Rules for Ghosting (6 page)

Dahlia squeezed her eyes shut and imagined herself following the instructions. She felt no difference, but when she looked down again she gave a cry of surprise. “Look, I'm
doing it! I'm sitting
on
the couch. It's so easy—like I'm not even trying!”

With that, Dahlia lost her focus and fell through the bottom of the couch, so fast and hard that she cleared the wood floor and was halfway into the foundation before she was able to stop herself. Shooting back up with a mouth tasting of expired dust bunnies, she quivered with delight.

“I think one might call you a victim of your own success,” Mrs. Tibbs said upon seeing her face, which Dahlia knew was beaming like an electric lightbulb. “You must learn to contain your excitement if you want to hold on to your progress!”

“Never mind all that,” Dahlia gushed. “I did it! I did it once and I'll do it again. Dust bunnies be gone, my rear will no longer be stuffed with fluff. Or not for long, anyway.” She giggled. “Can I go start practicing now? Give me a couple of hours, Mrs. Tibbs, and I'll be a Contact
expert
. I want to be able to touch
everything
in this place!”

“I think that sounds like a capital idea. If there is a better time than the present for beginnings, I'm sure I've never found it.”

Dahlia was already busy at work: focusing, clearing, toppling halfway through all sorts of substances. Many were ones she'd never fallen into before, and over the course of tumultuous minutes she learned that porcelain has a far creamier residue than plain old glass; that those candlesticks her mother had been so proud of were not, in fact, made of pure silver; that the warmth of sunlight pooling on an old carpet
counterbalanced its musty gruff overtones so that it felt like a scratchy bubblebath.

She was just starting to get the hang of this technique when a loud slam from the rear of the house diverted her attention. “Did you hear that?” she said to Mrs. Tibbs, who had been watching her with amused satisfaction. “Who could it be? We should go investigate!”

Mrs. Tibbs murmured agreement and Dahlia took off like a shot. She slipped through two or three walls before coming to the source of the noise. It was a large bedroom with an old fireplace in the corner and a door leading to the outside. Next to the door was a pile of boxes and jumbled machinery that had obviously been recently brought in.

“The guest bedroom,” Dahlia said to Mrs. Tibbs. “I suppose this is where they're putting that Wiley guy. Mrs…. my mother always kept this room done up, even though I don't remember anyone ever staying in here.” She frowned. “She always put a chocolate on the pillow when someone was coming over.”

There was no chocolate on the pillow now, but a neatly folded pile of bedding rested on a chair next to the door. Obviously someone had already been in to make Mr. Wiley feel welcome. But then a flicker of motion caught Dahlia's eye, standing out like a spotlight in this see-through room of living people. It was the blur of something about to expire.

“What do you see?” Mrs. Tibbs asked curiously.

Dahlia wasn't sure at first. It was something small,
something … “A pillow-chocolate!” she squeaked. And then she dove—a spectacular dive, full-body, head forward toward the floor beneath the chair. At the last minute she remembered the rules, focusing her ghost breath to clear her mind and concentrate on the hard oak-board surface, so that as she landed she glided smoothly across it. She squished her ghost-body up into a twisty noodle that slid right between the chair legs, only slipping into the floor the tiniest bit at the end. And there it was: caught between the back chair leg and the heating vent was a small square of chocolate, half-melted, nearly flattened out of existence.

Perfect.

Dahlia had to wait only a second or two while the last edge of the chocolate nugget pulled loose from the wreckage of its living form. She had just snatched the expired treat when the vent next to her began to hammer so loudly that she jumped and lost her focus, sinking all the way down into the grainy wood floor.

Gritting her teeth, she shot up through the chair. Mrs. Tibbs hovered about, looking concerned. “Are you all right, ghost child?”

“I'm fine,” she said, panting a little. “Just lost my balance there for a minute. But look what I got!” She waved her prize under Mrs. Tibbs' nose.

