Out to the backyard. My arms up, I jump, then swing a leg over the bottom limb of our ornamental pear tree. The tree my mom planted when I was born. And the place where she first made contact with me. I get all settled, my back rubbing against the rough bark, my legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. Then I open the plastic bag of espresso beans and wave it back and forth while thinking Mom thoughts. Hopefully, Grandpa will show up too.
“Mom. Mom.” I wave the bag. “Anytime now.”
Just as I’m about to give up and go grab a Mountain Dew and some Doritos, a breeze rustles the leaves at the top of the tree.
Thud!
I clutch the bag tight to my chest. Mom has got to work on her landing.
“Sorry about that, pumpkin.” My branch shakes as Mom settles herself in.
The smell of coffee wraps around me.
“Caw, caw.” Grandpa lands by my feet, his ratty wings fluttering furiously, his pink belly pooching out. I guess we’re all in a row, me by the trunk, Grandpa sandwiched in the middle, then Mom at the end.
“Yay, Grandpa! You’re here.”
He flashes me a beaky smile.
The shaking of my branch slows down but doesn’t completely stop. Which means Mom is in her fave position, one leg crossed over the other, jiggling a foot.
“Are you okay, Mom?” I ask. “Did the ghost-hunting equipment hurt or anything?”
“No, it didn’t hurt,” she says.
“You couldn’t just lift up the tent flap and leave?” I jam the bag of beans in my pocket.
“I can cross thresholds, but I can’t manipulate barriers to get to them,” Mom says. “Yet.”
“Did you tell Grandpa about the ghost hunter?” I ask.
Grandpa nods, and a feather comes loose and flutters to the ground.
“Did you learn anything of interest at the psychic fair?” Mom asks.
“Uh, yeah. Where’s my brain at?” I shift position so the branch isn’t digging into my thigh. “The psychic, who’s my age, by the way, predicted something bad with The Ruler and a knife. Right after that, The Ruler called because—get this!—someone slashed her tires! All four of them. Flat as pancakes.”
“Where’s the car?” Mom asks.
“At Tires Tires Tires,” I say.
“I’d like to examine the damage,” Mom says. “Wilhelm, we’ll stop there on the way home.” The branch goes still. She must be thinking, twirling her hair around her index finger. “That escalated fast.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“A stalker’s behavior generally escalates or gets worse over time. I’m assuming her stalker is responsible for the tire business,” Mom says. “Slashing tires is fairly violent. And risky to undertake during the day. He’s not starting off with small actions.”
Yikes. I do not want to hear we’re dealing with a crazier-than-usual stalker. “The police came, and they’re doing a report.”
“Good. Although they won’t devote much effort to one-time vandalism. We’ll have to step up our efforts for guarding Paula,” Mom says.
Grandpa nods his balding bird head.
“We have to keep her safe,” Mom says quietly to him, but I still hear her. “She’s what’s holding my family together.”
Grandpa mutters something about surveillance schedules and the weekend.
“That’s right. I’m tied up all this weekend too. Sherry, you’ll have to handle surveillance Saturday and Sunday.”
“I can,” I say. “What’s up with you guys?”
Grandpa jabbers. Something so not intelligible to the human ear.
“Uh, Academy business,” Mom says.
“Mom, just tell me.”
“It’s the Annual Worldwide Academy Ghostlympics, where we pit our skills against Academies from various countries, including Germany, France, Spain, Korea. I’m entered in the animal mind-control event.” Her voice swells with pride. “It’s unusual for a newer student like myself to represent the Academy. But, as you know, I’m good with animals.”
She certainly was when she was alive and worked Canine with her springer spaniel, Nero Wolfe. “What do you get as prizes, invisible ribbons?” I crack myself up.
There’s silence.
“What? I was joking. There aren’t really prizes, are there? I mean, you’re adults. And, well, ghosts.”
Grandpa jabbers some more in, once again, impossible-to-understand birdspeak.
“There are prizes.” Mom stops.
Something is going on here. Why won’t Mom and Grandpa just spill. “Like what?”
“Sherry, it’s a long shot. Grandpa doesn’t think we should even aim for it because it’s extremely difficult to win. So we can’t pin our hopes on it,” she says, her voice going all bubbly and enthusiastic. “But if I come in first in my division—and that’s a big if—I win five minutes of Real Time.”
“Real Time?” I say.
“It’s exactly what it sounds like.” Mom’s branch is bouncing up and down like she’s jumping with excitement. “Five minutes of regular time with a human. There are minor restrictions, such as the human doesn’t remember the time. Although he does carry away the feeling of the time. Sort of an emotional tying up of loose ends. But five whole real minutes!” Her branch bounces again.
