Monsters and Mischief (4 page)

“I know,” said Woodrow. “Since Dennis was seen upside down in the window, he must have been hanging down from above.”

“But that wouldn’t account for how he looked transparent,” said Viola. She thought for a moment. “I have an idea.” Viola stood and went to the kitchen window. Outside, a blue tint of light still illuminated the yard. She pointed at the glass. “There. What do you see?”

“Your … reflection?” said Rosie.

“Exactly,” said Viola. “You can see outside through the glass of the window. But you can also see my face looking at you.”

“So?” said Woodrow. “Are you saying that Dennis was in the second-floor bedroom with Carla’s clients? Wouldn’t they have noticed him standing behind them?”

“He wasn’t in the room with the clients,” said Viola. “But I believe he might have used his own reflection to make it appear as though he were staring at them from just outside. All he needed was a piece of glass hanging outside at the correct angle.”

Sylvester nodded. “Carla told Betsy that she’d found a large piece of glass rigged up outside the window, hanging away from the house at forty-five degrees. When Dennis looked into the glass, his reflection was visible to the people in the bedroom.”

“
If that’s the case,” said Woodrow, “where was Dennis hiding
?”

“He must have been directly below the second-floor bedroom,” said Rosie. “He simply stuck his head out the window of the room he was in, held a green-tinted flashlight at his face, and …
oooh
, ghostly image outside.”

“
But then why did Dennis appear to be upside down?” asked Woodrow
.

“Simple science, really,” said Rosie. She took out her notebook and quickly drew a diagram. “Look. If Dennis had stuck his head out the window on the first floor and looked directly upward into the rigged piece of glass, his reflection would appear to be upside down. He must not have taken that into consideration when creating his ghostly persona.”

“Ha,” said Viola. “Clever. So what did Carla do when she found out who was really haunting Blackstone Mansion?”

“She told the rest of the family,” said Sylvester. “They were so upset that Dennis had attempted to deceive them, they won’t allow him in the house again until it sells.

“Betsy and Carla chuckled together about the story as my dad brought them the check. As they left the diner, I overheard Betsy mention that she too had once tried to sell a house that people thought was haunted. But we’re already familiar with that story.”

“Yes,” said Viola, with a smirk. “All too familiar.”

4
ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER DRAMA

 

Having thought about Sylvester’s ghost story all night, Rosie decided to share it with her cast mates the next day during a break at rehearsal. Viola sat back and listened. Their new friends sat in a circle on the stage, entranced by the tale of the Blackstone Mansion and the Realtor who debunked the haunting. Afterward, while Mrs. Glick had stepped away to take a phone call, everyone debated whether or not ghosts truly existed.

“Well, of course they exist.” One voice spoke louder than the others. Clea Keene stood up, towering over the group. Remembering Rosie’s account of Clea’s lunchtime cruelty, Viola thought she looked fairly ordinary. Her straight brown hair fell to her shoulders. She wore thick, round glasses. Her wide eyes were the color of ice. “Everyone here should know that, especially those of us who’ve performed in this auditorium before.”

“What do you mean?” asked Viola.

“There’s a ghost haunting this very stage,” Clea claimed. “The Lady in Green. Lots of
people have seen her — a pale apparition in a green dress. They say that if you wear the color green on this stage, the Lady will curse you during your performance. She’s quite a jealous ghost.”

Rosie gasped. Yesterday, Mrs. Glick had showed the cast sketches of their costumes. Rosie’s was a pine-colored velveteen gown. Viola noticed Rosie clutching her ankles. “What kind of curse are we talking about?” asked Viola. She wondered if Clea wasn’t the jealous one here.

“Oh, you know,” said Clea, waving her hands dramatically. “People have tripped and fallen off the stage. They’ve forgotten their lines halfway through the performance. Once, I heard that a girl even got a really bad stomach flu. This girl was so superstitious after that, she never set foot in this room again … or wore the color green.”

Now, Rosie hugged her knees tight to her chest.

Viola leaned forward. “Have
you
ever seen this Lady in Green?”

