~ Gertrude D. Macabellow
The name so familiar roaming around in my mind. And now I realized that Gertrude Macabellow was the poet who committed suicide by her own Smith-Corona. I need some research on her life and the events that took place before she died.
I checked my phone. It was 11:07. I doubt that my friends are asleep at this time. Brandy might be, claiming that she has to get her “beauty sleep” and all. James had a football game and Timmy was...I actually don’t know what he does around this time. But I know Dareeka stays up late every night. She was the first person I called too.
Dareeka: Hello?
Me: Hey, Dareeka. You have a minute?
Dareeka: Sure. What’s up?
Me: Do you know the poet Gertrude D. Macabellow?
Dareeka: Honestly, I don’t know any type of poets. You have a literature project to work on or something?
Me: No. I was just wondering if you knew her.
Dareeka: Oh, okay. What about her?
Me: I’ve seen her in the town’s newspaper a few years back when they were investigating her case of gruesome murders. She had committed suicide with her typewriter and they had put it up on the shelf to resell to the public as a vintage and refurbished device. My mom got hold of it for her writing business back in the 20th century and now that I’ve found it, it’s been typing by itself and then it typed a poem I don’t understand.
Dareeka: Bring it to school tomorrow. James is a literary scholar, so he’ll figure it out.
Me: But are you sure he’ll be able to figure this out?
Dareeka: Positive. Remember Mrs. Lily’s class? She passed him with a straight 100. And I only got an 88.
Me: That was probably because you were too busy focusing on Choir. You used to love that class and you were already part lyricist.
Dareeka: But that’s what I’m good at. Lyrics and singing.
Me: Yeah. I remember when we were younger and you used to release crazy mixtapes with remixed hymns from your hymnals. You used to go like “thuh-tha-thuh-thuh-THUH” and all of that. I was like “Here’s Dareeka’s worst-selling mixtape.”
Dareeka: See, I was going to let you have it for free, but you’re being such a critic about it, I’ll just let you buy your own copy. How does that sound?
Me: You’re the star. Why don’t you go ahead and sing “Almost Persuaded” right in the phone?
Dareeka: (playing angry) Good night, Ashton.
Me: Night!
I hung up. I almost forgot about what I was going to do tomorrow, being in a good mood and all with Dareeka. I just hope I can sleep tonight without any more notes or clicking.
At school…
We were all in Miss Hallzheimer’s classroom and as usual, I pulled up a desk to talk to Dareeka, Brandy, Timmy, and James. With the sheet of paper, I pulled it out and placed it on the desk.
“So did Dareeka tell you about this weird thing that happened last night to me?”
“What is it,” Brandy asked, unintentionally not knowing. “Is it another case of a mysterious person crossing your patio?”
“Brandy, we had solved that case last week,” James told her. “It was that 9th grade socially-awkward student named Lenny Montello. Remember?”
“Oh, that guy. He is so awkward. I had to ask him something on my Gym block about when we go to lunch (you know, that testing schedule we have to go by because of those 10th graders testing) and here he goes saying something weird like ‘When the wind strikes at noon’ and something like that. IT’S SO WEIRD!”
“Quiet, Demi,” Miss Hallzheimer shouts to Timmy, even though he never says anything. He just sighed heavily.
“I think what he meant to say was that it’s going to be noontime for the lunch schedule and it will be very windy outside.” Wow, Dareeka was right about James and his literary analysis skills. I bet he can crack this poem in an instant. “And why did you ask him that? You already knew it.”
“I just wanted to see what he’ll say. I like observing things.”
What a weirdo.
“That was good, James,” I praised him. “And before Brandy interrupted me with her statement, I was going to tell you all about this piece of paper.
“When I was trying to find one of my mom’s drafts for her next novel, I stumbled over a file cabinet, dropping her old typewriter and hurting my foot. I brought the typewriter out of the storage room to see if I can work it, but here goes Mom wanting to use it for her novel. She told me details about it and she said that it was a 1975 Smith-Corona Electra, the exact same one a poet named Gertrude D. Macabellow used for her works, of course, before she committed suicide with it.”
“Wait, what,” Timmy exclaimed.
“Who exactly is that Macabellow lady,” Brandy asked.
