The Polter-Ghost Problem by Betsy Uhrig

Author:Betsy Uhrig
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Published: 2022-08-30T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

I could hear Neil’s snoring through his closed bedroom door the next morning. Poor thing was tuckered out from yesterday’s digging. I could almost see the Zs floating in the air above him. And the drool on the pillow below him.

I grabbed my pack full of art supplies and went to meet Pen and Jasper outside the library, to take our new route to the orphanage.

A half hour or so later, we were helmeted and padded, huddling in the doorway to the Grauche Orphanage for Orphans like the world’s most losing football team. Our semi-transparent coaches were Franny, Denny, and Theo.

“Stay calm,” Franny advised, “and don’t do anything to upset her.”

“The problem is,” Pen said, “that it doesn’t seem to take much to upset her, and we don’t know what it is until after we’ve done it.”

“Move slowly, speak soothingly, and duck if she starts throwing things,” Denny advised. “Also, don’t mention SPEC or the Gs and don’t discuss their portraits. We learned that the hard way, didn’t we?”

“Don’t worry,” said Theo. “We’re right behind you.”

Pen stepped over the threshold, followed by Jasper, followed by me. I kept turning around to make sure the ghosts were with us, which they were, though Theo was getting blurry.

“Where to?” whispered Pen.

“The office,” I said. “So we can spread the paper out on a desk.”

Pen tiptoed down the hall, Jasper tiptoed after Pen, I tiptoed after Jasper, and the ghosts glided in a nervous, overlapping mass behind me.

The farther we got inside the house, the drier my throat got and the wetter my armpits got. The reason for this, aside from my general dislike of having objects thrown at my head, was that I had been elected as the spokesperson for this mission. It was not a position I had asked for. Pen and Jasper had outvoted me, based on the fact that I negotiate Written Agreements with my parents all the time and that I had once—and only once—successfully negotiated with Cam and Cady.

I had been the one to finally convince them to come out of the bouncy house at their fourth birthday party. And let’s be clear about this: It took me two hours of intense negotiating. It was well after dark and all the other party guests had gone to bed by the time I got them to leave. Pen still has to give them piggyback rides whenever they want as part of the deal. He blames me for not putting any age or weight limits on that promise, but I was getting desperate by the time it was over.

We got to the office, and I took off my backpack and set it on a chair. I removed the big sheets of paper and the big crayons and spread them out on one of the desks, as far as I could get them from any heavy desktop tchotchkes. I stepped away from the desk and stood very still.

“Well?” Pen said.

“Go on,” said Jasper.

“Soothingly!” added Franny in a non-soothing whisper.

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