Rules for Ghosting (10 page)

It came to Oliver that his delay in talking to his parents was what had allowed this to happen. He had wanted to stay in this house—he
still
wanted to, more than anything else in the world; if he were honest, even more now than before, considering it came with its very own ghost. Or it used to. But he'd let his own wants blind him to what had to be done.

“So,” said Wiley, pulling both his arms up above his head in a full-body stretch, “I suppose it's time to unfold the rest of my plan, yes? A fine coup this morning—a very fine coup. You can see that we've completely demolished the creature's lair. But it's plain that we have not yet reached the
root
of the infestation. We have not yet found
the ghost itself
!”

Oliver's eyes widened. The ghost! That girl he'd seen—it must be her. He remembered the look on her face—this was no monster, no
creature
. This was a real person … only, well, see-through. And not alive. But she had looked sad and hurt and angry that her home was being destroyed. And why shouldn't she?

“Why do you have to do this stuff?” he yelled suddenly, startling Wiley so much that his Spectrometer fell to the floor
with a clatter. “Why do you have to chase after harmless creatures? What did they ever do to you?”

Wiley frowned. “Hmmm,” he said. “Well, perhaps I was mistaken. I had reckoned you for a kindred spirit, a fellow scientific mind. I see now that I have been wrong about you.” He marched forward and yanked the goggles off Oliver's face. “
Completely
wrong. And now …” He spun around, nose in the air, and marched toward the sunroom door. “I have things to do. Getting ready for my groundbreaking scientific discoveries is something of a full-time job, as it turns out. La di da, young Oliver.” And he swept out.

Good riddance!
Oliver thought. The room seemed to relax with Wiley's departure, but it also seemed sad and somehow empty. Nothing had changed—at least, nothing that Oliver could see. But it was different nonetheless; something intangible was gone, and the hole it left ached like a phantom limb.

Oliver sighed and started down the hall. He had to make things right and fast, before Wiley did any more damage. He would tell his parents the whole story. They would send Wiley packing and Silverton Manor would be a much safer place.

He was halfway to the kitchen when he heard a gong echo through the house, followed by the patter of feet hurrying from the opposite direction. The front door! Oliver quickened his pace, wondering who it could be.

Mom got there before he did, but only just. He came
up behind her as she opened the heavy front door. “Good morning, Mr. Rutabartle,” Mom said. She held in one hand a measuring tape that stretched down the hall behind her. A streak of dust smudged her forehead and a cobwebby feather duster stuck out of her messy bun. “How … nice to see you again. Please, come in.”

She didn't sound like she especially wanted him to come in; she actually sounded like she wanted to get right back to her Party Zombie tasks, but Rutabartle did not seem at all put off. “No need for that, Mrs. Day,” he said. “I've got an appointment back at the office on the half-hour. I just stopped by to deliver this.” He put a crisp white envelope into her hand. He raised his sunglasses, looking up and down the hallway. “Is everything well? All looking good in here?”

“Oh, sure,” said Mom distractedly. Her fingers were tip-tapping all over the envelope, like she wanted to start filling all that white space with to-do lists. “By the way, thank you for sending your fix-it man over so promptly. He's gotten right to work.”

“Fix-it man?” said Rutabartle. “But I didn't … Ah! Greta—my new secretary!—she's a gem. She must be even more on the ball than I'd thought. Excellent; I'm glad you're taken care of.” He took a step back, sliding his sunglasses into place like a parenthesis closing his visit.

“Oh, not so quickly!” Mom said, moving a step closer. There was a scuffling sound as Mom ripped the back side off
the envelope Rutabartle had given her. Oliver smirked. She hadn't been tapping her fingers at all—she actually
had
been making a list. “This will get us started,” she said.

Oliver craned his neck and could just make out the top lines:
gravel for the front walkway; new topsoil for the flowerbeds; decorative bushes?; rust removal expert for the front gate …
The list was surprisingly long for the ninety seconds or so she'd spent writing. But then again, this was Party Zombie Mom they were dealing with, and Rutabartle was no match for her mad skills.

