Gilda Joyce: The Ladies of the Lake (11 page)
Read Gilda Joyce: The Ladies of the Lake Online
Authors: Jennifer Allison
“You mean you’re a watchamacallit—a ghostbuster?”
“It’s more like being a detective with psychic abilities.”
“Well, well. A card-carrying psychic investigator.”
“If you see any more ghosts around here, will you let me know?”
“Okay,” said Keith, winking. “I see a ghost; I give Gilda Joyce a call.”
D
olores Lambert is with the Lord,” said Mrs. McCracken. “She is not in a drinking fountain, in a Coke machine, in a wad of chewing gum, and she is most certainly not floating around the floor of the freshman locker room.”
But she IS lurking in the “tofu surprise” in the cafeteria
, Gilda thought, wishing Wendy Choy was there to share her little joke.
Following the hysteria of the previous school day, Mrs. McCracken decided to meet with the entire freshman class in the chapel to “put out the fire before it gets out of control.” Next to her, Miss Underhill and Bertha Gumm, the ancient school nurse, stood with arms folded. Tiara, who sat a few feet away from Gilda, kept her eyes downcast.
“If you see a ghost, just tell yourself this: ‘I’m only seeing my own fears.’ That’s right—
your own fears
. Ladies, as much as I’d like to, I just can’t explain a tragedy like what happened to Dolores Lambert a few years ago right here on our own school property. I can’t explain
why
such a dear, sweet person should die such a horrible death, but I can tell you that you are safe here at school. Just have faith, let go of your worries, and be grateful that we’re all here, sharing this special day together.”
Something about Mrs. McCracken’s smooth words made the entire notion of ghosts evaporate—at least for the moment. The girls gazed up at her with grateful eyes.
“Now,” said Mrs. McCracken. “I think we’ll all feel better if we all join in and sing the ‘Our Lady of Sorrows Song’ together.”
The freshmen still didn’t know the song very well, so they merely listened and looked uncomfortable while Mrs. McCracken, Miss Underhill, and Ms. Gumm sang enthusiastically.
Gilda was distracted by a disturbance a few feet away—a strange rustling sound. She peered down the length of the pew and saw Tiara convulsed by what seemed to be either a very bad itch or the beginning of an epileptic fit.
“Eeeewww!” The girls sitting directly around Tiara jumped away.
echoed through the chapel followed by a chorus of surprised, disgusted squeals.
Gilda stood up and craned her neck to see what was going on.
“Where did this come from?” Tiara’s hands flew up to her ears, as if she were under arrest. “She’s after me. Please, make her stop!”
Sprawled across Tiara’s lap was a strikingly large, dead goldfish.
Mrs. McCracken, Miss Underhill, and Ms. Gumm moved toward Tiara swiftly, like a trio of zookeepers moving in to contain a wild animal who was going berserk. Tiara stood up and the fish flopped to the floor.
Moving quickly amidst the commotion, Gilda scooted herself to Tiara’s spot in the pew, picked up the cold, slippery fish,
and stuffed it in her backpack before anyone noticed what she was doing. She had no idea what she was going to DO with the fish—only that it was evidence of some sort.
“Girls!” yelled Mrs. McCracken, clapping her hands to capture everyone’s attention. “You are dismissed. Please go to your next class immediately.”
The girls hesitated, staring and whispering as Mrs. McCracken and Miss Underhill each took one of Tiara’s arms and escorted her from the chapel.
As the day progressed, Gilda almost hoped that the fish in her backpack would mysteriously vanish, but each time she reached for one of her notebooks, its round eyes and gaping mouth greeted her with a look of unhappy surprise.
Tiara had apparently disappeared; she didn’t show up for any of her classes.
I need to consult an expert about this
, Gilda thought. She decided to stop at the Fur & Feathers pet store on her way home from school to ask whether there was anything unusual about the dead goldfish.
A teenage boy whose thick, curly hair grew in a flying-saucer-shaped halo regarded Gilda steadily as she removed the dead fish from her backpack and laid it on the counter. “We don’t take returns on dead fish,” he said preemptively.
“I just want your opinion about something.”
“It’s definitely dead,” said the boy.
“I
know
it’s dead. But can you see anything
unusual
about this fish?”
The boy shrugged. “It’s a pretty big goldfish, but goldfish can get really big if you let them.”
“Could a fish like this live in a lake around here, or would it have to come from a tank?” Gilda reasoned that if the fish came from Mermaid Lake, it might have something to do with Dolores Lambert. If not, then it was more likely Tiara’s own doing.
“It could live in either a lake or a tank. Did you overfeed it or something? That’s how a lot of people kill their fish.”
“It isn’t my fish; I just want to find out where it came from.”
“We don’t have any fish this size, if you’re trying to replace it for someone. Lots of kids kill their fish because they put them in the wrong-temperature water. If the temperature changes too fast, it’s too much of a shock. I mean, how would you like it if someone just dropped you in a freezing-cold swimming pool without letting you get used to the water first?” He gave Gilda a stern look, as if trying to persuade her to stop murdering the innocent fish of the world.
Gilda wasn’t sure why this salesclerk was acting as if she had brought in the dead body of one of his best friends.
Maybe each day, kids come in to replace animals they accidentally killed, and it’s started to drive him crazy
, she thought.
