Forest Ghost Read Free

The last thing he wanted to think about right now was getting in touch with the dead.

Von Steuben High School, 5039 North Kimball Avenue, Chicago
    J ack parked outside the school’s front entrance. It was unusual for Sparky to be late: he was usually standing on the sidewalk, patiently waiting.
    Nearly five minutes went by, during which time Jack kept a sharp lookout for parking attendants. Chicago’s parking attendants were notorious for slapping tickets on anything on wheels, even if a meter still had time left to run, or it was two minutes after nine p.m. Eventually, Sparky came down the steps of the red-brick building on his own, carrying in his arms a celestial globe, or what looked like a celestial globe. He was frowning, for some reason. He was blond-haired, like his mother had been, and he always looked pale, even when Jack had taken him on vacation to Florida and he had spent all day in the sun. He was wearing a maroon T-shirt and flappy brown cargo pants, and his shoelaces were undone.
    He opened the door, folded the passenger seat forward, and carefully stowed his celestial globe in the back.
    ‘What’s that?’ Jack asked him, as he climbed into the car and closed the door.
    ‘It’s an astrological globe,’ said Sparky, pronouncing his words very clearly, as if he were talking to somebody of limited intelligence. ‘Mrs Hausmann said I could borrow it for the weekend, so long as I drew her star chart for her.’
    ‘That’s what it does, then?’ asked Jack, as he pulled away from the curb and headed back up North Kimball Avenue. ‘Tells fortunes?’
    ‘It helps an astrologer to work out which astrological houses are going to be affected by which planets, and when.’
    ‘Oh. I see. That’s cool.’
    ‘Yes. Mrs Hausmann said I could borrow it because she’s never come across anybody who can accurately tell fortunes like I can.’
    ‘Well, it’s just a talent you have. I never believed in it myself until you started doing it.’
    Jack turned right at the Shell gas station into West Foster Avenue.
    ‘Apart from that, how was your day?’ he asked Sparky. He knew exactly what Sparky was going to say next, and he was trying to put it off.
    ‘It was OK. We had Mr Kaminski for algebra and that was OK. I had a cheeseburger for lunch and that was OK. I took out the tomato.’
    ‘You and Mikhail ought to get together. He hates tomatoes, too. He says they’re Slovak.’
    ‘Actually they first came from South America. The first people to eat them were the Aztecs.’
    ‘Oh, right. The Aztecs, huh?’
    ‘Yes. They called them
xitomatl
.’ A pause, then, ‘Dad … where’s my Oh Henry bar?’
    ‘I’m sorry, Sparks. I guess I forgot to bring it.’
    They were crossing the north channel of the Chicago River, and the afternoon sunlight momentarily flashed from the surface of the water on to Sparky’s face, bleaching his skin so that it looked even whiter, and making his hair shine in fine gold filaments.
    ‘You
never
forget to bring it. You always give it to me when we go past Jimmy John’s.’
    ‘I know. But I was in kind of a hurry today. I forgot it.’
    Jack glanced across at Sparky and saw that Sparky was staring at him with those stonewashed blue eyes as if he didn’t believe him for a moment.
    Sparky said, ‘It’s happened, hasn’t it?’
    ‘What? What are you talking about? I forgot your candy bar, that’s all. I’m sorry. You can have it as soon as we get home.’
    ‘It’s Malcolm, isn’t it?’
    ‘Malcolm? What about him?’
    ‘He’s dead. That’s why you didn’t bring me my Oh Henry bar.’
    ‘Sparky – how can you possibly know that? Malcolm is away on a scout camping trip in Michigan.’
    ‘I
told
him not to go,’ said Sparky, clenching his fist and beating on his knee for emphasis. ‘I told him and I told him and I told him and he still wouldn’t listen.’
    Jack reached across and laid his hand on Sparky’s skinny arm.
    ‘He
is
dead, isn’t he?’ said