“You don't mean that you …”

“Don't you ever eat expired food, Mrs. Tibbs?” Dahlia grinned, feeling quite giddy at being able to show the
well-informed Liberator a new trick. “I'm starting to think I'm a bit of a rebel! Well, I'm happy to say that there's quite enough for two.”

“Oh!” The Liberator's eyes went a bit melty. “My gorgeous ghoul, do you know how long it's been since I've tasted chocolate?”

“I can guess. So let's not wait a second longer!”

They munched in companionable silence for a minute, until Dahlia said, “I think chocolate should have a double-expired form, don't you?”

“Mmm, quite,” said Mrs. Tibbs, licking the last drips from her fingers. “A regenerating chocolate spirit, wouldn't that be just the ticket.”

Dahlia sighed in contentment and wafted over to the pile of luggage by the door. As she did so, there was a clatter on the step outside and the door burst open. It went right through Dahlia, leaving her dazed and a little breathless. She scooted back so as not to be socked by Wiley himself entering the room. Things had never been this difficult when her mother was still around, she thought peevishly. Even though Mrs. Silverton had never sensed Dahlia's ghostly presence, at least she hadn't barreled around irresponsibly, crashing through her at all times.

Wiley, meanwhile, seemed to be in a fine mood. “Now now, my little ghosties,” he purred. Dahlia startled, scooting back along the wall alongside Mrs. Tibbs.

“Ahem,” said the Liberator, her wrinkled cheeks quivering
slightly. “Our new fix-it man is more sly even than we'd suspected. In fact, I would be mighty surprised if he
is
a fix-it man.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you see all that equipment?”

Dahlia did see, but it didn't mean anything to her in particular. There weren't any traditional-looking tools—just an assortment of devices and machines with huge speakers and something that looked like a poorly assembled vacuum cleaner. Dahlia squinted at a black box that seemed to pulse in the waning afternoon light. “What is that thing?” she whispered.

“Come to me, you fine wee beasties,” purred Wiley, and zipped out the door again, slamming it hard behind him.

“That box,” Dahlia said, drifting closer.

In a flash Mrs. Tibbs was at her side, catching Dahlia's hand in both of hers. “Don't touch that,” she breathed. “Don't even go near it.”

“But there's something so wrong … Oh, I know what it is—I can't see through it! I know it's a living object. I saw that Wiley guy bring it in. But it's not see-through like everything else. In fact, I can't see through it at
all
.”

“That box is lined with a substance called ironite.”

“Ironite? What's that?”

Mrs. Tibbs's face darkened. “No one knows for sure where ironite comes from or how it is formed. But the important thing is this: ghosts cannot pass through it.”

Dahlia's eyes widened. “Not at
all
?” Some things felt better
to pass through than others, some things could even hurt to go through, but she'd never found anything that she couldn't cross at all. “Wait … but who would want something like ironite, something ghosts can't pass through—and what would they want it for?”

Then she froze as something caught her eye. On the side of the box was a logo, nearly identical to the one she'd seen on Wiley's pickup truck, but different in one important way. Underneath the wispy white shape, which sat inside the circle with the prison-bar lines down the front, the company name didn't say Terminators, Inc.

It said
Ghost
erminators, Inc.

Oliver came downstairs to greet the moving truck when it arrived promptly at eight o'clock the next morning. Junie and Joe had been watching for it since sunup, from the vantage point of their new Headquarters of Mischief on the tiny second-floor balcony that Oliver had discovered the day before. They had stowed their Bag of Pranks out there, and that left them just enough room to squeeze in after it. Apparently the view provided lots of inspiration for tricks to play on the wider world.

“Moving truck! The truck is here!” JJ chorused now, bopping mildly in place since there wasn't enough room for their full jumping routine. Then they jostled each other back through the door into the house, where Oliver could hear them thundering down the hallway in the direction of their incoming belongings.

