“Nod!” He pawed at the floor.
“You want me to dig something?”
“Yin! Yin! Dinosaur dunder!”
“Why? Where?”
“Trampolink boodled. A gressapip.” Uncle Arvie pretended to dig in the carpet. Suddenly he stopped and stared down at the carpet. “Trampolink!” he shouted. “Boodled trampolink!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, and I’m late for school.”
“Nod dunder?”
“Okay, okay, I’ll dig for you, I guess. But I have no idea what I’m digging for or where I’ll be digging. Can you explain to me after school?”
“Yin! Dinosaur dunder! Dinosaur dunder!”
At school that day, Billy Baker grabbed me in the hall. “That’ll teach you to tell your stupid stories about stupid ghosts.”
“Let go,” I said, struggling against Billy’s strong grip. “You wouldn’t be so brave if your father knew about those rocks—”
“Oh yeah?” he said. “My father’s dead. So there.”
“Dead?”
“Yeah, dead. Now admit it: The geezer is not a ghost. The geezer is a geezer.”
I struggled. “He is a ghost.”
I was going to tell him that my father was dead, too, but he socked me hard on the arm. “Man oh man. Don’t you ever learn? You’d better be in the park today at four o’clock. The geezer better fly then, or you won’t have a single window left in your house. Got it?”
“I can’t be there at four—I’ve got to dunder—I’ve got something to do.” Billy squeezed my arm. “But I’ll be there at six,” I said.
Billy breathed in my face. “Yeah? Six? Okay, six o’clock, stupid.”
All day long I prayed that Uncle Arvie would be able to fly that night at six o’clock, and all day long I wondered why Billy could see my ghost, but no one else could. Did it have anything to do with foodle a doodle? That’s what Uncle Arvie had said when I asked why I could see ghosts: “Dinosaur foodle a doodle.” Did Billy also foodle a doodle, whatever that meant?
After school, Uncle Arvie and Bo were waiting for me at the door of my house. “Dunder!” Uncle Arvie said.
So down the road we went. I hoped it wouldn’t take too long, and that we’d be finished by six o’clock. I wasn’t surprised to discover that we were headed for Aunt Julia’s house again, but I was surprised to see, as we neared the house, someone leaving a box on the front steps.
Uncle Arvie clenched his fists when he recognized Colin.
“I was just leaving this for Julia,” Colin said. “She’s not home.”
“I know,” I said. “I’m going to—to weed the garden for her.”
Uncle Arvie crept slowly up to Colin.
“Will you tell her I left this for her?” Colin said. “It’s another box of chocolates. I’m sure these aren’t smashed. I can’t imagine what happened to those others. And I can’t imagine why I keep getting stung by wasps when I’m here.” He looked around quickly. “Do you see any?”
“Any what?” I said.
“Any wasps?”
“Well—” I said, as Uncle Arvie reached for Colin’s arm. “As a matter of fact—”
“Ow! Hey! Ow!” Colin shouted, slapping at his arm. He ran down the walk and dived into his car.
“Beany, beany bud booger,” Uncle Arvie said, kicking the chocolates into the bushes and heading for the garage.
While Uncle Arvie rummaged in the garage, I examined the old rusty bicycle I’d seen earlier, when we’d been looking for Uncle Arvie’s painting. It had loads of gears, a racing seat, and at least a dozen small pouches and compartments fitted here and there. But it was also rusty, the tires were flat, the chain hung loose, one pedal was missing, and the handlebars were bent.
“Dinosaur!” Uncle Arvie called. He had found a spade, which apparently was what he had been looking for. He motioned for me to bring the spade, and out to the back garden he marched. He walked slowly around, scratching his head. “Gressapip,” he said, waving his arm across the bushes and flowers.
“Garden?”
“Yin, riggle! Gressapip!” Uncle Arvie continued walking around the flowers. At last he stopped in front of a rosebush. “Dunder!”
Bo tilted his head from one side to the other and whimpered.
“Here? You want me to dig up Aunt Julia’s rosebush? Won’t she be mad?”
“Dunder trampolink. Boodled trampolink a gressapip.” Uncle Arvie jumped up and down and held his arms wide. “Trampolink! Boodled trampolink a gressapip!”
