

“Never mind where they went!” snapped Scrooge with more than a touch of fear in his voice. “Gone is good enough!”

He shut the window against the cold.

“Bah—hum …” He couldn't get the
bug
part of his favorite saying out. He was obviously too scared.

He rushed from the sitting room to his bedroom where he leaped across the floor and into bed.

A moment later, the room filled with snores. Old Scrooge was fast asleep.

Frankie tugged the window down, then turned to me in the dark. “Devin, the author was right to call this a ghost story. We're just at the beginning and we've already seen bunches of them.”

“No kidding,” I said. “And I thought Christmas was a happy time. This is more like school. Marley's sending these ghosts to teach us a lesson.”

“Us?” said Frankie. “You mean Scrooge? This is his story, after all.”

I nodded. “Scrooge. Right. Well, should we read? And by
we
I mean
you?”

She glanced down at the open page. “We're at the end of the chapter, but already it's getting blurry.

“So are my eyes,” I said. “I wonder why.”

Frankie yawned. “Maybe because we're supposed to be asleep. Because you can't wake up to a ghost if you're not asleep.”

I yawned, too. “I guess.”

Now, whether it was all the weirdness of ghosts, or that I had gotten less than my usual fourteen hours of sleep the night before, or the fact that I didn't know where my backpack was, or the whole Christmas Banquet problem, or the fact that I was superhungry, I don't know.

All I know is that an instant after Frankie hit the sofa, I hit the chair.

And a half-sec later, we were both fast asleep.

If Frankie was anything like me, she was having a nightmare.

Chapter 8

My nightmare was about school.

I was in the cafeteria, and Mr. Wexler was standing over me, his eyebrow wiggling with disappointment. Next to him was Mrs. Figglehopper, hands on her hips.

“Why won't you share your cookies with our Christmas Banquet?” they asked.

“They're in my backpack!” I pleaded. “I lost them!”

“That backpack must be very heavy,” Mrs. Figglehopper boomed. “It's so full of things for yourself!”

Suddenly, they began to howl loudly, wailing and yelling all over the place, and throwing their arms this way and that like the spirits outside Scrooge's window. The horrible sound echoed throughout the school. The whole thing was getting very weird and crazy when the bell rang. I ran for the bus. But it wasn't the school bell.

Bong! Bong! Bong!

Suddenly, Frankie was shaking me.

“Devin, Devin, something's happening. Wake up!”

I yanked myself out of my nightmare, and there I was in Scrooge's room again, listening to the chimes of a nearby church ringing the hour.

The room was so dark you could barely tell the grimy window from the grimy wall. Scrooge was there, of course, sitting up in bed, rubbing his beady eyes.

Bong! Bong! Bong!
The heavy-sounding bell went on from six to seven, from seven to eight, and all the way to twelve, then stopped.

“This is nonsense,” said Scrooge, wiggling his pinkies in his ears. “It was at least two o'clock in the morning when we fell asleep.”

“Hey, it's 1843,” I said. “I bet you guys don't even have digital yet. Maybe an icicle got stuck in the clock.”

Scrooge lit a candle by his bed. “And maybe we dreamed the whole thing. Maybe ghosts don't exist!” He scrambled to the window and rubbed the frost off with the sleeve of his robe. “I see no ghosts out there.”

“Marley said we would be visited by the first spirit at one in the morning,” said Frankie, tapping the page where it said that. “That's an hour from now. It's weird having an appointment with a ghost, but we may as well stay up. I'll read for a bit.”

While Frankie read, I tried to get the fire going in the fireplace, but it was hopeless. “Man, if you're so rich, and your rooms are so cold, how do other people live?”

“It's not my business,” said Scrooge.

“Nice Christmas spirit,” Frankie mumbled, looking up from the book.

I thought again of that poor lady with the baby who the ghosts wanted to help. She shouldn't be outside on a night like this. If the ghosts couldn't help her, somebody should. Scrooge sure wouldn't. Then who?

Ding-dong!
went the church's quarter-hour bell.

“A quarter past the hour,” said Scrooge.

Ding-dong!

“Half past!”

Ding-dong!

“A quarter to the hour,” said Scrooge.

Ding-dong!

“The hour itself,” said Scrooge. “And nothing else! You see, ha, ha! There are no such things as ghosts! It was all our silly imaginations, running away with us. Why, ghosts are nothing but a hum—”

Even before he finished his favorite expression, the hour bell sounded a deep, dull, booming
ONE.

And even before it finished sounding, light flashed up in the room, and suddenly we were not alone.

Frankie and I gasped at the same time. “Oh!”

