Boo Read Free Page B

Haunted Mansion, Wolfe began to notice the strange looks from people. Howard the barber raced outside, nearly tripping over himself as they went by. Everyone else stopped to watch them walk along the sidewalk together.
    “What’s going on?” Wolfe asked the reverend.
    “I don’t know,” the reverend whispered back.
    By the time they arrived at The Haunted Mansion, a small crowd had gathered, and even the strong wind couldn’t carry away the deafening silence.
    “Come on,” the reverend said, nudging Wolfe into the restaurant, almost shoving him through the swarm of people. When they got inside, Wolfe heard a fork drop and saw guests at their tables staring and gawking. Looking at Wolfe, he said, “Don’t you worry about a thing. We’re going to sit down here and eat our lunch. I don’t know what’s going on, but we’ll get to the bottom of it.”
    Wolfe stared at his brown boots. The unconventional witty side of him wanted to shake his head violently from side to side and scream like something out of
The Exorcist
, but more than a few elderly people were nearby, and that might cause a scene not even he could write. Of all these people, nobody knew him. They’d created him, so to speak—an image of him, anyway. But they didn’t know him. They didn’t know he could be funny. They didn’t know he liked old black-and-white romantic movies. And he suspected they didn’t want to know him. They’d created a tourist town around who they wanted him to be, and just by the stares he was getting while standing next to the reverend, Wolfe realized suddenly that his new spirituality was going to rock a few boats.
    Then it began. The twitch. It was a twitch. Then an itch. The eyes would water, and then it would be out of his control. He imagined it was violent in nature because of his size. He was six foot four. And if he tried to hold it in, he feared his brains might blow out of the back of hishead. But oh how he wished he had a proper sneeze. Not dainty. Just not … well …
    “A​A​A​A​A​H​H​H​H​H​C​C​C​C​C​H​H​H​H​H​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O!!!!!!” At least a dozen people ducked. A woman screamed, something fell with a loud
thud
, and everyone turned to see a little old lady passed out on the ground.
    But no one was helping the woman. Instead, they were all staring at Wolfe, their faces white as ghosts.
    “Excuse me,” Wolfe managed, wiping his nose and sniffling. He looked at the reverend, who, although visibly astonished, didn’t seem as frightened as everyone else.
    Wolfe stepped forward, and the crowd parted. He bent down next to the old woman who was starting to come to. “Ma’am? Are you all right?” Her eyes fluttered, and she nodded a bit.
    Someone bent down to help the woman and give her a drink. Wolfe stood, and the reverend guided him away from the crowd. “Come on. Let’s sit over here.”
    Wolfe sat with his back to the crowd. He was used to the stares. When he would come into town, people tended to stare. Usually no one approached him, though, and he was able to go about his business fairly normally. What was different this time? Was it because he was with the reverend?
    The reverend glanced at the crowd, his face red. “Those people,” he mumbled. Even so, his eyes reflected compassion.
    Wolfe tried to smile. “Well, I suppose they expected to see my head spin and you-know-what fly out of my mouth.”
    The reverend lifted his eyebrows, then cracked a smile, and before long they were having a good laugh.
    “I guess the next gossip will be that I’m performing exorcisms!” the reverend chuckled. Then his laughter subsided. “Don’t you worry about what happened back there,” he said. “We’re going to sit here and enjoy our lunch. Get to know each other. If I can flag down a waitress, we’ll get ourselves started with something to drink.”
    Wolfe knew who their waitress would be. They were sitting in her section, the one she’d had