GhostsofNamelessIsland_epub

I didn’t officially get permission to leave Nameless. Probably best to keep it vague.

“You okay, Portland?” Tavi yells over the motor.

“Yep!” I shout back. “All good!”

“You don’t look good,” Tavi says. “Aim the other way. I’m a sympathetic puker.”

We hit the dock with a thud, and I catch myself against the side of the boat. Congratulations, I silently tell myself. You made it across the channel without spewing. And here I thought my biggest accomplishment would be getting to drive a golf cart.

Nothing can prepare me for the harbor at Rhodi. A hundred rainbow-colored pinwheels line the boat slips, spinning away under the constant wind of the South Sound. There’s some sort of food truck or craft cart spaced every couple of feet, with vendors shouting over megaphones.

“Churros all day! Best on the island!”

“Flowers! Picked fresh this morning!”

“Carnitas! Get your carnitas!”

People on bikes and scooters zip past, weaving in and out of the crowded street, and every storefront facing the water is painted a different color, their doors open to catch the breeze.

“Is there a fair going on today or something?” I ask Tavi.

Miles laughs as he ties the dinghy to the slip. “Nope,” he says. “This is just Rhodi.”

The “big island” feels like stepping into a little kid’s drawing of a happy place. Rhodi takes their rhododendron namesake seriously too. I wander away from the dock and pass signs for the Rockin’ Rhodi Burger Joint, Hedge Heaven Plant Nursery, and Bloom’s Books & Coffee.

Miles and Tavi are by my side before I realize they were gone, thrusting a churro into my hand the length of a broom handle, which for the record is the best way to approach a person. We walk along the dock and munch in silence for maybe thirty seconds before we reach a small bridge lined with—what else?—rhododendrons. The cluster of connected yellow and red buildings make up their own island set away from Rhodi, the larger set designated for the middle and high schools, the smaller for the elementary school.

When we reach the entrance to the building marked Mathematics and Science, I stop Tavi.

“Not that I’m against a little breaking and entering, but are we supposed to be here?”

“Relax,” Miles says. “This is where your schedule comes in handy.”

He directs me to pull up the email on my phone, and as if on cue, I hear the whirr of an electric scooter round the corner of the building. If there is a Rhodi Island mascot (who knows, maybe there is), the man on the scooter is it. He’s probably three hundred pounds of muscle with fire-red hair and a braided beard, and he rides with the grace of a world-class ballerina. His khaki city-issued uniform is stiff, but he appears to be comfortable in it.

“Hi, Rod,” Tavi says as the man dismounts. He looks like a Viking up close.

“Ms. Baum-Miller,” Rod the Viking says formally.

“This is Gus Greenburg. He’s new this year. He needs to find his classes and locker.”

Rod the Viking looks at me. “Email?” he says, holding out his hand.

I give him my phone. I’d give him my sneakers if he asked for them. While he scans the email I received from the school administrator, I read his badge. All it says is “Security.” I guess when you’re Rod, that’s all you need.

“Is Rod short for Rod-o-dendron?” I ask. I think it just fell out of my mouth.

Rod hands my phone back and lets us into the building with a grunt. Tavi thanks him politely. Neither Miles nor I say a word (well, another word in my case).

“Are you the only one who’s allowed to talk to him or something?” I ask Tavi as soon as the door closes behind us.

“No,” Tavi says. “I’m the only one who doesn’t say things like ‘Is Rod short for Rod-o-dendron?’”

I look at Miles, and he doesn’t argue. Instead, he says, “Tavi’s Squiddy fixed Rod’s hiatal hernia a couple years ago. The rest of us are too . . . I mean, dude looks like a gladiator! You saw him!”

“Or maybe he likes talking to me because I’m nice to him.” Tavi rolls her eyes. “Just a thought.”

“Your . . . Squiddy?” I ask Tavi.

“One of her moms,” Miles clarifies.

“It’s a whole thing,” Tavi explains. She peers over my shoulder to double-check the location of my locker while I try not to smell her hair. “Her name’s Sid, but she loves squids, so for a while I called her Sid the Squid, and somewhere along the way, she became Squiddy.”

I nod. “I have an uncle everyone calls Beans. Nobody knows why.”

We find my locker, and luckily it’s right across the hall from Tavi’s.

“What did you pick for your elective?” Tavi asks.

“Art,” I say, hoping that’s the right answer. Turns out it is, and not only that, but the art room is jammed full of supplies and tools I’ve only seen in online tutorials. Tavi explains that electives aren’t just fun throwaway subjects at Rhodi. We spend the whole year working on a huge independent project that makes up our entire elective grade, and it’s not based on participation or anything. Apparently, they go all out.

