Читать книгу The Ghost of Soda Creek - Ann Walsh - Страница 7

Kelly didn’t react for a few seconds, and Clara Overton repeated herself, her long fingernails digging into the back of Kelly’s hand as she spoke. “A ghost, Kelly, a most upsetting, FRIGHTENING apparition.”

Shaking off the woman’s clutching hand, Kelly moved to the stove, replacing the coffee pot. As she set it down her hands shook, rattling the pot against the chrome ring of the element. She had pushed the thought of the little ghost to the back of her mind. Now this ridiculous woman sat in the kitchen, clinging to Alan Linden’s arm and blithering about apparitions.

As politely as she could, Kelly forced a smile and said, “Oh? I didn’t think anyone believed in ghosts anymore.”

“Oh, Kelly, I don’t you know, not really, but I get these FEELINGS sometimes, and when I saw her standing. . .”

“Her?” Kelly spoke sharply. “What kind of a ghost do you think you saw, Miss Overton?” She glanced at her father, hoping to see him share a smile with her, give her some signal that he was as irritated by this hysterical woman as Kelly herself was, but his face remained serious.

“Clara said it was a child, or the ghost of a child,” he said. “She saw it about three this morning.”

“But I saw it first,” thought Kelly, irrationally. “What did your ghost look like, Miss O.?” she asked, her voice too loud.

“It was a GHASTLY sight, simply horrible. It had the whitest face, and it stretched out those tiny arms as if it wanted to grab me!”

“A child ghost? How old was she?” Kelly was upset, and could barely keep her voice from shaking. If there had been a ghost, it was her ghost. She had seen it first, just after one o’clock, and it wasn’t frightening, well, not very much, and certainly not as ‘ghastly’ as Clara Overton was claiming.

“I think she was two, maybe three years old, and dressed most PECULIARLY. Oh, Alan.” She fluttered the handkerchief, turning back to him. “Oh, Alan, you have no idea what a SHOCK it gave me.”

Kelly interrupted as Alan placed his hand comfortingly over the teacher’s hand, and began to make soothing noises. “Miss Overton,” she said, emotion spilling over into her voice so it did shake, “Miss Overton, I don’t see how you could possibly be frightened of a ghost who’s only two years old. Are you sure there isn’t something else bothering you, something else that has upset you so much?”

Kelly’s father looked at her in surprise. “Now, Kelly,” he said. “Clara’s had a shock. You’re not being very sympathetic.”

A red mist suddenly wavered in front of Kelly’s eyes —anger, temper. For years she had heard the old jokes about redheads having violent tempers and had laughed at them, but this morning she felt something uncontrollable moving through her, making her want to shout at the woman sitting beside her father, to scream at her. “Perhaps you should go home and lie down, Miss O.,” she said, fighting the urge to pick up her coffee mug and fling the contents at the pudgy, streaked face in front of her. “I’m sure you didn’t really see a ghost, but women your age sometimes do get a bit hysterical.”

“Kelly!” Alan rose to his feet, his cheeks flushed, and Clara Overton’s face went white behind her makeup. “Kelly, that was unforgivable of you. Please apologize to Clara at once, then go to your room. You had no right to speak to her that way.”

As quickly as it had come, Kelly’s anger evaporated, leaving her trembling and ashamed of herself. “Sorry, Miss O., I’m really sorry. I’m tired this morning. But I am sorry you were frightened by the little ghost. She didn’t mean to scare you.” Then, before anyone could ask her what she meant, she left the kitchen and went to her room.

She sat at her desk, looking at the picture she had drawn last night. The little ghost stared back at her, eyes wide, pleading, the red velvet bow in her hair looking limp, as if it needed a mother’s hand to re-tie it firmly around a ringlet. “What’s the matter with me?” Kelly thought. She’d been upset, first because the teacher was with her father, the way someone was always with her father these days, then she’d become angry when she realized that Clara Overton had seen her ghost.

“My ghost?” she wondered, studying the picture. “Something about the angle of the arms isn’t quite right,” said the artist’s part of her mind. “She isn’t pleading, almost begging with them, the way she was when I saw her.” Another part of her mind was cringing, curling up on itself, ashamed. Why had it made her so angry to realize that Clara Overton had seen the ghost too? Ghosts didn’t haunt just one person, didn’t belong to just one person.

She shrugged her shoulders, and put the picture carefully away in a desk drawer. Last night she had managed to convince herself that the ghost was just her own imagination working too hard. Now she was defending ‘her’ ghost to the teacher, angry that the woman had been terrified by something so tiny, so lost-looking. How could she be defending something she didn’t even believe in?

Her bedroom door was flung open, and her father stood there, his face tense.

“Kelly, what’s wrong with you?” he asked, echoing Kelly’s own thoughts. “You were downright rude to Clara, for no reason at all. You know how I feel about manners, politeness to adults. You’ve never behaved like this before. What is going on?”

Much to Kelly’s surprise, she began to cry. Her eyelids stung, tears filling her eyes and moving down her cheeks, and her throat seemed to close until she could hardly breathe. “Dad, I. . .” she began, and then she put her head down on the desk and began to cry in earnest. “Everyone’s got the weeps today,” she thought, not even trying to hold back the sobs. “First the little ghost, although she didn’t make any noise crying, then Miss O., and now me.”

