~ Gertrude D. Macabellow
I was sick of this. I wanted to go ahead and throw the whole typewriter away or just put it out of its misery with a sledgehammer, but I thought about Mom and her glorious days with the typewriter. After all, she did get a lot of books on the New York Times bestseller list. I sighed and just went on to bed. I didn't feel like finding any notes tonight.
In the morning…
Hearing that Mom had to work early today, Rebecca drove along with Rosie in her Fiat to the mall to shop (as usual) and I was forced to ride the bus, even though Rebecca offered to take me to school. I wasn’t really in the mood to mingle with them today.
I was at the bus stop, waiting for the butter-colored cheese to come rolling down the street. It soon turned its corner with the sun being reflected from the tinted windows. One thing I noticed differently about it...it was going fast. I mean, beyond the speed limit of our street. Rushing towards me, I started running back home. It was following me there. I ran to the next street. It still followed me. Finally, I was in a dead end, nowhere to go unless I hid in the woods. Not gonna happen. I covered my head and then someone pushed me to the other side. The bus crashed into the dense woods and everybody from the neighborhood came outside to see the horrible accident.
“Are you okay, Ashton,” a voice asked. My eyes dilated to see a brown face. Of course, it was Dareeka.
“Yeah. That bus driver was crazy! I’ve never seen her be this hostile.”
“You mean, Mrs. Cattleback. She’s in the hospital, sick and immobile.”
“WHAT?! Then who was driving?” Dareeka shrugged her shoulders. I looked into the sky and paper came raining down in sheets. I picked one of them up and a big R was on the front. I picked up another paper and there was an R on that page. In conclusion, all of the papers listed R, which I surmised that Gertrude was behind all this. But these letters at the end. What do they mean? First, there was M, then there was U, and now there’s R. What could the others be?
The Letters ? ?, and ?
I hurried back inside to retrieve the typewriter that was still sitting alone in the living room on the table and I hastily put it in the big garbage bin outside. Dareeka came in behind me and asked, “What’s going on, Ashton?”
“This has got to stop, seriously got to stop! That typewriter has been giving me Satan’s gate for a week now and I’m sick of it. I threw it away in order for it to stop terrorizing me. The typing sounds, the poems, the notes, the symbolism. It all has to end today.”
“Yeah, but how do you know that it won’t come back out of the bin to haunt you again. It’s like Christine fixing herself all over again.” Dareeka had a point, though. There was always something that goes wrong when you disrespect the spirits lingering in things. And then I was thinking about Mom and how disappointed she’ll be when I threw out her favorite possession. But I’m so confused about this situation. I don’t know who Gertrude is and still why she chose me to converse with.
But now...I need to see how Mom makes make contact with Gertrude.
“Mom’s diary!”
“You think there’s something in there about this old lady?”
“It has to be. She should know about the situation by now.” I and Dareeka ran up the stairs to Mom’s room and searched for her diary. I looked under the pillow and it was lying there perfectly safe and secure. Not for long, though.
“I found the latest entry,” I said.
“What does it say?”
It said:
Dear Diary,
It’s official. Ashton knows what’s going on with Gertrude, the only person I looked up to for literature. I know that she’s mad about the typewriter deal, so she's targeting my son to make me express my guilt for taking her typewriter. I never really meant to buy it for a bargain; I just wanted to make it a slight memory of how she loved to type on. She didn’t even like it when the investigators took it so they could resell it to that old store on the corner. $33. What was I thinking? I guess I got so attached to it that I couldn’t resist having it out of my possession. So I need to ask again: why is Gertrude trying to make herself known today when I had the typewriter for almost 15 years?
I knew it all along. And I have the exact evidence to prove it. Mom’s actually knows Gertrude. But the entry still bothers me somehow. Was she the sixth girl in the clique? The good one? Dareeka asked me, “So does she know about her?”
“Yep, and she was acting very suspicious the last few days when I told her about the things that related to Gertrude in some way. The notes, the poems, everything added up to what relationship she had with her. I just still don’t get why Gertrude is after me, and Mom is the one that’s been causing all of this chaos.”
“We have to ask her about the diary entry. She should know by now that it’s time to tell her own son what’s going on.”
“That’s a good…” I was hearing the front doorknob moving, twisting and turning like somebody was trying to come inside. It could be Mom. But I can’t let her know that we skipped school. (And plus, we didn’t have time to hide. She opened the door so swiftly.) She closed it back and looked at us standing awkwardly in the living and exclaimed, “WHAT ARE YOU GUYS DOING HERE!?”
“We came here so we can talk to you about this typewriter situation,” I told her.
“First of all, why have you ditched riding the school bus?”
“I don’t know, Mom. Maybe it was because the bus was chasing me and nobody was on there driving or riding to school. It chased me down Chipotle Road and I came here so I could throw away your crazy typewriter.”
“YOU DID WHAT?! You are so grounded, mister.”
“You don’t understand. That typewriter gave me a hectic time while I was here. Sure, I was a bit curious when I was listening to the typing sounds and finding poems, but there’s something wrong here and I need you to tell me your relationship with Gertrude.”
“I don’t have a relationship with Gertrude.”
“I read your diary entry.”
“Why? Diaries are for personal stuff to jot down and now you want to unleash it in your mind?”
“Tell me how you know Gertrude.”
She hesitated for a minute and said, “Alright, I’ll tell you. It was once in 1975, a year before she died. Gertrude was a novice in writing at the time. One day, we saw her promoting books in the street and my friend Shirley Truce was talking about how dull and boring her books were. She threw one of them to the ground and started stomping her heels on it. It was tragic to me, so I offered to buy one of her books, even though the girls despised what I did.
“The first poetic stanzas got me hooked on reading more of her works. I was so intrigued at the time that she became my #1 inspiration for writing. Sure, I didn’t write the same genre of what she wrote about (namely speaking about her autobiographical literature) but I did feel as if we were related in writing. I stopped hanging with the girls so much to catch up on writing. But the thing I wasn’t aware of was when they were constantly bullying her, critiquing her writing skills. She wasn’t perfect, so why couldn’t they accept that?
“Then I heard about the murders, and then the suicide back in 1976. I was devastated to have my only idol dead and a serial killer. That’s why I have her typewriter in memory.”
“That’s a very touching story,” Dareeka complimented. “I wish I could’ve met her.”
“Thank you,” Mom commented.
“But that still doesn’t solve why it’s after me.” I glanced at a piece of paper sliding through the doorway. I looked closely to see what it was. And guess what, it was another poem by none other than Gertrude D. Macabellow.
As time runs out and days go by,
The word spelled was MURDER, you silly, old pie;
Sadly, since you are always being a curious spy,
The time is up and now...you...are...going...
to...DIE.