“Okay, okay, okay,” I said. “I’ll dunder the trampolink—whatever that is—here in the gressapip. But Aunt Julia’s not going to like it when she sees her rosebush all dug up.”
With his finger, Uncle Arvie drew a large circle around the rosebush.
Apparently he wanted me to dig all the way around the bush so I wouldn’t chop its roots. I dug and dug, and all the while I kept an eye on my watch. I hoped we’d be finished by six o’clock.
11
DUNDERING TRAMPOLINK
For half an hour I dug. The rosebush was now lying beside the hole. Bo and Uncle Arvie were sitting on the grass watching me.
“Are you sure I’m digging in the right place?”
Uncle Arvie scratched his head.
“Can’t you dig awhile?”
“Nod. Nod dunder.” Uncle Arvie pushed the spade against the ground with all his strength. It didn’t even make a dent in the earth.
“Ghosts sure are peculiar,” I said. “You can fly, but you can’t dig. You can pinch, but you can’t paint or write. You can lift little things, but not big ones. Very weird.”
Bo jumped into the hole. He scratched at the ground with his paws, sending clumps of dirt flying into the air.
“Elephant dunder!” Uncle Arvie said.
“Good old Bo, you’re a good old digger.”
“Dennis? Is that you?” It was Aunt Julia, home from work.
“Uh-oh,” I said. “Now we’re in trouble.”
“What in the world—? What are you doing?” She stared at her toppled rosebush and at the hole where Bo was still digging. “Dennis, I hope you have an explanation for this—”
I thought. “Well, I—” I thought some more. “I had this dream—”
“What sort of dream?”
“In this dream, I saw Uncle Arvie—”
Aunt Julia gasped. “My Arvie?”
“Yes, and he told me to dunder up the gressapip—and that seemed to mean I should dig up the garden, right here.”
“Under my favorite rosebush?”
“Well, yes,” I admitted.
“Do you know why it’s my favorite rosebush?” she asked.
“No.”
“It’s because it was a present from Arvie. He planted it here with his own hands, three years ago.”
“Oh. I’m sorry I dug it up,” I said, glaring at Uncle Arvie, who was sitting on the grass watching her. Bo was still scratching away at the hole, flinging dirt.
“I don’t understand why you would have a dream about Arvie telling you to dig up my favorite rosebush.”
Bo barked. He leaped out of the hole and pulled at my jeans.
“What is it?” I asked. “Quit pulling me.” Bo barked and leaped back into the hole, scratching at the dirt.
“Wait a minute,” Aunt Julia said. “What’s that?”
In the center of the hole was a piece of green metal. I reached in and brushed away the dirt, uncovering more green metal and a brass handle. “It looks like some sort of box,” I said. With the spade I loosened the dirt around the box.
“It is a box,” Aunt Julia said.
I slipped the spade under the box and lifted it out of the hole. It was not a very big box, but it was heavy.
“Trampolink!” Uncle Arvie said. “Boodled trampolink!”
“Buried treasure?” I said.
“Riggle!”
“Is it locked?” Aunt Julia asked.
I brushed the dirt away.
There was a small brass latch at the front, and it wasn’t locked.
12
BOODLING CHINKAPINK
“I feel very peculiar,” Aunt Julia said, sinking to the grass. She sniffed the air. “This is very strange. Very, very strange. You’d better open the box, Dennis. I can’t.”
Inside the box was a bundle of letters tied with brown string. “What on earth—?” she said. She touched the top letter. “These are letters I wrote to Arvie before we were married. He saved them?” She lifted the bundle from the box, and as she did so, she revealed what was beneath the letters.
“Trampolink!” Uncle Arvie said.
Beneath the letters were bundles of money and rolls of coins.
“Money!” I said. “Treasure! Trampolink!”
“Why, look at all this money,” Aunt Julia said. “Hundreds, thousands of dollars.” She covered her face with her hands.
“Don’t cry,” I said. “I’m sure he didn’t steal it.”
“That’s not why I’m crying. I know Arvie didn’t steal this. He saved it. For years and years and years.”
