The Ghost of Fossil Glen (2 page)

Allie opened her eyes and was glad to find herself alone in the quiet, familiar kitchen, and no sign of a black-haired girl crying for help. She reached for the phone and dialed her friend Karen's number.

“Karen?” she said excitedly. “It's me.”

“Oh, hi, Allie. What's up?”

“The strangest thing just happened!”

“What?” said Karen flatly.

“You won't believe it.”

Karen muttered, “You got that right.”

“What?” said Allie, taken aback by Karen's sarcastic tone.

“Nothing,” Karen said. “So what happened?”

Allie was so eager to tell her story that she went on, despite Karen's odd remark. “I was in the glen today, looking for fossils—”

“Whoopee,” Karen broke in.

“I found a good one,” Allie said.

“That's what you called to tell me?” asked Karen.

“
No
,” said Allie. “I'm getting to that. I climbed up the cliff pretty high, and I got stuck, and this
voice
spoke to me and told me how to get down, and then when I got home I heard it again and—”

“Who was it?” asked Karen, sounding faintly bored.

“That's what's so strange,” Allie said. “There wasn't anybody there.” She paused dramatically, waiting for Karen to react with interest to this startling news, or to ask a question, the way Dub had.

The pause grew longer. Finally Karen said, “Here we go. Now you're hearing voices.”

Allie stared at the phone, bewildered. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“Oh, never mind,” said Karen breezily. “Forget I said anything.”

“Wait a second,” Allie insisted. “What did you mean?”

“Really, it's nothing,” said Karen, “just something Pam and I were talking about after school.”

“You were talking about
me?
”

“Yes.”

Allie could feel her heart pounding unpleasantly. “What—what were you saying?” she managed to ask.

“Well, nothing personal, but we were saying how you always, you know…”

“W-what?” stammered Allie.

“You're, like, such a
liar
.”

Allie's cheeks flooded with a mixture of surprise and embarrassment. “I am not!” she said loudly.

Karen went on as if Allie hadn't spoken. “I wasn't going to say anything, but since you insisted, I'll tell you: we're totally sick of the way you act like everything is so exciting and amazing and interesting all the time. Like there's anything exciting or interesting going on around this boring place.”

“I-I don't know what you mean.” Allie's voice was almost a whisper.

“Come on, Allie, sure you do. Like today at lunch. All that stuff you were saying about Ms. Gillespie? And Mr. Pinkney and Mrs. Hobbs?”

Allie thought for a moment. She and Karen and Pam had been sitting together in the cafeteria. While they were eating, Ms. Gillespie, the school principal, had walked through the room. Karen had made a remark about Ms. Gillespie's red high heels and her long, red-lacquered fingernails. And Allie, agreeing that Ms. Gillespie was awfully glamorous for a principal, had suggested that perhaps the leader of their school was truly an heiress, disowned by her wealthy family because they disapproved of the man she wanted to marry.

Then, Allie recalled, she had jokingly said that maybe Ms. Gillespie's fiancé disappeared as soon as he found out she'd lost her money, and that
that
was how she had ended up as principal of Seneca Heights School.

“But, Karen,” she protested. “I was just kidding around. We all were…” Her voice fell off, full of doubt and confusion. “At least, I thought we were.”

“What about Mr. Pinkney?” Karen asked accusingly.

Allie had simply been trying to figure out why a man like Mr. Pinkney, who was so out of shape that he huffed and puffed just walking across the room, was working as a gym teacher.

“You
said
he witnessed a murder and now he's hiding out because the murderers want to kill him, too. You said that's why he took on the identity of a gym teacher.”

“No, I didn't. I said
maybe
. I was just messing around, playing a game.
Imagining
that it was something like that,” explained Allie.

“And what about Mrs. Hobbs and her terrible tragedy?” Karen went on relentlessly.

Mrs. Hobbs was the head cafeteria lady. All the kids, even the sixth-graders, were terrified of her. She stood behind the lunch counter, mouth clamped like an angry snapping turtle, as the children crept fearfully past. A lot of them brought their lunch from home, even on Fridays when there was pizza, rather than have to face her.

“All I said was, I bet that sometime in her past something awful happened to make her so crabby. Maybe it had to do with kids. Don't you think that's possible?” Allie asked, hating the way her voice sounded so small and pleading.

“Who knows?” Karen said breezily. “Who cares? The point is, Pam and I decided we're totally sick of the way you make up stuff like that all the time.”

Allie was too stunned to reply.

“No offense, okay?” said Karen. “I'm only telling you as a friend.”

Then why didn't it feel friendly? Allie wondered. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. What was there to say?

“Anyway, I've got to go,” Karen said. “I want to get my journal entry done so I can watch
Teen Twins
tonight. I've
got
to find out if Jason likes Jodi or Stephanie. See ya.”

