Haunted Canada Read online

  “Well, what is it? How to investigate bank robberies in three easy lessons?” Some of the kids giggled.

  “No … it’s to find out why the curtain moves in toward you when you turn on the shower.” That started even more giggles.

  “What did you say? You’re on thin ice already, Ms. Sharma. This is no time for joking.”

  “I’m not joking, Mr. Falconi.”

  Julie heard a faint whisper in her ear. “The window, kid. Look. Hurry.”

  Oh no, Julie thought. I can’t take this.

  “Hurry, kid. I haven’t got much more time.”

  Julie looked at the open windows that lined the wall of the classroom. Shapeless blue drapes hung limply over them. Suddenly, a single pair of drapes swayed slightly, then pressed against the open window, as if they were being sucked outside.

  “There, like that,” Julie pointed at the window.

  “Yeah, why does that happen?” Rachel McKenzie yelled.

  “I guess Julie will find out and tell us,” Mr. Falconi said. “I wonder why it happened at only one window.”

  “Probably just a fluke breeze,” Julie offered, watching the drapes fall back into place. Once again, like the air outside, they were perfectly still. Thanks, Jim, she thought. Goodbye.

  RESCUE BY NUMBERS

  I can’t believe I’m doing this, Pete thought, as he peeled back the small plastic lid labelled Number 1. The oily smell hit him instantly. At least they haven’t dried out, he noted. He dipped the fine-tipped brush into the inky blue paint and stirred gently. Carefully, he wiped the excess on the edge of the little pot, then held the brush poised over the faint blue maze covering the white canvas.

  “Looks like you got your way after all, Grandma,” he muttered ruefully, steadying his hand.

  He lowered the brush and filled in the first irregular shape marked with a tiny blue 1. As the colour oozed past the outline, he realized he’d have to be careful about the amount of paint he applied. Doing this picture was going to take a long time. But time is something I’ve got plenty of now, right? he told himself, as he dabbed paint over another 1.

  “And how did you spend your summer holidays, Pete?” he imagined Ms Tompkins asking when he got back to school.

  “Oh, doing a paint-by-numbers kit,” he pictured himself answering. “It was loads of fun.”

  Pete grimaced, feeling sorry for himself. The pain in his right calf was down to a dull throb, not nearly as bad as it had been yesterday, but it still hurt a lot. He wished he could take back those few moments yesterday afternoon.

  If only he’d been content to stay inside the lodge’s roped-off swimming area. If only he hadn’t tried to show off by slipping under the rope and swimming out to the point. If only he’d paid attention as he climbed onto the slippery, moss-covered rocks, rather than trying to wave to the kids who’d stayed safely behind.

  If only … maybe he wouldn’t have slipped and opened up a sixteen-stitch gash in his leg. And maybe he’d be where he wanted to be today — white-water rafting.

  His parents had offered to stay behind to keep him company, but he knew how much they’d been looking forward to the rafting. He’d been dreaming about it himself for the last two months.

  So he told them he’d be just fine in the cabin on his own and persuaded them to go without him.

  Before they left, they’d stocked the fridge with plenty of pop and sandwiches.

  “Just in case it hurts too much to go over to the cafeteria,” Mom explained, adding two new bags of corn chips to the already impressive stash of junk food on the old wooden sideboard.

  “And Mr. Kramer is just a call away,” Dad added, pointing to the phone. “We checked with him earlier and he says he’ll be happy to keep an eye on you.”

  “Dad, his office is right there,” Pete said, pointing out the window. “Mr. Kramer could hear me from here even if I just whispered, okay?”

  But, to humour Dad, he’d promised to phone the lodge owner. “Now get going. There’s the van. I’ll be fine. I’m not a baby anymore. Go.”

  Finally, they left. Pete waved from the doorway until the lodge van was out of sight.

  Back inside the cabin, though, he couldn’t settle. He felt restless. He tried reading for a while, but an old Hardy Boys adventure failed to grab him. He turned on the radio, but a man talking about home improvements was the only static-free show he could find.

