The Gloomy Ghost

 

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For those big brothers who remain loyal

 

Contents

       
Title Page

       
Copyright Notice

       
Dedication

       
Author's Note

  
1.
  Getting Spooked

  
2.
  Totally Bushed

       
Illustration 1

  
3.
  Berried Alive

  
4.
  Just Passing Through

       
Illustration 2

  
5.
  That Sinking Sensation

  
6.
  Haunt and Seek

       
Illustration 3

  
7.
  Welcome?

       
Illustration 4

  
8.
The Spirits Are About to Speak

  
9.
  Has Anybody Found My Body?

10.
  Repulsive Rory

       
Illustration 5

11.
  The Ride of a Lifetime

       
Illustration 6

12.
  Hospital Hospitality

13.
  Getting Through Is Hard to Do

14.
  Out and About

15.
  Old Stuff

       
Illustration 7

16.
  That's a Switch

17.
  Smash and Crash

       
Illustration 8

18.
  Galloping Ghosts

       
Illustration 9

19.
  Rory the Star

20.
  Running Out of Time

21.
  Figuring Out an Action

22.
  Get the Message?

       
Illustration 10

       
Illustration 11

23.
  Now or Never

       
Illustration 12

24.
  Great Expectations

       
Afterword

       
Excerpt from
The Bully Bug

       
Starscape Books by David Lubar

       
About the Author

       
Copyright

 

Author's Note

I've always been a fan of monsters. As a kid, I watched monster movies, read monster magazines, built monster models, and even tried my hand at monster makeup for Halloween. Basically, I was a creepy little kid. It's no surprise that, when I grew up and became a writer, I would tell monster stories. I've written a lot of them over the years. My short-story collections, such as
Attack of the Vampire Weenies and Other Warped and Creepy Tales,
are full of vampires, werewolves, ghosts, witches, giant insects, and other classic creatures. The book you hold in your hands is also about a monster. But it is different from my short stories in a wonderful way. Let me explain.

Years ago, I decided I wanted to tell a tale through the eyes of a monster. That idea excited me, but it didn't feel special enough, by itself. Then I had a second idea that went perfectly with the first one. What if a kid became a monster? Even better—what if the kid had to decide whether to remain as a monster or to become human again? The result of these ideas was not one book, but six. It seems the town of Lewington attracts a monsterrific amount of trouble. To find out more, read on.

 

One

GETTING SPOOKED

Being little stinks. Adults act like I don't exist. Even when I'm in the room, they act like I'm not there. They talk about me right in front of me. Maybe they think their words just shoot across the room and don't reach down to me. It's amazing. I can be sitting right there—right under their noses—and they'll start talking about me. Rory this and Rory that. Rory had a bad day today or Rory shouldn't be playing with that boy down the street. Sometimes I want to shout at them, “Hey, I'm right here!”

They all do it. Mom and Dad, Mr. Nordy next door, Dr. Bugwitz, my teacher Mrs. Rubric, everyone.

Being little stinks. But it's better than being dead. Being dead can
really
stink. No joke. I don't mean you start to stink. Well, I guess you do if you're really dead. But I'm just sort of dead, so I don't stink. Maybe I'm just almost dead. But I know I'm dead enough to be a ghost.

I'm skipping over a bunch of stuff. I've got to go back, so it makes sense. It's like Mom says when I get excited. “Slow down. Just tell one thing at a time.” Okay, I'm going to slow down and tell one thing at a time.

First, who am I? I'm Rory. But that doesn't tell you a lot. I'm in kindergarten. I've got a brother, Sebastian, who is really great. He's my big buddy. He lets me look at his monster books. I've got a sister, Angelina. She's the oldest. She's getting close to being a big person, so sometimes she treats me like I'm not there. But she also makes me cookies sometimes. And she was a witch for a while. Not a nasty witch, but a fun one. Angelina and Sebastian fight all the time. Not hit and punch fight, but with words. Sebastian usually wins. He's cool. His friends call him Splat. That's a funny story. I'll tell it later if I remember.

I like soldiers and monsters and trucks—especially monster trucks. I like guns, but Mom doesn't. I don't have a lot of guns. I used to not have any, but I made guns out of sticks, so Mom gave up and let me have some toy guns. Dad doesn't mind if I have toy guns. I don't point them at any real people or animals—just at enemy soldiers and monsters.

