Free The Ghost of Gruesome High by Larry Parr

Jennifer and I were wearing dresses, something I don’t usually do. Wesley’s mom made him wear a suit and tie; he kept pulling at his collar as if he couldn’t breathe very well. Alan was wearing dress shoes and dark pants, a white shirt and a sports jacket; it’s possible he had been wearing a tie when his mother last saw him, but if so it was long gone now. Jason was dressed casually, the way he dressed for school, wearing blue jeans and tennis shoes. At least the tennis shoes were fairly new and not scuffed too badly.
    I had the impression the Mayor didn’t want a lot of people coming to see him; the chairs we were told to sit on while we waited for our audience were the most uncomfortable pieces of furniture I’d ever sat on in my life. I don’t know if it was just because I was so uncomfortable, or whether it had something to do with the fact that Jason had been such a pain all morning, but I really wasn’t in the mood to put up with any more of Jason’s nonsense.
    “You can leave,” I told him quietly and calmly. “It’s not like we really need you here. You’ve done nothing but complain ever since we got here.” I was proud of myself. I simply stated the facts. I didn’t get mad, I didn’t raise my voice, I didn’t use a sarcastic tone. I felt as if I was handling the situation like a true adult.
    Jason stuck his tongue out at me, folded his arms, and shifted his body to face away from me.
    So much for being adult!
    I was about to tell him he was being a real jerk when Mr. Ponsonby, the Mayor’s assistant, came out of the Mayor’s office to tell us the Mayor would see us now. I was the first to stand. I didn’t look at Jason. I did, however, give Jennifer a smile which I hoped was a lot more confident than I felt. Then I led our little troop into the office of Hizonor, Mayor Thompson.
    I had seen Mayor Thompson’s face hundreds of times before, on campaign posters, buttons, and on local TV. He was always dedicating a supermarket or a laundromat or something like that and getting his picture on the news or in the paper.
    A lot of adults I knew (including my parents) thought Mayor Thompson was nothing but “a spiffed-up used car salesman!”
    As I walked into the room, followed by my friends, Mayor Thompson got up out of his big chair behind his big, dark-wood desk, and stepped around to meet me, his hand held out to shake mine, and a smile on his face as big as the full moon. “Hello, children,” he said enthusiastically, “I’m always happy to do whatever I can for the youth of our great community. My motto is: the youth of today are the leaders of tomorrow!” He shook my hand so hard I thought my arm would fall off and smiled real big, as if he were waiting for a flash bulb to go off. Just who did this guy think he was calling “children”, anyway? I was already beginning to think this guy was a real loser.
    Suddenly his smile faded slightly, then returned at half strength. “Sit down, sit down. Can I have my assistant get you anything? Cokes? Kool-aid? What is it you modern kids drink nowadays?”
    Boy, were my parents right about this snake-oil salesman! I had never had such an instant dislike of another human being in my whole life! This guy was the biggest phony I’d ever met. Or ever wanted to meet!
    I ignored his condescending remarks about what we wanted to drink and said: “I wonder if you could answer a few questions for us on the recent history of the town? For a school report?”
    His smile blinked off—then blinked back on. “Of course! I’d be delighted to!” He stood up and came around to the front of his desk, sitting on the corner nearest me. “The town of Rossmore was founded in 1889 by—”
    “Excuse me, your honor,” I interrupted. “That’s not exactly what we had in mind.”
    This time his smile faded for a full two or three seconds before it returned—and when it did you could barely read by it any longer. Now it almost looked like the smile of a real