The Ghost of Mr. Peterson

“Have you actually seen Peterson before?”

His two only friends in Minnesota looked at each other, and then back at Timmy.

“Well…”

“We think he’s a ghost.”

“What do you mean a ghost? I thought he lived up on the hill.”

“Some people think he’s alive. But I asked my mom - she used to see him all the time. He used to go down to the bakery. A few months ago, he just stopped showing up.” Becky was chewing on a sliced apple at lunch.

“Nobody else lives up on the hill?”

Roger piped in. “I guess we’ll find out tonight.”

“Wha-what do you mean, tonight?”

“We have to go see if Mr. Peterson is a ghost. The town needs to know. And there’s only one way to find out.” Becky said this dramatically as she puffed out her chest.

Timmy was having trouble discerning whether or not he was victim to some sort of joke.

“So you’re coming, right?” Roger eyed Timmy, no sign of humor materializing on his windswept face.

“Um. I don’t know if I believe in ghosts.”

“I mean you don’t have to come. We can find someone else. We need three though, to make sure nobody gets hurt.” Becky looked at him with sparkling eyes.

“What do we do when, uh, if, we see Peterson’s ghost.”

“We write a report.” Becky’s matter-of-fact tone made Timmy a little less paranoid about being the subject of a prank.

“A report? Like a report for school?”

“No, silly, a report for the adults. The auth-or-itar-ities.” She stumbled on the word, but then picked back up. “So that they know there’s a ghost, and then they can take the proper steps and precautions.” Timmy liked the way Becky talked. He wondered if her parents let her watch PG-13 movies, and his stomach gave a little lurch of jealousy.

“So, are you coming?” Roger glared at him again with boyish brown eyes and a very serious look on his face.

Timmy surveyed them again to check their intentions. “I mean, if there is a ghost, I guess the town should know…”

Roger’s face perked up in anticipation.

Timmy thought about the red-headed girl who sat in the front row of Mrs. Nelson’s class and raised her hands almost every time a question was asked. If he, Timmy the new kid, was the one to solve the mystery of the ghost, he would be an instant hero. Maybe someday the red-headed girl would come over and play Legos with him.

“Well if you need one more, I guess I should be the one. You know, I took some karate lessons back in Maine.” Timmy said this in his bravest tone, but then sheepishly added, “Do you think ghosts know karate? Cause I’m only an orange belt.”

Becky took a step forward and wrapped him in a tight hug.

…

During his afternoon classes, Timmy could hardly focus on Mrs. Lewis or even the red-headed girl in the front of the classroom, who answered six questions in a row about the solar system.

While Mrs. Nelson explained how the rings of Saturn were a collection of space rocks in orbit around the massive planet, Timmy tried to visualize what a ghost would look like in real life. He wans’t allowed to watch ghost movies, but certainly the ghost would not look the way the kids in Maine dressed up for Halloween, with old bedsheets draped over their heads. He decided that it would be more like a pale old man whose guts with scary teeth.

…

At three o’clock when the school bell rang loudly, Timmy jumped out of his seat and tramped towards the front of the classroom to catch up with Roger.

Becky was in Mr. Larson’s room, so Roger led the way to the other side of the third-grade wing. Becky was standing against the wall and tapping her foot against the tiled floor. She offered a small nod of her head when she spotted Roger and Timmy, and the three of them walked towards the exit without speaking a word.

Once they reached the bitter air outside, Roger was the one to break the silence. “So here’s what I’m thinking. Let’s go eat with our families and climb into bed. Once our parents are sleeping, we’ll sneak out and meet up in front of the bell tower downtown. Let’s aim for eleven.”

Timmy was unsure - he had never snuck out before, and he hardly ever stayed up past ten except when he was thinking too much about girls or goblin sharks. However, the image of the red-haired girl kissing him on the forehead while he showed her his colored pencil collection won the battle over his mind.

…

After mom tucked him into bed and turned off the lights to his room, Timmy switched on his GameBoy Advance to keep him awake. He checked the clock next to his bed consistently for the next two hours, and right at 10:30 pm, he slowly raised his shoulders from the twin-size mattress.

Timmy was dressed in his favorite pair of pajamas - the ones with the dinosaurs - but he quietly exchanged these for a pair of dark blue jeans and a fluffy winter jacket. As he snuck into the hallway and leaned his head against his parents’ bedroom door, a sense of guilt blanketed his conscience.

What if he never came back? Since he had never met a ghost, he wasn’t sure if they liked to eat children. Timmy shook his head to rid himself of these thoughts. Tonight, he wasn’t the boy who hid under his blanket when he thought about aliens, or who refused to enter the hippo enclosure at the zoo in case they made a scary noise. Tonight, he was a hero.

As Timmy tip-toed towards the staircase, he tried to remember which stair creaked, and decided that he would take the stairs slowly and gently. However, his commitment to tip-toe down the staircase was forgotten halfway through his descent, resulting in a loud groan from the second-to-last step.