“As a matter of fact,” said Clea, “I have experienced some ghostly phenomena in here in the past … when I had a leading role.” She crossed her arms. “The ghost doesn’t seem to like people who get the big parts. Guess I got lucky this year.”

Viola wasn’t impressed. “What kinds of things did you see?”

Clea looked down her nose at Viola, obviously unhappy that someone was challenging her. “If you must know, the Lady in Green knocked over my flower vase in my dressing room last year. I was looking in the mirror, checking my makeup, when suddenly the good-luck rose my mom had gotten me simply fell over by itself. I knew it was the Lady who’d done it.” Clea smiled. “Then, during that same show, I was coming offstage when I heard someone call my name. I thought it was one of my friends about to tell me what a good job I’d done, but when I looked around, I realized that I was alone back there in the wings. I got the biggest goose bumps ever!” Clea rubbed at her arms as if she still felt a chill.

“Sounds scary,” Rosie said. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

Clea shrugged. “Let’s hope you have better luck than I did …
Jessalynn
.”

Mrs. Glick clapped her hands as she came down the auditorium aisle. No longer on her call, now she was all business. “Everyone ready? Let’s get back to work.”

5
EVIDENCE OF JEALOUS SPIRITS
(A ???? MYSTERY)

 

The group spent the rehearsal reading through the play again, only this time, Mrs. Glick began to do some preliminary “blocking,” which was, Rosie understood, the act of learning where to stand when you said your lines. Rosie took many notes on her script, marking every time Mrs. Glick asked her to move. It was difficult to concentrate, however, because whenever Rosie looked up, she noticed Clea Keene watching her. Clea always smiled in response, but having grown up with four older siblings, Rosie knew a fake smile when she saw one. This made her even more nervous than she already was. She hadn’t signed up to become someone’s enemy. So when the rehearsal was finished, Rosie approached Viola with an idea.

“Let’s solve the mystery of Clea’s ghost,” said Rosie, sitting on the sloped edge of the stage. “If there’s one thing we’ve learned so far, it’s that not every ‘haunting’ is what it seems. Let’s debunk this one so Clea won’t have a reason to
be scared in here. Maybe she’ll even want to be friends.”

Viola raised an eyebrow. “If you want to try to smooth things over with her, I’ll help you, but I’m not so sure I want to be friends with Clea. I get a strange feeling from her.” She thought for a moment. “We do have to get along though….”

“And this sounds like a good mystery,” said Rosie hopefully.

Viola smiled. “Okay. I’m in.”

Rosie chuckled. “That was easy.”

After the last person left the auditorium, the girls gathered their belongings and began to explore. Only a few lights were left on near the stage, and so the space took on an eerie atmosphere. Shadows hid the far corners of the room — cloaks of perfect black. Anyone or anything might have been standing there, watching them. The girls had to force their brains to stay on task.

They wandered across the stage, listening for strange sounds that could have been mistaken for voices. Offstage, behind the proscenium, Rosie discovered a room with electrical equipment. Along one wall was a panel dotted with little glowing lights, indicating the many power switches used to control the elaborate lighting rig that hung over the stage. A stool stood next to a small table. “This is probably where the stage
manager sits, calling the cues, making sure the show is running properly,” said Viola.

“Huh,” said Rosie. “If this is near where Clea said she heard a voice calling her name, someone could have been in this small room. That’s who she might have heard.”

“Clea said she looked everywhere offstage and was certain no one was around,” said Viola. “Not even the stage manager. But I have an idea that would explain how Clea could hear a voice speaking from back here without anyone being nearby.”

“Are you saying there really is a ghost in the auditorium?” said Rosie.

“Not ruling it out yet. But my idea has nothing to do with the paranormal.
Can you guess what I believe Clea heard
?”

“Yes!” said Rosie, peering into the electronics room. “In order for a stage manager to call the cues for the show, he or she would have to have some sort of communication device. A headset or a walkie-talkie. If the stage manager had stepped away for a moment and left the device behind, Clea could have imagined that a disembodied voice was talking to her, when in reality it was probably one of the stagehands in another part of the theater.”

“Just what I was thinking,” said Viola. “Nice work. Ghostly experience number one is solved. What’s next?”

