You Can't Hurry Spooks
October 16
The auditorium was empty, for which Dan could only be grateful. This would have been a considerably more difficult task to complete if the theater club was present, rehearsing for their upcoming production of… he squinted to read the announcement board in the dim light. The Baloney, the Pickle, the Zombies, and Other Things I Hide From My Mother. Seriously? This was a thing? He shook his head in disbelief and turned back toward the door to the changing room. “How you doing in there?” he called loudly, wondering if he was going to make it to his fifth period class at all.
“It’s my hair,” came the reply. “It doesn’t look right.”
“Your hair is fine! You need to quit stalling, Abigail. The sooner you get out there, the sooner it’ll be done.”
Abigail reappeared, passing through the closed door in a way that Dan found mildly disconcerting, despite the fact that he understood she was merely a spirit, not living flesh. “I can’t do this,” she said, her tone full of panic. “I’ll get out there and freeze up and everyone will laugh at me.”
“Huh. I guess that old study was right. There really are people out there who think public speaking is scarier than death. Listen, Abby. No one is going to laugh at you. All you need to do is walk out on the stage and present your report. You have your notes, and I’m sure you practiced this dozens of times, right? Yeah? Good. So go. Go on.”
“I… wait! Is my slip showing?”
Dan made a show of inspecting her hemline. “No. Your slip is not showing,” he said flatly. “Go.”
“What if they hate it? What if they hate my speech?”
“Your thrilling speech on the invention and history of personal computers? Ah… they’ll love it. Trust me. It’s a real nail biter. Especially that bit where you go into great detail on the hardware development. And you know what? I think you’re absolutely right. Someday? I’ll bet computers are as common as television sets in the home. In fact? It wouldn’t surprise me if families purchased more than one. Think about it. One for the folks. One or maybe even more than one for the kids. Hey, someday? Maybe personal computers really will be personal and practically everyone will have their own.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Abigail said, scoffing. “The cost alone would prevent that! Thousands and thousands of dollars!”
“Well, maybe technology will advance so far that everything will come down in price. Maybe it’ll develop to the point that we’ll all have small, pocket electronic devices that connect to one another and a vast repository of digital information available all over the world. Oh, and these devices could even function as portable phones, too. Huh? How cool would that be?”
Abigail tossed her head and laughed. “You should be one of those science fiction writers,” she told him. “Your ideas are too fantastic.”
“Eh. Well, we can dream, right? So go on now. Get out there and give that report.”
She drew herself up and nodded. “All right. I’m… I’m gonna do this.”
Dan watched in relief as she turned in the direction of the stage and vanished. As he hurried toward the auditorium’s side entrance, he caught a brief glimpse of something from the corner of his eye. When he stopped to peer into the shadowy darkness surrounding the back row of seats, he saw nothing unexpected or out of the ordinary. Finally, with a mental shrug, he continued on his way, hoping he could eventually shake the creepy feeling that he was being watched.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Trixie looked at her watch again, almost groaning out loud as she read the time. “At this rate,” she muttered, “we aren’t even going to make today’s office hours. And I don’t know how well that’s gonna go over, considering we’re missing ‘em tomorrow for the dance.”
Mart briefly glanced up from his book. “Eventually, one of two things will have to happen. Either we find a way to break this spell and we go back to blissful ignorance of all the dead people roaming around, or we’re stuck and the spirit world will have to learn how to deal with working on our schedules, not theirs.”
“Awesome. You know, my plans to be a detective have always been based on the understanding that my clients would be alive. And paying. These may seem like minor details to Cosmic Fate and the Powers That Be, but I consider them rather important.”
“I don’t understand what’s taking them so long! They shoulda been outta there by now.”
Trixie grimaced and glanced over her shoulder at the large man sitting in the back of Dan’s van. He was wearing a dark sweater, black pants, and a navy ski mask pulled down over his face. “Probably? They’re having a hard time robbing the bank, on account that no one can hear or see them make their demands.”
“One of yous guys should go in. Tell ‘em it’s a stick up.”
