Zero to Hero (3 page)

Before Billy could absorb what he was witnessing, he was tossed up in the air by a massive tremble that felt like an earthquake knocking the house right off its foundation. The tremble was accompanied by what sounded like a freight train charging out of the center of the earth. If seeing a ghost hadn’t been frightening enough, Billy was now officially out of his mind with fear.

From down the hall, he heard Breeze scream, “What is happening here, people? Inform me!” Farther down the hall, he heard his parents’ footsteps and then their voices calling, “Billy! Breeze! Outside! Immediately!”

“Earthquake!” Billy yelled.

“Trust me. It’s not an earthquake,” Hoover Porterhouse said to him.

“Oh yeah? What would you call it?”

“Report card day.”

Hoover pointed to the wall next to Billy’s bed. There, lit up in glowing blue type that seemed to pulsate with the shaking of the house, Billy saw a series of five letters … C, C, A, F, F. What could those letters mean? And how did they get on the wall of his room?

“This is not fair!” Hoover complained, shaking his fist at the wall. “What do you guys want from me? Well, forget it. I give up. Go ahead and give me two F’s. See if I care.”

With that, there was another rumble from underground and a huge jolt shook the entire house. It felt like the roof was about to cave in.

“I’m out of here!” Billy shouted to the ghost, who was pacing back and forth and letting out a stream of words that any regular kid would have gotten ten years’ detention for saying. Billy flung the door open and bolted out into the hall. His feet barely touched the floor as he barreled past Breeze’s room and met up with his
parents, who were waiting to escort them both out to the front yard.

“This feels like a seven point five on the Richter earthquake scale,” Bennett said.

“Whatever the number is, it’s totally scary!” Billy answered.

“Children, form a single line and proceed calmly,” his mother instructed. “And hold hands.”

Years of being a middle school principal had prepared Mrs. Broccoli-Fielding for any emergency. As the family proceeded in an orderly fashion to the front yard, Billy realized that the house was no longer shaking. The earthquake had hit with a sudden force and disappeared just as suddenly. None of the neighbors were out on the street, and no one but the Broccoli-Fieldings seemed to have experienced this terrifying event.

“Am I the only one noticing that we are alone out here in the middle of the night, in our pajamas, holding hands?” Breeze asked. Then, turning to Billy, she let go of his hand and said,
“I mean this in the nicest way, but your palms are majorly sweaty.”

“My hands do that when they’re scared,” Billy explained. “So do my armpits.”

“Nauseous,” Breeze said. “If we’re going to live in the same house, you’ve got to filter all armpit talk.”

Dr. Fielding was poking around the front yard, trying to discover what could have caused the house to shake so violently.

“I don’t smell any gas,” he yelled over his shoulder.

“Tell the gentleman in the boxer shorts that he can give his nose a rest,” a ghostly voice whispered. Billy wheeled around to see Hoover Porterhouse sitting on a branch in one of the orange trees.

“What are you doing here, Hoover?” Billy whispered.

“I followed you out of the house. Hey, that scared me, too. Usually my report card doesn’t arrive in such an earthshaking way. The Higher-Ups must have felt they needed to get my
attention. I’m assuming they were not overly enthusiastic about my grades.”

“Higher-Ups?” Billy whispered. “What are you talking about?”

“You might call them teachers,” Hoover explained. “They’ve been grading my progress for the last ninety-nine years. Apparently, I’m not passing with flying colors. Two C’s, two F’s, and an A in Personal Grooming, which stands to reason.”

Hoover floated down off the orange tree branch and struck a pose, adjusting his newsboy cap to the side, puffing out his chest, and snapping his red suspenders with his thumbs. “I might be a phantom, but I always look snazzy. It’s on my business card. I’m the Ghost with the Most.”

Billy was totally perplexed.

“Why do you look so confused?” Hoover said. “Don’t you get a report card? I got a C in Haunting Skills, which is unfair. I’m an excellent haunter. I got a C in Invisibility. I’m working on it, but it’s not as easy as it looks. It’s the F’s that really fry my boots, though.
One is in Helping Others and the other is in Responsibility. It’s too much fun turning people’s lives upside down. You can’t take that away from a guy.”

“Okay, it’s official,” Billy said as Hoover explained the ghostly grading system. “I truly don’t understand anything you’re saying. My brain is on overload.”

