I wasn’t in the mood to insult her, so I pushed past and went to the kitchen for some food. Mrs. Gwinn had only fed me a few dry crackers with tuna fish and a slice of cucumber and a dot of mustard on them.
They were awful, but that and tap water were all she gave me. I also had to eat them fast because she watched me and kept telling me to hurry.
When I walked into our kitchen, I saw a bunch of wrappers on the table from Dubby Burger, my favorite fast-food restaurant.
I got excited. We never went to Dubby. The only Dubby restaurant was across town, so it was a rare treat to get to eat there. I looked around, searching for what they had gotten me, but the only things on the table were crumpled, EMPTY wrappers.
My heart beat with worry. I opened the refrigerator to see if my family had put my food in there to keep it fresh for me. No Dubby. I looked around the kitchen like a crazy person playing a desperate game of hamburger hide-and-seek. There was no Dubby anywhere! All I could see was Tuffin standing there with Dubby sauce all over his face and smiling in a way that only a Dubby Meal could make him smile.
I ran to the family room, where my parents were sitting on the couch watching a reality show about a woman named Barbara Flant. She had died for two minutes, then miraculously came back to life. Now she could talk to plants. The show was called Flant’s Plants.
I gladly interrupted the show to ask my parents where my food was. The food they had surely gotten for me when they went to Dubby Burger. The food I needed and deserved because I had spent the last two days missing out on things that mattered to me and moving heavy boxes for an old woman who made the Grinch seem kind of friendly.
I wanted the Dubby to make up for all the horrible things I had just been through. The food would usher in Christmas and bring about the miracle of me thinking things were going to be okay.
I stared at my parents in disbelief. Here’s what I thought was going to happen.
This is what actually happened.
I was numb and defeated. Misunderstood and upset. At my wits’ end. I slowly stumbled back into the kitchen and grabbed a full loaf of bread. I shuffled to my room, lay on my bed, and shoved pieces of white bread into my mouth. I rolled over and stared at Beardy. I had been so pumped for him to open up tomorrow, but now I couldn’t imagine dealing with a new visitor. My head was tired and confused. I wanted nothing to do with what Beardy would be letting loose, and I was no longer thinking straight.
I found a chair and jammed it under Beardy to make sure he wouldn’t be able to open the closet door.
Beardy looked sad, but I didn’t care. I stuffed two more pieces of bread into my mouth and then changed into one of my dad’s old concert shirts and went to bed early like an old, miserly shut-in.
CHAPTER 9
THE BEGINNING OF A LONG NIGHT
At exactly midnight, my alarm clock rang, so I rolled over and turned it off. It was weird because I never set my alarm clock. Especially for twelve at night. I lay in my bed and looked up into the darkness. My room was quiet, which made it easy to close my eyes and start to fall back to sleep. But as I was hopping on the train to Sleepytown, something brushed over me. I reached up and scratched my nose. Then, as I rolled over onto my right side, I accidentally smashed the bag of bread I had been eating earlier. As I mushed it, air escaped from the sack, making a disgusting noise.
My eyelids sprang open and I stared into the dark. I pulled the smooshed bread out from under me and flung it toward my closet. It hit the door and fell to the floor. I would have been asleep in the next few seconds, but I heard a click. Goose pimples ran up and down my arms and legs.
I was pretty certain that the bread hadn’t made the clicking noises. Besides, the click sounded familiar. I thought about getting up and turning on my light, but I didn’t want anything to reach out from under my bed and grab my ankles.
My brain woke up fully and began to holler at me about what I should be thinking.
But Beardy wasn’t glowing, and it was too dark to see my closet door. I reached into the small drawer on my nightstand and pulled out the tiny flashlight I had won at school for guessing the number of the day correctly. It was a dumb thing that Principal Smelt did. He would call in ten students and have them guess the number of the day. If you got it right, or if you were closest, he would give you a sticker or a paper hat or a tiny flashlight. I had been called in last week, and I had guessed …
The answer was thirty, and I won the flashlight. It was plastic and so cheap that it only shone a little beam of light. I pushed the button to turn it on and directed the light toward the closet door. It looked normal, with the chair still wedged up under Beardy.
I moved the light around my room. Nothing was out of place. So I switched off the flashlight and set it on top of my nightstand. I tried to get my brain to settle down and go back to sleep, which wasn’t easy to do, because it was pretty amped up.
The furnace in the hallway kicked on, and I could hear the sound of my dad snoring. I took a few deep breaths and pushed my head back into my pillow while trying to relax the rest of my body.
Something began to glow.
I had my eyelids shut, but I could tell there was something bright hovering over me. I thought that maybe I had fallen back to sleep and was dreaming. I didn’t want to open my eyes, but my brain needed to see what was going on.
I opened my right eyelid and gasped. What I saw startled me so much that my left eyelid sprang open without permission. I yelped and put my hands over my mouth to stop myself from screaming. There, hovering over me, was a headless ghost.