“Well, she’s a 20th century infamous poet known modernly for her gruesome murders and her suicide. She didn’t have a lot of people to support her and her poetry books and she was so furious of the ladies who bullied her. So she killed them off one by one. Only one survived; the good one.”
“So if this is one of her works, how did it get into your household?”
“The most paranormal thing happened. The typewriter typed it up by itself while I was asleep (or at least trying to sleep) and I thought that it was my mom again. Happened at 11:07 p.m.”
“No way,” Timmy exclaimed again.
“This can’t be true,” James exclaimed.
“I’m dying,” Brandy exclaimed, dramatically.
“Are you sure a rat didn’t hop on the keyboard and start crawling on keys,” Timmy asked. Such an odd question.
“Of course not. We do not have a house infested with rats under every floorboard. I first saw it instantly when Mom was fixing me a sandwich. One of the keys pressed and then released as if someone was typing on it. It’s weird and it’s creeping me out.”
“Dareeka, why aren’t you freaking out about this madness?”
“I already told her on the phone call last night. The reason why I brought it here was because we wanted to see if James can figure out the main point of it. And by the way, she’s already established that the beginning of the conversation.”
“Oh, that’ll be a piece of cake,” James assured and I handed him the poem. It took him a full 30 seconds before he said, “This poem is about Gertrude stealthily murdering her worst enemy under the tree with a large limb after she was crying or moping about her boyfriend or spouse doing felonious actions.”
“It was a scandal or something,” Brandy interrogated.
“Not exactly a scandal, but more like a crime.”
“But what about the letter M in the last line?” After I asked that, I heard a slight cracking sound outside, coming from one of the trees nearest to our window. One of the limbs — the big limb — looked weaker and it probably looked like it was going to later collapse.
Crack!
It started to descend slowly falling towards the classroom. And then went faster and faster and faster and faster. I was just paralyzed at the moment and before I could stop being immobile…
CRASH!
The windows were busted out and everybody went tumbling down or ducking their skulls. As I got up, collapsing from the glass flying our direction, I saw two classmates — Daniel Bradley and Shirley Matinee — injured from the impact of the tree from the eastern side of the classroom. I was scared, confused, and embarrassed. I saw a postcard taped onto the front of the limb. The only thing that was on the note was the letter M.
The Letter U
“...and the limb flew right into the classroom, leaving everything after a horrible mess,” I explained to Mom.
“Are you hurt,” she asked me. She checked my forehead for cuts and lesions. I felt no pain, even if the glass shattered in my direction.
“I’m fine. But it feels like I’m being beleaguered by the deceased poet, Gertrude D. Macabellow.”
“What are you talking about Ashton? When did all this happen?”
“It all st
arted last night while you were in the bed. I was still hearing typing sounds from your typewriter and I was thinking that it was you still working on The Runes. But I went up to the den area to see if you were there and you weren’t. And then, I saw this poem stuck in the sheet holder and it had Gertrude’s signature at the bottom. You would’ve never pulled out a poem from somebody else in one of your stories, would you?”
“I’m not a skeptic or anything, but if you were sleepwalking and dreaming about some poet who wrote poems then this might’ve popped up. Or maybe a rat crawled on the keyboard overnight and typed…”
“First of all, I’ve never sleep-walked in my life; second of all, our house isn’t infested with rodents; and second-and-a-half of all, a mouse would’ve never typed up a whole poem.” Gosh, I really get irked when Mom acts so wrong. She’s always acting like she doesn’t know what’s going on, but I kinda think she has something behind these events. I mean, I’m not saying that I don’t trust my mom, but sometimes I don’t.
She looked at the poem that Gertrude “typed” up and she was feeling shocked. I hoped that she realized that I was right because if she wasn’t feeling that right now, I think I was going to go into a tantrum or something.
She soon said in a rage, “Do not show me any of this ever again, Ashton. Do you hear me?”
“Mom…”
“Do you hear me?”
I sighed. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Good. Now go to your room and do some homework, or if you don’t have any go clean your room up,” she demanded as she pointed at my room. I went up there angry and confused at the same time. She blames me for what I didn’t do. I didn’t touch her typewriter; I observed the ludicrous phenomena it had been doing last night. I’ll just forget that that happened and do something occupying.