Excitement zings through me like I’m those Christmas lights that blink. “Go right this minute and find some animals and bend their thoughts like pretzels.” Arm extended, I point my finger out toward the yard. “Go! Go! Go! Five minutes where I could see you and talk with you like normal? Überfantastic!”
Grandpa shakes his balding head.
“First-time Ghostlympians never win,” Mom says.
“Stop with the head shaking, Grandpa. Mom can’t win if she doesn’t try. We have to go for it!”
I stare at where my mother’s probably sitting. “Mom! Go directly to the zoo.” I’m wagging my finger so hard, it’s a blur. “Fly to the zoo! Practice on every single living animal there: bears, rhinos, squirrels, the gross two-headed snake.”
Grandpa waves his raggedy wings. “Go, go, go!”
“I will. I’ll give it my best shot.” She’d probably be high-fiving me if she could. “But”—Mom sucks in a deep breath—“let’s finish up here.” The branch quits dipping all over the place and goes still. “I went to your school’s staff meeting yesterday afternoon. One item of interest. Did you know Paula is failing Kyle Rogers? His dad is president of the school district’s board.”
“Uh, no. I wouldn’t normally know junk like that. All I know is Kyle’s an eighth-grade basketball star who, according to Josh, has major attitude.”
“Apparently his dad’s pretty upset about the F and is leaning hard on your principal, who’s leaning hard on Paula to pass him. She won’t budge. So there may be something there.”
“Junie and I could eat lunch near Kyle and eavesdrop. Could you and Grandpa check out the dad?”
Grandpa’s got his beady dark eyes trained right on me. At my questions, he bobs his head.
Mom goes on. “In a nutshell, the staff at Saguaro likes Paula. They even tried the hummus and pita bread she brought to the meeting. And no one, except your principal, wants her to give a freebie passing grade to Kyle.”
“Would our principal do anything to The Ruler?” I ask.
“Like stalking? I don’t think so. Paula applied for math department head at your school. Perhaps he won’t give her a strong recommendation. There’s a district meeting on Monday to discuss the candidates. I’ll go to that,” Mom says. “You know what the staff at Saguaro’s really happy about? The robotics club. I gather Paula put Saguaro on the robotics map last year.”
“It’s true.” And I tell them about my Donner robotics-meeting experience. I finish up with, “Those kids are way scary-weird about robotics and they’re seriously annoyed with The Ruler. And they have two secret plans, A and B.”
Still staring at me, Grandpa says, “Rats blinking, Sherry.”
“Yes, fast thinking of you to join their club, Sherry,” Mom adds. “Keep a hand in there, and we’ll see what you come up with.”
“And then there were these mysterious flowers that came with a happy anniversary card,” I say. “First I thought they were for me. From Josh. Then I thought they were for The Ruler from Dad. But negative and negative.”
“A stalker who sends flowers and slashes tires?” There’s a long silence where I just know my mom’s doing the hair-twirling thing again. “It doesn’t fit any profile I’ve ever seen. Obviously, there’s a mix-up with the flowers,” she says, “but I doubt it’s related to the stalker. And I don’t think we need to pursue it.”
Grandpa’s small beak opens. “I need to pee.”
Which is totally random unless he really said, “I agree.”
“How does this sound for our surveillance schedule over the next couple of days?” Mom lists it off. “Anything else before we adjourn?”
“Wait. I wanna know what happened in Sedona,” I say. “Did Grandma figure out about Grandpa?”
Ironically, Grandma went all the way to Sedona to take a new age class on how to talk to the spirit world when she’s got Grandpa in her own backyard. Poor Grandpa keeps racking his birdy brain to come up with ways to make contact with her. Those two just can’t seem to get it together.
Grandpa looks down at the ground. “No contact.”
“Sorry.” I rub his scraggly elfin head. “I wish I could help you out.” But he understands that I can’t tell her. Academy rules. Even though Grandma’s like the one person who’d believe right off in the ghost stuff.
The branch we’re sharing bobs up, like it lost a passenger.
“Sherry, you okay if Grandpa and I go over to the tire place now?”
“And then you’re going to practice for the Ghostlympics?”
“Absolutely,” Mom says.
“Sure. You guys take off,” I slide down from the tree and head to the front yard. It’s not that I really think the stalker will come back today, but I promised Dad I’d be vigilant. So, a quick tour around the house, then I’m heading inside to my room, to chill with my fish.
As I round the corner, kicking the odd-shaped gray stones we have instead of a water-sucking lawn, the sun glints off our big ugly bush. Odd. I stop and stare. It happens again. There is nothing silver or glinty or flashy about that bush. Once a year it covers itself with tiny berries. But even then, they’re a dull brick red. I walk over to the bush.
I gently pry apart the outer branches. A few shriveled leaves fall to the ground. I peer in.
There, plunged way deep in the heart of the bush, is a knife.