It was floating, its robe waving gently, holding its head in its arm. I looked over at my closet. The chair was still in place, but Beardy’s eyes were open and glowing. He looked smug. I closed my eyes and pulled my blankets up.
Apparently I’m a liar, because when I opened my eyes again, the ghost was still there. He lifted his head and snapped it onto his neck.
The visitor was about the same size as me, but as he floated, his size seemed to expand and contract. Part of him appeared to be made out of LEGOs, and he was wearing a half robe. There was a portion of a bat painted on his chest, and he was wearing a stocking cap and a monocle like Mr. Peanut. I could see different shades of gray and white all over him as he glowed in the night.
He knew my full name and said it like I was in trouble. There was a chain rattling from his left arm.
That made sense. Actually, none of this made sense. What kind of person has a closet that sets alarms and spits out ghosts? I wanted to know exactly who I was talking to, so I said,
The ghost shivered and moved about. He snapped off his right arm and scratched his head, thinking. Just as the silence was becoming uncomfortable, he spoke.
It made sense that he liked those names. Alfred is Batman’s butler, and I know the Scrooge book is written by Charles Dickens because that was the book we were reading in my language arts class.
He thought for a moment and then decided that he wanted to be called by Scrooge’s first name, Ebenezer. I suggested Batneezer, because it was a combination of characters and because I have always liked words with a z in them.
Thankfully he agreed. I watched Batneezer snap his arm back on and float over to my window. He tried to pull open the curtains, but because he was just a ghost, he couldn’t.
I pulled back the curtains and opened the window. A cool breeze drifted in, reminding me that it was winter in Temon. It never got very cold here, but there was a slight chill now, and the night was very dark. I quickly hopped back into my bed. Batneezer reached out his hands, and the chain on his left arm clanked. His other hand was yellow and plastic. When I asked him what the chain was for, he said,
I don’t mean to be rude, but just once it would be nice if a creature from my closet gave me a chest of gold or a dirt bike. This one was here to bust me for not reading enough books. My feelings for books had improved a lot over the last year, but right now I felt differently.
Batneezer put his fin
gers in his ears. When he saw I was done talking, he removed his fingers and warned me about how troublesome life would be if I turned my back on books. I then took a moment to tell him how troublesome my life had become with them.
The bruise came from when I was fighting Libby for some cookies she found in the pantry, but Batneezer didn’t need to know that. He drifted around my room, shaking his chain and clicking his LEGO bricks. He moaned about how I didn’t know real trouble like the good people of Gotham did. He worked himself up and worked his way back over my bed.
I was worried about having to entertain a bunch of spirits or find a place for them to hide or sleep. It was hard enough keeping one creature hidden. Now I would have four? I had put the chair up against the closet door because I was mad at books. This seemed like it might turn out to be too much for me to handle. I told the ghost my concern, and he detached his right arm and scratched his forehead.
Batneezer took a moment to look sad. For some reason, ghosts aren’t very scary when they look sad. I actually felt sorry for the Bruce Wayne part of my new visitor. As for the Scrooge part of him, I didn’t know a ton about his story. I just knew he was a miserly cheapwad, so I didn’t feel as bad for that part of him. After a few moments of silence, I asked the creature why he was here.
Batneezer looked very disappointed. He rattled around the room, complaining about movies and how kids were ungrateful when it came to books. He sighed and then stretched his right arm toward me.
I reached out, hoping I was doing the right thing.
CHAPTER 10
SOMETHING IS ROTTEN
I took hold of Batneezer’s garment sleeve, and instantly the two of us began to float. I wanted to scream again, but the sensation was so great, I kept my mouth shut and tried to enjoy what was happening. As I held on to his arm, we flew out the window and up over to Janae’s house. We drifted down the street with Batneezer making a low moaning noise.
I really liked how this creature traveled. I had had to carry Wonkenstein and Potterwookiee in a backpack. Pinocula had gotten around by himself, Katfish had had to be toted in a wheelbarrow, and Seussol had come in our RV. Now my new visitor was flying me around.
We flew over houses and straight toward Softrock Middle School. When we got there, I could see that most of the lights were off. I could also see Mr. Kerr’s camper sitting in the middle of the parking lot. We drifted down to the school and stood by the window that looked into the main office. Inside, standing next to the front counter and talking on a phone, was Mr. Kerr. It was midnight, and he was alone in my school. Something wasn’t right. Batneezer instructed me to keep holding his sleeve as he pushed me up against the window. Like magic, we slipped through the glass and were standing right next to Mr. Kerr. I could hear everything he was saying.
Mr. Kerr laughed, said a few more mean things, and hung up the phone. He stretched and then turned and looked in our direction. He couldn’t see us! When he reached to grab his briefcase on the counter, his hand went right through Batneezer. Mr. Kerr picked up his briefcase and walked out of the office. I was amazed, but I was also curious about what he had been doing.
