Waiting for Harvey (The Spirits of Maine) by Lydia North, Kim Scott Read Free Book Online

anymore, Dad took a second job to meet the bills.  Yet there was little talk about Mom’s illness. 
    In June, Dad had announced that John and I would be going away for the summer.  It would be a great adventure in northern Maine, up near the Canadian border at the Flaherty’s cabin.  Jimmy’s parents brought us up and stayed for the first two weeks.  When they left, we remained with Jimmy and his uncle.  It had been a great summer and we hadn’t given much thought to Dad’s reasoning when he sent us away.
    I had never considered the idea that Mom might get worse or that she could even die.  She had been sick for a long time, but we took for granted that she would get better eventually.  We didn’t know anyone who had died.  It wasn’t possible.  John was right; the whole thing with the OUIJA board was stupid.  I took the paper bag filled with corn and went out to the porch to shuck off the husks and peel away the silk.
     
    *
     
    Mr. Flaherty’s snores were a comforting sound in the dark cabin that night.  We weren’t alone there.  It provided a continuous reminder that an adult was close by to protect us from the night.  Outside the cabin window, the full moon acted as a night light.  The gloom was pushed back to the edges of the room.  It couldn’t stretch far enough to touch us.
    “Is it true, John?” I whispered.
    “No, it’s not,” he responded.
    “Why did the thing tell us she died?”
    “You mixed up your letters, Erik,” John scolded.  “Who knows what the message was supposed to be.”
    “It spelled out, Erik is a jack wagon,” Jimmy offered and laughed.
    “Takes one to know one,” I muttered.
    “Shut up, you little troll!” Jimmy growled.
    “Erik, it was your imagination.  Only a baby would believe all of it,” John told me.  He lay there on his back with his arms folded under his head, staring up at the ceiling.  I tried to read his expression, but he kept it blank.
    “When can we go home?” I asked.
    “School starts in three weeks,” he reminded.  “We’ll be home before then.  Mom will want time to drag us out for school shopping.”
    “I hate school shopping,” I grumbled.
    “Suck it up, buttercup,” John teased.  “She won’t be happy until we have new clothes, shoes, sneakers, and the rest of the crap she thinks we need.”
    “I’m telling my Mom I need a new skateboard for school,” Jimmy announced.
    “She won’t buy that,” John snorted.
    “She will!  Just wait and see.”
    “I want the super big box of Crayola’s with the sharpener in the back,” I declared and immediately regretted my announcement.
    “You’re such a baby, Erik!” Jimmy retorted.
    “I’m not a baby!” I disputed. 
    “Shut your face, Jimmy,” John defended.  “He likes Art class.”
    “I’m hungry,” Jimmy offered to change the subject and prevent another punch to his arm.
    Quietly we wandered into the kitchen area.  With toaster pastries and root beer, we settled around the table near the open window.  With no refrigerator in the cabin, there were no cold drinks and no ice.  But the straws that twisted and curled made up for it.  We sipped and looked out at the night sky as Jimmy related another of his weird ghost stories.
    *
     
    Late in August, Mr. Flaherty announced that we would be going home at the end of the week.  For days, we played in the woods, not too far from the cabin.  Mr. Flaherty took us out on long hikes.  We fished in a number of rivers and ate the brook trout and other fish we caught.  With a backstop set up in front of a thick stand of trees, we practiced the archery skills he taught us.
    Day by day we accepted that we had imagined the incidents with the OUIJA board.  It became a scary happening that was no more real than a movie.  It was a menacing tale that we would tell our friends after school started again.  We would scare them with the chilling details and feel delighted that they believed it, even if we did not.
    It