Scrooge looked as if he were going to swallow his whole head in fear. “Oh, dear me!”

A strange figure stood before us.

It was like a small child, sort of, and sort of like an old man. Its hair was long and white, but the face was smooth and not at all wrinkly. The arms were long and muscle-y and so were the legs. It wore some kind of old-style tunic, all white, and a belt that was lit up with twinkly clear lights.

In its hand was a branch of green holly like you see at Christmastime, but the tunic was decorated with the kind of summer flowers my mom grows in her garden.

But the weirdest part of all was that from the top of the creature's head there shone a steady stream of light, as if it had a spotlight up there. This is what was lighting up the room. Under its arm was a big metal cone, like a candle snuffer, just about the right size to go over its head.

All in all, it didn't look like an attack ghost, but I still wasn't going to run over and give it a hug.

Scrooge was the first to speak. “Are you the spirit whose coming was foretold to me?”

“I am,” said the spirit. Its voice was soft, but sounded as if it came into the room from a long distance.

“Who—and what—are you?” asked Frankie.

“I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.”

“Long past?” asked Scrooge.

“No. Your past.” The spirit nodded its head at Scrooge as it said the last two words.

I pointed to the metal cone under the ghost's arm. “What's that?”

“My cap,” said the spirit. “But we have miles to go before my light is put out. Scrooge, take heed, rise, and walk with me!” It put out its strong hand and clasped Scrooge by the arm.

“Is it all right if we tag along?” I asked. “We sort of have to. There's this whole thing about being in a book and us trying to find a backpack and stuff, which you probably won't understand—”

The spirit turned to me with a smile that seemed to say it
did
understand, and that it was okay for us to go with them. But when it stepped toward that window again, the one Marley had floated out of, Frankie and I screeched to a stop.

“What is it?” asked the spirit.

“Well, it's sort of a problem we have with heights,” I said. “We fall down from them. I mean, guys like you and Marley can float out of all the windows you want, but Frankie and I are just regular folks. We go
splat
—”

“Right,” said Frankie. “So if you can just wait a sec we'll meet you downstairs.…”

Without losing its smile, the spirit said, “Touch my hand, and you shall be upheld with me!”

Scrooge's look said that even though he was Mr. Cranky, he wanted us to go with him. So I said, “Okay.”

As soon as we touched the spirit's sleeve, all four of us passed right through the wall—or maybe the wall dissolved—whatever it was, we were suddenly standing on an old country road somewhere.

“London's gone,” said Frankie. “It just vanished.”

The darkness and mist had vanished, too, and it was a clear, cold, winter day in the country. There were fields on either side of the road, all dusted with snow.

“So where are we?” I asked.

Scrooge jumped. “Why—I—I was a boy here!”

Chapter 9

“Oh, dear! Oh, my! It was so long ago!” Scrooge said, fairly hopping up and down on the old road.

“Do you remember the way?” the spirit asked softly.

“Remember it?” cried Scrooge. “I could walk it blindfolded! Let's go. Come along, everyone. Follow me!”

Still in his robe and nightcap and slippers, Scrooge bolted off, skipping and prancing over the rough road.

“He moves pretty quick for an old guy,” I said.

“So I guess we'd better follow him,” said Frankie.

As he bopped along, Scrooge pointed out every stone, every tree, every gate and fence he remembered. When some boys appeared, riding shaggy ponies and calling to one another as they rode away from a small village, Scrooge nearly burst with delight.

“Ho, there!” he yelled out. “Boys! Stop! Ho, boys!”

The Spirit of Christmas Past touched Scrooge lightly on the arm. “These are shadows of the past, shades of things that once were. Those boys do not know we are here.”

Even so, Scrooge called out the boys' names one by one. “Why, there's David Fieldercop! And Nicholas Bickleny! Oh, and my dear friend, Martin Wizzlechut!”

I laughed. “Hey, Frankie. Remember Mrs. Figglehopper told us how the author likes to give his characters funny names—”

The spirit smiled. “Mrs. Figglehopper? Ah, now, that's a funny name.”

Scrooge's eyes glistened to see his old friends as they wished one another a Merry Christmas, then parted at the crossroads and trotted off to their homes. But his smiles faded as he spotted a dark snow-dusted mansion in the distance. “My old school,” he muttered.

“The school is not quite deserted,” said the ghost. “A single boy remains there, forgotten by his friends.”

“I know it,” said Scrooge.

We touched the spirit's sleeve again, and we were inside the school.

The rooms were huge and cold, with broken desks in the classrooms and dark, stained walls.

Dust covered the floors, and there was a funny smell, too, which reminded me a little too much of a zoo and not enough like a school.