  It was when he reached over to turn off the radio that he spotted the box on the floor. His grandmother had handed it to him three days earlier, just as he and his folks were leaving for their vacation.

  “Grandpa wants you to have this,” she had said, holding it out. “It was his. He never got to work on it.”

  She’d paused for a moment, a faraway look in her eyes, then added, “The picture on top seems to have gone missing, but everything else is fine. Your grandpa loved doing these, you know. That’s how he made the two pictures in my bedroom. Last night when I was looking at them, he told me you’d need this on your trip. Have fun with it and bring me back a beautiful picture. I’ll put it on my wall, too.”

  “But I’ll be way too busy, Grandma,” Pete had protested lamely. “Maybe you should keep it here so it won’t get wrecked.”

  But Grandma had insisted, and he had reluctantly packed the kit. He hadn’t wanted to hurt her feelings by coming right out and saying that there was no way he was going to spend his holiday doing a paint-by-numbers.

  Besides, since Grandma had come to live with them last year, he’d learned that there was no point in trying to make sense of some of the things she said about Grandpa. It worried him that she thought a dead person talked to her every now and then, but he knew how lonely she was. As Dad said, it was probably just her way of dealing with not having Grandpa with her anymore.

  “The bonds of love are pretty strong,” Dad had tried to explain, “especially after forty years. She still feels them, that’s all.”

  Pete paused and looked at the canvas. He was surprised to see how many tiny spaces he’d filled in while his mind had been wandering.

  Clearly, the dark blue made up much of the top section. Probably sky, he thought. Suddenly, he wished he had the picture that had originally been stuck to the top of the box. It would be nice to know what he was painting a picture of.

  He decided to switch to another colour. He was running out of places where he could rest his hand without touching a sticky blue spot. Obviously, oil paint took longer to dry than watercolours.

  Maybe I should let it dry a bit and come back to it later, he thought as he snapped the lid back on the Number 1 container. But as he wiped the brush on a paper towel, he was surprised to realize that he wanted to keep painting.

  He studied the bottom of the canvas carefully and decided to open the green pot labelled Number 8. There were lots of little 8 shapes scattered across the lower third of the picture, and he could lean his hand on the table as he filled them in.

  This time, Pete barely tapped the tip of the brush into the paint. This way, the brush kept its fine point and picked up just enough green to fill in a shape without oozing over the edge.

  It crossed his mind that he was actually getting the knack of painting by numbers. The thought left him feeling both pleased and a little foolish — pleased because he was getting better at it, but foolish that he was getting any pleasure at all out of something so ridiculous. Try as he might, though, he couldn’t talk himself out of doing it.

  He’d been working for quite a while when the sound of heavy boots trudging up the front steps broke his concentration. He looked up to see Mr. Kramer poised to knock on the screen door.

  “Hi, Mr. Kramer,” he called and pushed himself away from the table. Only then did he realize how much his leg still hurt. He’d forgotten all about it while he was painting, but as he scrambled to stand up, a stab of pain shot up his thigh.

  Despite the pain, he was determined to head off Mr. Kramer at the doorway. The last thing he wanted was for anyone to
see what he was doing.

  “Still hurting, eh?” Mr. Kramer commented as Pete limped toward him.

  “Sort of,” Pete answered, “but mostly when I walk on it, that’s all.”

  “Well, your folks asked me to check on you, so here I am. How about I help you over to the dining hall for lunch?”

  Lunch. Pete couldn’t believe that it was lunchtime already.

  “Or maybe you’d like to come sit on the dock and do some fishing? What do you say to that?”

  “Thanks a lot, Mr. Kramer, but I’m fine, really. I’ve got plenty to eat and stuff to read. I think I’d just as soon hang around here for now. Maybe I’ll come down later this afternoon, okay?”

  “Up to you, son. Just give me a shout if you need a hand.”

  “I will, I promise. Thanks again.”

  Pete watched as Mr. Kramer walked briskly back to his office. The noonday sun was dancing on the lake and many of the guests had retreated to the picnic tables tucked under the trees.

