Ghosts Don't Wear Glasses Read online

  “He’s ghost crazy,” I said. “Don’t listen to him.”

  “When you face an unknown entity,” T. J. began reciting, “Dr. Ghost B. Gone always says to walk softly and carry a big flashlight.”

  The guy started coughing like his spit went down his trachea instead of his esophagus. He looked real startled.

  “It’s not far,” I said, to get the conversation away from ghosts, since, like I said, archaeologists like facts.

  “You hang a left out of the parking lot,” said Roger. “That will put you on forty-four, Harbor Road. You take that past two stop signs.”

  “No, three,” I said.

  The guy opened his backpack and pulled out a notebook. I caught a glimpse of a magnifying glass, a compass, and little clip things that looked like calipers. Archaeology tools. The guy wrote down the directions, thanked us, and then hurried into the market.

  “I can’t believe we just met a real live ghost hunter,” said T. J.

  “He wasn’t a ghost hunter,” I said. “He was an archaeologist. Didn’t you see his T-shirt?”

  “You can’t believe everything you read on a T-shirt, Fish,” said Roger. “Think of all the first-grade Jedi warriors there would be in the world.”

  “I know,” I said. “But he had archaeology equipment.”

  “That was ghost-hunting equipment,” said T. J.

  “A magnifying glass is for studying artifacts—”

  “No, it’s for studying ectoplasm,” said T. J. “The stuff that ghosts are made of.”

  “Give me a break, Teej,” I said. “He had calipers for measuring objects and a compass for noting the coordinates at a dig site. You scared the guy off with your ghost mumbo jumbo.”

  “Yep, Teej. You really spooked him,” Roger said. “Get it?”

  “He was just nervous about the ghost,” said T. J. “Even the professionals on the show get nervous. But he had the right gear. A thermometer to find the cold spots, and—”

  “That wasn’t a thermometer—” I began.

  “Dudes, please!” said Roger. “I scream, you scream, we all scream for—”

  “Ice cream!”

  After I had recycled a bunch more bottles and cans, I let Roger have a turn.

  “Wonder what that ghost-hunting guy was doing in the market,” said T. J.

  “That’s just what I was wondering,” I said.

  “Doing what everybody else does in the market,” said Roger. “Getting food.”

  “What kind of food do you think a ghost hunter eats?”

  “BOO-berries, of course,” said Roger, his brown eyes crinkling.

  T. J. and I both laughed even though it was a cheesy joke.

  “And if he’s an archaeologist, you know what he eats? Pastachio ice cream. Get it? Pastachio, like an archaeologist digs up stuff from the—”

  “Oh, brother,” I said as an idea formed in my mind. “Hey, let’s go see.”

  “See what he eats?” said T. J., blowing a big bubble with his gum even though it was peppermint and not bubble gum. I swear he can blow bubbles out of anything.

  “No, why an archaeologist would be going to Raven Hill—”

  “Or a ghost hunter,” said T. J.

  “Or a ghost-hunting archaeologist,” said Roger, popping another can in the machine.

  “Let’s tail him,” I said.

  T. J. and I started in the first aisle. Produce. No sign of the guy. Next we tried hot and cold cereal and coffee. No luck. Detergent and paper products. Nothing. We were just about to walk past the jumbo packages of toilet paper on display at the end of that aisle and try the pasta and international foods aisle when we heard a loud, grouchy old-lady voice say, “No air? What does that have to do with Benedict Billings buying the old Royce place?”

  I held up my hand to stop T. J.

  “No hair?” said the grouchy voice again. “Benedict Billings isn’t bald.”

  “No HEIR,” said a woman’s voice that sounded familiar.

  “Why didn’t you say so?”

  I stuck my head out from behind the toilet paper to see who was talking. The grouchy voice belonged to old Mrs. Osborn, Two O’s great-grandma. She was leaning on her cane, her hair in a white pouf on top of her head like a Q-tip, with a big frown on her face. Two O says Great-Grandma O is really tough for ninety-six, even if she does sometimes put her false teeth in the freezer and her frozen peas in the medicine cabinet.

  She was talking to Ms. Valen, who is in charge of the Special Collection at the library.

