The Elevator Ghost by Glen Huser

Author:Glen Huser
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Groundwood Books Ltd
Published: 2014-07-17T16:00:00+00:00

FIVE

Ghost Ship

“O mio babbino caro,” Mama Bellini trilled as she swirled into the living room in her red going-to-the-opera dress.

“Bellissima!” Papa exclaimed, slicking back his hair and straightening his bowtie. “Look, children. Look at how beautiful your mama is. She should be on the stage tonight!”

“Oh, Papa!” Mama Bellini gave him a kiss on the forehead.

“I wanna go, too,” Angelo Bellini scowled.

“Sweet baby.” Mama Bellini hurried over to hug her five-year-old. “When you’re bigger you can go. Right now opera is just for Mama and Papa, yes?”

Angelo pushed his mother’s hug away and opened his mouth.

For a second everything was quiet in the Bellini apartment. Angelo’s older sisters, Amanita and Corrina, looked at one another and gritted their teeth. Mama’s hand swooped to her forehead as if she were trying to ward off a headache. Papa closed his eyes and shook his head.

It only took a second. Then Angelo uttered a scream that shook the ceiling lamp and sent the Bellini dog, Alfredo, whimpering for cover under the couch.

“I wanna go!” Angelo howled. He screamed again, so loud that no one heard the doorbell.

It was only when he stopped to draw breath that they heard someone knocking.

Mama and Papa both grabbed their coats as they headed to the door to admit Carolina Giddle.

“Ohgoodyou’rehere.” Mama’s words were moving even faster than her high-heeled ­opera shoes. She nearly knocked Carolina Giddle over at the doorway.

“We’ll be back before midnight.” Papa gave Carolina Giddle a nervous smile as he eased past her.

By this time Angelo was not only screaming nonstop but was stamping his feet faster than a dog trying to get at a flea with its hind leg. The radiator began clanging in time to his dance. Neighbors on both sides of the Bellini apartment were pounding on the walls.

Carolina Giddle hurried in, picked up the little boy and held him so close that his hollers were muffled in her frizzy sweater.

“Hushabye, hushabye,” she crooned, but Angelo managed to give her a couple of kicks. “Mercy me!” Carolina Giddle exclaimed as she released him. Angelo crumpled onto the rug, sobbing and banging his head against the floor.

“He’s always like this,” Amanita sighed. She was four years older than Angelo. “Maybe we can put him up for adoption.”

“Or take him camping and forget to bring him home,” said Corrina, who was a year and a half younger than Amanita. “Time out doesn’t work. He throws fits that are the ­worstest in the world.”

“Well,” Carolina Giddle drawled, “he may think he throws the worst fits of anyone who has ever lived, but Angelo isn’t a patch on the Tantrumolos.”

“The Tantrumolos?” Amanita and Corrina said.

“Yes, the Tantrumolos. I’ll tell you about them, but first…” Carolina Giddle reached into her bag. She pulled out tea candles, a can labeled Ghost Host: The Drink That Soothes, and a plastic container filled with dessert squares. “I just this afternoon baked up a batch of granghoula bars. My mother showed me how to make them when I was just your age and we lived on a little island off the coast.

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