By the time the dust settled in the circular driveway and
the truck's engine had turned off, all six Days were perched on the front steps. The movers, who introduced themselves as Beano and Bob, began to carry boxes inside under Mom's direction, while Dad dug through the back of the truck to find his puppet show crates. He was still stressed about not having brought along his puppets in the minivan, although it would have taken two minivans just to fit the stage, much less all the props and main characters. You don't become an Internet sensation by sticking to the same scenery every time, Dad always liked to say. But then, he still wore the same lucky hat he'd put on the day he started his business, and he said he was wearing
that
until success wrested it off his head.

Oliver snagged his three boxes from the truck, piled them into a tipsy tower, and set off up the stairs. After fully exploring the house—there were eight bedrooms to choose from, after all—Oliver had finally decided on a tiny room all the way at the top of the house. It was just big enough for his bed and dresser, with a narrow sliver of floor besides, but Oliver liked the idea of being so far away from everything and everyone else in the house. This would really, truly be his own private domain. He named it the Matchbox.

The wide, spacious house seemed to shrink to a very small point up there in the attic. Even with the wide-open storage area, the bedroom seemed small for what was left, and he wondered if there might be more junk space closed off somewhere inside the walls. When it came to mysteries and unusual
happenings, Oliver figured the more the better. Come to think of it, maybe that was another reason he liked this room.

Unpacking and settling into the Matchbox took less than half an hour. A few of his book boxes were still down in the truck, but Mom had discovered a real library on the second floor and had decreed that all the family's books should go straight there. Which was actually a good thing, since a bookshelf would not have fit in Oliver's new room.

Now finished with setup, Oliver pondered his next move. If he went back downstairs, Mom would put him to work. He decided to go talk to Poppy. He set off down the attic steps and across the winding route to the turret room.

“Poppy!” he whispered, knocking on her door. Living in a turret had its advantages—there wasn't much chance of anyone wandering by and overhearing them. But Oliver still didn't want to risk being conscripted into Mom's forced labor, so he kept his voice down. After a minute or two he heard Poppy clomping down her circular staircase to the landing, and the door opened. She peered out, looked up and down the hallway, then nodded him in.

“Come for more chocolate?” she said, plopping down on her canopied bed and folding her hands in her lap.

Oliver's mouth dropped open. Since he'd been in here yesterday, the room had been completely transformed. He knew that not all girls were girly. Junie, for example, was twice the tomboy Joe was. But Poppy had a deeply felt passion that every
surface deserved its own ruffle. Preferably pink and, when possible, combined with flowers and/or lace. She'd been this way ever since Oliver could remember, so he wasn't too surprised at the fate of her room. But this time, she'd come up with a ton of brand-new stuff and had gone all out. Long tentacles of lace oozed from the ceiling, every wall dripped with gauzy fabric, and intricate flowery doilies covered the floor from wall to wall.

Oliver would have been impressed with her speed and thoroughness if he hadn't felt so nauseated by the result. All in all, the room's new look completely succeeded in killing any of his lingering desire for the turret room.

“You wanted to see me?” Poppy said imperiously from her poufy throne-like bed.

Oliver shook the ruffles out of his head and looked around for a clear space of floor. Not finding one, he lowered himself very slowly in place in front of a bright-pink space heater. Pulling his knees to his chest, Oliver got right to the point. “It's about this house,” he said. “I want to keep it.”

“Wait, really?” said Poppy, sitting up. “You've been looking for the Dream House forever. Now this is it?”

Oliver gave a determined nod. “It's the one, all right. Don't you feel it too? Something like, I don't know, destiny maybe? Like it's meant to be?”

Poppy shrugged. “I feel that way about every house. I'm so sick of having to set up my room all over again every few months.”

“That's a start, I guess. But come on, this house is obviously the one. Look at this room you scored! Are you with me on this?”

“Hmm, yeah,” Poppy mused. “This place'll do. But look at all I had to put up around here to get the creepy vibe out of the air!” She shivered. “There's something a little weird in this place, if you ask me.”

“Hey,” said Oliver, standing up. “Don't bad-talk this room. You sure fought hard enough to get it!”

“I love this room,” Poppy said quickly. “It's not that. More like the house itself. Like there's something else going on with it, something a little spooky.”