The Yggyssey (10 page)

"I understand the cookery class is going to happen," Kitty Nebelstreif said.

"The one where the mothers from my school are going to take health food lessons from Gypsy Boots?"

"Yes, the hotel has cleaned up the old restaurant and moved chairs into the kitchen, where Gypsy Boots will demonstrate recipes."

"I thought Gypsy Boots believed in eating everything raw," I said.

"I suppose he is going to show the mothers how to chop things up and put them in a blender," Kitty Nebelstreif said. "Or show them how to chop things up and make them into salads."

"Hardly sounds like a cookery class to me," I said. "More like a chopping class."

"I'm sure it will be very nice," Kitty Nebelstreif said.

"Are you planning to attend yourself?" I asked her.

"No."

I think I have already mentioned that the popular song "Nature Boy" was written about Gypsy Boots. He was the first person to make "health food" widely popular. At one time, he and a bunch of other maniacs lived up in the hills, eating things they found growing wild, wearing hardly any clothes, and sleeping in caves and trees. He invented the "smoothie," which is a bunch of fruits and juices spun in a blender. These blenders are a big item lately. They are sort of like the milk shake machines in soda fountains, only instead of the motor on top and the blades coming down into a big container, blenders have the motor underneath and the blades at the bottom of a tall, thick glass. Everybody buys them, mostly so they can make milk shakes and malteds at home, which are never as good as the ones at the drugstore.

Gypsy Boots is a nice man, and he will stop to talk to anybody about wheatgrass, and why garlic is good for you.

FLOWER AND VEGETABLE SALAD

2 cups thinly sliced cucumber

1 cup chopped onion

1 cup chopped bell pepper

1 cup tomatoes (small pieces)

3–4 minced or chopped nasturtium leaves

Mix all ingredients in a salad bowl, using chopped green nasturtium seed pods instead of leaves if you prefer. If the salad is not moist enough, you may add a teaspoon of safflower or soy oil.

That's one of his. It was in the newspaper.

I found Chase sniffing some nasturtiums near the deserted and overgrown tennis court behind the hotel. She was about the size of a medium-to-large cocker spaniel on this particular day.

"You know, those are okay to eat," I said. "I just read a recipe in the newspaper."

"Tell me something I don't know already," Chase said. "I'm a rabbit. I know what's what."

"How about you telling me something?" I said.

"Such as what?" Chase asked, moving over to sniff some wild parsley.

"Such as what is the deal with the ghosts disappearing? Where are they all going, and why?"

"You don't know?" Chase asked.

"If I knew, why would I ask you? Billy the Phantom Bellboy claims to know all about it but says he can't tell. Been sworn to secrecy."

"Billy the Phantom Bellboy doesn't know what he is talking about," Chase said. "It's no secret. The ghosts are going down below to enjoy the big event."

"Down below? Big event?"

"Do you know about Walpurgisnacht?"

"You mean Walpurgisnacht, or Walpurga's Night, also known as Hexennacht or Witch's Night, in German? It's an old pagan festival that later got hooked up with the birthday of a saint named Walpurga, and it's supposed to be when all the witches and ghoulies and goblins come out and have a big whoop-de-doo on a mountain called the Blocksberg, also known as the Brocken, which is the highest peak in the Harz Mountains. Is that what you mean?" I asked.

"How do you know so much?" Chase asked.

"I have volume V–W of the
Children's Encyclopedia
in my room," I said. "In Sweden the holiday is known as Valborgsmassoafton or Valborg, which is the Scandinavian name for St. Walpurga. In Finland it's Vapunaatto, and in Estonia it's Volbriöö. People, especially students, have bonfires, and dance outside and drink too much. And it comes
exactly six months before or after Halloween to the day. So why are all the ghosts leaving to go to it when Halloween is barely past?"

"I didn't say ghosts were going to it. I just asked if you knew what it was."

"Which I do," I said.

"Which you do," Chase continued. "And I only brought it up as an example of a big supernatural wing-ding. You know, ghosts love a good party."

"And there's going to be one."

"Yes."

"And it's down there, you said."

"Yes. Down there."

"In the Underworld."

"Not exactly."

"In hell."

"Well, no."

"In a big hole in the ground."

"Technically, yes."

"There's going to be a big supernatural wing-ding in a hole in the ground."

"Not really. The wing-ding is on top of a mountain."

"And this mountain is..."

"Down there."

"And it's called?"

"What, the mountain?"

"Okay, yes, what is the mountain called?"

"It's called the Devil's Shoestring."

"Interesting. And where is it located? Don't say down there."

"Hackensack."

"Hackensack? That's in New Jersey!"

"This is a different one. And it's called Old New Hackensack. There are worlds within worlds."

"And in Old New Hackensack there's a mountain called the Devil's Shoestring."

"It's tall and skinny."

"And this is where the supernatural hootenanny is going to happen."