“Except we already explained why we can’t do that, Joe,” she said, speaking as if she were addressing a very young child. “Remember? We don’t have the right clothes. You can’t rob a bank if you aren’t dressed in the proper bank robbing gear. We agreed to be your getaway drivers, but that’s it. You’re on your own for the rest of it. Maybe you want to go in and check on them?”
“Ha! You must think I’m stupid or somethin’. If I go in, you’ll just drive away and leave us here holdin’ the bags. I’m not goin’ anywhere. I’m stayin’ put and keepin’ an eye on yous.”
Trixie looked over at her brother. “Wow. Can’t argue with that logic, huh? You think he really doesn’t understand we could start the van and drive off right now if we wanted, regardless of whether or not he’s here keeping an eye on us?”
“I think there’s a lot he really doesn’t understand,” Mart mumbled.
“Yeah.” Trixie sighed and read her watch again. “Time crawls when you’re so not having fun.” She turned her attention back to her math homework, idly wondering if anyone had ever brought up the case that Algebra 2 could be considered nothing more than cruel and unusual punishment for millions of innocent kids.
Almost fifteen minutes later, as she was just finishing the final problem of her assignment, Joe broke the quiet with a sudden outburst. “There they are! Start the van! Start the van!”
As Mart cranked over the engine, they were joined by Joe’s partners.
“Well?” Joe demanded. “You don’t look like you got the goods.”
“No, man. No,” the smaller one replied earnestly. “Couldn’t get none of them tellers to listen. But that’s okay. ‘Cause we got somethin’ even better!”
“Better than the money, Lou?” Joe jeered. “What’re you, an idiot or somethin’?”
“Says you! No. See we gots a look-see at the safe combo when the manager was openin’ it for some old broad. Now we just gotta wait until after dark and we can break in and take anything we want!”
“Impressive,” Trixie said solemnly. “You got the combo to a lock to a bank safe you could simply walk right into at any time without issue, to steal money you can’t actually even collect or spend, and you decided to wait to hatch your brilliant plan during off hours so that the people who can’t see you anyway won’t see you not really robbing their bank. That’s… uh, that’s really something.”
All three men stared at her with blank looks and slack jaws. “Well, yeah. ‘Cause, you know. That’s how it works,” Lou said finally.
Mart turned the key and shut the van off again. “All right. I’m done. I can’t take it. Out! Get out!”
“Who us?” Joe demanded.
“Yes, you! Go! The stupid. It burns. Get out of the van or I swear I will cast a spell that will send you straight to your worst nightmare!”
“Sing Sing?” Joe asked warily.
“Yeah. Straight to Sing Sing.”
The three men disappeared without another word.
“Straight to Sing Sing,” Trixie said, chuckling ruefully. “A prison of walls and bars that can’t hold them. Because they’re ghosts. You know, Bro, I want to say we’ve hit rock bottom in the moron category, but the really sad thing is, I’m betting we haven’t.”
“Maybe we should try holding office hours at the library,” Mart suggested, half-seriously. “See if we can find and help some spirits who aren’t dumber than dirt and wouldn’t lose a debate with a box of old rocks.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dan exited The Crescent Moon and nearly collided with a tall boy on his way in.
“Watch where you’re going, Mangan,” Lester Mundy growled.
“Right back at you, Les. What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing. You looking for some magic crystals to improve your love life, loser?”
“Just picking up a few things for our Halloween party,” Dan replied tersely, wondering why he felt obligated to offer any explanation at all. And his love life needed no help, thank you very much. In fact, things were looking up big time in that department.
“Yeah. Right. Whatever.” Lester pushed past him, deliberately bumping his shoulder hard enough to knock his backpack off.
Dan rolled his eyes and waited for the door to close behind Lester before re-shouldering his pack. He pulled his phone from his pocket and quickly tapped out a text.
U guys done yet?
Trixie’s reply came through as he started walking toward the center of town.
Yeah. Finally. Meet at Wimpy’s?
CU there.