  “Sad place, that house,” went on Great-Grandma Osborn. “Full of secrets even when Thomas Royce and I were children.”

  “You and Admiral Thomas Royce were friends, Mrs. Osborn?” said Ms. Valen. A copy of today’s edition of the Whooping Hollow Star poked out of her shopping basket. She loves history, especially local history.

  Great-Grandma Osborn didn’t answer. “All the whispers about the people who came and went there in the old days and disappeared.”

  “Do you mean the Underground Railroad?” said Ms. Valen. “I believe Hannibal Royce, the whaler who built the house, was an abolitionist.”

  “He built the cemetery, too, with just the one gravestone for her. We got into a lot of trouble when we found it.”

  “Cemetery?” said Ms. Valen.

  “In the pines,” said old Mrs. Osborn. “So overgrown with pricker bushes we got all scratched up. Never would have found it if it hadn’t been for Thomas’s new puppy. It got lost, you see. All those years ago, I can still see that puppy now. A little terrier it was, named Jip.”

  HOLY CANNOLI! A secret cemetery at the one-legged whaler’s house?

  “Who was buried there?” asked Ms. Valen.

  “Buried where?”

  “In the pines,” Ms. Valen reminded her. “At the Hannibal Royce—”

  “His wife, of course,” said Great-Grandma Osborn.

  “But his wife is buried beside him at the Old Whalers Cemetery,” said Ms. Valen.

  “That’s right,” said Great-Grandma Osborn. “His second wife is buried there.”

  “But Hannibal Royce only had one wife,” said Ms. Valen.

  “It was a small stone with an angel engraved on it,” said Great-Grandma Osborn, as if she hadn’t heard Ms. Valen. Maybe she hadn’t, since Two O said she refused to wear her hearing aid.

  “There were yellow rosebushes planted all around it.”

  “Perhaps you are confusing Hannibal Royce with Nathan Royce, Thomas Royce’s father, who inherited the house. Nathan was married twice. I was just researching the family tree. But they were all buried in the cemetery in town.”

  “He was a wild one, Thomas Royce,” said Great-Grandma Osborn, talking to herself. “Full of dreams and plans. When the war came, he went off with the others. That was the end for him. Oh, he survived, but he was never the same.”

  “You really think there was a cemetery—” said Ms. Valen, trying to get Great-Grandma O back on topic.

  “Where would I find the frozen peas?”

  So Two O wasn’t kidding about the peas. I hoped she put them in the freezer this time.

  “In the last aisle, next to the ice cream,” said Ms. Valen, pointing. “About the cemetery . . .”

  “Cemetery? What cemetery? Pshaw!” With that, Great-Grandma O hobbled away on her cane.

  “KA-CHING! KA-CHING!” Roger called.

  T. J. and I both jumped and knocked into the tower of toilet paper rolls.

  WHOOSH! PHWOMP! AAAHHH!

  “Boys!” Ms. Valen hurried over as toilet paper rolls landed all around us.

  Believe it or not, Roger, T. J., and I are friends with Ms. Valen. We kind of accused her of being part of this plot to steal Captain Kidd’s treasure. We wound up finding the treasure, which wasn’t gold or jewels or anything fancy. It was mostly old papers, which librarians love, especially librarians who archive stuff about local history, like Ms. Valen. To her it really was treasure.

  “Do you think there’s rea
lly a cemetery at the one-legged whaler—I mean the old Royce house?” I asked, as we restacked the toilet paper.

  “So you were listening?” said Ms. Valen, raising one dark eyebrow.

  T. J. and I both blushed.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “It’s good to see young people who care about the history of this town,” Ms. Valen said. “And I know you boys do.”

  “If there was a secret cemetery, that could explain the haunting,” said T. J.

  “Haunting?” said Ms. Valen.

  “Secret cemetery?” said Roger.

  I shook my head at him to keep quiet as T. J. said, “The entity haunting the one-legged whaler’s house that needs to be set free.”

  “Quit the ghost talk, Teej,” I said.