“But why didn’t he put it in the bank?” I asked.
“Arvie? Put money in a bank? He didn’t believe in banks,” she said. “After he died, I found little bits of money hidden everywhere—in his shoes, in his jackets, in our dresser. I knew there had to be more money somewhere, but I had no idea where. And I had no idea it was this much! Just think, if you hadn’t had that dream—”
She grabbed me and squished me in a hug. “What a miracle! I’m going to call your mother right now and tell her what you’ve found. Goodness, goodness, goodness!”
As I started refilling the hole with dirt, Uncle Arvie said, “Boodle chinkapink?” He and Bo ran across the grass and toward the front of the house. When they reappeared, Bo was carrying the box of chocolates that Colin had brought earlier. “Boodle chinkapink!” Uncle Arvie said. Bo obeyed by dropping the box of candy into the hole.
“Okay, boodle the chinkapink!” I said. I covered the box of chocolates with dirt, replaced the rosebush on top of it, and spread more dirt around the bush.
“Chinkapink a gressapip!” Uncle Arvie said.
On the way home I felt terrific. Buried treasure! And Aunt Julia seemed so happy. She hadn’t even counted the money yet. She had seemed more excited at finding the letters, and when I left her, she was sitting at the kitchen table reading them.
As we neared home, Uncle Arvie said, “Pin mailer?”
Without thinking, I said, “Sure, go ahead.”
Uncle Arvie wiggled his arms and flew into the air.
“Oh no!” I cried. “Wait!” I looked at my watch. It was almost six o’clock. Billy would be waiting.
13
MAILER, MAILER
A strong wind was blowing through the park when I reached it. Leaves whipped through the air. I wondered if I had time to go home first and get Uncle Arvie. I was afraid he’d go to sleep again, and I wouldn’t be able to wake him.
But it was too late. Billy Baker was riding toward me, pedaling fast, and he looked angry. He squealed to a stop and jumped off his bike. “Man oh man, it sure is windy,” he said. The wind blew his hair in wild tangles, making him look even more threatening. He grabbed my collar and snarled, “So where’s the geezer, stupid?”
I strained to look across the road at my house. I thought I saw something move in the window upstairs. Was it Uncle Arvie?
Billy threw me to the ground and knelt on my chest. “Repeat after me: ‘The geezer is a geezer.’” Billy’s hands pressed against my arms.
“He isn’t—” I said. “He isn’t a geezer. He’s a ghost.”
Billy twisted my wrists. He said, “If the geezer is a ghost, then that means he’s dead, right? So how come my father isn’t a ghost?”
“My father’s dead too,” I said. “And maybe—”
“Liar!” Billy said. “Liar!”
I squirmed and twisted, trying to get loose. A flicker of red flashed in the air above us. “Look—up there—”
“Don’t try to pull that one on me,” Billy said. “You’re just trying to distract me.”
“Really, look, up there—”
Billy turned quickly. “Where?”
“There, above the road—coming this way—”
Billy gasped. “Jeez—”
Uncle Arvie was flying.
“Holy moly,” Billy said.
I twisted beneath him and rolled free.
The wind whipped the leaves through the air, and Uncle Arvie rose and somersaulted and dived and soared. “Oowee!” Uncle Arvie shouted. “Mailer! Mailer! Oowee!” Uncle Arvie twisted and turned and looped.
“H-h-holy m-m-moly!” Billy cried.
Uncle Arvie swept past Billy’s face.
“H-h-holy m-m-moly!” Billy shouted. “He is a ghost!” For the first time since I’d met Billy Baker, he grinned. He actually grinned.
Uncle Arvie flew above the tree and dived again, narrowly missing Billy’s head. A strong blast of wind blew through the park. “Oowee!” Uncle Arvie said, as the wind caught him and carried him far into the air. “Pailandplop!” he shouted. “Pailandplop!”
“Uh-oh,” I said, watching Uncle Arvie rise higher and higher. “He can’t steer—”
“Where’s he going?” Billy asked.
“Pailandplop, pailandplop!” Uncle Arvie said, but his voice was fainter and fainter as he sailed toward the clouds.
