The Elevator Ghost (8 page)

“They cough,” Herman Spiegelman said to himself. “Consumptives. A rattling cough, like an old radiator.”

“Apartment 713,” Lucy Hooper whispered to Hetty Croop. “That's where Carolina Giddle lives. Right across — ”

Carolina Giddle rose from the wing-backed chair and stretched. She touched the pale silk roses of her corsage and smoothed the lace that trimmed the neck of the old white gown she wore.

“I will be mighty disappointed,” she said, “if there is a single bite left for me to carry up from the snack table. Take those leftovers up to your parents. I have my bag here and the bowls and trays fit quite nicely into it. We must thank Mr. Spiegelman for cleaning up once we are gone. And for being the lightmaster for our ghost-story gala.”

“Goodnight!” everyone cried out as they wrapped the remaining goodies in paper napkins to take home. “Happy Halloween!”

Only Dwight and Dwayne Fergus still planned to go out trick-or-treating at this late hour. They grabbed their pillowcases, stashed behind the aspidistra.

Carolina Giddle was no longer in her costume when she came back down to the sunroom an hour and a half later. It had been cleared of its Halloween decorations and the furniture put back in place.

“You didn't tell the whole story,” said an old crackly voice from the shadows. “You didn't tell how, over the years, Grace and I became friends.”

“My stories are often a bit raveled,” Carolina Giddle said. “I just tuck the loose threads back in best I can to make a tidy edge.”

She wandered over to the old gramophone.

“Put on ‘After the Ball,'” Grace said softly. “I was pretty shook up from that elevator plunge, but of course you can't really hurt a ghost. So I slipped into Ada's party later that night. Everyone was dancing to ‘After the Ball.' It was so lovely.”

Carolina Giddle found the record and put it on.

“We're going to miss you,” Aunt Beulah said, her words caught up in the old waltz.

“I'll miss you, too,” Carolina Giddle said.

It was close to midnight when Dwight and Dwayne got back to the Blatchford Arms.

A crescent moon looked like it was leaning against the east tower of the old apartment building.

“Hardly worth going out,” Dwayne complained. He pulled off his Freddy mask. At most houses porch lights were off and no one was answering to a cry of “Halloween apples!”

“Do you think there's still some of Carolina Giddle's treats left?” Dwight yanked down his Scream mask. “We could load up and — ”

The boys paused, speechless. In the No Parking space in front of the Blatchford Arms lobby door sat a trinket-scabbed Volkswagen wearing a huge cap of odd stuff. They could make out the arms of a coat rack, an upside-down armchair, a mattress, cardboard boxes, and some rolled-up rugs. It looked like a yard sale all tied together with bright scarves and braided rags and ropes.

And there was Carolina Giddle handing something to Herman Spiegelman just before she climbed behind the wheel of the bug.

“Hey!” Dwight shouted. But the Volkswagen was already easing its way out of the lot.

The twins watched as it paused at the main road and then turned south.

When they got to the lobby, Herman Spiegelman was still there. He was looking out to where Carolina Giddle's car had been a few minutes earlier, as if he was waiting for her to change her mind and come back.

“Where did Carolina Giddle go?” Dwight asked angrily, as if it was all the caretaker's fault.

“I'm not sure.” Herman Spiegelman sighed. “She said she was heading back to where she'd once lived. She said it wasn't so much reason as rhyme that was calling her. No idea what she meant by that. But she left this for us to take care of. We can keep her in her cage here in the sunroom by the aspidistra.”

Herman Spiegelman pulled off a bright calico bandana covering Chiquita's home. The tarantula looked at them. It seemed she waved one of her hairy arms agreeably before crawling under an aspidistra leaf the caretaker had plucked and tucked into the cage.

The caretaker shook his head in a way that grown-ups sometimes do when the ways of the world seem well beyond them.

“She said Chiquita had grown really attached to the Blatchford Arms and didn't want to leave.”

“I don't care if she doesn't come back.” Dwight mumbled.

“But she will,” said Dwayne. “She'll miss Chiquita.”

He placed the bandana gently over the cage.

“Won't she?”

Afterword

 

Probably for as
long as people have told tales, scary stories have been popular. In front of a cheery campfire or on a comfortable sofa, it can be fun to listen to the hair-raising adventures of others.

Carolina Giddle comes from a part of North America where ghost stories have thrived — the Southern United States. She builds some of her own tales on the framework of stories she might have heard herself as a child. But she borrows from other sources, too. We know she loved old horror movies such as
Frankenstein,
but echoes of newer movies also creep into her babysitting sagas — Johnny Depp's Caribbean pirate pictures; films about extraterrestrials such as
E.T
. and
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
. I wonder how she came across the Chinese legend about a painting of a dragon that springs to life when the artist paints in its eyes?

Roswell, New Mexico, offers its own intriguing accounts of a possible UFO crash and cover-up. There could well have been ghosts.

As for Carolina Giddle's trinket-covered Volkswagen, I suspect she must have visited British Columbia at some point and been ­enchanted with poet Susan Musgrave's ­decorated vehicle.

Glen Huser
's novels include
Touch of the Clown
(shortlisted for the Mr. Christie's Book Award),
Stitches
(winner of the Governor General's Award) and
Skinnybones and the Wrinkle Queen
(nominated for the Governor General's Award and the Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Award).

A former teacher-librarian in Edmonton, Glen has taught writing for children at the University of British Columbia. He recently explored his passion for musical theater in
Time for Flowers
,
Time for Snow
, a picture-book retelling of the myth of Demeter and Persephone (with a
cd
featuring a 180-voice children's chorus).

Glen lives in Vancouver.

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

 

Groundwood Books, established in 1978, is dedicated to the production of children's books for all ages, including fiction, picture books and non-fiction. We publish in Canada, the United States and Latin America. Our books aim to be of the highest possible quality in both language and illustration. Our primary focus has been on works by Canadians, though we sometimes also buy outstanding books from other countries.

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