The Ghost Belonged to Me by Richard Peck Page A

turned on Dad then, like he might have contradicted her on some point. But he was clearly buffaloed by all the foregoing. Then in the distance came the sound of an ambulance bell. It rang from the direction of the Woodlawn Avenue extension. Out to pick up all that remains of Amory Timmons, I thought privately.
    Mother harked at the far-off ringing, which has a calamitous sound, particularly at night. “And what tragedy does that portend?” she asked, very dramatic.
    At that, the night breeze played up into a wind, lashing the elm branches around. A crackling sound came from the side yard, followed by the splintering of wood and a great crash. Dad unlatched the window screen and stuck his head out. Then he ducked back in and told us that Lucille’s party pavilion had blown down.
    Mother drew her wrapper around her neck and said darkly, “This night is full of omens.”
    I was inclined to agree.
    Â 
    Â 
    As a rule, Sunday stands pretty still in Bluff City. Of course, that particular Sunday was an exception. I woke up looking at my dirty feet, a pair of souvenirs of a busy night. There was a nettle rash on my legs too, from all those weeds I’d come through climbing away from Snake Creek. It was just a question of time before some busybody would link me up with the salvation of the streetcar passengers. And when this revelation came, it would open up a whole new field of inquiry.
    The smell of Gladys’s coffee wafted up from the dining room. There was no way of avoiding church because there never is. The Baptists were already setting to in their chapel over on Eldorado Street, and their old pump organ was wheezing a prelude. They are hardshell, but harmonious, and they raised up their voices in song: “Draw me nearer, O my savior, day by day.” We have given up being Baptists in favor of being Episcopalians, which is a step up socially but a step down when it comes to hymn-singing.
    Not wishing to be conspicuous until it was inevitable, I got into my Sunday clothes and started down to the dining room unbidden. Lucille was at her place, puff-faced, with the Pantagraph folded open to Lowell Seaforth’s article beside her plate of waffles.
    â€œThere now,” Mother was saying, “that nice young man from the paper did your party proud and omitted unseemly details, for which we owe him many thanks. It is up to you, my girl, to hold your head high and let the community know you are of a superior type who has seen the light regarding such people as the Hacketts.”
    Dad was doggoned if he knew how all of a sudden—overnight so to speak—every one of the Hacketts had turned out to be such lowlifes. But he was given a couple of stricken looks and subsided.
    I slid the newspaper out from under Lucille’s elbow and read Lowell’s article, thinking it was handsome of him to mention my name as one of the party-givers. Then I leafed to the front page for word of the trestle disaster, which was surely the biggest thing that had happened to Bluff City in living memory. But the news hadn’t broken on that yet.
    Gladys came in with my plate of waffles and remarked that the lawn looked like the Battle of Bull Run had been waged across it. At length, Mother said to Lucille, “Get your hat and gloves. You’re going to church as usual.” The fight was pretty much out of Lucille. She kept darting me looks that spoke strongly of possible gratitude and certain revenge. I could see she was still unsettled in her mind. For that matter, so was I.
    We drove the Mercer to church, and Mother nodded to everyone on foot along the way. Lucille kept her veil down until the last moment before she had to take communion.
    Â 
    Â 
    â€œLet us rejoice and be exceeding glad,” said Father Ludlow in place of his prepared invocation, “that our brothers and sisters in this community were snatched from untimely and awful death.”
    There was a mumbling in the congregation