“She picked history,” Miles says, rolling his eyes at Tavi.

“Folklore,” she corrects.

“Because it’s the closest thing to history, and history’s not an elective, so you can’t take it twice,” he says.

Miles chose film.

“C’mon, you’ve got to see this.” Miles beckons me to the studio where they keep the audio and visual equipment. It’s maybe the coolest room I’ve ever seen in any school I’ve attended. The cameras are actual cameras, with lenses that zoom in and out and boom mics and editing bays.

“You wouldn’t believe the stuff they trust us to borrow for projects,” Miles says, hoisting an especially expensive-looking video recorder onto his shoulder and peering through the viewfinder.

“They wouldn’t if they knew what we were—”

“But they won’t,” Miles cuts Tavi off, and they exchange a look I can’t read. I know a conspiracy when I see it, though. Whatever they’re up to, it’s as off limits as us being in this room in the first place.

“We should probably get out of here,” I say, trying to sound casual. “Maybe I’ll go check out where the rest of my classes are.”

I snake my way through the bins of headsets and cables, past the editing bays toward the door. That’s when I realize that the door is closed. Both Miles and Tavi are standing in front of it, blocking my path.

Tavi takes a step toward me and grabs me by the shoulders, her face deadly serious. “I can’t take it anymore. We’ve been trying to play it cool, but we have questions.”

But the only thing I can think of, in the middle of summer heat in a school without air-conditioning, is that I’m not wearing deodorant. I totally forgot to put it on this morning. In my defense, I thought we were just going to get Mom’s coffee.

“Lots of questions,” Miles adds.

“Um, okay?”

Tavi backs me into a foam-encased editing booth and pushes me down onto a stool in the corner. I hope she can’t smell my ’pits. Then, she and Miles drag two more stools over to sit across from me. I take a deep breath and brace myself. I talk to ghosts; I can handle whatever comes next, right? Of course I can. So why do I suddenly want to heave up my churro?

“What’s your mom’s history with bootlegging?” Tavi asks bluntly.

I blink. I wait for more. There has to be more. But all Miles and Tavi do is blink back.

“Bootlegging?” I repeat.

Okay, Brain, I say to myself. Bootlegging: sixth grade: Mrs. Kirkpatrick’s history unit: Prohibition. Alcohol was outlawed, so people made and sold it illegally. Hang on a second. They don’t think . . .

“You think my mom is a bootlegger?”

“No, of course not,” Miles says. “What we mean is does she specialize in it? Like the study of it?”

My head hurts. “I think I need you to back up a little bit,” I say. “Like, maybe why you brought me here, the school’s film studio, to talk? Can we start there?”

Miles and Tavi look at each other, seeming to have another one of their silent conversations.

“This would be a lot easier if we just told him—” Tavi starts to say to Miles, but he cuts her off again.

“A-hem, we agreed it would be better if we waited until—” Miles says through clenched teeth. He turns away from me as Tavi follows him. Like I can’t hear them, even though I’m sitting right here.

“Yeah, but that was before—” hisses Tavi.

“We still haven’t—” Miles retorts.

“But you—”

“But we—”

It’s amazing. They’re having an entire conversation without saying anything. I’d be impressed if it wasn’t so clearly about me. Anyway, with a raised eyebrow from Tavi and a snort from Miles, I guess they come to some sort of agreement because they finally finish their “discussion” and turn back around to me.

“You’re on SeeMe, right?” asks Miles.

I shrug. “Yeah, of course.”

I’m so casual about it. I used to be on the vlogging site along with everyone else in the world. Now I’m what you’d call a lurker. I watch other people post on SeeMe, their channels full of content-streaming parties and videos of family hikes, epic concerts, random hangouts, and stupid dares. I used to be part of all of it: I’d “like” stuff and “share” stuff. But when Dad disappeared, online Gus did too. I used to be all about weird antiques and making things out of the random treasures I’d find in estate sales with my parents. I’d appear in Greenburg & Greenburg shorts to promote the business. When Dad disappeared, so did the business’s SeeMe page without my dad’s oversight. And it’s not like I had any new antique treasures to add to my personal page. My “LIKES” didn’t matter. I haven’t changed my wallpaper for a year. My status: nonexistent.

“We’re starting our own SeeMe channel,” Miles says, knocking me out of my trance. “It’s called Nameless Fameless. We uncover old mysteries—crimes, gruesome murders, the good stuff. But also ‘fameless’ because nobody knows about the mystery. If we’re lucky, we’ll stumble on a good ghost story.”

Tavi rolls her eyes. “Miles thinks he’s an expert.”

