The Ghost of Ernie P. (8 page)

A half hour later they were gliding along the wooded shore, the only sound the squeak of the oars. Mr. Patterson stood in the rear of the boat, casting. Over and over his arm swung back, and the feathery lure sailed sixty feet or more across the water. At first, Jeff watched every cast, but as the minutes ticked by and nothing happened, he began to get drowsy.

Art grinned at him. “I told you this would be a great way to relax.” He paused. “You sure you don't want to tell me about those people who are giving you a hard time? Maybe my dad—”

“
GOTCHA!
” Mr. Patterson gave a bellow of delight as a geyser erupted thirty feet from the boat. Jeff sat up straight, and Art nearly dropped an oar.

“Row, you monkey, row!” Mr. Patterson shouted. “I've got him hooked and he's a beauty. A real lunker! Row! We have to tire him out so we can get him into the boat. Get out in deep water! Keep away from the weeds!”

Art leaned into the oars, and Jeff watched breathlessly the battle between the fisherman and the musky. Twice, the great fish leaped into the air in a flashing arc, then dived deep. Mr. Patterson let the musky run till it stopped, then reeled it back in, each time bringing it a little closer to the boat. Art rowed steadily, his face tense with excitement.

“He's comin'! He's comin'!” Mr. Patterson roared. “Get that net ready, boy.”

Jeff gripped the long metal handle and tried to look ready. Now that he'd seen the musky, he wondered if the net was going to be wide enough.

“Biggest one I've ever seen!” Mr. Patterson sounded awestruck. “Come on, baby, come to papa!”

Now the musky was just a few feet from the boat. One fin cut through the ripples like the fin of a shark.

“Watch it! He's going under the boat,” Mr. Patterson bellowed. “Row, boy! Speed it up!”

Sweat popped out on Art's forehead as he dug the oars into the water. Jeff leaned over the other side of the boat, looking for a glimpse of the great fish. A startled “Yikes!” from Art brought him upright.

“He just came back up—over here,” Art gasped. “Hey, Jeff, you missed it. Nastiest-looking monster I ever saw. Great big eyes, mouth wide open—like he was smiling, for pete's sake. Made me think of old Ernie Barber, the mean way he smiled.”

The handle of the net sagged in Jeff's suddenly limp fingers. “What do you mean, it made you think of Ernie?”

“Get that net out of the water!” Mr. Patterson shouted. “You get my line tangled in that net and you walk home, Keppel—starting now!”

Jeff snatched the trailing net from the water. Just then the fish came to the surface again, and Jeff had his first close look at the musky. For a second or two he stared into huge glassy eyes, and a gaping, fang-filled mouth. It couldn't be—he knew that—and yet he understood what Art meant. The fish was a fish, but it was a fish that looked like Ernie Barber.

“Net!” Mr. Patterson yelled. “He's right next to the boat, monkey! Get that net under him!”

“Hurry up, Jeff!” Art urged. “Move!” He was holding the oars back out of the way.

Jeff stood up, the net handle clutched in his hands. He didn't think he could do it. He couldn't net a fish that looked like Ernie Barber and lift it into the boat with them.

“
Now!
” Mr. Patterson roared again. “Get 'im!” He sounded as if he were about to explode.

Jeff leaned out over the side of the boat and swung the net with both hands. For a moment he thought he'd missed, and he was relieved. It had been a good try. Mr. Patterson couldn't blame him for missing, could he? Then a flash of silver shone through the blue netting, and he knew he hadn't missed after all.

“Okay, monkey, bring him in!” Mr. Patterson stepped around Art and grasped the rim of the net. Together they lifted, Jeff staggering under the weight.

“A lunker! A real lunker!” Mr. Patterson crowed. “Biggest one I've ever seen! Get that baby in here!”

Then an amazing thing happened. One moment the musky was lying in a long shining curve at the bottom of the net, the next, he was shooting straight up in the air like a rocket. Jeff had been bracing himself against the side of the boat, but the sudden shift in weight sent him lurching backward. Up, up the fish sailed in a glittering curve. The last thing Jeff saw was the lure swinging free at the end of the line. The last thing he heard was Mr. Patterson's frantic cry. Then he toppled backward into the lake.