Timmy froze and listened for a noise from upstairs. After five Mississippis, he continued to slip out into the kitchen and out the back door, remembering his vow to silence as he closed it behind him. The winter night was not as harsh as he had expected, but large snowflakes still floated in the air, adding to the glittering white blanket that covered his new backyard.

He started walking towards the front of the house when he realized that he wasn’t sure how to reach the bell tower. Timmy bit his bottom lip as he marched through the snow towards the front of the house, picturing the humiliation he would suffer if he showed up at school after breaking his promise to participate in the ghost hunt.

When he reached the front of the house, a pair of yellow lights illuminated the snow-covered lawn. They belonged to a red pickup truck, and as the vehicle passed, Timmy decided that following the red lights trailing the truck would lead him in the right direction, or at least make him feel like he wasn’t alone.

After the red lights disappeared and Timmy had started to consider turning back, another yellow beam flooded the street in front of him. He tried not to look back at the approaching car, but as the sound of crunching ice became louder, he heard the vehicle slow down and then stop. A loud voice pierced the night.

“Hey! Boy! Where you think you’re going? Timmy spun his quaking head over his left shoulder and saw an adult lady sticking her own head out of the driver’s side window.

“Um, I, uh.”

“You must be freezing! Are you lost?”

Timmy hesitated before nodded his head timidly, and the woman drove up closer to him. “Where do you live?”

Timmy didn’t want to lie, and he had been warned several times never to get into a stranger’s car, but he was not oblivious to the opportunity.

“I need to get to the bell tower. On Main Street.”

She eyed him curiously, and then opened the door and stepped out onto the icy road. “Here, hop in. I’ll take ya home.”

The woman asked Timmy a few questions for the first couple minutes of the ride, but his short answers seemed to ward off any further investigation. Once the bell tower came into sight, he was disappointed to see the absence of any silhouettes that might belong to either Roger or Becky. He also realized he had not paid attention to their route, and would almost certainly have trouble making it back home.

When the woman had opened the passenger door and helped him out of the car, he thanked her politely and vowed that he would get home safely.

As he reached the frozen fountain in front of the tower, a little whisper caused him to tense and give a sharp yelp.

“Psst. Timmy. Over here.”

Becky was hiding behind the right side of the fountain’s stone walls.

“Oh, hey Becky. Is Roger here yet?”

“No, but sometimes his parents are up late. Do you want some hot cocoa?”

She offered him a stainless steel mug, which he accepted graciously.

Downtown Lanesboro appeared to be completely empty except for the two children, and Timmy started to feel less certain about Roger.

“Do you think he chickened out?” Timmy asked timidly.

“No way. Roger is the bravest person I know.”

Timmy almost enjoyed waiting by the fountain The streets were somewhat bright, illuminated by the moon’s light reflecting off the soft white snow, and he tried to ease his mind from thinking about ghosts, or any other supernatural entities that were lurking in the night. Large snowflakes drifted down from the gray sky above, but they hardly made it difficult to see the storefronts that lined Main Street.

Finally, a small silhouette appeared from behind one of the buildings, and when Timmy started to stand up with the intention of waving, Becky grabbed his coat and threw him back down.

“Shh. If it's him, he’ll find us.”

When Roger had reached the fountain, he greeted them with a single head nod. They followed him.

As they climbed the hill towards Mr. Peterson’s mansion, they spoke quietly about their plan.

“If we see him and he’s not a ghost, then we all go home and don’t speak of this to anyone.” Becky was in charge of the briefing.

“If he is a ghost, then we also turn around and we go back sometime during the day to investigate further. This is re-con-ti-nense, not a suicide mission.”

“What if it’s hard to tell?” Timmy asked, thinking about the pale man he had been picturing for much of the day.

Roger piped in. “Then we get a little closer. Just until we’re sure.”

…

Mr. Peterson’s mansion appeared to be completely dark, except for a single light upstairs.

The three children hid behind bushes that separated his front yard from the sidewalk, until Roger motioned them forward with his hand.

“Let’s go to the back.” Roger whispered.

There were plenty of bushes lining the house, and they stuck to them as they waddled to the back.

Behind the massive house, the snow appeared mostly untouched except for a pair of footsteps that led from somewhere in the thicket of trees behind the yard. As Timmy’s eyes followed the imprints to the gathering of trees, he was urged to uncover their origin.

He wandered from the group towards the back of the yard, keeping his eyes focused on the footprints. “Timmy. Stop. Don’t go back there.”

He ignored their warning, and when he finally looked back, he discovered himself fully enveloped by the trees, no longer able to see Becky or Roger.

Ahead, there was a little clearing, and Timmy felt his feet take him to the gap in the trees. A small pond revealed itself, not more than fifty feet in diameter. He continued walking towards the frozen pond, and then onto the ice, which held firm against his weight When he reached the center of the pond, he looked down into the ice.

Staring back at him was a face pressed up against the surface, wearing cracked glasses draped below its sagging eyes.