The Ghost of Gruesome High (18 page)

The thing that clenched it for me was when Mr. Greenwald came into the teachers’ lounge half way through lunch with a smug smile on his face. He was so excited he could hardly contain himself. He motioned us all into a corner, away from the other teachers (who were not happy we were in their lounge!) and began whispering. “I just spent two hours in the principal’s office with Mayor Thompson!”

That didn’t sound good to me. For a moment my heart sank.
 

I guess Mr. Greenwald read my expression. He leaned forward with a big smile on his face. “He was furious! He demanded that Principal Wright cancel the time capsule and Principal Wright told him to get stuffed!”

Mr. Greenwald was beside himself with joy. Suddenly I began smiling, too. “That means my plan is going to work, doesn’t it?”

“It sure looks like it!” Mr. Greenwald said, beating a quick tattoo on the table with the fingers of both hands. “Why would the Mayor care if the school buried a time capsule unless he had something to hide?” Mr. Greenwald looked around the table at each of us with a big smile on his face. He ended on me. “Patsy, I think you’ve done it. I think you’ve finally put all the pieces together. You’ve accomplished what the police and I failed to do. You’ve set a trap that Mayor Thompson can’t wiggle out of! You are truly a remarkable young woman!”

* * *

We spent the next two hours in the teachers’ lounge. I always pictured the teachers’ lounge as being some fancy place with lots of neat stuff for teachers to do that they didn’t want us kids to know about, but that certainly wasn’t the case with this teachers’ lounge. It was just a room with six plain tables and a bunch of uncomfortable hard-backed plastic chairs. The biggest deal about the whole room that I could see was they had a machine that they could buy coffee and hot chocolate and chicken soup out of, and another machine filled with soft drinks.

If this is all there is to the teachers’ lounge, then they’re welcome to it!

Our lives were beginning to feel like something out of a spy movie. For lunch, Mr. Greenwald brought us sandwiches and bought us drinks out of the machine, and then he came and got us an hour before everyone else got out of school.

He walked us to the parking lot and then followed us to the hospital so we could visit Jason. He wanted to make sure that Ben Thompson didn’t try anything.

After our visit with Jason I wanted to drive out to Mr. Bell’s to return his gold coin. I had started getting nervous about holding it after Mr. Greenwald told me it was worth about five or six hundred dollars to a collector. Mr. Greenwald’s car was bigger than Wesley’s so we all piled into it and Mr. Greenwald drove.

I think Mr. Greenwald was really looking forward to meeting Mr. Bell, but when we got there we couldn’t find him. I’m not sure Mr. Greenwald really believed my stories about Mr. Bell, but after we looked in Mr. Bell’s house to see if he was O.K., and Mr. Greenwald got a look at all the hundreds of TV monitors, and all the aluminum foil satellite dishes all over the yard and the house—plus the fact that the whole house itself was covered with aluminum foil—I think he believed everything I told him.
 

We ended up leaving a note on the chair in his living room, and leaving the coin on top of the note. As I was getting into the car I took one last look at the remarkable little house and I could have sworn I saw an aluminum-foil covered head duck down on the far side of the roof. I smiled and yelled, “Good bye, Mr. Bell. Thanks for letting me use the coin! I’ll be back to see you again soon!”

I think I saw an aluminum-foil-covered hand rise up and wave quickly from the far side of the roof. It happened really quickly, and light and shadows play some good tricks around Mr. Bell’s aluminum-foil house so I can’t be sure I saw a hand, but I smiled and waved back just in case. I really liked Mr. Bell.

* * *

Mr. Greenwald tried to talk us out of staking out the school that night. He reminded us how dangerous it was and stuff like that—and I’m sure he was right— but none of us were about to be left out now! We had worked too long and too hard to wimp out now. I think Mr. Greenwald understood; he didn’t really try to talk us out of it that hard.