He found Mart and Trixie at the diner’s counter when he arrived. “We ordered burgers, fries, and shakes,” Trixie told him. “To go. We figured we’d better get over to Lisgard House as soon as possible.”
“Yeah.” Dan glanced around the busy restaurant. “I never thought I’d say this, but I think I’m getting sick of all the junk food. I’d actually love to have a nice home cooked meal for a change.”
“I know, right? I’m missing Moms’ cooking, too, and just being home in general. But definitely, especially I’m missing her everything-made-from-scratch dinners.”
Dan chuckled lightly at that. “Of course,” he continued, “considering how Uncle Bill never seems to be home any more, either, probably I’d just be getting canned soup anyway.”
“He’s going out a lot?” Trixie asked curiously.
“Yeah. Remember I told you he met some woman at the driver’s license place? He’s been seeing a lot of her the past coupla weeks.”
She thought for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah… I do remember you mentioning that. A blond at the DMV. When was that?”
“It was the day after we first went to Lisgard House,” Mart put in. “I only remember because that was the night we hung out at the apartment and I was trying to find a spell in Sarah’s first journal to undo everything. Per your orders, Sis. Remember?”
“Oh, right. So it has only been a few weeks.”
“Yeah,” Dan agreed. “Things have been moving fast, though. I dunno. I mean, he met her one morning and took her out the next night, and has been seeing her almost every night since. That’s kinda unusual, isn’t it?”
“It certainly sounds unusual for Regan,” Mart conceded as he accepted a large brown paper sack from the waitress behind the counter. “But maybe he and this woman simply hit it off.”
Trixie reached out and gently patted Dan’s shoulder. “There. There. It’s all right, Danny Boy. They have to grow up sometime. You just need to step back and let your uncle spread his wings and enjoy being an adult now.”
“Oh, ha.”
They walked to the end of the counter to pay for their meal. As they waited in line, Trixie leaned over to speak to a slight, very elderly woman sitting by herself at the booth closest to the door. “You should try the chicken fried steak,” she suggested. “It’s delicious.”
The woman looked up at her and smiled, her entire face lit up with a warm, appreciative expression. “Oh, thank you, dear child! I can never seem to make up my mind. So many choices!”
“You’re welcome,” Trixie said sincerely as the spirit faded away.
“Did you get a chance to talk to Philip Macy?” Mart asked Dan as they left the diner and crossed the asphalt parking lot.
“Briefly. I think I ticked him off, though.”
“Yeah?”
“Well, I couldn’t very well tell him the truth, so I said we were looking for some things to hold a séance as part of our Halloween bash. I don’t think that sat well with him, and honestly, I can understand. He probably gets really tired of people essentially mocking what he sees as his religion.”
“Good point.”
“Anyway, he sold me a book he said would help us. I’m not sure it’ll be any better than the stuff the professor already has, but I figure we can go through it and see. I gotta warn you, though, it could be he gave it to me because he thought I wasn’t taking things as seriously as I should. At least, it wouldn’t surprise me if that was the case, based on the title.”
Mart turned to his friend with one brow raised.
“Simple Magic Spells and Charms for Absolute Beginners. I’m pretty sure this is the equivalent of Magic for Dummies.”
“That’s a real book, you know,” Trixie said, flashing them both an impish grin. “Magic for Dummies. But it’s about doing magic tricks. Like with cards and stuff.”
“And you know this because…?” Mart asked.
“I looked it up online. I thought we might want to start with the basics. Only that particular book turned out to be the wrong basics. What? Don’t give me that look! I can do research, too. When I want. I’ll have you know I ordered us Practical Magic in the Modern Day. Modern of course being a copyright date of 1924. But still… According to the description, there’s a whole section on communing with the dead. It should be coming in the mail any day now.”
“For real? How are you gonna explain that to Moms if it’s delivered in the middle of the day while we’re at school?”
“Are you kidding? I didn’t use our home address! Give me some credit!” Her grin widened as she looked over at Dan. “You might wanna be thinking up something to say to Regan, though. For when the time comes.”