“I’m a ghostologist,” Miles answers indignantly.

“That isn’t even a thing. You made it up,” says Tavi.

“Portland? You look a little loopy. You okay?”

I hear Miles’s voice, but it’s a faraway echo.

They’re looking for a ghost story.

“He’s fine,” Tavi says, her voice somehow pulling me back. “He’s probably just wondering what any of this has to do with him.”

She’s not wrong. “I mean, thanks for including me and all; it’s just—”

“The Rothams were crooks,” Miles blurts out.

“Miles!” Tavi scolds, then looks at me like I’d be offended by that.

“Not ‘crooks.’ But we’ve come across some evidence that they may have had dealings with some less-than-legal . . .”

“Bootlegging?” I guess.

“So you’ve found evidence of it in the manor?” Miles jumps from his stool and turns to Tavi. “I told you! That place has to be a gold mine!”

Uh-oh. I think I see where this is headed.

“It’s no gold mine—trust me,” I say, trying to let some of the air out of Miles’s balloon, but he’s way too amped.

“You moved here, what, thirty seconds ago?” he says, breathlessly pacing the narrow equipment aisle. “That place is massive. I’ll bet you haven’t even explored more than half of it yet!”

Yeah, like the top half.

“What Miles means,” Tavi says, taking a calmer approach, “is that we’d know what we’re looking for. Better than you, anyway. You see, we were trying to come up with an idea for our first Nameless Fameless episode when I stumbled on an old arrest record for Karl Rotham.”

“Karl Rotham,” I say. “As in, timber tycoon Karl Rotham? The only thing he was guilty of was hating people. That’s why he built his house on an island.”

“Or because he had something to hide,” Miles chimes in.

I shake my head. “My mom spent months force-feeding me Rotham facts before we moved here. Trust me, if Karl Rotham was hiding anything, it was the key to joy. That dude was boring and miserable according to . . . everything.”

“Maybe,” Tavi says, “but he was miserable and making barrels illegally during Prohibition. What else do you think he was using those barrels for?”

I’m trying to make the pieces fit, but there are more holes in this drama than Rotham Manor’s floors. Okay, Karl Rotham—a maybe-bootlegger from the 1920s—maybe had something to hide, but the Rothams definitely don’t own the manor anymore. In fact, since Peter didn’t have kids, the Rothams don’t even exist. Caretaking of the manor, the cemetery, and the lighthouse fell to Leonard Cleave for years and years until—

“My mom,” I say. “What does Mom have to do with any of this?”

“That’s what you’re supposed to tell us!” Tavi says, exasperated. “Why do you think everyone is looking at you like . . . ?”

Traitors? Aliens? Outlaws? Ghosts? A sour taste forms in my mouth.

“You think bootlegging is why Mom got hired to restore Rotham Manor? It couldn’t be because she’s good at what she does? She’s practically a legend in Portland, you know,” I say defensively.

They both duck their heads. Miles is the one to talk first.

“I’m sure she’s awesome. What we mean is nobody thought Leonard hated his own son so much that he’d leave their family home to strangers when he died.”

“Anyway,” Tavi perks up, “now you’re our ticket into the manor! We can finally search the place for clues and prove our theory that the Rothams were bootleggers, and our first episode of Nameless Fameless will be epic!”

I can practically hear Mom’s text messages screaming from my phone.

“Yeah, so here’s the thing: I’m not exactly allowed to let people into the manor.”

Tavi laughs. “That’s so weird. For a second there, I thought you said you weren’t going to let us into the manor.”

Miles steps to me, suddenly nose-to-sweaty-nose. “Dude, you have to let us see it.”

Think, Gus, think.

“You’re our only way in,” Tavi pleads. “You don’t understand—once your mom starts renovating, we could lose any evidence of whatever the Rothams could have been hiding! Gus, please!”

Say something, dummy! But I can’t do it. Even if I could come up with a lie convincing enough to keep them away from the manor, I don’t want to. An hour ago, Tavi and Miles were rescuing me from the most heinous breakfast I’ve ever smelled. They could have let me eat it and ralph it up on the dock into the South Sound for everyone to see. They could have doomed me to total mortification and made Mom and me social pariahs from full day one on Nameless. Instead, they saved us.

Besides, maybe whatever they find in the manor can help Mom understand why Jeremy Cleave trashed the place. If I’m lucky, we might even stumble on a clue about the broken boy from the cemetery.

Mom’s warnings chug like a steam train trekking through my head.

“No one on Nameless can know.”

Technically, we’re not on Nameless; we’re on Rhodi.

When you think about it, “bad” is in the eye of the beholder.

“Can you two keep a secret?”