  “I’ve heard mention of a cemetery,” said Ms. Valen. “But no one has ever discovered it. I think in part because it was just considered to be a spooky story. One local historian, who is writing a book about the Underground Railroad in the North, is convinced it’s because runaway slaves were hidden there and then helped on their way north to Canada. She thinks Hannibal Royce encouraged the idea of the hidden cemetery to scare people off, not because anyone was really buried there.”

  “Do you think Hannibal Royce was married twice?” I asked.

  Ms. Valen shrugged. “No proof has ever been found of that, either. And even if he was, that doesn’t mean they had children. Since Admiral Thomas Royce is dead and there is no heir to inherit, it does seem as if the house will be sold. All that history. Gone.”

  After she walked away, Roger looked at us, jingling the change in his pockets. “Time to I scream?” he said. “Hey, did you ever find the ghost-hunting archaeologist?”

  T. J. and I shook our heads.

  “Tartar Sauce!!!” I said, realizing that our eavesdropping had made us lose track of our suspect. “He’s probably long gone by now.”

  “Well, what are we waiting for?”

  We split up and looked all over the market, but there was no sign of him. I was right. He was long gone.

  “Now, what’s up with this secret cemetery?” asked Roger.

  T. J. and I filled him in about the conversation between Ms. Valen and Great-Grandma O. We were still talking about the secret cemetery when we finally got our ice cream. As it turned out, we did have money for three double-scoop cones with two toppings each. Roger was right.

  “See, Great Brain,” said Roger. “Sometimes it’s not about calculating anything. It’s about being a good guesser.”

  “In math that’s called estimating,” I said as I took a lick of my cookies-and-cream cone with chocolate and multicolored sprinkles.

  “You really think there’s a secret cemetery at the one-legged whaler’s house?” T. J. asked for the millionth time.

  “Guess we’ll find out,” said Roger.

  We had agreed it was a good idea to do a bike-by and reconnaissance mission to see what we’d be up against Saturday night.

  “Dr. Ghost B. Gone always says, ‘It pays to be prepared,’ ” said T. J., sucking the ice cream out of the bottom of his cone.

  “Hey, that’s what you always say, too, Fish,” said Roger. “Looks like you and the doc have something in common.”

  “I doubt it,” I said. “How do you mean prepared, T. J.?”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll bring everything we need,” he said as we came to Red Fox Lane and his house. “See you tomorrow.”

  “Don’t you mean TOMBmorrow?” said Roger. “Get it—TOMBmorrow?!”

  A-HAUNTING WE WILL GO

  “What are you doing?” I yelled the next afternoon.

  Roger had tipped over the Huckletons’ trash can that he had just put out for garbage pickup.

  “And now for a feat that defies the imagination,” Roger said. “I will ollie over this great green ginormous gigan—”

  “Garbage can,” I said with a grin.

  Roger skateboarded down the curb in front of my house into the street. When he got to the CAUTION: DUCKS CROSSING sign at the end, he turned around and headed back fast, aiming for the garbage can. At the very last second, when I was sure he was going to crash, he ollied up and over it—don’t ask me how—flipped around in midair, and landed on the board.

  At the same moment, a delivery truck turned down the street.

  “Wonder who’s the lucky duck,” said Roger as we pushed the can out of the street.

  The truck went right past my house. Oh, well. And past Roger’s house, too. Then it stopped and backed up. The Huckletons’ front door flew open and Summer, Roger’s older sister, ran down the steps, wobbling like crazy. She had on high heels and one of those floppy French hats called berets. She still beat Roger to the truck, though. She smiled at the driver as she signed for the package.

  “Merci,” she said.

  The driver just looked at her.

  “That’s French for thank you,” she said.

  “Je t’aime, Beck!” Roger made fake smooching sounds.

  Since je t’aime means I love you, I knew it was sure to make Summer mad, since she’s got a humongous crush on Beck Billings, Bryce’s older brother. He and Summer and a bunch of middle-school kids are studying French this summer. They have French pen pals and learn all about life in France even though they’re not going to go there for years, not until high school.