The auditorium was empty, for which Dan could only be grateful. This would have been a considerably more difficult task to complete if the theater club was present, rehearsing for their upcoming production of… he squinted to read the announcement board in the dim light. The Baloney, the Pickle, the Zombies, and Other Things I Hide From My Mother. Seriously? This was a thing? He shook his head in disbelief and turned back toward the door to the changing room. “How you doing in there?” he called loudly, wondering if he was going to make it to his fifth period class at all.
“It’s my hair,” came the reply. “It doesn’t look right.”
“Your hair is fine! You need to quit stalling, Abigail. The sooner you get out there, the sooner it’ll be done.”
Abigail reappeared, passing through the closed door in a way that Dan found mildly disconcerting, despite the fact that he understood she was merely a spirit, not living flesh. “I can’t do this,” she said, her tone full of panic. “I’ll get out there and freeze up and everyone will laugh at me.”
“Huh. I guess that old study was right. There really are people out there who think public speaking is scarier than death. Listen, Abby. No one is going to laugh at you. All you need to do is walk out on the stage and present your report. You have your notes, and I’m sure you practiced this dozens of times, right? Yeah? Good. So go. Go on.”
“I… wait! Is my slip showing?”
Dan made a show of inspecting her hemline. “No. Your slip is not showing,” he said flatly. “Go.”
“What if they hate it? What if they hate my speech?”
“Your thrilling speech on the invention and history of personal computers? Ah… they’ll love it. Trust me. It’s a real nail biter. Especially that bit where you go into great detail on the hardware development. And you know what? I think you’re absolutely right. Someday? I’ll bet computers are as common as television sets in the home. In fact? It wouldn’t surprise me if families purchased more than one. Think about it. One for the folks. One or maybe even more than one for the kids. Hey, someday? Maybe personal computers really will be personal and practically everyone will have their own.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Abigail said, scoffing. “The cost alone would prevent that! Thousands and thousands of dollars!”
“Well, maybe technology will advance so far that everything will come down in price. Maybe it’ll develop to the point that we’ll all have small, pocket electronic devices that connect to one another and a vast repository of digital information available all over the world. Oh, and these devices could even function as portable phones, too. Huh? How cool would that be?”
Abigail tossed her head and laughed. “You should be one of those science fiction writers,” she told him. “Your ideas are too fantastic.”
“Eh. Well, we can dream, right? So go on now. Get out there and give that report.”
She drew herself up and nodded. “All right. I’m… I’m gonna do this.”
Dan watched in relief as she turned in the direction of the stage and vanished. As he hurried toward the auditorium’s side entrance, he caught a brief glimpse of something from the corner of his eye. When he stopped to peer into the shadowy darkness surrounding the back row of seats, he saw nothing unexpected or out of the ordinary. Finally, with a mental shrug, he continued on his way, hoping he could eventually shake the creepy feeling that he was being watched.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Trixie looked at her watch again, almost groaning out loud as she read the time. “At this rate,” she muttered, “we aren’t even going to make today’s office hours. And I don’t know how well that’s gonna go over, considering we’re missing ‘em tomorrow for the dance.”
Mart briefly glanced up from his book. “Eventually, one of two things will have to happen. Either we find a way to break this spell and we go back to blissful ignorance of all the dead people roaming around, or we’re stuck and the spirit world will have to learn how to deal with working on our schedules, not theirs.”
“Awesome. You know, my plans to be a detective have always been based on the understanding that my clients would be alive. And paying. These may seem like minor details to Cosmic Fate and the Powers That Be, but I consider them rather important.”
“I don’t understand what’s taking them so long! They shoulda been outta there by now.”
Trixie grimaced and glanced over her shoulder at the large man sitting in the back of Dan’s van. He was wearing a dark sweater, black pants, and a navy ski mask pulled down over his face. “Probably? They’re having a hard time robbing the bank, on account that no one can hear or see them make their demands.”
“One of yous guys should go in. Tell ‘em it’s a stick up.”