“Come back!” I shouted. “Come back!” I ran across the park, following Uncle Arvie, trying to keep him in sight.
A thin echo drifted down: “Good biddle, Dinosaur, good biddle—”
“Oh please,” I called. “Try! Try to steer—”
But the wind was too strong. It pulled Uncle Arvie up into the clouds, and I could see him no more. I stood for a long time watching the sky, hoping to see that red cowboy hat.
There was nothing more to be seen. Uncle Arvie was gone.
I walked back across the park, passing Billy, who was still staring at the sky. “He is a ghost!” he repeated. “He is a ghost!”
“Told ya—” I said.
My mother and Bo were standing in the backyard. “Dennis!” my mother said. “Where have you been? Aunt Julia called and— What’s wrong? Is something the matter?”
I looked up into the sky once more and then knelt beside Bo. I whispered into Bo’s ear: “Uncle Arvie flew away.”
Bo cocked his head and whimpered.
“Dennis?” my mother said.
“Why are you out here?” I asked. “It’s a little windy, isn’t it?”
She wrapped her jacket tighter around her. “It sure is. But I was just thinking—after Aunt Julia called and told me about you finding the money Arvie had buried—I was just wondering.”
“Wondering what?”
“Do you think your father might have buried something back here? The way Uncle Arvie buried something in his garden?”
“I don’t know.”
“Oh well, it’s probably a silly idea,” she said. “Let’s go inside. I have some good news for you.”
14
A WISH
“It’s really Aunt Julia who has the good news,” my mother said.
I felt terrible. All I could think about was Uncle Arvie, who had disappeared on the wind.
The phone rang. “Go on,” my mother said. “Answer it. I bet it’s Aunt Julia.”
Reluctantly, I lifted the receiver.
“Dennis? Is that you?” Aunt Julia said. “Did you happen to see a box of chocolates on the porch when you were here? Colin just phoned and said he left a box of chocolates.”
“Well, I—”
“I’m not suggesting that you took them!” Aunt Julia said. “Anyone could have taken them. It was silly of him to leave them there in the first place.”
“Yes, well—”
“I’m beginning to think he’s rather a silly man. All that business with the wasps. I never saw any wasps, did you?” she a
sked.
“No, I—”
“Exactly. I think Colin is imagining things. He’s a foolish man. Not nearly as interesting as your Uncle Arvie was. Colin is sort of a—a—”
“Sort of a beany booger?” I said.
“You sound just like Arvie,” Aunt Julia said. “Thank you for reminding me of him. And thank you for finding Arvie’s poem, and that beautiful painting of our honeymoon—” She sniffled. “And of course for finding the box today with all my letters and the money. I don’t know how to thank you—”
“Oh, that’s okay,” I said.
“I think you deserve a reward,” she said. “Anything you want. Anything at all. It’s yours. What would you like?”
I thought. There were three things I wanted, but I knew that Aunt Julia could not give me two of those things. So I asked for the third.
I said, “In your garage is an old bike. Was that Uncle Arvie’s?”
“That old thing?” Aunt Julia said. “That old rusty thing? Sure, it was Arvie’s, but—”
“I have a little money saved to fix it up, but I don’t have enough. Maybe you could help me get it fixed—?”
Aunt Julia said, “Of course I could. We’ll get new tires and have it painted and— Are you sure that’s what you want? You could have a whole new bicycle if you’d rather.”
I was tempted to say, “Yes! A new bike!” but I thought about all those secret pouches and compartments on Uncle Arvie’s old bike. “I’d rather have the one in the garage.” Maybe some of Uncle Arvie would be in it—something magical and mysterious in a ghostly sort of way.
That night, in bed, I listened to the wind rattle against the cardboard taped to my window. I knew that Billy Baker wouldn’t be throwing any more rocks. I wondered if Billy could see a ghost because he wanted a ghost. Needed a ghost. Maybe that’s what foodle a doodle meant. Maybe Billy and I both needed a ghost—we both foodled a doodle.
Across the room was my empty desk. I wished Uncle Arvie were lying across it, with his red hat poking off one end and his legs sticking straight out off the other end. That was one of the things I wanted that Aunt Julia could not give me.