There was no guarantee that the Mayor and Ben would show up tonight—but I was betting they would. They couldn’t take the chance that we would come back tonight to dig up more coins and possibly discover August Wallenberg’s body.

We met at eight-thirty at the donut shop on Sycamore and Elm, not too far from the base of the hill. I hadn’t really thought about how we were going to prove that the Mayor and Ben were trying to dig up a body and a bunch of stolen coins; I just assumed that if we caught them in the act they’d just admit it or something. I guess that was a bit naive.
 

Mr. Greenwald, however, came prepared. He had a special video camera he’d rented downtown. It had special lenses or filters or something so it could shoot video in the dark. It was really cool.

Naturally Alan knew everything there was to know about it—and he spent the next thirty minutes telling us about it; at one point Wesley wrapped the camera cord around his neck and pantomimed hanging himself. Alan ignored him and kept right on talking!

Finally, at nine, Mr. Greenwald said it was time to go. We all looked at each other and tried to smile, but we knew this was serious. It could be dangerous.

We couldn’t take the chance of anyone spotting our car, so we left it in the donut shop parking lot and began hiking up the hill. It reminded me a lot of the very first night when we’d hiked up the hill to see the ghost. That seemed like such a long time ago. Almost two weeks.

The only difference this time was that Mr. Greenwald was with us. I figured he’d slow us down, what with being so old and everything. I mean, the guy had to be at least thirty-five! But he not only kept up, he was actually leading most of the way!

Once we reached the quad Mr. Greenwald took charge. He pointed out dark hiding places and told us that we weren’t to move or make a sound no matter what! He assured us that he had everything under control and no matter what happened we weren’t to confront anyone; after all, Mayor Thompson had already killed once, so he wouldn’t hesitate to kill again!

I didn’t mind Mr. Greenwald taking over this part of things. I mean, he was doing a great job. Besides, I wasn’t in this for the glory—I wanted to solve the mystery and see justice done.

Even so, I have to tell you that waiting behind a bush in the middle of the night for more than an hour and a half without moving and without making a sound is a lot harder to do than you think. I was just about ready to call things off and admit defeat when I saw movement!

I turned my head and looked at Jennifer. I could see her suddenly sit up and take notice. I looked over at Mr. Greenwald and could see him do likewise. He silently lifted the special video camera to his eye.

I couldn’t see Wesley and Alan but I’m sure that they, too, were focused on the area we’d dug behind the principal’s office. Quite suddenly two figures, dressed in black, crossed to the hole. Each figure carried a shovel and one carried a pick-ax as well. The one without the pick-ax carried a special high-tech lantern of some kind that only seemed to give off light in a small area, right where the hole was.
 

It was impossible to see the face of either man. It looked like they had put black marks on their faces to disguise themselves. The younger and stronger of the two quickly began digging with the pick-ax, while the other one, the one that looked a lot like the Mayor, shoveled the lose dirt aside.

I was beginning to get nervous! How were we going to stop these guys and prove who they were? Mr. Greenwald’s video tape would be useless since their faces were disguised.

I had no way to talk to Mr. Greenwald about my fears; every time I looked at him he was busy taping and never once made eye contact with me. My nervousness turned to full-scale, full-blown panic a few minutes later when I heard one of the men say something to the other and they stopped digging. Even though they had only been digging for maybe a quarter of an hour, they had already managed to enlarge our little hole to probably six feet deep and four or five feet across.

And then I saw it. Carefully, working together, the two men lifted out something large and bulky. It look almost like a rolled-up carpet, naturally all covered with mud and dirt. I could hear them talking. I couldn’t make out the words, exactly, but it seemed to me they were arguing about something.

As far as I was concerned, what they were saying wasn’t important. Not after they each lifted up one end of the long rolled-up carpet-like object and started to carry it away! I couldn’t let them just walk away! They were about to escape! I had to stop them. I had to do something! But what?

