| Sunny Side Up Oct 29, 2003 �2003, Kathleen Gibson The Ghost that Got the Best of Me I wasn't yet a teen-about eleven, I think. My cousin was staying over. We'd both read and loved the same book detailing the shenanigans of a pair of mischievous twins. One of them involved escaping from their boarding school dormitory for a midnight feast out on the lawn. We thought we'd try it. We'd sneak out to the inlet waterfront in the park behind my house. Enjoy the moon and the lapping tide as we nibbled our peanut butter sandwiches and chocolate cake. Pj's over our clothes, we said innocent good-nights, and waited. At the stroke of midnight we stole our giggling way out the back door. Tippy, my black toy terrier, stretched and joined us. The gleam of her eyes and the white tip of her wagging tail were all we could see of her in the black dark. We hesitated on the staircase landing. Teeth chattered. Rena Mae's or my own, I don't know whose. "Are you s-s-scared?" she asked. "N-n-no." I lied. "Are you h-h-hungry?" "No." "Me neither." In mute agreement, we sat, keenly disappointed in true life. The twins hadn't minded the dark or the cold. Then Tippy growled and zipped out of sight down the driveway. She only did that for strangers. Fear stuck us to those wooden steps like barnacles to a rock. But a minute later Tippy was back, tail waving, head up. We heaved relieved sighs-then saw it. Behind the dog, slightly above the ground, floated a white apparition. It oozed past us, seeped around the corner of the stairs, and dissolved in darkness. "Murder at the Neufeld place!" Neighbours told us later they were sure of it. We tried to explain our marrow-melting screams to my night-shirted father when he found us. He was so befuddled by our babble that he finally stood aside and waved us into the house. We pushed past him to find my mother. Wrapped snugly under covers, she was. Oblivious. Rena Mae started in with the telling. No response. I reached out to pull back the blankets. Mom lay in a fountain of tears, quaking with laughter. Completely ensconced in a white sheet. When she finished pleading for her life, she explained that she'd gotten wind of our plan from my tattletale sibling. The ghost, she hoped, would stop us from going further than the back steps. Rocky Point Park, even in the sixties, wasn't the safest place for two silly girls at midnight. She could have threatened, she could have waited up and caught us leaving. She could have said, "The jig's up, kids." Instead she wrapped herself in a white sheet, exited through the front door at midnight and gave me the best story around to tell my children and grandchildren. "Don't do stuff just to make your kids angry," the Bible says. But it doesn't say anywhere that we can't scare the bejeebies out of them if it's in their best interests. My mother would merely call that creative mothering. You can respond to this column at [email protected] |
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