Wow, I'm really chattering. If I keep talking about me, this story won't go anywhere. I'd better hurry through the rest. So, there's Sebastian and Angelina. I told you about them. I have a friend, Becky, who lives down the street. She's great. She can bend her thumb back so it touches her wrist. And she can do that trick with her eyes where she makes them go all white. Her mom hates that. I think Sebastian has a crush on Becky's big sister, Dawn. He acts real goofy when she's around.

I have another friend, Tony, who lives down the street, but the other way. Becky and Tony hate each other right now. Oh, and I've got parents. Mom and Dad. That's what I call them.

Before I got dead, I guess I was just a normal kid. I'm still a normal kid, except I'm a ghost kid. That would be cool, if I was alive. But I guess you can't be alive
and
be a ghost. It's like when Dad says, “You can't have it both ways.” My parents are always saying things. Most of the time, I'm not really sure what they mean. Like, what does “Someday you'll thank me for this” mean? It's more like “Someday I'll spank you for this.” That, I understand.

So anyhow, now you know enough about me. And—oh, yeah—I live in Lewington and I go to morning kindergarten at Washington Irving Elementary School. I don't know if I'll be going there anymore, since I'm dead.

Now you know everything about me except how I got into this mess. Well, I guess it really started when I broke the television.

 

Two

TOTALLY BUSHED

I figured it would be great to have the sound from the television come out of the big speakers on the stereo. My friend Tony's dad had their set hooked up that way. It didn't look hard, and the television sounded real good. I was up early in the morning and everyone else was asleep. I was bored. So I got some wire from Dad's tool bench in the garage and started trying to connect things. Really, how hard could it be?

Harder than I thought, I guess. As soon as I hooked up the first wire, there was this
ZZZZZAAAAP
sound and a burning smell. I jumped halfway across the room when that happened. Then a bunch of white smoke came from inside the television. It smelled awful.

“I'm dead,” I said.

Dad would kill me when he found out. I didn't have to think twice about what to do. I rushed straight out of the house. There was no way I could hide what I'd done. If I'd broken something small, like a radio, I could hide it. But even if I had a place to hide the television, I couldn't move it by myself. Our television weighs a ton. There was no way I could blame someone else, either. I'd broken enough things before so they always knew, whenever anything broke, Rory did it.

The alarm clock was my fault. I'll admit that. I wanted to see how it worked. How could it always ring at the right time? But I didn't mean to break the vacuum cleaner. And I sure didn't mean to wreck both garage door openers on the same day. But all those things just sort of happened to me.

I went out the back door. There were some bushes at the corner of the yard next to the swings. They were real thick and the branches drooped to the ground. Dad kept asking Sebastian to trim them. And Sebastian kept saying he would. But he never did it. I crawled through the branches and hid. It was almost like being under my blankets, but there was fresh air.

I could see it now. It's always the same. First, they'd get angry. Then they'd try to figure out a reason—like if there was a reason I did it, then it wouldn't be so bad. So I'd tell them I was just trying to make it better.

“Didn't you think?” Mom would say. “Didn't you stop to think?”

“We are
very
,
very
disappointed with you,” Dad would say.

Then they'd start in on the safety stuff.

“You could have gotten hurt.” That was the one I heard the most. That's what they said when I tried to drive the car. That's what they said when I tried to cut down the old dead apple tree with Dad's handsaw. That's what they said when I tried to teach myself to swim in Mr. Nordy's pool. I guess I could have gotten hurt, but nothing ever seems dangerous when I start out.

Then they'd figure out my punishment. That would be bad. I mean, I'd destroyed the television. We practically lived around it. Every night, we watched TV. And I had broken it. No doubt about it—I was dead.

Sitting under some bushes can get pretty boring. I dug around, looking for bugs to play with. I didn't find any. There's never a good bug around when you need one. I had my watch with me. Mom and Dad gave it to me for my last birthday. There aren't any hands like on the clocks at school. Those are hard to read. On my watch, the minutes are numbers. Sebastian taught me how to read it. He's always teaching me important stuff. I thought I'd been under the bushes for at least an hour, but it had only been two or three minutes.

Then I started getting hungry. I thought about sneaking into the kitchen for a box of cereal. But I wasn't going to leave my hiding place for a long time. I was just going to stay until they forgot about the TV. Then I'd come back. It might take a day or two, but it was my only hope.

While I was looking around for something to do, I noticed there were red berries on the bushes. Tony said that all red berries are poison. But Tony lies all the time.

Last week, Tony said, “My dad used to tame lions in the circus.”