  Why am I in here? Pete wondered. The answer that popped into his head left him feeling unsettled. Because I have to do the picture, he found himself thinking as he shuffled back to the table.

  This thought bothered him and, when he looked down at the painting, he was even more disturbed. He hadn’t realized how much of it was finished. He had only vague memories of opening the lighter green, rusty brown, black and pale blue pots, and didn’t remember at all using the creamy white to top off what was obviously foaming, tumbling water.

  Parts of the picture were actually starting to take shape, and they looked good. All the little sections were starting to fit together like the pieces of a puzzle. The effect was pretty impressive. But it was disturbing, too. The empty spaces seemed to cry out for the missing colours that would define them as trees, flowers, water, clouds or sky.

  Pete was hungry — and tired. He realized his leg was throbbing. He wanted to take a break. But something stopped him. Something told him he had to finish the painting as quickly as possible.

  His hand shook a little as he dipped the brush into a dark grey Number 12. Wondering what this colour would reveal, he began to apply it methodically to the many small 12s on the left side of the picture. Rocks, he thought. They’re rocks, poking out of the water.

  “Hey, I get it,” he announced. “It’s rapids.” Feeling pleased with himself, he began to work more quickly, eager to make sense of the unpainted sections along the shore of the racing river that was taking shape before him.

  The faster Pete worked, the quicker the paint seemed to dry. He no longer had to worry about smearing it the way he had in the morning. And, once again, he was barely aware of the mechanics of what he was doing.

  What he was noticing, however, in sharper and sharper detail, was how slivers of brown were actually parts of tall pines, dots of black were bark markings on spindly birches, and wedges of dark grey were weathered cedar shingles on a cabin tucked into the hillside. He had the growing sense that he was no longer filling in numbers but actually painting a picture.

  For the first time, he checked his watch. Five o’clock. The day had disappeared. He wondered vaguely why his parents weren’t back yet. Then he became aware that his head was aching. His throat was dry, too, and his fingers felt cramped and twisted. And in the background was the pulsing pain in his leg.

  Pete began to worry about the gash. Maybe it was infected. The doctor had warned him to watch out for that. Maybe his throat was dry and his head ached because he had a fever, a fever caused by poison spreading through his body from the wound.

  Then it hit him. There was a fever burning in him all right, but it wasn’t caused by infection. It was a fever of fear. With a shiver, Pete suddenly realized that he was afraid of what lay in front of him. He was afraid of the picture.

  His hand began to shake and his eyes blurred. He put down the brush and rubbed his eyes. Then he stared at the painting again. There was something hauntingly familiar about it.

  He tried to focus on the scene. Slowly it dawned on him that he had seen this place before. But where? And what did it matter if he had?

  Crazy as it seemed, he felt sure that it did matter. He had to recognize this place. Remembering that the pictures in Grandma’s bedroom looked better if he wasn’t too close to them, he pushed himself away from the table. Wincing in pain, he steadied himself against the sideboard and took another look at the painting. Think, he ordered himself. Think.

  What he saw filled him with dread. He was almost certain that he was looking at a view of the river he and his parents had driven beside on Sunday. It was after they’d signed up for the white-water rafting. Dad had suggested that they take a drive along the winding road that followed the river’s path, to get an idea of where they’d be going in three days’ time.

  They’d stopped several times to watch other rafters bobbing along in the churning, racing water. At one spot, Pete had noticed a small cabin flanked by four tall tamaracks.

  That scene re-formed in his mind like a developing photo. First, he recalled the cabin and the pines, then the cluster of white birches, the cedar shingles, the three large boulders at the river’s edge, and the sharp bend just before the rapids. His memory offered up a snapshot that perfectly matched the painting.

  His heart skipped a beat. Vague new fears tugged at the corners of his mind, pushing him to think the unthinkable — that the picture was waiting to reveal a terrible secret. A secret that was hidden in the only bare patch of canvas left to be filled in.

  Pete sat back down at the table. His fingers felt weak and clumsy as he struggled to pry the lids off the last two unused containers — a fiery orange and a bright royal blue.

