Dear Sister Hilda:
I am submitting
this for the English assignment you gave us, to write a story about something
true. You are going to think I am making
all this up, but I’m not. It really
happened. My Mom will back me up, if
necessary. Even my brother Patrick will
back me up, because he won’t tell a lie to a nun.
Theresa McMahon
When
I was nine years old, Mom and Dad bought a corner lot in our little town “for a
song.” The lot had a peeling, two-story
wood frame house with one of those big verandas that had a swing. It took them almost a year to bring that old
house up to where it could be inhabited again.
It cost them more to renovate that old fossil than they had paid to buy
it. When they were finished, though, it was really lit. Mom planted a flower garden, and Dad
re-seeded the lawn. We moved in right
after my tenth birthday.
People
would drive or walk by our house, stop and take pictures. “You should see what the McMahons have done
to the old Wilkerson house! It’s a
miracle!” was what everyone was saying. This
got to be a real pain.
We
had all heard the stories about the house being haunted, but nothing bad had
ever happened there, and if there were any ghosts around, they didn’t seem to mind
us or all the renovations.
One
night, shortly after we moved in, I was in the bathroom, brushing my teeth
after having washed my face, including the back of my neck and behind my ears
(because Mom loved to pull surprise inspections). I heard three loud POPs coming from the
bathtub. When I looked, I saw a tiny red
bubble sneaking up through the drain and a yellow one trying to hang onto the
faucet. I screamed.
I
heard loud footsteps on the stairway, and Mom and my little brother Patrick slammed
into the bathroom.
“What
is it?” screamed Mom.
All
I could do was point to the bathtub. By
this time, it was filling with tiny bubbles of many bright colors, coming from
the faucet and the drain.
“Shit!”
said Patrick. His mouth was hanging down
about a foot.
“Don’t
say that word!” said Mom.
Patrick
managed to close his mouth and swallow.
“Sorry, Mom. It just came out.”
“It
must be coming through the pipes,” said Mom.
“We’ll have to go check them out.”
Mom is good in a crisis.
“You
mean the pipes in the basement?” I asked.
“But Mom, it’s spooky down there!”
“You
two won’t have to go down,” she said.
“I’ll go down. You’ll just have
to stand at the top of the stairs, hold the door open so I can run up fast if I
have to and keep a flashlight ready, just in case.”
“Well,
okay,” I said. “But maybe we should call
the Psychic Hotline or something first.”
“Don’t
be stupid.”
“Sorry.”
We
ran down to the basement – well, Mom ran down to the basement. Patrick and I just kind of hobbled downstairs
and fell over each other on the way to the basement door, trying not to get
there too fast.
“Move,
you little zit!”
“YOU
move!”
We
finally reached the basement door, where Mom was waiting for us. We remained at the top of the basement steps
while she went down into the darkness.
For some stupid reason, the light switch is at the bottom of the stairs.
Mom
turned on the light. This made the space
even spookier. It was so quiet I could
hear Patrick breathing behind me. Mom
went over and inspected the pipes, but didn’t find anything. She couldn’t find anything by the boiler,
either.
“There’s
nothing down here,” she said. “I guess
I’ll just have to call a plumber in the morning.”
She
turned off the light and started to come back up the steps. She was stopped dead by a voice that
whispered, “Mrs. McMahon?”
Mom
whipped around and turned the light on again.
“Who’s there?” she demanded.
“It’s
only I,” said the voice, and a middle-aged woman in a long, pale dress suddenly
appeared at the other end of the basement.
All
three of us screamed.
“I
am so sorry,” said the woman. “I keep
forgetting that one mustn’t materialize so quickly in front of people who are
still living in their bodies. Please
forgive me.”
“Who
are you?” asked Mom.
“Oh,
where are my manners! I am Rachel
Wilkerson. This was my family home. We all perished in the influenza pandemic of
1918. My sister Leah and I were the last
ones to die. She’s here, too. Leah, come and materialize. We have visitors.”
Another
voice answered, “I can’t. I’m not dressed
for receiving.”
“Oh,
nonsense! You’re a ghost! Nobody cares how you look. You’re keeping our visitors waiting!”
A
head, two hands and two feet appeared.
“Leah,
this is Mrs. McMahon and these are her two children. They live here now.”
“I
am pleased to meet you, Mrs. McMahon.”
“Uh,
likewise, I’m sure,” said Mom. “Can
either one of you tell me why we are getting colored bubbles in our bathtub
upstairs?”
“Oh,
goodness!” said Leah. Her two hands
clapped both sides of her face. “They
must have gotten into the water somehow!
How awful! It’s my fault. You see, we are having a birthday party for
poor Mr. Anderson …”
“The
man up the street who died recently?” asked Mom.
“Yes,
indeed,” said Leah. “We felt so sorry
for him because he never had a birthday party when he was alive, so we are
giving him one now. I was trying to make
colored bubbles and I guess I did something wrong.”
“Don’t
worry,” said Rachel. “We won’t do that
again. You can live in peace. In fact, we will be leaving soon. We have been waiting all these years for
someone to come and fix this house and make it beautiful again, and you have
done a creditable job …”
“A
wonderful job,” said Leah.
“Yes,”
said Rachel. “Leah and I have decided
that it’s time for us to get a new evaluation and, hopefully, progress on our
way to the heavenly realm. We’ll be sure
to say good-bye before we leave.”
With
that, they both disappeared, leaving the basement as quiet as before, but a lot
less spooky.
“That
was Gucci!” said Patrick.
“It
sure was!” I said.
“Okay,”
said Mom. “That was enough excitement
for one night. To bed, both of you!”
Two
weeks later, we found a note in our mailbox from Rachel and Leah, saying
good-bye and thanking us for being good to their house.
 |
| Happy Birthday, Mr. Anderson, wherever you are now! |
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