There was a click in Allie's ear as Karen hung up. Allie stood in the kitchen, clutching the phone, her cheeks still burning. She started to call Karen back, to correct what was surely a silly misunderstanding, but the memory of Karen's scornful voice made her draw her hand back.

“I wasn't lying,” she said fiercely, fighting back tears. “How can she call it that?”

Ever since she was a little girl, Allie had made up stories about the things and the people around her. She knew that there was more to people than their normal, everyday manner revealed. Beneath the surface, the most ordinary objects and people pulsed with extraordinary drama. If you paid attention, she knew, you could see into those hidden truths. Allie paid attention.

And so of course she noticed people, including the teachers at school. And naturally she was curious about Ms. Gillespie, who seemed out of place at Seneca Heights School, and about Mr. Pinkney, who was clearly unsuited for his job as gym teacher, and about Mrs. Hobbs, who plainly hated children. All Allie had been doing was wondering what their lives were like outside of school.

Allie's report cards almost always contained comments about her “active imagination.” Sometimes the teachers' words carefully suggested that Allie didn't always know the difference between what was real and what she imagined. But that wasn't right: she knew.

Angrily, she brushed the tears from her eyes, glad that Karen wasn't present to see the effect of her words. Karen was popular, and Allie considered herself lucky to be among Karen's small group of chosen friends. But it was confusing, too. Having friends was supposed to make you feel good. Still, lots of times when Allie was with Karen, she felt the way she did now: unsure, small, as if something was wrong with her.

She thought about how she might make up with Karen at school the next day. She had noticed that Pam pretty much did whatever Karen said. If Karen decided Allie was okay, Pam would go along with her. Every night, Karen and Pam watched
Teen Twins
, Karen's favorite show, and every day they talked about the show and what had happened on it. Allie decided she'd watch that evening so she could join in the discussion the next morning. Then perhaps she could explain that she'd been joking, not lying, and they'd all laugh about the misunderstanding.

She was glad she hadn't told Karen any more about the voice or the mailbox or the mysterious book. She had told Dub, but that was different. Dub had always been around, ever since the first day of kindergarten, when their teacher, Mrs. Uhler, had said, “Raise your hand if you can tie your own shoes.” Dub and Allie were the only two kids whose hands didn't go up. Mrs. Uhler sent them into the corner with a big wooden shoe with long red laces so they could practice. The friendship that began over that shoe had continued right into sixth grade.

They were still friends, even though some kids teased them about being secretly “in love,” and even though Karen kept asking Allie why she hung around with a geek like Dub.

But to Allie, Dub wasn't a geek. Dub was—well, Dub was Dub. Good old Dub.

Allie looked at the kitchen clock and saw that it was 5:30. Her father was probably picking up Michael at the baby-sitter's, which meant they'd be home any minute. She decided to take the red leather book to her room, where it would be safe from Michael and from the mess that often went along with her father's dinner preparations. Gingerly, she picked it up and instantly felt the strange sensation pass through her. In a funny way, it was beginning to seem less scary, more familiar.

She set the book down on the piece of plywood supported by cinder blocks that served as her desk. The sound of Michael's feet running up the stairs was accompanied by her father's voice: “Allie-Cat? We're home.”

Allie-Cat was her dad's pet name for her. Sometimes she complained, but the truth was, she liked when he called her that.

Dub was a nickname, too. His real name was his father's, Oliver James Whitwell, but his mother had always called him Dub, short for “double.” She said it was to save him from being stuck with Ollie or Junior. Dub was grateful, and Allie could see why.

“Hi, Dad. Be right down.”

Michael appeared at the door to her bedroom, saying, “Guess what I—” He stopped, staring wide-eyed at Allie.

“What's the matter, Mikey?” said Allie, laughing at the expression on his face. “You look like you saw a ghost!”

“You look funny,” said Michael. He sounded scared.

“What do you mean?” asked Allie. She glanced in the mirror over her dresser and gasped. There were two red stripes of blood across her cheek, where she had rubbed her face with her bleeding fingers. More blood had dripped from her forehead down to her eyebrow, where it had caked and dried, and some was smeared on the front of her windbreaker, which was ripped and covered with dirt. Her hair was sticking out of her barrettes in wild disarray, and the knees of her pants were torn and filthy.

She knelt down in front of Michael and smiled at him. “It's okay, Mike. I just got dirty looking for fossils, and cut myself a little bit. I'm a mess, huh?”

Michael nodded solemnly. Allie pointed to the front of Michael's shirt, which was spattered with red, yellow, blue, and brown paint. “You're kind of a mess yourself, squirt,” she said.

Michael's face broke into a grin. “Guess what I did at Fritzi's today?”

Fritzi was Michael's baby-sitter. Looking at Michael, Allie was pretty sure she knew, but she asked anyway. “What?”

“Painted,” said Michael proudly.

“What did you paint? Besides yourself.”

“Pictures,” Michael answered. “Fritzi had big, big paper and we covered the whole thing.”