Without thinking clearly I stood up, still keeping to the shadows where they couldn’t see me, and yelled out in as deep and booming a voice as I could: “Stay right where you are! We’ve got the place surrounded! You’re under arrest!”

Instantly the younger and stronger of the two men dropped his end of the bundle and the next thing I knew there was a flash of light and a “pop” sound—and something struck the metal trash can next to me with a tremendous ping sound.
 

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Mr. Greenwald stand and heard him yell: “No, Patsy, get down!”

There was another of those “pop” sounds and I heard Mr. Greenwald make an “Ooof!” sound and then I watched as he fell to the ground, holding his leg with both hands!

I can’t tell you how awful I felt! I realized a moment too late that we were being shot at and that Mr. Greenwald had been hit—and it was all my fault! He had been shot trying to protect me!
 

Without thinking I ran toward Mr. Greenwald! Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew I could be shot, but that didn’t seem all that important somehow. I knew my first responsibility was to Mr. Greenwald.

If this were some dumb TV show I’m sure I would have been shot at half a dozen times and been dodging bullets and leaping over trash cans as I ran to Mr. Greenwald, but that’s not what happened.

I heard one of the men yell something at the other and then very suddenly a lot of things happened all at once!

Bright lights filled the quad and at least a dozen police officers stormed the area, guns drawn! It was so cool! Now this was exactly like something out of a movie! One of the cops yelled: “Drop your weapons and put your hands over your head! Now!”

Then I heard one of the two men who had been doing the digging yell, “Do you have any idea who I am, officer?”

If the cop answered him I didn’t hear it. I didn’t pay much more attention to our two erstwhile “ghosts”. I knelt down and looked at Mr. Greenwald’s leg. I felt just awful! His leg was bleeding and I knew it had to really hurt and it was all my fault!

But when I looked at Mr. Greenwald he was smiling through his obvious pain and he yelled: “We got ‘em, Patsy! By God, we got ‘em good!”

“Your leg!” I said.

“Don’t worry about that. That’s nothing. The important thing is, we got ‘em!”

“But how?” I asked, still confused. “How did the police know?”

Mr. Greenwald winced as he pulled a small dark object from his pocket. “One of my cop friends lent me this pager. All I had to do was press this button and the cops knew to come running! Pretty cool, huh?”

Before I could say anything three police officers rushed over to us. One of them had his walkie-talkie at his lips before he even reached us and I could hear him say that he needed an ambulance at the school immediately. One of the cops began working on Mr. Greenwald, helping him to lie down. As the officer began cutting away Mr. Greenwald’s pant leg and exposing the bleeding wound, I backed away.

Almost instantly a female officer pulled all of us kids to the side and began asking us questions.

The ghosts were indeed the Mayor and his son, Ben, and even though I never saw the bones, I was told there were the remains of a body inside the rolled up rug that they had pulled out of the hole and there were gold coins scattered throughout the hole.

It didn’t seem like it was enough, somehow. It seemed like we needed a cheering crowd and reporters with flashbulbs going off or something!
 

We had just solved a major mystery and caught the Mayor! I mean, we were heroes, weren’t we? In the movies the hero always has some great line and then a close-up while the music swells!
 

I mean, I knew this wasn’t a movie, but I thought we deserved something more than just being sat in a corner and given lukewarm hot chocolate from a thermos while we waited for our parents to come and pick us up . . . .

Let me tell you, real life isn’t anything like the movies!

But just as it seemed the whole thing was over with—we discovered there was still one last bomb-shell—and it was a Big One!

Chapter 27

Things ain’t always what they seem

Not only did we not get a great musical score and a perfectly-framed close-up like in the movies, but when our parents came to pick us up we got grounded and yelled at but good!

But eventually things settled down—especially after the newspapers did come around the next morning and interview us and use words like hero and model citizen and stuff like that. And I don’t mean just the local paper—the national wire service came and interviewed us and took a picture of all of us at the hospital gathered around Mr. Greenwald’s bed!