“Honey, who are you talking to?” Billy’s mom asked. “You’ve been muttering to yourself for the last thirty seconds.”

“Listen, Mom. This is going to sound weird, but I’m just going to say it flat out. I saw a ghost and he didn’t do well on his report card.”

“You know what?” Breeze said. “This whole blended family thing isn’t working out for me. I can’t live in the same house with someone who thinks he’s talking to academically challenged ghosts.”

Breeze turned and started back toward the house. Hoover caught up to her and flicked his hand lightly against her hair, which made it seem as if a gust of wind had lifted only one side of her hair.

“Oh, and another thing, Billy,” she said, frowning at him. “No one touches my hair.”

“I didn’t do it. I’m standing over here and you’re way over there. What am I, Elastic Man?”

“Then who did it? Your imaginary ghost?”

“Yes, he did.”

“Bill,” said Dr. Fielding, clearing his throat uncomfortably. “When I was a boy, I had a great imagination, too. In fact, I had an imaginary friend named Tommy Tooth. He was a big beaver with a huge flat tail and two huge pearly whites protruding from his upper gums. I used to fantasize that, one day, I’d fix his overbite, and he’d teach me how to chop wood with my mouth. Sure it was fun, but one day, I realized it was time to give up my imaginary friend and let him paddle his way back into my imagination.”

Billy just stared at his new stepfather, speechless. All he could do was nod like a bobble-head doll.

“Thank you for sharing that, Bennett,” Mrs. Broccoli-Fielding said, taking her husband’s
hand sweetly. “I’m sure Billy really appreciates your support. But I think what we all need now is a good night’s sleep. In the morning, Billy will be able to see that this ghost of his was just a reaction to the stress of moving, combined with tonight’s unfortunate furnace rumble.”

The family headed through the orange trees up to the front door. Billy lagged behind. He looked around the front yard for Hoover Porterhouse III, but the only trace of him was the distinctive orange aroma that seemed to accompany him wherever he went.

And even that was getting fainter and fainter.

That night, Billy tried to go back to sleep, but it wasn’t easy. He kept expecting Hoover Porterhouse to float through the window or under the door. But Hoover did not appear. Morning came and sunlight streamed in through Billy’s pink ruffled curtains, but there were still no signs of Hoover. When Billy walked into the kitchen for Sunday breakfast, there was no Sunday breakfast, either. His mother was sitting at the table, making a list.

“Hi, honey,” she said. “Feeling better this morning?”

“If we can make waffles with peanut butter and maple syrup for breakfast, I’ll feel better.”

“Of course we can. We just need to go to the market and get all the ingredients. I’ll stock up on a few other things while we’re there.”

As Billy and his mom climbed into their van, Billy noticed Rod Brownstone hiding behind the hedges, peering out at them through his industrial-size binoculars.

“That’s one strange guy,” he said to his mom. “He’s always spying on us.”

“Maybe he’s scientific and likes to see things up close. You used to spend all day staring at your ant colony, watching them carry their leaves and twigs through their tunnels.”

“Mom, I didn’t use binoculars. And besides, we’re not ants.”

Mrs. Broccoli-Fielding started the van, and over the sound of the engine, Billy heard a knock on the passenger-side window. He rolled it down to see a girl of about seven or eight, with pigtails and bright rosy cheeks. She had the same stocky body as Rod, only shorter, so Billy’s guess was that she was his sister.

“Hi. I’m Amber Brownstone,” she said in a surprisingly raspy voice. “I live next door, and my dad says the sprinklers in the front of your house are broken. My dolls and I are having a fashion show at four o’clock and we’re serving
hot chocolate with little marshmallows on top, but it’s not burning hot, so the marshmallows won’t melt.”

“Nothing beats a non-melted marshmallow,” Billy said, “except maybe a frozen banana.”

“I like those, too,” Amber giggled. “Covered with chocolate. Do you want to be a judge at our fashion show?”

“Mom,” Billy said, shooting his mom a step-on-it look. “We have to get to the market. Like now.”

“We’ll see you later, Amber,” Billy’s mom said, putting the van in gear. “And we’d love to come to your dolls’ fashion show.”

“Speak for yourself,” Billy muttered as they pulled away from the curb.