Batneezer told me to hold on tight, and we flew up through the roof and into the night sky. When we arrived at my house, he pulled me through my window and dropped me on my beanbag.
As I sat on my beanbag, Batneezer became all serious and reminded me that I would still be visited by three more spirits tonight. He said that the first spirit would arrive when the clock struck one. The second at two and the third at—
Batneezer informed me that he would be popping in and out to teach me things that the other spirits couldn’t. I thanked him for coming and for his concern. I then let him know that what I really wanted was to go to sleep and not think about anything that had to do with books or spirits for a little while. He didn’t seem to care.
Batneezer began to dim and fade. He tried to sound spookier than he was by whispering one last line as he disappeared:
And with that, he was gone. I lay there wondering about what I had just seen. It could have been a ghost from my closet, or maybe it was a vision caused by indigestion from a bad bit of bread. I looked at my clock.
Before obeying my clock, I got out my copy of A Christmas Carol and read a few more pages. The story had been assigned in language arts, and I was almost done reading it. I liked it because it was short and I had seen so many movies about it that it felt familiar. I then pulled out a Batman comic from my drawer and looked at that. I knew I couldn’t avoid the ghosts that were coming. I wanted to be as ready as possible.
Then I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep.
CHAPTER 11
THE GHOST OF BOOKS PAST
At one o’clock, my alarm rang again even though I hadn’t set it. I rolled over and shut it off. My room was dark, but there was a glowing light coming from my window. I jumped out of bed and went outside to take a look. I saw something shining behind the trees in the middle of the rock island.
I don’t advise people to get up in the middle of the night and walk toward a mysterious light, but that’s exactly what I did. I thought it might be Jack messing around with his bug zapper, but as soon as I got closer, I could tell it was definitely not him.
I was dumbfounded. First off, my face isn’t funny. Second off, just what or who was I looking at? The ghost was a girl, and I wasn’t positive what books she was inspired by. Part of her looked like Pippi Longstocking with a monkey, while the other part just looked like a girl my age who could burp. I brushed my hair back and stood up straight. I suddenly wished I had put shorts on.
I looked around my neighborhood. It was one o’clock, and everyone was either asleep or inside their homes. I glanced back at my new visitor and wished Batneezer was there to tell me just who she was. Since he wasn’t, I decided to ask for myself.
She didn’t seem happy about my guess. She went on and on about how many volumes of books she was in and all the movies and TV shows that were about her. She also bragged about the complicated and interesting mysteries she had solved.
I could tell she was frustrated, but I really didn’t know what books she was talking about. I also didn’t want to guess and sound dumb. She took a deep breath and started talking.
I touched the end of her braid, and we began to float up over the palm trees. I had never traveled by braid, but it wasn’t that bad. We headed back in the same direction Batneezer had taken me earlier. But instead of going to Softrock Middle School, we went to my old school, Curry Elementary. It was located directly across the street from Softrock. I had gone to Curry as a kid, but I hadn’t been back since I finished sixth grade. We dropped down through the roof and right into Curry’s school library. I wanted to be handling all of this like a brave person, but I don’t think I was.
Once we were inside, everything looked familiar and comforting. The Ghost of Books Past started glowing brighter and lit up the place beautifully. When I was a little kid, I had spent a lot of time in this library, listening to the librarian read books and doing arts and crafts.
Pippiwhateverstocking was too busy thinking about something else to listen to me. She quickly led me over to a shelf where there was a long row of small books with yellow spines. She pointed to one and I pulled it out.
So she was part Pippi Longstocking and part Nancy Drew. I liked the combination and decided that the coolest thing I could call her was P-Nan. I had never read any Nancy Drew books, but when I was little, I had checked one out for Janae because she loved them.
I had read a few Pippi Longstocking books when I was a kid. She was funny, and she lived in a house with no parents, and she had that monkey named Mr. Nilsson. What’s not to like? Plus, she was super strong and could lift a horse.
I don’t know exactly what she wanted me to feel, but if this library was to blame for turning me into a confused person with a crazy closet, then I wasn’t too impressed.
Okay, I’ll be honest—it was weird being back in my elementary school librar
y. I had forgotten how much I loved some of the books I had read when I was a kid. You can’t blame me for forgetting. It’s really not something that kids my age stand around talking about anymore.
P-Nan told me that Beardy was worried about some of the things I had said about books. So she had come to show me the error of my ways. She had also come to right a wrong and needed me to look closely at the bookshelf. According to P-Nan, there was a book missing, and I was supposed to know where it was. I had no idea where it was or why she thought I had it. I also didn’t think it was that big of a deal that one book was missing. P-Nan felt differently. She began to get very pushy and upset. She tried to pick up the entire bookcase, but because she was a ghost, she couldn’t get a grip on it. She struggled for a few moments and then stopped to catch her breath. She counted to ten to calm down and then spoke.