“Is he mad at me?” Shivering, Jeff crouched in his underwear, waiting for the warm breeze to dry him off. His jeans and shirt were spread over the boat seat beside him.

“Naw, it wasn't your fault.” Art was shivering, too. He'd gotten wet while helping pull Jeff out of the water. Both boys watched Mr. Patterson nervously. Art's father sat in the front of the boat, his back to them, his head down. Jeff had a terrible feeling that the big man was fighting back tears.

“The thing is,” Art went on in a low voice, “you have to think about how you'd feel if you'd been waiting for something for twenty years or so—that's how long he's been fishing for musky. You dream about catching a fish like that one, but you never really believe it's going to happen to you. And then it does. And you lose it.” He shook his head. “You'd feel bad, too.”

“Right,” Jeff breathed. He felt really sorry for Mr. Patterson. At the same time, he couldn't help but be glad that the Ernie-fish was gone. He glanced quickly over the side, half-expecting to see a pair of glassy eyes and a wicked smile just below the surface.

“Probably means we won't go out for hamburgers tonight,” Art said glumly. “That's what we usually do when my dad has a day off.”

Jeff agreed that Mr. Patterson didn't look as if he'd be in the mood for a family outing.

“He'll keep trying to figure out what happened,” Art continued. “That's all he'll think about. That musky was hooked hard and was really tired out. And yet it spit out the lure and jumped right out of the net. Hard to figure, huh?”

“There's something in the water over there,” Jeff said uneasily, “near that tree with the broken-off branch.”

Art squinted. “Ducks,” he said. “A whole family of 'em. Once when we were fishing along here, a deer came down to the shore for a drink.”

Jeff was pleased to have something else to think about beside the musky's miraculous escape. He looked up and down the shore, hoping to see a deer.

Then he stiffened. “Hey,” he said hoarsely, “over there. Someone's standing on that big rock.”

Art twisted around for a better view. “It's a tree,” he scoffed. “There's no cottages around here for miles.”

Jeff began to shiver again. “It's not a tree,” he insisted. “It's a person. Can't you
see
? She's wearing black slacks and a black top and she's looking this way. She's staring right at us.”

“She?”

“Yeah, she.”

“You're seeing things,” Art teased. “Come on, Jeff, lighten up. You're just jittery because the fish got away.”

At that, Mr. Patterson turned heavily to face the boys. “Wasn't your fault, monkeys,” he said thickly. “Might as well go home now. Forget about it.” He sighed and gave a powerful jerk on the rope that started the motor.

The boat began moving in a wide curve, bouncing through its own wake. Jeff didn't want to look at the shore again, but he had to.

“See?” Art shouted above the hum of the motor. “It
is
a tree.”

Jeff stared at the straight black trunk rising out of the rock. It
was
just a tree trunk, no branches or leaves. From this angle it didn't look at all like a person.

“Someone was there,” he said stubbornly. “I saw her.”

Art cocked his head. “You're cracking up, man,” he said. “Take my word for it.”

Jeff had to admit Art could be right. Probably only a really sick person would believe a ghost and a witch would go along on a fishing trip. But then he glanced down at Mr. Patterson's fancy monogrammed bait box, and he knew anything was possible. T S P, it said—Thomas S. Patterson.

The Top Secret Project just wasn't going to go away. If he accepted that, it was easy to believe in a fish that looked like a person and a tree that looked like a witch.

C
HAPTER
E
LEVEN

“Oh, Jeff, you could have drowned,” Mrs. Keppel wailed. Twenty-four hours later, she was still horrified at the thought that Jeff had fallen overboard. “I could have lost you forever.”

“I had a life jacket on, Mom,” Jeff reminded her. “And I was in the water for about ten seconds.”

“You could have caught pneumonia,” Mrs. Keppel said. “Easily.”

“But I didn't.”

“How do you know?” she demanded. “Some nasty little virus might be working inside you this very minute.”

Jeff sighed. He and his mother got along fine, but every once in a while her worrying got out of hand. It usually happened at times like this, when he was keeping a secret from her. No matter how hard he tried to hide it, she guessed. And since she didn't know exactly
what
was wrong, her imagination took over.

