The Secret Life of Sparrow Delaney (6 page)

Chapter 8

“You
know, Sparrow, tonight is the last message service of the season,” my mother said to me a few days later. It was Saturday; I was having lunch with my mother, Wren, Lark, and Linnet and considering what I wanted to do with the day. Usually I lounged around, maybe went on a bike ride, and thought vaguely about getting an early start on my homework without, of course, actually doing anything of the sort. Today, however, all I could think about was
next
Saturday, when I would be meeting Jack at the museum.

And now my mother, who was not a wheedler by nature, had decided to start wheedling about going to a message service. I quickly took a big bite of my grilled cheese sandwich to avoid answering. “Mmm,” I said instead.

“It would be so lovely if you would come with us.” My mother's vague gaze drifted off to the far corner of the kitchen. “Dear, please don't sniff the red wine. You know it gives you headaches.”

I glanced over and saw the prune-colored image of a woman wearing a hoop skirt, a sunbonnet, and a sour expression lurking between the sink and the stove.

“Is Mrs. Witherspoon manifesting again?” Lark asked. She used her spoon to slingshot a cherry tomato in the direction of my mother's gaze.

“Lark!” my mother said. “Manners!”

“Sorry,” Lark said blandly as Linnet giggled. “It just got away from me.”

Mrs. Witherspoon, who Crossed Over right after the Civil War, is not a family favorite, to put it mildly. Even my mother has come close to losing patience with her. Perhaps because of the many, many travails she suffered on Earth, Mrs. Witherspoon used to take a nip now and then when she was alive. Now she just inhales the fumes from any wine bottles that happen to be around and then comments disapprovingly to my mother about the behavior of “young ladies these days,” meaning, of course, my sisters and me.

My mother cocked her head to one side and listened for a moment. Then she turned to us and said, “Mrs. Witherspoon says that you should use your napkins a little more and try to smack your lips a little less—”

A chorus of boos greeted this etiquette tip from Beyond.

“It's just food for thought, darlings, all just food for thought.” Then she turned back to me. “About tonight's message service—”

“No,” I said. “Of course not. No.”

The first time I went to a message service, I was horrified to discover that ghosts had no qualms about standing right next to my seat, leaning forward so that their faces were only inches from mine, and yelling over one another to get my attention. I finally told my mother that I'd developed a migraine (which turned out unfortunately to be true) and ran from the auditorium.

Gradually I got better at ignoring the spirits, but I never became truly comfortable. For one thing, it's exhausting to maintain the illusion that I don't see anything out of the ordinary
.
And then there are the physical symptoms I get from spending too much time around too many ghosts. My chest starts to feel tight, I begin to shiver uncontrollably, my nerves feel as jangled as if I'd drunk a pot of coffee. And I always end up with a killer headache.

So I quit going. My mother thought that I was disheartened by my lack of psychic success, so she kept coaxing me to “just try one more time, darling, I'm sure you'll get a message tonight!”

I had been steadfastly refusing for so long that we could now conduct our discussion almost entirely in shorthand.

“I'm sure you'll find it—”

“No, I've told you—”

“If you'd just try—”

“But I have, and anyway, it's so—”

“No, darling, it's not boring, not really—”

“Yes, it is! In fact, it's—”

Just as we reached round three and I was opening my mouth to take an irritated bite of sandwich, I felt a little nudge, right between my shoulder blades. A freezing cold little nudge.

I turned around. Oh, no. The ghost from school was perched on the kitchen counter. The nudge I had felt was from his foot, which was swinging lazily as he watched our family discussion.

He nodded a cheery hello.

I deliberately turned my back to him and tried to remember where I had left off with my mother.

Ah, yes.

“It is
beyond
boring,” I said truculently.

There it was again. Another nudge, harder this time. It made my elbow slip off the table. (All right, that means it was
on
the table while I was eating. Mrs. Witherspoon isn't totally wrong about our manners.) My soup slopped onto the tablecloth. Wren looked martyred.