His eyes widened as he took in the list. “This is quite … er, do you really think all this …?”

“Do you want to sell this house?” Mom's tone was frosty.

Rutabartle inclined his head, as though this wasn't a battle he wanted to fight. “Very well. I'll put Greta right on this. You can expect them to begin arriving first thing tomorrow morning.” He turned away quickly, but Party Zombie Mom had one last parting shot.

“Those mover fellows who came with our stuff,” she said. “One was particularly helpful—Beano, I believe his name was? Send him over as well. Our fix-it man is extraordinarily elusive. Not that there isn't enough to do around this place! But I could use a hand with some of the smaller chores.”

Jock Rutabartle fled down the steps, waving a token goodbye over his shoulder. It was a good thing for him too, Oliver thought with a grin, because as his car door slammed and the
engine started up, Mom was yelling, “Oh, wait! One more thing!”

The engine squealed and Rutabartle shot out of the driveway.

Mom sighed. “Never mind, we can make do for now, I suppose.” She turned and focused her laser gaze on Oliver. “Aha,” she said, and Oliver's heart sank. She had that look in her eye.

“Mom,” he said quickly. “There's something really important I need to tell you about that guy—”

But Mom had turned her attention to the letter Rutabartle had given her. She tossed aside what was left of its envelope and frowned over its contents. She looked back up at Oliver. “That Rutabartle's a strange one, isn't he? In any case, if we expect prompt service we'll have to give it in return as well. You can be in charge of making sure this checklist is filled out by the end of the day. Get Poppy's help on it if you like. And when that's done, I want you both to report back to me. There are plenty of tasks that need to be done. It's going to be the party of the century!” Her eyes glazed over again. “How magnificent it's going to be!”

“But Mom, I really—”

Mom wasn't listening. She thrust the paper at Oliver and whirled off down the hallway toward the kitchen, dusting as she went.

Oliver ground his teeth. Not only had he not gotten to tell
her about Wiley, now he was stuck with chores. With a groan, he unfolded the paper in his hand. He read the title—
what?
—he must have misread. But no, he read it again: NORMALCY QUESTIONNAIRE.

What on earth?

NORMALCY QUESTIONNAIRE

Name:_________________________________________________

Address:_______________________________________________

Assigned by:
Jock Rutabartle, Town Commissioner

How many children reside in the household?

Describe each child's age, interests, and favorite pastimes.

_______________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________

How often do children in the household engage in the following “normal” activities?

a. Hopscotch

b. Tic-tac-toe

c. Video games

d. Legos or other construction toys

e. Other:_____________________________

There was more—quite a lot more, and Oliver pored over every idiotic line. He turned the page over. On the back was an additional note:

HELPFUL SUGGESTIONS

Looking for a way to add more “normal” to your life? Want to learn how to blend in with the crowd? Follow these easy action steps and you'll be cruising with the rest of the world in no time.

1.
Don't make eye contact
. Interacting with those around you is the surest way to risk standing out. Keeping your eyes cast down, hands by your sides, is a much better way to adopt a perfectly ordinary stance.

2.
Avoid sudden movements
. A slow, steady pace is the way to go! No dashing or jumping or jerking about. If you want to truly be …

Oliver couldn't stand to read another gag-worthy word. He fought the urge to rip the paper into shreds, dig a deep hole, and bury it where it would never be found. But Mom had asked him to fill it out, and there was no way she would listen to him about Wiley until then. He also
still
hadn't made any progress on figuring out how they were going to stay in the house.

He set off for the circular staircase. It was time for him and Poppy to regroup, take time answering some miserable questions, and maybe—if they were lucky—come up with some solutions that would magically solve all of their problems.

If only it could be that easy.

Silverton Manor was enormous. Dahlia had always known this, and had spent years wafting around the various rooms to no particular purpose. But when it came to actually going through it for information, like a prospector panning for gold in one of those ancient television shows she'd used to watch with her mother—well, for the first time she understood how big it really was.