Her father knelt beside her, his work-roughened hands awkwardly patting her hair. Kelly never cried. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been in tears—yes, she could. It was the day of her mother’s funeral.

Alan spoke softly. “Kelly,” he said, over and over. “Kelly. It’s all right, little one. If s all right.”

Kelly lifted her head and rubbed a hand across her face. She groped for a Kleenex, found one, blew her nose and tried to stop the tears. “Oh, Dad,” she said. “It just isn’t fair.”

“What’s not fair, Kelly?” he asked, taking the damp Kleenex out of her hands, passing her a fresh one. “What’s not fair, little one?”

“All those people and that horrid woman and there’s always someone here with you and we haven’t had breakfast together on Sunday and talked, just the two of us, for a long time, and you’re always so busy helping them, listening to them. And besides, it’s my ghost. I saw her first, and she wasn’t trying to scare or hurt anyone and. . .” Her voice failed her again, a loud sob ending the flood of words.

Alan put his arms around her, pulling her to him. “It’s all right,” he said again. “It’s all right. I think I understand, and I’m sorry, Kelly. I didn’t realize.”

They stayed that way for a while, the tall, awkward man holding his daughter closely, both of them silent. Then Alan stood up, and took Kelly’s hand in his. “Come on, little one. Let’s get ourselves some breakfast, just the two of us. You’re right. It has been a long while since we’ve spent any time together.”

Kelly grabbed a fistful of Kleenex from the box on her desk. “No one’s called me that, little one, for a long time,” she said. “Not since . . . not since Mom. . .”

Her father squeezed her hand tightly. “No. Perhaps I wanted you to grow up quickly, too quickly. I think maybe I asked too much of you, Kelly. Too much, too soon.”

Kelly blew her nose loudly. “Nonsense,” she said. “You didn’t make me grow up in a hurry. See, I still have temper tantrums and tears. I like looking after the house and you—well, most of the time I do. And I’m still short, too. I haven’t really grown ‘up’ very much at all!”

“Well. . .” her father answered, beginning to smile. “The cooking. I seem to remember an angel-food cake that was only one inch high, and a very special chili when you used cayenne pepper instead of chili powder, and some biscuits that I broke a tooth on.”

“Come on, Dad,” said Kelly, beginning to smile herself. “It hasn’t been that bad. You know your tooth was cracked before you ate my biscuits, and my cooking’s been getting a lot better since Miss O.’s been helping me.”

At the mention of Clara Overton, both of their faces became serious again. “Kelly, I. . .” Alan’s voice was hesitant, “Kelly, I just ... I mean, I want you to know that Clara is a very unhappy person, and she needs someone to talk to once in a while, but there’s nothing ... I mean, I just feel sorry for her. I don’t really even like her very much, so you needn’t worry.”

It took Kelly a minute to understand what her father meant, but when she did she grinned at him. “It’s okay, Dad. I’m not jealous of her, if that’s what you’re trying to say.”

“Um, well, I just thought that maybe you were wondering about Clara and . . . and me.”

“I’m not wondering, Dad, but I do hope you don’t feel so sorry for her that you marry her!”

Her father stepped back, a strange look on his face. “Never,” he said firmly, then repeated himself, loudly. “Never!”

Kelly took a deep breath. “Dad? I guess that is what’s wrong with me, partly. I think maybe I am a bit jealous, not just of Miss O. but of all the Soda Creek people. I miss our Sunday mornings, Dad.”

“I know, Kelly. I’ve missed them, too.”

“And Dad, the reason I got so angry with Miss O. was. . .”

“Yes?” Her father looked down at her, puzzled.

“Well, because I . . . last night I saw. . .”

Her father waited patiently, but Kelly couldn’t go on. “Oh, it’s ridiculous really,” she said at last. “Here.”

Reaching into her desk drawer, she pulled out the watercolour of the little ghost. “I did this last night,” she said. “I saw her too.”

Her father took the picture and studied it, not saying a word. Finally he looked at Kelly and spoke. “It’s Clara’s ghost,” he said. “It’s just the way she described it, the high boots, the red dress, the ringlets.”

“But she wasn’t trying to frighten anyone, Dad. She wasn’t reaching out to grab Miss Overton. She was reaching for something, for someone, for . . . oh, I can’t explain it. She’s little and alone and very, very sad.”

Alan gently placed the picture on Kelly’s desk. “I don’t understand what’s going on here, Kelly. I could understand it if only one of you thought you saw this ghost. Clara is high-strung, and she is at the age when some women begin to get a bit peculiar.”

“Sure. That’s what I said, and you got angry at me for saying it.”

“Be sensible, Kelly. That’s not something you say to a person’s face! Clara is very sensitive about her age.”

“Sorry, Dad. I know I was rude. But why do you think that I saw the ghost, since I’m not at that ‘peculiar’ age?”

“Well, you were alone last night, up late, and your room is full of things from Soda Creek’s past and. . .”

He looked down at the picture again, his forehead wrinkling above his thick, greying eyebrows. Then he shook his head, as if to clear away unsettling thoughts.

“Come on, Kelly. Let’s forget about it for now. I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry. I’ll do the bacon, if you can find that package of pancake mix, and we’ll have breakfast together, just like we used to.”

“Sure, Dad. That sounds great. Just the two of us, right?”

“Right!” he answered, and then the doorbell rang.