“Sounds like fun,” said Allie. “I just heard Mom come in. How 'bout we clean up a little bit before dinner?”

Allie scrubbed Michael's face and arms, and found him a clean shirt. Then she dabbed carefully at her own face with a washcloth. With the blood gone and her hair combed to hide the cut above her eye, she didn't look bad at all. She put on a clean shirt and changed into a different pair of jeans, then checked herself in the mirror and felt satisfied that her appearance wouldn't cause her parents any alarm.

She sprayed some cleanser on the spots of paint and blood, and was just putting the dirty clothes into the hamper when she heard her mother call up the stairs: “Allie! Michael! Dinner's ready.”

As the family ate the leftover spaghetti and meatballs Mr. Nichols had hastily popped in the microwave, Mrs. Nichols told them about her day at the antiques shop she owned in town. “A man stopped by today, saying he was in charge of selling the contents of the Stiles house.”

At the mention of the Stiles house, Allie's ears perked up. She walked by the deserted Stiles house twice each day, since it was just three doors down from school. For years, it had been empty. As time passed, it grew more and more bleak and desolate-looking. The white paint was faded and peeling, the porch was crumpling wearily, and the loose black shutters banged noisily in the wind. The grass, untended, was overgrown and had given way in places to various weeds and vines, some of which climbed the columns on the porch, adding to the dreary sense of abandonment.

For Allie, the place held a creepy fascination. She couldn't help wondering what had happened to the Stiles family. Where had they gone, and why? Why did the house remain empty and unsold? She'd made up fascinating stories about the people, now gone, who had lived there.

“Naturally, I was curious,” Mrs. Nichols was saying. “I've always heard the house was beautifully furnished, and that everything was simply left there. I told him I'd take a look at what he had. We went out to his van, where he had some really exquisite pieces. I ended up buying quite a few.”

“That's a bit unusual, isn't it?” asked Mr. Nichols.

“Well, yes,” said Mrs. Nichols. “I guess that's why I mentioned it. Most of the time, I buy from auctions or estate sales or shows. I don't believe I've ever had anyone drop by like that, selling from the back of a van. But he had all the proper ownership papers and so on.”

“Was it Mr. Stiles?” asked Allie.

“No,” answered her mother. “I believe Mr. Stiles died some time ago. This man's name was Curtis. The papers said he was the agent for somebody else. I can't remember the name.”

“Is someone moving into the house?” asked Mr. Nichols. “Is that why they're selling off the contents?”

“I asked Mr. Curtis that,” said Mrs. Nichols, “but he didn't seem to know anything. He'd been hired to empty the place out, that's all.”

She turned eagerly to Allie. “I bought a desk, sweetie, that's really quite special. I thought you might want it for your room. You should come by and take a look at it.”

“Okay, Mom.”

“It's about time we got you something to replace that piece of plywood you've been using,” said Mrs. Nichols with a smile.

When they had finished talking and eating, Allie excused herself to do her homework. She shut her bedroom door so Michael wouldn't come in and bother her. She wanted complete privacy to concentrate on her first journal entry. Slowly, she walked toward her desk, anticipating the thrilling, disquieting feeling she'd had earlier. But she felt nothing unusual.

Relieved, and a little disappointed, she sat down to write. She wanted to write something that would dazzle Mr. Henry with her creativity and brilliance. But her brain felt empty as she looked at the clean, blank journal pages. Nothing at all came to mind.

She looked at her pen. It was an ordinary ballpoint. Not, she thought, very inspiring, definitely not a proper pen for writing something momentous. She closed the book, got up, went down the hall to the room her parents used for an office, and rummaged in the desk drawer until she came upon her mother's fountain pen and the bottle of peacock-blue ink. That, she thought with satisfaction, was what she needed.

When she got back to her room, the door was closed. “Michael?” she said, stepping into the room. “Are you in here?”

No answer.

“Come on, Michael. Quit fooling around. I've got homework to do.” She checked the only two places where he could be hiding, the closet and under the bed, but there was no sign of Michael.

Her heart lurched. The book was
open
. She was sure she had closed it before leaving the room.

Then she saw the gold-edged pages of her journal flutter just a bit. She looked toward the window. It was shut. A slight breeze came through the doorway, but it wasn't strong enough to open the heavy leather cover and blow the pages about.

The air in the bedroom felt chilly. Allie's eyes fell on the journal, open to the first page. Legs trembling, she walked closer.

The page was no longer blank. Written at the top in a thin, quavering hand were the words:

 

I am L

 

Allie stared at the page in wonder. The “L” trailed off in a streak of ink, as if the writer had been interrupted suddenly, or as if the effort of writing had been too great. But who could it have been?

Taking a deep breath, she told herself that there was one obvious explanation: the words had been there before and she simply hadn't seen them. She recalled looking through every page of the book as she'd talked with Dub on the phone. Had she somehow missed the first page? She didn't think so.

She looked again at the message. Who was “L”? She had no idea.