The boy poked glumly at the fish. He took a pencil and looked under its gills. “Did you realize this fish has been breathing a carpet?” he asked accusingly. “Just look at this.”
The fish’s gills were filled with gray carpet fibers. Gilda suddenly felt a little sorry for the fish.
“Sometimes a fish will jump right out of the tank and then flop around on the floor until it dies. So maybe that’s what happened.”
“You mean, it committed suicide?”
The boy looked at Gilda as if trying to remember her face just in case the police asked about her later. “Fish don’t commit suicide,” he said. “If anything, it probably jumped out of the tank because it was
happy
.”
More than anything, Gilda now wanted to be rid of the fish. Remembering that things like carpet fibers were often important to crime scenes, she pulled a few of the carpet fibers from the fish’s gills and put them in a pocket of her backpack. Outside the store, she glanced around to make sure nobody was looking, hastily stuffed the fish in a trash container, and hurried away.
Dear Dad,
Tiara hasn’t been back in school for a week, and nobody seems to know where she is. I tried calling her house a couple times, but nobody answered
.
Right now I’m on the bus, riding home from school. There are only a few other girls who ride the city bus with me, and I’m guessing they’re also on scholarship. Two of them–Yolanda and Jill–seem to be close friends, but they never actually have a conversation; they just sit together with their heads buried in their homework
.
I take that back: I just overheard the following conversation:
Jill: What did you get on your math quiz
?
Yolanda: A
.
Jill: Me, too! What did you get on your English paper
?
Yolanda: I only got an A-minus
.
Jill: Oh. I got an A
.
Yolanda: I hope Ms. Peebles has our science projects graded by tomorrow. I can’t wait to find out what I got
!
This conversation indicates that Yolanda and Jill must be near the bottom of the social hierarchy at Our Lady. And where do I fit in? It’s becoming clear that I don’t fit in with
any
group at this school. Not that I
mind
.
I know the life I’ve chosen as an undercover psychic detective is
supposed
to be lonely, and I’ve always tried to see myself as separate from all the cliques and social groups—someone who doesn’t mind being independent and different
.
On the other hand, I have to admit it: every now and then (like today) I can’t help thinking it might be nice to have a group of popular, shallow girlfriends who would call me on the phone to gossip about boys. We’d get jealous of each other based on who we’re dating. We’d go shopping together for clothes and dress in matching designer sweatpants and rhinestone flip-flop sandals. We’d go on diets together and tell each other everything we had eaten in a single day: “A bite of cereal, some black coffee, half a grapefruit, a Diet Coke—and that’s all!” We’d be as close as sisters. We’d also secretly hate each other and dream of fleeing to some distant island to just be alone, eat Cheetos, and read a good book. Maybe it wouldn’t be so great after all
.
Sitting in front of me is a girl named Maria who’s in my religion class. Today I got into an argument with her about “whether women should be allowed to be priests.” I said yes
;
she said no. Miss Appleton took Maria’s side, of course. She said, “There’s a reason to preserve tradition.” I told Maria I would take matters into my own hands and write a letter directly to the pope. She and Miss Appleton just laughed. Little did they know I was totally serious
!
Dear Pope Benedict,
First of all, belated congrats on your promotion! I bet in the old days you often looked up at the “popemobile” and secretly wondered, “When is it going to be MY turn?” Well–now it is
!
My name is Gilda Joyce, and I’m a freshman at a Catholic girls’ school. You’ll be relieved to know that we wear our skirts at a tasteful three inches above the knee. We do have a shortage of serious nuns, however
.
I recently got in a little spat with a colleague, so I thought you might be able to settle our dispute. I just wanted to run my idea by you–some “food for thought.”
Here goes:
WOMEN PRIESTS. HOW ABOUT IT
?
PROS:
- You make your mark as “a new kind of pope.”
- MOST of the girls at my school would be your biggest fans.
CONS:
NONE! (Well, a few grumpy, elderly men might disagree. Who needs ‘em?)
I bet you’ve already got this same idea up your sleeve and you’re just waiting to surprise us with the news. That would be just like you
!
I’d be happy to discuss this with you anytime
.
Liebe Grüβe und Küsse (German for “love and kisses”), Gilda Joyce
.
P.S. Please say a prayer for my father, Nicholas Joyce (deceased)
.
L
arge fans still blew into the freshman locker room in an attempt to get rid of the odor of mildew and swamp water, but sightings of Dolores’s ghost had ceased for the moment. A weary atmosphere of resignation descended over the school as the girls reluctantly put aside ghost stories and faced the mounting pressure of tests, papers, and school projects.
Gilda entered Ms. Peebles’s science classroom and found her classmates quietly reading the school newspaper,
The Petunia
. The front-page headline declared
students cope with flood
! Curious, Gilda picked up an extra copy of the paper.
A torrential weekend downpour left several rooms on the lower level of the Castle House flooded this week.
“This is definitely the worst Monday of the school year so far,” senior Nikki Grimaldi stated grimly. “Good thing most of the flooding happened in the freshman locker room instead of the Senior Common Room,” she joked.
“A paper that I stayed up all night to write got totally
drenched in my locker,” freshman Sheila Farber complained.
A number of assignments were lost during the day, causing stress to both students and teachers alike.
“The worst thing is the smell!” freshman Ashley Thomas lamented….