"On the mountain, and in the vicinity."

"And all the ghosts are going there."

"Yes."

"Can I go to this party?"

"I suppose, if you knew where it was."

"You just told me, Hackensack, but not the one in New Jersey."

"That's right, Old New Hackensack."

"So I could go?"

"If you knew how to get there."

"How do I get there?"

"Can't tell you. Sworn to secrecy."

"How to get there is a secret?"

"Yes."

"So Billy the Phantom Bellboy was right."

"Just about how to get there—the rest anybody can know."

"Are you going?"

"Probably."

"But you won't take me with you."

"You know, you should follow me around someday. You'd enjoy seeing all the stuff I get up to."

"I'll make a point of doing that," I said.

"Good. I'm sure you'll learn things."

"Melvin wants to treat us to a meal at Clifton's!" Neddie Wentworthstein said. "It's Crazy Wig's birthday. It will be you, me, Seamus Finn, Crazy Wig of course, Aaron Finn the movie star, Al from school, and Billy the Phantom Bellboy."

This was perfect. "This is perfect," I said. "I have something interesting to discuss with all of you." Al from school is Al Crane, one of the military school kids. He hangs out with Neddie and Seamus, but not all the time. His father is the manager of the Gibbs Brothers Circus, and frankly, he usually has better things to do.

"Everybody has to bring a suitable present, and you can't order anything over five cents—but the restaurant
provides a free cake if it's a birthday party," Neddie said. "Doesn't it sound like fun?"

"Actually, it sounds like someone is going to entertain eight people for thirty-five cents—since the ghost doesn't eat—and get a free cake and presents out of it, but I will attend, noting that I appear to be the only female any of you know and the occasion would be drab without me."

"Melvin could invite your boyfriend, Bruce Bunyip," Neddie said.

"I never said he was my boyfriend," I said.

"He says different," Neddie said.

I had not run into Bruce Bunyip since I met him bongo-ing on the Day of the Dead, but I had attained some status at the Harmonious Reality School once word got around that I was stepping out with practically a criminal. I did nothing to discourage the rumor. Apparently, Bruce Bunyip had been doing something similar at the Brown-Sparrow Military Academy. Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.

Neddie brought Crazy Wig a pair of fluorescent pink fuzzy shoelaces. Seamus brought him a petrifed possible wolf's tooth. Al gave him a pair of tickets to the circus. Aaron Finn gave him a pair of swordsman's gloves he had worn in some movie. I gave him the latest edition of
Mad Comics.
Melvin gave him argyle socks. Billy, being a ghost, didn't have anything material to give him, but he told him the location of some buried Spanish gold coins. Crazy Wig seemed pleased with his presents. He had on a nice suit and the buffalo-skin hat with horns he always wore, and also a hand-painted necktie with a hula dancer and a palm tree on it.

We had a good table in one of the grottos, with plenty of stucco sculptures looking like those Easter Island heads, and a neon palm tree nearby. We all had the five-cent Multiple Purpose Meal—whole wheat bread, vegetable soup, salad with your choice of dressing, Jell-O in all known flavors, and all the coffee we wanted. The management of Clifton's sent around a tiny cake, just big enough for each of us to have a thin slice, and some Clifton's employees in biblical robes stood around and sang "Happy Birthday." Crazy Wig said it was the best party he'd ever had. While we were sitting around drinking coffee and licking cake crumbs off a fingertip, I decided the right moment had come.

"Neddie and Seamus, you remember our wager. I will be collecting free crullers from you every Sunday for the next two months."

"What's this?" Aaron Finn said. "You children had a wager?"

"They bet me I couldn't find out anything about the recent disappearance of so many ghosts," I said. "Naturally, I found out plenty."

"Impossible!" Billy the Phantom Bellboy said. "That stuff is top secret."

"All the same," I said. "I know what I know."

"All right, Miss Smartypants," Billy the Phantom Bellboy said. "Tell what you know, and I'll tell you if you have it right."

"To begin with," I said, "the ghosts are all going to Hackensack."

"Hackensack? In New Jersey?" Aaron Finn asked.

"It's a different Hackensack. And this one is Old New Hackensack," I said. "Apparently there are worlds within worlds."

"What does that mean?" Al the circus boy asked.

"It means that this plane of existence, where we are now, is not the only one," Melvin the shaman said. "While we are sitting here, digesting our wonderful meal, in the same space and almost the same time, there may be others, fishing in a river, or sleeping, or sawing lumber, walking around—we can't see them, and they can't see us."

"Except sometimes in certain kinds of dreams," Crazy Wig said. "Also, there are portals—places where barriers between the various planes of existence don't exist and you can pass from one to another. And in some cases, where there are old cities, with other older cities buried underneath them, those old cities may not be defunct. They may be going strong, only of course on other planes of existence."

"I think I read something about this in a book," Seamus Finn said. "Some fiction about a boy from Mars."