  With a trembling hand, he stirred each colour. Then he forced himself to dip the brush and apply orange to the four small shapes labelled 19. He wiped off the brush and held it over the blue pot. Then, one last time, he dipped the tip into the paint, and slowly filled in the two strips of blue dividing the small sections of orange.

  With the last bit of blue in place, the secret was no more. Part of what Pete had thought was a log jutting out into the rapids could now be seen for what it was — the upper part of a body slumped over the log. The orange and blue life jacket outlined its shape clearly, as did the shadow of a leg trailing just under the surface of the water.

  As a sickening certainty washed over Pete, Mr. Kramer pushed open the screen door. When Pete saw the look on his face, he knew that he was right — something terrible had happened.

  “What’s wrong? Tell me, please!” Pete shouted frantically. For a moment, the lodge owner looked confused as well as troubled.

  “Tell me,” Pete insisted, pushing himself up from the table. “Where are Mom and Dad?”

  “Take it easy, son, or you’ll open up those stitches,” Mr. Kramer began, moving quickly to Pete’s side. “Here, lean on me. Let’s go sit down for a sec.”

  “I don’t want to sit down,” Pete said, his voice breaking. “I just want to know where Mom and Dad are.”

  “Your mom’s safe, Pete. The park warden just called. She’ll be fine, so don’t you worry about her.”

  “And my dad?”

  Mr. Kramer spoke gently, “There’s been an accident, son. Seems the raft capsized shooting the second set of rapids. Everything would have been fine if the guide hadn’t hit his head. But with him knocked out, people had to fend for themselves. They did well, though. Managed to get the guide to shore. But …”

  Mr. Kramer paused to collect himself. He swallowed and took a deep breath, then went on, “… but they couldn’t find your dad, son. He’s … missing. Must have been swept down the river.” Pete began to shake.

  “Listen to me, son. They’re bringing in the helicopters right now. They should be here soon, and there’s still at least two hours of light left. The other rafters are already searching. So, don’t go thinking the worst just yet because …”

  “But,” Pete interrupted, “I know where he is!”

  �
��Now, now, son. Listen to me …”

  “No, you’ve got to listen to me. I know where he is. See?” Pete held up the painting and pointed to the life jacket. “Look, just look.”

  Mr. Kramer leaned forward and peered at the picture.

  “No,” Pete ordered, “don’t come too close. Here,” he said, taking two steps back. “Now, look again.”

  Mr. Kramer stared. Suddenly, his eyes widened. “Why, that’s the old Olliver place, down by Trout Bend. Where’d you get this?”

  Pete was frantic. How could he possibly explain what had happened? It would take too long.

  “That doesn’t matter right now. Please, Mr. Kramer. I just know that’s where Dad is. We’ve got to get to him.”

  “Well,” Mr. Kramer began, “I’m not sure that this makes any sense, but … okay, it can’t hurt to take a drive out to Trout Bend, if that’ll make you feel better.”

  Pete stumbled toward the door. “Hurry, Mr. Kramer, hurry,” he pleaded, pulling the lodge owner after him.

  Fifteen minutes later, Mr. Kramer was dragging Pete’s dad up the bank to where Pete sat, holding his leg. Pete had slipped scrambling down the hill toward the fiery orange life jacket they’d spotted from the truck, and his leg was bleeding again. But he was feeling no pain.

  Since the moment Mr. Kramer shouted, “Your dad’s breathing, son. He’s breathing!” Pete had felt only incredible relief. That, and the urge to shout to the treetops, “I heard you, too, Grandpa. I heard you.”

  THE RAVEN

  Cito would never admit it to most of his friends, but he actually liked hanging out at the library. It was better than being stuck at home with a babysitter while his mom went to night school.

  For him, the library held happy memories of Saturday morning story hours and puppet shows when he was little. And he always felt a thrill of anticipation when new arrivals showed up on the paperback racks.

  One night, he found a Gordon Korman and another evening he discovered Daniel Pinkwater, who also came up with the kind of stories he loved to read. He even managed to catch up on his homework.