***
Colin, Spike and Melissa stared up at the school they were about to enter; its daunting, foreboding face stared back at them with wide unseeing eyes. Capped in its three-story crown was a gray stone with an engraved date: 1923. As they were quickly learning, buildings on The Outside, especially the older ones, carried spirits with them, and High View School seemed to be swarming with them. Memories, or shadows, of previous students walked, ran, and played, in the playground, leaned out the windows, climbed up the flagpole. It wasn’t easy to shut them out, but by squinting a certain way, they managed it. Colin was glad none were Nixes.
A loud ‘POP’ sound startled them. They turned around to find Sergeant Peary hovering a foot above their heads, chewing on his cigar. He nodded at the date on the capstone.
“Not a bad year,” he said.
“Wow!” exclaimed Spike, staring agog at the specter. Peary returned his stare, puffing up his chest and brushing off the lapels of his fatigues. “It’s him! It’s Sergeant Peary! In the flesh! Well, not really the flesh, but you know what I mean. Sorry, I didn’t mean to insult you.”
Melissa gave no response, as if his presence was perfectly normal.
Peary gave Spike a dismissive wave. “None taken.”
Colin gave the sergeant a perturbed look. His admiration--his idol worship--for the Sergeant was eroding somewhat. The Sergeant Peary he was getting to know wasn’t anything like the one in the comic. He preferred the comic book character’s serious nature, his drive to win, no matter what the cost. This version seemed to be a bit too capricious to be taken seriously.
“Aren’t you supposed to be my guardian spirit?” commented Colin wryly. “You know, you appear when I need help.”
Peary chewed on his cigar as he squinted up at the school, at the shadows darting about the yard, his eyes coming to rest at the entrance doors. “That is what I’m doing.”
Standing in front of the entrance was the impassable body of Principal Devonish, almost as wide as she was tall. Her forehead was an immovable cliff, and her eyes deep caverns that turned away all pleas of distraught children. Her gray hair was tightly knotted in a bun, which was in turn impaled by what looked like knitting needles. She assessed them closely, peering over her half-moon spectacles; her brooding eyes not only inspected the three children ruthlessly, but took in the rest of her domain as well. She liked to be the last one in the school to make sure there were no tardy or wayward students hanging about, and today she was fortunate to find three. Colin recognized that this woman and his aunt were cut from the same controlling cloth.
“Wow,” whispered Spike into Colin’s ear, mesmerized by the blue, white and violet floral-patterned muumuu she was wearing, “that’s enough cloth to make a tent.”
Colin tried not to laugh, knowing that the woman would be offended. As it was, she was already glowering down at them, her sizable bulk widening and becoming more impressive as she bent her arms and put her hands on her waist. He was glad she hadn’t heard Spike’s quip.
“Your names?” she demanded curtly.
Colin introduced himself, then Spike and Melissa, including their last name “Pine”. Spike seemed to have lost the capacity for speech.
Sergeant Peary tossed a ghostly transparent grenade from hand to hand, his cigar smoldering furiously. Obviously, the principal could not see him.
“Do I take her out?”
“No!”
“Excuse me young man?” said Principal Devonish, continuing to glower over her spectacles.
“Nothing, sorry, we’re late.”
She was now consulting a clipboard that she had clutched in the hands. Pages flipped as she scanned them. She motioned them forward.
“Late? You would be late if you were registered. I don’t see your names anywhere on the list. Where do you live?”
“We just moved into the old Horwood House,” answered Colin obediently, hoping to impress.
Words were things of power, so Grandfather Thunder had taught him. To use the right word was like summoning lightening, and Principal Devonish looked as though she had just been struck by lightening. Her face turned sickly pale and deflated at least two sizes: the flowers on her dress folded in for the night, in full retreat.
“Horwood House?” she said, her vocal cords suddenly vibrating without conviction. She almost sounded vulnerable. “You are sure--Horwood House?”
Spike nodded gaining his voice, “The place with the creepy unfinished statue in the front.”
She nodded, deflating further. “Yes, that’s the one. I’m sure your parents will be by later to register you. Please, come this way,” she said, a plastic smile pasted on her face.
“Beware the enemy that smiles and offers you a helping hand,” whispered Peary to Colin. “Forgive my using a nautical term--you’ll see why in a moment--but I don’t like the cut of her jib, although there’s enough of that dress to make a sail.”
Colin curled his lip, for a moment, then realized Peary might have a point.
They followed Principal Devonish in through the entrance, past the trophy display, and the pictures of graduating classes that ran down a long hallway that led to her office. As they neared her source of power, she seemed to re-inflate, filling the hallway not only with her presence, but with her voice.
