Chris Grabenstein - The Hanging Hill

“Oops,” said Zack.

“Guess we shouldn’t have stopped for gas.”

“Or dinner.”

“Or ice cream cones,” said Judy.

Zack said it again: “Oops.”

“Tell you what: We’ll take a quick look around. If he’s already gone home, we can stay at that Holiday Inn we passed on the way into town.”

“Okay.”

“You take the auditorium. I’ll head upstairs and see if he’s in his office.”

“Cool.”

“We meet back here in five minutes.”

“Check.”

And they split up.

Judy headed up a staircase with an elaborately carved banister. Zack pulled open a door to what he thought was the auditorium.

Turned out it was another staircase. A sign on the wall said Box 2-B and had an arrow pointing up. Fine. He could check out the whole auditorium from an elevated post in the box seats. He bounded up the steps, pushed through a velvety curtain.

“Hello?” he called out. “Mr. Grimes?”

The auditorium was pitch-dark except for the bright light cast from a bare bulb on top of a pole at center stage.

“Mr. Grimes?”

No answer. Just his own voice echoing from the darkness. Zack shrugged and headed for the curtained alcove to take the stairs back down to the lobby.

“Thank you! Thank you all!” a lilting voice called out.

Okay. Mr. Grimes wasn’t here, but somebody else sure was.

“Bless you, darlings! Bless you all!”

Zack turned around and made his way back to the edge of the box so he could look down at the shadowy sea of seats. Nothing. Nobody.

“You were a marvelous audience! Marvelous!”

Now he looked toward the stage. The single bulb blinded him a bit, but his eyes soon adjusted.

There, at the lip of the stage, in the shadowy darkness just above the first row of seats, he saw a very grand woman in a jeweled headdress and a ruffled gown. Her crinkly gloves reached up past her elbows. She clutched a bouquet of plump roses and kept bowing and bowing, over and over again.

“Thank you! Bless you! You’re too, too kind.”

Zack knew the elegant woman had to be a ghost. Nobody had dressed like that since maybe World War I.

“Come back again, my darlings!” she called out to the invisible crowd giving her what must have been the world’s first silent ovation. “I’m here for three more weeks!”

Great.

Zack and Judy would be here for three weeks, too.

14

Zack raced down the steps to the lobby.

Now he had another ghost not to tell Judy about. How could he? She had a script to worry about plus a mean director to deal with. She did not need to know about an old-fashioned actress in a jeweled cap who somebody needed to haul offstage with a hook—like they did sometimes in Bugs Bunny cartoons—so they could remind her she was dead!

Judy was waiting for Zack underneath one of the lobby’s crystal chandeliers as he slammed the door to the box seats.

“Everything okay?” she asked.

“Yeah,” said Zack, a little short of breath after scampering down the staircase. “I just thought I’d, you know, get a little exercise. We’ve been cooped up in that car for a couple hours. Needed to stretch my legs.”

“So you ran down a staircase?”

“Yeah,” Zack panted. “Ran up it, too.”

“Well, I walked up to the second floor. Mr. Grimes wasn’t in his office.”

“He wasn’t in the auditorium, either.”

“Guess he got tired of waiting for us.”

“Yeah.”

“We’d better hit that Holiday Inn.”

“Can Zipper stay with us?” asked Zack. “In a hotel?”

“I think so. A lot of hotels are pet-friendly these days. If this one isn’t—”

Suddenly, the chandelier over their heads went dark. So did the lights lining the walls. Then the lights in the box office. Zack and Judy were being systematically plunged into darkness, which made the vast expanse of the lobby, with its columns and arched ceilings, as creepy as an empty tomb at midnight.

“Closin’ up,” called a gruff voice from off in the distance. Zack heard another circuit breaker being thumped off.

“Hello?” Judy called out.

“Closin’ up,” came the reply from a man they couldn’t see.

“Uh, okay. I’m Judy Jennings.”

“Aya,” said the voice. “We’re closin’ up.”

“Judy Magruder Jennings.”

“Aya.” More switches were flipped with a spring-loaded flick-click, flick-click .

“I wrote Curiosity Cat?”

“Do tell,” said the man, a silhouette moving through the gloom toward them. He was tall and lanky and wore a floppy billed cap that reminded Zack of the hats his toy Confederate army soldiers wore.

“We were supposed to meet Mr. Grimes,” said Judy.

“Mr. Grimes is gone,” said the shadow.

“I see. Do you work here?”

“Aya.”

“I wonder, could you show us to our rooms?”

Now the man stepped into a shaft of soft moonlight streaming through the windows. He was gaunt and grizzled, his cheeks stubbled with the kind of patchy white beard you see on grandfathers who’d forgotten to shave.

He eyeballed them hard. “What rooms?”

“My son and I. We’re staying here.”

“You can’t do that.”

“Um, I think we can. It’s in my contract. The theater is supposed to provide housing until opening night,” said Judy. “They gave us rooms. Upstairs.”

“Don’t know nothin’ about any rooms. Then again, I’m just the janitor.”

The janitor. Zack wondered if that was why the man looked so worn out. His face sagged; his baggy eyes drooped; and his lips were frozen in a frown. He appeared to be at least seventy years old and totally tired of mopping floors.

“Okay,” said Judy. “We’ll come back tomorrow.”

The janitor narrowed his eyes. Glared at Zack. “No children are allowed in this theater.”

“What?” said Judy.

“No children allowed.”

Judy laughed. “I think that’s impossible.”

“No children!”

“Sir, Curiosity Cat is a family show. Families have children.”

“Shouldn’t.”

“What?”

“Shouldn’t bring children into this theater. Children bring nothing but trouble.”

“Well, I’m sorry you feel that way.”

Zack figured the janitor hated kids because they stuck wads of gum and boogers under their seats and he was the one who, months later, had to scrape it all off with a putty knife.

“Well,” said Zack, “we’d better hit the road.”

“But we’ll be back tomorrow,” said Judy, sounding a little ticked off. “And we will be staying in rooms upstairs. We will also be putting on a show that will bring thousands of children into this theater! Whole busloads of ’em!”

The janitor moved forward. “You don’t want to be doin’ that.”

“Really? Well, just watch me!”

Judy Magruder Jennings never liked it when anybody tried to tell her what she could or could not do. In fact, it was her number one pet peeve.

“Come on, Zack.” Yep. She sounded peeved.

Zipper was sitting in the front seat, paws on the steering wheel.

When Zack and Judy opened their doors, he hopped into the back, tail wagging, ready to roll.

“I cannot believe that man!” said Judy, staring back at the dark building.

“Our school janitor hates kids, too,” said Zack. “They probably have to list it on their job applications.”

Judy laughed.

“Don’t worry about it,” said Zack. “I’ll stay out of his way.”

“I guess you’re right,” said Judy. “Let’s go on with the show!”

“Is that another show tune?”

Judy nodded. “From Annie Get Your Gun . I guess that janitor really isn’t a show person.”