“Now what I want you to do,” Mrs. Keppel went on, “is rest. No bike rides, no ball games. No fishing! Just rest. Is that understood, young man?”

Jeff said it was. His mother's orders fitted into his own plans. After the fishing trip yesterday, he didn't think he'd feel safe anywhere but in his own room.

A few minutes later, he discovered he couldn't escape there either. When he switched on the bedside radio to his favorite Top 40 station, the first song he heard was “I Don't Have a Ghost of a Chance.” The second was a golden oldie called “Bewitched.”

He turned to another station and found a call-in show. “Do you know someone with an unusual occupation?” the master of ceremonies asked. “If you do, give us a call and tell us all about it on the air.”

I know a witch!
The words echoed in Jeff's head as if he'd said them out loud. He felt an urge to make the call and tell the world about Margo Muggin.
Go on. Do it!
He groaned and turned off the radio quickly, before the emcee could give the telephone number.

For a while after that he lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling. The light fixture became Ernie's smiling face. He turned on his side and looked out the window, until a blackbird landed on the sill. It glared in with beady witch's eyes, chirping furiously. The chirping sounded like
Trouble! Trouble! Trouble!

Jeff rolled over and put a pillow over his head.

“Art is here, dear.” Mrs. Keppel stood in the doorway, trying to look as if she were used to seeing her son lying down in the middle of the day with a pillow over his head. “Isn't that nice? He can go with you.”

Jeff pushed the pillow away and sat up. “Go where?” he demanded. “I'm not going anywhere.”

“You're going to see Dr. Palm. I'll drop you and Art there while I do some grocery shopping. It'll just take a few minutes,” she hurried on before he could interrupt. “And then we'll both feel much better, I'm sure. I called the doctor just now, because I'm really worried about the pneumonia thing.”

“There isn't any pneumonia thing,” Jeff said, but he knew it was no use. When his mother worried, she took action. He should have guessed that the action would include a visit to Dr. Palm.

Art was waiting in the backyard when Jeff came downstairs.

“You okay? Your mom says you have to go to the doctor.”

“I'm okay,” Jeff muttered. “She thinks I'm going to die because I fell in the lake.”

“But people go swimming in that lake every day,” Art protested. “It's summer, for pete's sake.”

“I guess she thinks falling in is different from jumping in.” Jeff wanted to change the subject. “How's your dad?”

“Depressed. Mad, too. He called everybody he knew last night to tell them about the fish, and nobody believes him. I mean, they're real sympathetic till he gets to the part where the musky jumped six feet straight up from the bottom of the net. Then they laugh.”

“But it did do that,” Jeff said. “I saw it.”

“We all saw it,” Art agreed. “But even my dad says he wouldn't have believed it if he wasn't there. That fish was stronger than any musky ought to be.” He paused. “I was thinking, it didn't just
look
like Ernie Barber.”

Jeff jumped to attention. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“It means they were both tough and sneaky, that's all.” Art frowned. “Man, you are really touchy! You want me to go to the doctor with you or not?”

“You bet,” Jeff said. He didn't want to go anywhere by himself if he could avoid it.

A half hour later the two boys were in the backseat of the car, looking out at the bright summer day. It was going to be hot, but this time of morning there was still a pleasant breeze. Jeff thought of all the things they could be doing today if he didn't have to worry about the Top Secret Project. They could go skateboarding, or practice basketball shots, or take a hike. It was a good day for almost anything except going to the doctor, he thought sourly.

Dr. Palm's office was in a low brick building on the outskirts of Treverton. Jeff had been coming here for checkups and shots as long as he could remember. Dr. Palm and his nurse-receptionist, Mrs. Drewek, were old friends. Today, though, someone new sat behind the maple desk just inside the door. She was gray-haired and heavy with a quick little smile that came and went like a sunbeam.

“Mrs. Drewek's on vacation,” she explained. “Gone to England with her husband. I'm setting up appointments and checking patients in.” She looked over her list. “You're Jeffrey Keppel, aren't you? Been here before, it says, so you know the ropes. Just go down the hall to the last room on the left. The nurse is back there somewhere, and Dr. Palm will be with you in a few minutes.”