  “Fermez la bouche!” said Summer. It’s the French way of saying shut your trap, I think. “Or I’ll tell Mom you were doing skating tricks in the street again and you’ll . . .” Her voice trailed off. “It’s for you. It must be a late birthday present.” She tossed the package to Roger, who caught it with a loud whoop.

  One look at the box and he frowned and threw it onto the grass.

  “Hi, guys,” called T. J., biking up to us, a bulging shopping bag hanging off his handlebars. “I brought everything we need.”

  “Aren’t you going to open your package?” I asked.

  Roger shrugged and started ollieing up and down the curb.

  “I love packages,” said T. J. “Who’s it from?”

  I bent down to look at the box. It was dented pretty bad, as if it had traveled a long way. There was no return address, but there were a bunch of stamps in different colors with words in languages that weren’t English.

  “I bet it’s from his dad,” I said.

  Roger’s dad writes about extreme sports. His job takes him all over the world, which means he’s not home all that much.

  Roger’s mom and dad just got divorced. His dad didn’t make it home for Roger’s birthday last week because he was in Tibet, covering a story about a famous mountain climber. He didn’t call, either. I told Roger it was probably because he couldn’t get a signal from up on the mountain, but Roger said it didn’t matter if his dad called or not, ’cause he didn’t care. That wasn’t true. Roger missed his dad and he cared a lot.

  “I wonder what’s in the package,” said T. J.

  Roger’s dad always gives Roger the most awesome presents.

  “I guess since Roger doesn’t want his package, that means we can have it, T. J.,” I said in a loud voice, giving T. J. a wink. It was kind of sneaky, but reverse psychology always works on my little sister, Feenie.

  “Yup,” said T. J. “Finders keepers.”

  “I bet I can open it with my scissors,” I said, pulling out my pocketknife, which had lost the knives long before Grandpa Finelli gave it to me. You would be surprised how much you can do with a spoon and scissors.

  I was just about to cut through the tape when Roger swiped the box out of my hands. “Hey, that’s mine.”

  “So open it!”

  Roger grabbed the scissors and ripped open the box. Inside was another box labeled TROPHY CAM SPY Z99-IRXT.

  “ ‘See who wanders into your backyard at night with the D55 infrared flash camera, which shoots up to three photos per second while you sleep. . . .’ ” Roger read from the back of the box.

  “Wow!” said T. J. “We could put it up in a
tree to see if there’s a panther in the neighborhood.”

  “Panthers are not even native to the United States,” I said. “The only large black cats in the U.S. are jaguars. They lived in the Southwest until they were killed off by ranchers in the late nineteenth century.”

  “Burt Babinski said there was a panther loose in the woods a few years ago, and the police went after it with shotguns,” said T. J.

  “That’s a tall tale,” I said. “You know, like Paul Bunyan freezing the Whistling River and pulling it straight. Remember from English class? Anyway, it was probably just a big black dog and somebody mistook it for a panther.”

  Roger opened the box and took out the camera, which was decorated with a camo pattern. He put his eye to the lens and trained it around my yard.

  “With my infrared vision, I see a panther right over there in the deep dark pine trees—”

  “That’s it! It’s just what we need.” T. J. opened his shopping bag. “I got a recorder in case there are any EVPs, and—”

  “What’s an EVP?” I shouldn’t have asked.

  “Electronic Voice Phenomena,” said T. J. “That’s when an entity speaks.”

  “Oooh!” said Roger. “Ghost talk. Spooky!”

  “And I brought a thermometer to check for cold spots, but Dr. Ghost B. Gone says an IR camera—you know, infrared, like the one you just got, Rog—is critical in a—”

  “Ghost hunt,” said Roger, grinning.

  “This isn’t a ghost hunt,” said T. J.

  “Then what is it?” said Roger. “A fright fest? A haunted horror? A creepy . . .” He paused, trying to think of something creepy that started with C.

  “It’s a paranormal investigation,” said T. J.

  “Oh, brother,” I said, shaking my head.

  “We don’t know what kind of haunting we might be facing,” said T. J. “It could just be an orb, which is the most common kind of entity and isn’t dangerous. Or ectoplasm, which is a smoky mist and can be yucky. Or a streak or a shadow person, or worst of all, an elemental.”