“We should begin on the ground floor,” Dahlia said at last. “It's where my mother spent just about all her time. It's the most likely spot for us to find clues about my Anchor.”

“I suppose,” Mrs. Tibbs murmured, just as Mrs. Day burst down at the far end of the hall, a pile of bedding teetering in her arms.

It was clear that if they didn't get busy soon, any potential clues would be buried under the stampede of progress and reorganization. Dahlia and Mrs. Tibbs ghosted through the
wooden door into the living room. Of the surfaces she passed through every day, wood was Dahlia's favorite. Plastic was so slight she hardly noticed it. Brick was a little rough and scratchy to her insides. But wood was spongy and velvety, and tickled every time she passed through it. Maybe because it had once been alive, like her.

After all that, though, investigating the first floor went remarkably quickly. The guest room and mudroom had been fully taken over by Wiley's paraphernalia, which Dahlia found utterly distasteful. And she hated to go into the sunroom now, for being reminded of her lost cubby. Despite all this, over their next days of searching they quickly saw that the downstairs held no surprises. Dahlia had spent most of her time ghosting around on this floor, and knew every hidden nook and cranny. The kitchen might bear a closer look—there were several secret drawers and hidey holes that Dahlia knew of but had never bothered to examine in great detail, with their unexpired goods that she had never been able to handle—but the ghosts didn't dare poke around there while the living folks were zipping in and out. They resolved to come back under cover of darkness, when the house was quiet and the Day family asleep.

On the second floor Mr. and Mrs. Day had settled into the master bedroom, and the twins into a room across the hall. There was also a bathroom, a laundry room, and an endlessly long hallway that looked down over the huge living room and ended in a curved staircase leading to the front foyer. To Dahlia,
everything appeared just as it always had—with the exception of all the newly moved-into areas, and she had to admit that most of the setup and decor was a huge improvement.

But as hard as both she and Mrs. Tibbs looked, there was not a leading clue nor a meaningful scrap of paper to be found.

Then they entered the library. Dahlia had never been much of a reader when she was alive—that she remembered, anyway—but there was nothing like being dead for fifty-eight years to give you an appetite for literature. Many times over her ghostly years she'd eyed those volumes, lined up all unread and tempting. Every time she'd tried to pick one up, her hands had shot right through its unexpired covers. But now … the idea that with a little more practice she might be able to pick up any book off the shelf and simply start to read was thrilling.

Dahlia gave herself a little shake. She wasn't here to read; she was here for action. Still, where to begin looking? Three wide walls were lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, and heavy curtains closed off the fourth wall. The whole room was dim and dull and dingy.

“How are we going to search this place for clues?” she asked despairingly. It seemed so vast!

Mrs. Tibbs drifted across the plush carpet, which was coated in a thick layer of dust. Clearly Mrs. Day had not yet made her way into this room, though several boxes labeled
BOOKS
were stacked just outside the door. Scooting toward the curtained wall, Dahlia drew up alongside the heavy velvet window drapes and started tugging. It took her four or five tries, and more than one accidental plunge through the wall into the outside, but finally she made Contact and managed to pull one of the curtains open a few inches. A fat beam of sunlight slid in from outside and set the dust motes sparkling.

Mrs. Tibbs turned from where she had been examining a bookshelf, and lifted her eyebrows. “Are you seeking illumination, my glum gollywog?”

Dahlia kept tugging. “A little light, yes. It's awfully gloomy in here! I've always hated these curtained-in rooms. And nighttime too, all that darkness everywhere. I don't like it one bit. I know I'm a ghost and I don't need to sleep, but you know, most nights I would just curl up on my own recliner and go to sleep till morning!” That made Dahlia think of her cubby, which made her start to feel soggy inside, but all of that skipped right out of her mind when she suddenly noticed … “Why, Mrs. Tibbs! You're glowing!”