Read Aunt Maria for Free Online Page B

bathing pool and the tame little place with swings, and along the front. The tide was in. Waves came spouting up against the seawall, gray and violent, sending water bashing across the path. Our feet got wet and the noise was so huge that we talked in shouts and licked salt off our mouths afterward. There was only one other person out that we saw, the whole length of the bay, and he was right at the beginning—an elderly gent huddled in a tweed coat, who tried to raise his tweed hat politely to us; but he only put a hand to it, in case it got blown away.
    â€œMorning!” we shouted. He shouted, “Afternoon!” Very correct. It was after midday. Only I always think afternoon begins when you’ve had lunch, and we hadn’t yet.
    When we were near the pier, I shouted to Chris, “The ghost in your room—is it a he or a she?” It was a bad place to ask important things. The sea was crashing and sucking round the iron girders, and the buildings on the pier kept cutting the wind off, so that we were in a nest of quiet one moment, all warm with our ears ringing, and then out again into icy noise.
    â€œA man!” yelled Chris. “And it’s not Dad,” he said, as we went into a nest of quiet. “I saw you thinking it might be and it’s not. It’s ever such a strange-looking fellow, like a cross between a court jester and a parrot.”
    The wind howled and I didn’t hear straight. “A pirate ?” I shouted.
    â€œ Parrot! ” Chris screamed. And I think what he shouted after that was “Pretty Polly! Long John Silver! I am the ghost of Able Mable! Parrot cage on table!”
    Shouting in the wind makes you shout silly things anyway, and I think Chris was shouting in order not to be scared. Anyway, I got in a real muddle and I thought he was trying to tell me the ghost’s name. “Neighbor?” I yelled. “John?”
    â€œWhat do you mean, Neighbor John?” howled Chris.
    â€œThe ghost’s name. Is it Neighbor John?” I screeched.
    By the time we got into a pocket of quiet again and sorted out what we both thought we were saying, we were in fits of laughter and Neighbor John seemed a good name for the ghost. So we call him that now. I keep thinking of Chris seeing a large red pirate parrot, and then I remember he said, “court jester,” too, so I correct the red parrot into one of those white ones with a yellow crest that are really cockatoos. I think their crests look like jester’s caps, and ghosts should be white. But I just can’t imagine a man looking like that. Chris told me more about the ghost at intervals all through the day. I think he was glad to have someone to tell. But I know there were things he didn’t tell, and I keep wondering why, and what they were.
    He said he woke up suddenly the first night, thinking he’d forgotten to blow out the candle. But then he realized it was light coming in from a streetlight somewhere. He could see a man outlined against the window, bent over with his back to Chris. The man seemed to be hunting for something in one of the bookcases.
    â€œSo I called out to him,” said Chris.
    â€œWeren’t you scared?” I said. My heart seemed to be beating in my throat at just the idea. “Yes, but I thought he was a burglar then,” Chris said. “I sat up and thought about people getting killed for surprising burglars and decided I’d pretend I was sleeping with a gun under my pillow. So I said, ‘Put your hands up and turn round.’ And he whirled round and stared at me. He looked absolutely astonished—as if he hadn’t realized there was anyone else there—and we sort of stared at each other for a while. By that time I knew he wasn’t a burglar, somehow. He had the wrong look on his face. I mean, I know he was odd-looking, but it wasn’t a burglar look. I even almost knew he had lost something that belonged to him and