“I run a tight ship here. Since you missed the beginning of the school year, I will take the time to run over a few rules with you. You will have two pairs of school footwear: one for outside, one for inside. Clear? Now, you will be in your Homeroom class at 8:30 a.m., then, at 8:40, you will be escorted to the gymnasium for morning assembly. At 9:00, unless assembly runs overtime, you will begin your first class.”
They were inside the central office now, and felt trapped as the doors closed behind them. In front of them, two large desks were devoid of any paper, clean and waiting for the days business. Two busy secretaries were seated and working, one at each desk; the women averted their eyes from the children and attempted to look as if they were working harder. There was a frightened boy sitting in a bone-hard chair against the wall. Colin tried to catch his eye by smiling at him, but was rebuffed with a cold, unseeing glare. He noticed that the boy was dressed in a maroon blazer and pants, black tie, and white shirt. On the left side of the blazer was a small crest emblazoned with three stars above a castle turret. The children were led into another office--Principal Devonish’s inner sanctum --and were greeted by the sound of two chirping parakeets that fluttered about their cage, irritated with the intrusion.
“Oh, my sweeties,” crooned Principal Devonish, pursing her lips at the two birds that refused to calm down, “don’t you worry, mummy’s here.” She turned away, squeezing in behind her desk and sat down, the air from her seat cushion whooshing out from under her, causing a sudden draft in the room.
“Front! Please stand in front of the desk. Closer, closer, that’s good, very good. Now, before you are escorted to your first class, which is already in progress, I must ask you a few questions,” she said, her pen hovering over an official paper she had pulled from her desk. “Your phone number is?”
Colin shrugged. “We don’t have one. We just moved in.”
She looked slightly perturbed.
“School of last attendance?”
Colin looked questioningly at Spike who shrugged.
“We’ve never gone to school.”
Principal Devonish nearly dropped her pen. Quickly moving her pudgy hands up to her face, she removed her spectacles, rubbing her fingers over her pouch-lidded eyes.
“You’ve never gone to school?”
Colin nodded.
“Where did you live before moving here?” she inquired testily, her voice trembling incredulously.
Colin knew enough not to talk about Pansy Patch Park, so he thought mentioning where they went in the winter, would be better. “We lived down south?”
Principal Devonish gave an exasperated grimace, h
er voice rising in tone. “A direction is not a place!” She sighed under her breath, a long, tired complaining sigh. “Well, we’ll straighten all this out when your parents come in to officially register you. Your parents are intending to come in, are they not?”
Colin shrugged. “I never knew my parents. Our aunt is sort of taking care of us. We can tell her, but I don’t know if she’ll come.”
“You don’t know if she’ll come?” she repeated, her voice rising acerbically. “Well, if she does not come, you can not go to school here, and if you do not go to school, I shall be forced to report you to the authorities, because to school you must inevitably go. You are far too young to be wandering about the streets! Well, what are your ages?”
“Ages?” Immediately Colin’s mind slipped back to Grandfather’s teachings, remembering the earth was divided into specific ages: the age of stone, the age of wood, the age of metal, and the present age, which was the age of all knowledge. He had never thought to call himself an age.
“Yes, age, you do know your ages don’t you?”
Once he had heard Grandfather Thunder refer to himself as ageless, so he figured he would use this. The response was that Principal Devonish’s face turned a peculiar shade of pink and then purple. Her thin lips became no more than a tightly pressed white line within the folds of flesh around her mouth.
“Don’t you dare get smart with me, young man!”
Sergeant Peary reappeared in front of the bird’s cage and began poking his cigar at the birds. He pursed his lips imitating Principal Devonish in a mock attempt to kiss the birds. The birds responded by squawking and flapping about uncontrollably, feathers and birdseed flying everywhere.
“Oh, my!” exclaimed Devonish, going to the rescue of her birds. She was totally oblivious to the ghost. “What’s the matter my little dears?” Then she crinkled up her nose with distaste, and fixed an accusing eye on Colin, Spike and Melissa. “What is that awful smell? When have you children last bathed?”
Sergeant Peary, slipping behind Devonish, stuck his finger in his mouth and blew. His head began to swell up, taking on the size and pallor of the Principal’s increasingly excited head. He pursed his lips, rolled his eyes, and began to shake his finger at them in admonition. Melissa, unable to control herself, gave a giggle, which blossomed into a full hysterical, gut-wrenching laugh.
“Excuse me young lady! Do you find something funny?”
“Colin, look at Melissa!” exulted Spike. “Melissa, you’re laughing! I’ve never heard you laugh before!”
Principal Devonish shouted, “Young man, are you telling me that your sister has special needs? Young woman, do you have special needs?” She pronounced the word special as though it was some abhorrent disease.
Spike bristled protectively. “Don’t yell at her. She hasn’t done anything!”