“The dressing room,” said Rosie.

Outside the door to their left, which led to the hallway, a machine hummed. Both girls knew it was one of the custodians turning on the vacuum cleaner. They felt reassured that they were not alone.

“Are these the stairs?” Viola said, pointing at the stone steps that led down into deeper darkness.

“I think so,” said Rosie. “I really wish you’d brought your —”

“Flashlight?” Viola said, pulling open her bag and removing a small key chain light. “You know me better than that, my dear.” The white beam was barely bright enough to show the girls their own feet as they made their way down, but it was effective enough so that they could be sure of
each other in the dark. They held hands as they pushed open the steel door at the bottom and found a dim hallway.

Upstairs, the vacuum cleaner droned, thumping and bumping along the wall as the custodian swept the hallway.

Thankfully, on the wall inside the door was a light switch. Viola flicked it up, and a harsh fluorescent glow blinked on. A row of five doors was lined up on the left side of the hall. Farther on, the shadows encroached on a particularly dirty and banged-up door, labeled BOILER ROOM. Viola nodded at the doors on their left. “The dressing rooms?” she asked, stepping forward. She pushed open the nearest door and discovered a small space with a mirror and table built into the wall on one side, and a clothes rack along the other. Rosie was the one to turn on the lights this time. The exposed bulbs around the mirror provided a dramatic effect. The girls stared at themselves in the glow, as if they were honest-to-goodness actors waiting for their curtain to rise.

“So this is probably where Clea was sitting when her flower vase tipped over,” said Rosie. The room was suddenly very quiet. The custodians upstairs had either finished the hallway or were taking a break. Rosie imagined the ghost of the Lady in Green appearing in the mirror before her, peering angrily out, furious that Rosie would
dare imitate her grand color. Rosie jumped up, and the small chair behind her fell over.

“What’s wrong?” asked Viola. “Did you see something?”

“No,” said Rosie, picking the chair up and setting it right, “but I felt something. Something that might explain the tipping of the vase.
Do you know what it was
?”

Viola thought for several seconds, then snapped her fingers. “The vacuum cleaners from upstairs,” she said. The hum had started up again. The custodians were making all sorts of noise, jostling the machine against the walls. “It might have been possible that vibrations from the hallway above us made Clea’s vase tip over. With ghosts on the brain, it would be easy for her to make the leap that it was the Lady in Green’s fault.”

Rosie nodded. “Just what I was thinking too. It
is
super scary down here, especially when you’re by yourself, I bet.” She headed toward the doorway, almost unconsciously. “Promise me you’ll never leave me alone.”

“I promise.”

Back on the stage, Rosie said, “So it would seem we have some solutions to Clea’s ghostly tales. I want to share them with her, but I still have a couple questions.”

Viola shook her head. “About what?”

“The curse,” said Rosie. “The cast members who forget their lines. The people who’ve fallen off the stage in the middle of the show. Maybe the Lady in Green is just a story, but we can’t discount the fact that some people have had bad luck here.”

Viola smiled. “I think there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for people to forget their lines. It’s no mystery really. In fact, it’s happened to me. And I know it’s already happened to you.
Can you think of what it is
?”

“Nerves?” Rosie answered.

“Yes!” said Viola. “That’s not a curse. That’s just the nature of performing in front of people.”

“But what about falling off the stage?”

“We were sitting there earlier this afternoon.
Didn’t you notice anything strange
?”

“A strange feeling?” Rosie said. “Not really, except for … Oh wait!”

Viola leaned forward expectantly.

“Well, the stage is sloped quite a bit,” Rosie answered. “I guess that would make it pretty easy for someone to lose his or her footing and topple into the orchestra pit. Gosh … how embarrassing. If that happened to me, I’d never want to show my face onstage ever again either!”

Viola laughed. “Let’s put that in our ‘blocking’ instructions.” She pulled her script from her book bag and wrote something in the margins before reading it aloud. “
‘Avoid pitfalls.’
”

“That’s what I tell myself every day,” Rosie said, flicking her hair off her shoulders with enough attitude to rival Clea Keene.