I almost said a very bad word. I stiffened my back, trying to send a clear message to the ghost—Go away, you're not welcome here, don't you have something important to do in the afterworld?—through sheer force of mind.

“Sparrow? Is something wrong?” My mother was watching me closely.

“What's wrong is that I just washed and ironed that tablecloth yesterday!” Wren said. “It took half an hour!”

I followed family tradition and ignored Wren; after all, she was the one who insisted we use tablecloths at every meal, including lunch, and everyone knew she secretly loved to iron. “I was just saying that I don't think I can make it tonight because—”

Another . . . okay, that wasn't a nudge. That was a
shove
. I heard a whisper from behind me: “Sparrow. Go.”

Somehow, without meaning to say those words
at all
, I heard myself snap, “Oh, all right! I'll go!”

Everyone stopped eating. Everyone looked at me. Then everyone looked at one another, as if to check that she hadn't been the only person who had heard what I just said.

“Oh, Sparrow!” My mother's eyes were shining. “Really?”

I shrugged. “It's no big deal,” I said, even though I could already feel my breathing getting shallow. I sneaked a peek behind me. The ghost was gone.

As the day wore on and the time for the message service approached, I could feel my stomach starting to jump.

It's only one hour out of your life, I kept telling myself. You can do this. After all, you know how to handle spirits.

Indeed, I had learned a lot about ghosts over the years, thanks to a few pointers from my spirit guides and my own observations. For example, I discovered that people's personalities don't change a lot when they Cross Over. There are calm ghosts, jittery ghosts, angry ghosts, and (most annoying) ghosts that sigh and roll their eyes to the ceiling and say things like “I don't want to be any trouble. Really. If it's too much to ask for you to let my grief-stricken family know that I'm all right, well, I understand.” Just think of every kind of person you've ever met in your life, and I can guarantee there's a ghostly counterpart.

I also found out that no matter how different their personalities are, they all have one thing in common: It takes an awful lot to discourage them. However, I did finally develop, through trial and error, three simple rules to keep all but the most persistent ghosts away from me.

Rule 1: Refuse to acknowledge the ghost's presence.

When ghosts approached me, I stared steadfastly into the distance and pretended that I didn't see them. Even if they waved their arms. Even if they jumped up and down. Even if they got so close that they were seriously invading my personal space.

Rule 2: Think boring thoughts.

Ignoring someone who is trying desperately to get your attention requires a lot of concentration. I found that it was easier if I focused on something tedious enough to make my mind go blank but complicated enough to demand a certain amount of focus—mentally reciting the twelve-times multiplication table, for example, or conjugating French verbs. I also memorized several endless poems by Longfellow and entire sections of the judicial code for just this purpose.

Rule 3: Finally, never, ever talk to them.

This is the most important rule of all. Saying something to a ghost means you've made a connection. And once you've made a connection, you're hooked, like a fish that has fallen for a particularly entrancing lure.

After I followed these three rules for a while, the ghostly grapevine gradually began working in my favor. I was branded a poor sport in the spirit world. Fewer and fewer ghosts dropped by for a chat.

They left me alone. I left them alone. And every-one—and by everyone, I mean, of course,
me—
was quite happy with that state of affairs.

So as I walked with my family to the auditorium, a barnlike wooden building in the middle of town, I was wondering how, how,
how
that pushy ghost from school was getting me to do things that I had sworn I would never do again.

We joined the crowd of people flowing into the building, talking in low but excited voices about what was about to transpire. My mother said coaxingly, “Sparrow, why don't you sit next to me? I'm sure you'll serve Spirit tonight! I've been seeing the most auspicious signs all day—”

“In a minute,” I said. “I need to run to the rest room first—”

“Time for Sparrow's world-famous disappearing act.” Raven's voice was acid.

“I'll be right back,” I said untruthfully.

“Yeah, we'll save you a seat,” Lark said with weary disbelief.