“Young man, if you were a student in my school, which is looking more and more unlikely, I would have you in detention!”
“Is that close to de-bathroom?” asked Sergeant Peary, as he jumped up onto the Principal’s desk and did a little dance. Papers, from filing cabinets opened by an invisible hand, including the principal’s name plaque, were caught up in a sudden wind that swept through the room causing havoc. The parakeets, close to having coronaries, were now desperately flapping about, feathers flying out of the cage, as though a huge cat was trying to devour them. Sergeant Peary knocked some hot ashes from his cigar into the trash can where they caught on some paper, smoldered and ignited into flames. Principal Devonish ran back and forth between her desk and the birdcage. Bellowing at the top of her lungs, “Fire, fire!” she tossed the dregs of her tea cup into the trash can trying to quench the growing flames, then tried to placate her little darlings who responded by knocking themselves senseless against the bars of the cage.
“Out! Out of my office!” screamed Devonish. “I wouldn’t let you into my school, if you were the last students on earth. You evil, filthy, things!”
One of the secretaries entered the office, awkwardly clutching a fire extinguisher, and began to blast long jets of white powder at the trash can. Her aim was off; she missed and hit Principal Devonish directly in the chest, covering her immense muumuu in a blanket of white foam.
Melissa was now doubled over screaming with laughter. Prudently, Colin and Spike each grabbed one of her hands and they all took off, dashing out of the principal’s office, through the central office, into the long hallway, past the pictures of the graduating classes, past the trophy display, and out of the school. They ran, and they kept on running until the school was lost to view then slackened their pace to a quick walk.
Melissa still had tears of laughter streaming down her face. Sergeant Peary, with a ‘POP’, materialized in front of them, walking backwards, keeping pace with them.
“What?” said Sergeant Peary addressing Colin, “You’re not upset are you?” He motioned to Melissa who looked happier than she had in days, and at Spike who was staring at the Sergeant with bold-faced admiration for getting his sister to make a sound. “They don’t seem to be too upset, so why are you?”
Colin shrugged. He wasn’t about to tell the ghost that he had been hoping to see Rhea. Another friend would have been nice. He chided himself for having such thoughts. He was back to feeling like a freak, like someone who would never be able to make friends no matter how hard he tried. He stared down at his feet.
“Look,” said Sergeant Peary in consolation, “I’m sorry, all right, but I’m not going to sit by and let that pompous old bag of wind insult you, just because you’re different. Personally, I like the color of your clothes. Sure beats olive drab, or those little monkey uniforms those students were wearing.” He hitched his thumbs underneath his imaginary suspenders and puffed out his chest. “After all, I’m your guardian spirit, right?” he asked, a little unsure, looking for confirmation that this was still true.
Colin felt the frustration subside within him and he gave a hapless shrug. “It wouldn’t have worked anyway. Grizzelda would’ve eventually found out. I just thought it was a good idea to find out where Rhea went to school. I’m sorry for dragging you guys into it,” he said apologetically to Spike and Melissa. “You too, Sergeant Peary.”
“Don’t mention it, kid, just doing my job.” He almost asked about Rhea, but thought better of it.
“Sorry? For what? Look at Melissa! She laughed. I mean she actually laughed! You remember what G.T. used to say? If you don’t laugh, you might as well croak.”
Colin snorted and everyone burst out laughing, including the ghost. Colin tried to correct Spike’s misquote of “croak” in place of “cry”, but every time he tried, he broke up laughing, and Spike was no help egging everyone on with his innocent look, repeating “What? What? What?” every time Colin tried to correct him. On his last try, Colin’s laughter petered out. “I remember,” he said, feeling the absence of Grandfather Thunder more so now than ever. “I remember.” Melissa put her arms around Colin and hugged him.
As they continued to walk Colin asked, “Sergeant Peary, you’re dead, right? What’s it like?”
Sergeant Peary stared at him suspiciously out of the corner of his eye. He looked around to make sure they weren’t being followed then floated in close lowering his voice to a bare whisper. “Listen, I can’t say much about that. It’s union rules. All I can say is -- being dead isn’t like floating on clouds all day and eating ice cream.” He continued to look about, seeing something they couldn’t and he promptly disappeared.
“Where did he go?” asked Spike.
“Maybe the wine cellar. I’ll show you later,” answered Colin.
“Cool,” he said, touching the leather pouch around his neck. “If our guardian spirits are as neat as yours, we should have some fun!”
Just then, Colin received his first phone call from his aunt, her image appearing intrusively in his mind. She stood there like a paper cutout, sharp an
d angular, hands on hips. He could tell she wasn’t happy. Not wanting her there, he wished her away, and surprisingly, she went.
“I think we’re in trouble,” Collin said.