“Except we already explained why we can’t do that, Joe,” she said, speaking as if she were addressing a very young child. “Remember? We don’t have the right clothes. You can’t rob a bank if you aren’t dressed in the proper bank robbing gear. We agreed to be your getaway drivers, but that’s it. You’re on your own for the rest of it. Maybe you want to go in and check on them?”
“Ha! You must think I’m stupid or somethin’. If I go in, you’ll just drive away and leave us here holdin’ the bags. I’m not goin’ anywhere. I’m stayin’ put and keepin’ an eye on yous.”
Trixie looked over at her brother. “Wow. Can’t argue with that logic, huh? You think he really doesn’t understand we could start the van and drive off right now if we wanted, regardless of whether or not he’s here keeping an eye on us?”
“I think there’s a lot he really doesn’t understand,” Mart mumbled.
“Yeah.” Trixie sighed and read her watch again. “Time crawls when you’re so not having fun.” She turned her attention back to her math homework, idly wondering if anyone had ever brought up the case that Algebra 2 could be considered nothing more than cruel and unusual punishment for millions of innocent kids.
Almost fifteen minutes later, as she was just finishing the final problem of her assignment, Joe broke the quiet with a sudden outburst. “There they are! Start the van! Start the van!”
As Mart cranked over the engine, they were joined by Joe’s partners.
“Well?” Joe demanded. “You don’t look like you got the goods.”
“No, man. No,” the smaller one replied earnestly. “Couldn’t get none of them tellers to listen. But that’s okay. ‘Cause we got somethin’ even better!”
“Better than the money, Lou?” Joe jeered. “What’re you, an idiot or somethin’?”
“Says you! No. See we gots a look-see at the safe combo when the manager was openin’ it for some old broad. Now we just gotta wait until after dark and we can break in and take anything we want!”
“Impressive,” Trixie said solemnly. “You got the combo to a lock to a bank safe you could simply walk right into at any time without issue, to steal money you can’t actually even collect or spend, and you decided to wait to hatch your brilliant plan during off hours so that the people who can’t see you anyway won’t see you not really robbing their bank. That’s… uh, that’s really something.”
All three men stared at her with blank looks and slack jaws. “Well, yeah. ‘Cause, you know. That’s how it works,” Lou said finally.
Mart turned the key and shut the van off again. “All right. I’m done. I can’t take it. Out! Get out!”
“Who us?” Joe demanded.
“Yes, you! Go! The stupid. It burns. Get out of the van or I swear I will cast a spell that will send you straight to your worst nightmare!”
“Sing Sing?” Joe asked warily.
“Yeah. Straight to Sing Sing.”
The three men disappeared without another word.
“Straight to Sing Sing,” Trixie said, chuckling ruefully. “A prison of walls and bars that can’t hold them. Because they’re ghosts. You know, Bro, I want to say we’ve hit rock bottom in the moron category, but the really sad thing is, I’m betting we haven’t.”
“Maybe we should try holding office hours at the library,” Mart suggested, half-seriously. “See if we can find and help some spirits who aren’t dumber than dirt and wouldn’t lose a debate with a box of old rocks.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dan exited The Crescent Moon and nearly collided with a tall boy on his way in.
“Watch where you’re going, Mangan,” Lester Mundy growled.
“Right back at you, Les. What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing. You looking for some magic crystals to improve your love life, loser?”
“Just picking up a few things for our Halloween party,” Dan replied tersely, wondering why he felt obligated to offer any explanation at all. And his love life needed no help, thank you very much. In fact, things were looking up big time in that department.
“Yeah. Right. Whatever.” Lester pushed past him, deliberately bumping his shoulder hard enough to knock his backpack off.
Dan rolled his eyes and waited for the door to close behind Lester before re-shouldering his pack. He pulled his phone from his pocket and quickly tapped out a text.
U guys done yet?
Trixie’s reply came through as he started walking toward the center of town.
Yeah. Finally. Meet at Wimpy’s?
CU there.