The supermarket was quiet that early on a Sunday morning. Billy grabbed a cart and followed his mom up and down the aisles while she filled it with useful things like canned soup, flour, sugar, bread, maple syrup, and whipped butter. She didn’t object when he tossed in some of his favorite foods: chunky peanut butter, strawberry jam, frozen waffles, packaged miso
soup, tuna fish, and cans of little green peas. As they were rounding the corner of Aisle 9 and heading into the paper-goods section, Billy heard the loudspeaker microphone clicking on.

“Good morning, shoppers,” a voice said. “I want to introduce you to someone brand-new to the neighborhood. Billy Broccoli is in the house.”

Billy stopped dead in his tracks. He knew that voice. It belonged to a certain ghost he had met the night before. He glanced over at the checkout counter and saw that the microphone for the public address system had left its metal clip holder and was bobbing up and down in midair.

“That’s him, Mom.”

“That’s who, honey? You didn’t tell me you had already made a friend in the neighborhood. Oh, look, there’s a bakery here right in the market. I’ll go get some sticky buns while you say hi to your new friend.”

And with that, she was off. Billy looked around, but he saw no sign of Hoover. Suddenly, a flurry of plastic picnic plates came flying
down the aisle like a bunch of Frisbees heading right toward him. He tried to catch them, but they were coming fast and he could only manage to grab a few out of the air.

“You need to work on your hand-eye coordination, Billy Boy.”

Suddenly, Hoover Porterhouse appeared out of thin air. He stood in front of Billy, holding the torn package of plastic plates.

“You wait right here,” Billy said to him. “Do not drift. Do not move. Do not fly. I’m going to get my mom so she’ll see you and know you’re real.”

“Can’t happen, Billy Boy. She won’t see me. I’m invisible.”

“No, you’re not. How could you be? I’m looking at you right now.”

“You can see me because I’m your ghost. To everyone else, I’m invisible.”

“You’re not my ghost! I never asked for a ghost. I asked for an iPod, I asked for my own cell phone, I asked for a red BMX bike with black trim. But never, on any list, at any time, anywhere, did I ever ask for a ghost.”

“Lucky you. I show and you didn’t even have to ask. You hit the jackpot, ducky.”

Hoover drifted over to the shopping cart and floated right through the metal slats to perch on the kiddy seat.

“I used to love this stuff,” he said, picking up the jar of peanut butter. “Yes, sir, peanut butter was one of the great things about being alive. Everyone in town knew that the Hoove was a peanut-butter hog.”

“You call yourself the Hoove? Seriously?”

“No, not seriously. I don’t do anything seriously. Bring the cart and follow me. I’ll let you feast your eyes on some Hoove-style fun.”

Hoover whooshed down the paper-goods aisle, turned the corner, and stopped in front of the seventy-two choices of breakfast cereals. He picked out three family-size boxes and held them in his hands.

“I need your undivided attention,” he said to Billy. “First, I will disappear. Second, I will juggle these three boxes.”

Hoover began to whistle “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad,” and in the blink of an eye, he
disappeared. Suddenly, the three cereal boxes rose into the air and started circling one another, slowly at first, then faster and faster until Billy could barely tell one box from the other.

“Now watch this,” the Hoove called out. “I’m going high.”

Still circling one another, the boxes rose higher and higher into the air, until they were so close to the ceiling, they actually bounced off the fluorescent light fixtures. Without a doubt, it was an impressive trick.

“Could you stop doing that?” Billy called out. “You’re going to get me thrown out of the market.”

The three boxes fell from the air, landing in the cart, one right after the other. Billy looked around for the Hoove.

“Are you still here?” he asked.

“Of course I’m still here,” Billy’s mother said, returning from the bakery with a bag of sticky buns. Then, glancing in the cart, she added, “That’s quite a lot of cereal for just the four of us.”

Billy knew his mother didn’t want to hear about his cereal-juggling ghost buddy, so he thought fast.

“I heard on TV that if you go shopping when you’re hungry, you buy twenty-two percent more food,” he said. “I guess I should have eaten breakfast first.”

After that, Hoover kept himself scarce. He wasn’t in the fruit section. Or at the checkout counter. Or in the parking lot. Billy helped his mom load the groceries into the car and they pulled out of the parking lot and drove down Ventura Boulevard. When they stopped at a red light near their house, Billy noticed a familiar face outside his window. The strange thing was, it was upside down and sliding down the glass. And if that wasn’t enough, it was smiling.