As Grandma Bee led the Delaney contingent boldly down to the front row, I edged my way toward the side wall. There were huge windows on two sides of the building, kept open to catch any hint of a breeze. Lattice screens were set up a few feet in front of the windows to hide all the miscellaneous items, such as extra chairs, hymnals, and office supplies, that the people working the entrance might need. The screens also offered a convenient place to hide, if that was the kind of mood you happened to be in. I ducked behind one, took a seat, and watched as the audience got settled in for the service.

The rows of folding chairs were already packed with the last group of summer tourists, and when it came to spirits, it was standing room only. Already at least two dozen misty figures were scattered through the hall. I shivered, and scooted back a little farther behind the screen.

At seven o'clock on the dot Miss Canterville, a tall, thin woman with curly white hair and piercing blue eyes, took the stage.

“Good evening!” she called out.

“Good evening!” the audience chorused in response.

After saying a brief prayer and leading the room in a ragged but heartfelt hymn, Miss Canterville looked around the room. “I can see that a lot of you brought spirits in with you,” she said. “We have quite a crowd today!”

There was an excited buzz. Some people glanced over their shoulders, and at least half the audience shifted to the edge of their seats.

“Please look down and notice what you're wearing.” Miss Canterville went on. Heads bowed as everyone checked—let's see, did I put on the white T-shirt or the fuchsia blouse today?—then looked up, memories refreshed. “I ask you to do that because our mediums will often point to someone in the audience and say, ‘I have a message for the man wearing the blue and white striped shirt.' ”

She gestured toward a man wearing just such a shirt. He sat up a little straighter, eyes wide, as if he suddenly realized that he might actually be selected to hear a message from the spirit world. The people sitting around him stirred in anticipation.

“It helps keep things moving if you can remember what you put on this morning,” she said in a lighthearted tone that was calculated to make the crowd chuckle. They did chuckle, right on cue. You'd never know that Miss Canterville had repeated the same patter at least once a day for the entire summer.

“First, I'd like to ask Sylvia Robertson, a registered medium here in Lily Dale, to come forward and serve Spirit.”

Miss Robertson walked eagerly to the front of the room and scanned the faces in front of her. After a moment she pointed to someone in the fourth row and said, “The woman wearing the green blouse. May I come to you?”

The woman nodded eagerly.

“Please say something, dear, I need to hear your voice for Spirit to come through. May I come to you?”

The woman cleared her throat and said, very loudly, “Yes, you may.”

“I see a dog sitting right by your feet, it looks like a pug, do you understand that?” Miss Robertson said rapidly.

“Yes!” the woman cried as a friend gave her a significant nudge. Clearly Miss Robertson had scored a direct hit right off the bat.

“I'm getting the name Barry or Bob, do you understand that?”

“His name was Bart!” the woman squeaked.

“Yes, Bart, he was quite a pistol when he was on this plane, wasn't he, dear? Quite the ladies' man.”

The woman was nodding so much she looked like a bobble-head doll.

“Yes, I see that he already has a special friend on the Other Side.” A ripple of laughter ran through the audience. “He wants you to know that he feels like a young pup again.” She paused to listen, smiled, then added, “And he's so happy that you took in that little stray from down the street, but he wants you to buy a new dog dish. He doesn't like seeing someone eat out of his bowl. That's why he keeps pushing it behind the refrigerator.”

The woman looked a little stunned

“And I'll leave you that with blessings, my dear,” Miss Robertson finished up.

She strolled to the other side of the room, her eyes searching the audience. She drew out the moment a bit (Miss Robertson loves her moment in the spotlight) but finally pointed to someone else. “May I come to you?”

She passed on an entertainingly sarcastic message from a Siamese cat (“I
told
you I was sick, but would you listen?”) and a golden retriever's slobbery declaration of adoration for his former owners (“I really really really love you, yes, I do, I really really do!”). Then the gerbils started coming through, and Miss Canterville sensed that people's patience was wearing thin. She said crisply, “Lovely, dear. Such comforting messages, as always. But I believe there are other spirits anxious to communicate with their loved ones.”