He found Mart and Trixie at the diner’s counter when he arrived. “We ordered burgers, fries, and shakes,” Trixie told him. “To go. We figured we’d better get over to Lisgard House as soon as possible.”
“Yeah.” Dan glanced around the busy restaurant. “I never thought I’d say this, but I think I’m getting sick of all the junk food. I’d actually love to have a nice home cooked meal for a change.”
“I know, right? I’m missing Moms’ cooking, too, and just being home in general. But definitely, especially I’m missing her everything-made-from-scratch dinners.”
Dan chuckled lightly at that. “Of course,” he continued, “considering how Uncle Bill never seems to be home any more, either, probably I’d just be getting canned soup anyway.”
“He’s going out a lot?” Trixie asked curiously.
“Yeah. Remember I told you he met some woman at the driver’s license place? He’s been seeing a lot of her the past coupla weeks.”
She thought for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah… I do remember you mentioning that. A blond at the DMV. When was that?”
“It was the day after we first went to Lisgard House,” Mart put in. “I only remember because that was the night we hung out at the apartment and I was trying to find a spell in Sarah’s first journal to undo everything. Per your orders, Sis. Remember?”
“Oh, right. So it has only been a few weeks.”
“Yeah,” Dan agreed. “Things have been moving fast, though. I dunno. I mean, he met her one morning and took her out the next night, and has been seeing her almost every night since. That’s kinda unusual, isn’t it?”
“It certainly sounds unusual for Regan,” Mart conceded as he accepted a large brown paper sack from the waitress behind the counter. “But maybe he and this woman simply hit it off.”
Trixie reached out and gently patted Dan’s shoulder. “There. There. It’s all right, Danny Boy. They have to grow up sometime. You just need to step back and let your uncle spread his wings and enjoy being an adult now.”
“Oh, ha.”
They walked to the end of the counter to pay for their meal. As they waited in line, Trixie leaned over to speak to a slight, very elderly woman sitting by herself at the booth closest to the door. “You should try the chicken fried steak,” she suggested. “It’s delicious.”
The woman looked up at her and smiled, her entire face lit up with a warm, appreciative expression. “Oh, thank you, dear child! I can never seem to make up my mind. So many choices!”
“You’re welcome,” Trixie said sincerely as the spirit faded away.
“Did you get a chance to talk to Philip Macy?” Mart asked Dan as they left the diner and crossed the asphalt parking lot.
“Briefly. I think I ticked him off, though.”
“Yeah?”
“Well, I couldn’t very well tell him the truth, so I said we were looking for some things to hold a séance as part of our Halloween bash. I don’t think that sat well with him, and honestly, I can understand. He probably gets really tired of people essentially mocking what he sees as his religion.”
“Good point.”
“Anyway, he sold me a book he said would help us. I’m not sure it’ll be any better than the stuff the professor already has, but I figure we can go through it and see. I gotta warn you, though, it could be he gave it to me because he thought I wasn’t taking things as seriously as I should. At least, it wouldn’t surprise me if that was the case, based on the title.”
Mart turned to his friend with one brow raised.
“Simple Magic Spells and Charms for Absolute Beginners. I’m pretty sure this is the equivalent of Magic for Dummies.”
“That’s a real book, you know,” Trixie said, flashing them both an impish grin. “Magic for Dummies. But it’s about doing magic tricks. Like with cards and stuff.”
“And you know this because…?” Mart asked.
“I looked it up online. I thought we might want to start with the basics. Only that particular book turned out to be the wrong basics. What? Don’t give me that look! I can do research, too. When I want. I’ll have you know I ordered us Practical Magic in the Modern Day. Modern of course being a copyright date of 1924. But still… According to the description, there’s a whole section on communing with the dead. It should be coming in the mail any day now.”
“For real? How are you gonna explain that to Moms if it’s delivered in the middle of the day while we’re at school?”
“Are you kidding? I didn’t use our home address! Give me some credit!” Her grin widened as she looked over at Dan. “You might wanna be thinking up something to say to Regan, though. For when the time comes.”
