on school. His mind was racing, and he wondered if this time they would have the break they’d been looking for. The problem was that they didn’t know what they were looking for. They were looking for a ghost, but what kind of ghost had they found? Was it male or female, young or old? He had questions for sure and yet no real answers. Suddenly, a thought popped into Stewart’s head. What if the ghost is playing with us? Now that was a very creepy, unnerving thought. Stewart didn’t think so, but to be on the safe side, he texted Andy. His thoughts were interrupted by a voice he wished he hadn’t actually heard.
“Excuse me, Stewart,” said Mr. Campbell. “Would you care to join us?” he asked. The entire class started to laugh but soon quieted down as the teacher glared across the room and made eye contact with each one of his students. “Pay attention, please!’ he said firmly.
Stewart turned a lovely shade of red and wished more than anything else the bell would ring or that he would simply just disappear – he didn’t care which. “Sorry, sir, and yes!” Stewart said with his eyes downcast, looking at the paper on his desk. He had no idea what the class had been discussing, and he had no intentions of asking.
Stewart jotted down make-believe notes in his spiral notebook. He had every intention of catching up later. He was not prepared for Mr. Campbell’s next announcement.
“Okay, people, pop quiz!”
Pop quiz? What? Ahhh, you’ve got to be kidding me! Thought Stewart as his heart sank. He knew he wasn’t prepared for a quiz; a passing grade didn’t even seem like a realistic possibility.
Mr. Campbell cleared his throat and started the quiz. “Which of the following English groups were supportive of the French Revolution and immigrants in the early years?” his teacher asked.
What in the heck does that have to do with English literature? Stewart wondered, staring at the blank sheet of paper before him as the sound of other student’s pens scratched across their papers in the background. Up went the other kid’s heads, and, yes, they were ready for the next question.
“James I shaped culture by publishing works about which three subjects?” asked Mr. Campbell.
Stewart knew two of the three answers and scribbled them down on his paper, hoping that writing something on his paper was better than nothing. Royal absolution and witchcraft . . . what is the other one? What is it, what is it, it’s coming . . . ahhh, I’ve got nothing! He hung his head nervously, knowing that an F was due him!
“Next question. What event caused the postponement of the coronation of James I?”
Seriously? I thought that this was English Literature, but it’s sounding more like a history pop quiz to me! Stewart thought as he wracked his brain. Plague; yep, definitely the plague, he said to himself as he scribbled his answer down. Stewart had no choice except to throw himself at the mercy of Mr. Campbell. He wrote down his last and final answer, which was the following:
Dear Mr. Campbell,
Please forgive me for being unprepared for class. May I make this grade up or something? If I seriously can’t, my mom will kill me!
Your bestest wannabe student ever,
Stewart
He had no idea if the note would help, but he figured it was worth a try. He slipped his quiz on the bottom of the pile on Mr. Campbell’s desk, gathered his things, and left the classroom as quickly as he could.
Maggie asked him how he’d done. One look at his face and she assumed that he hadn’t done very well. Stewart didn’t stick around to chitchat; he just kept on walking.
“He is so weird sometimes!” Maggie said, grabbing Ally by the arm. “Don’t you think so?” Ally wasn’t listening. Her nose was stuck in a modern-girl magazine. Maggie nudged her and pointed toward Stewart. “He’s weird, isn’t he?”
“I guess,” she said, fumbling with the pages, “But he’s still kinda cute, right?” She giggled.
“Yes,” giggled Maggie, “but don’t even get me started on Andy. Well, let’s just say, um, cute!”
***
Andy was waiting for Stewart outside the cafeteria, clicking the pen that he held in his hand up and down. He spotted Stewart as he walked toward him. They sat at a table in the corner of the cafeteria and one look at Stewart’s face and Andy knew something in class had not gone well. He didn’t ask.
They sat in silence for a few minutes as they ate, and then Stewart asked Andy if he would tell him about the ghost or entity touching him again.
Andy took another bite of his sandwich, chewed for a second and just as he opened his mouth to speak, he shook his head and closed his mouth again. Krista walked right past the boys, heading towards the trashcan, but he noticed that two things seemed incredibly odd:
1 She was walking unusually slowly, and
2 She was staring at them while she walked by.
Andy rolled his eyes. “Seriously? As if that wasn’t intentional!” he said aloud. He took another bite of his sandwich and acted as if he hadn’t noticed that she was walking past them slowly for a second time.
“Actually, it was,” Krista said, in a very matter-of-fact tone. “Intentional, I mean; I have a message for the both of you.”
The boys acted as if they were totally uninterested, since they didn’t think that she’d have a single thing to say to them that would interest them at all. They were wrong.
Leaning in, Krista said, “We saw what you saw!” and then simply turned and walked away.
The boys’ mouths dropped wide open. Both of their heads turned as they watched Krista walk back towards her friends. The girls were watching her deliver the message, but more importantly, they were observing the boy’s response post-delivery. She had gotten their attention. Their ears had perked right up. And the looks on their faces were priceless.
“What?” Stewart blurted. “What did she just say? Did she just say what I think she said?”
Andy looked as stunned as Stewart did. It sounded as if she’d said what he thought she had.
“Do you think that she’s referring to the you know what?” Stewart asked cautiously as Andy glanced over at the girls. The girls’ eyes locked onto his, and he immediately turned back around.
“It’s not looking good,” Andy said. “It’s not looking good at all!”
They boys decided that they would let it go for now and focus on Andy’s personal encounter with the thing in the Willows. They didn’t have time for the girls right then anyway, since they had absolutely no idea what they were going to say to them and they would deal with the girls later if necessary. They might just have been spying on them, which was an issue that would definitely have to be addressed! For now they would stop speculating about the what-ifs and focus on what they knew. They didn’t have much time before the next class, and the girls were the last things they wanted to talk about.
Andy relayed his experience in a little more detail, and Stewart scribbled down word for word what Andy was saying. Double notes: a
