SIXTEEN #2
“I gotta show you something,” Robby says, running over to his computer. “After you left, I started digging around, trying to find more on Orbs and More, and Asher. And I found this.”
He pulls up a clip on YouTube.
There’s Asher on a stage, dressed as a vampire. Fake blood oozes out his mouth, smoke swirling around him.
“What the … ?” I ask.
Asher breaks into song, waving his arms around like he did on the tour.
“The college he went to has a theater department,” Robby says. “Asher wrote this play. He wrote a bunch of plays, all with scary themes.”
A cast of characters joins Asher onstage, singing some song.
Lights flash and flicker. Asher flings about, basically being his regular dramatic self.
A girl comes onstage and he play bites her neck.
She looks familiar, but I’m so caught up in Asher’s performance that I don’t have time to wrack my brain. But her acting is terrible.
“He said he was a film major,” I mumble, not taking my eyes off the screen. Mostly ’cause it looks so ridiculous. Others must have thought the same thing because the audience is practically empty. “He said he was working on a project that had everything to do with ghosts or something like that.”
“I know you believe in ghosts,” Robby starts, real nervous. “But maybe—”
The girl screams, placing an arm to her forehead as she faints, dropping to the floor.
The memory comes rushing back, taking my breath away.
“Wait!” I shout, tapping the screen. “Go back. Go back.”
Robby jumps, scrolling back, and I tap the screen again.
“That’s her! That’s the lady from the night of the tour.”
Robby frowns. “Huh? Who?”
“The blonde lady who said she got pushed. The lady who got a picture of a ghost! That’s her!”
It takes a moment for Robby to remember. “The woman who tripped on the crack?”
“YES!”
Stunned, Robby fast-forwards to the end of the play. The song ends, and the cast bows. The camera then zooms onto each face, displaying their name.
Asher Livingston.
Britney Preston.
I step back, a hand to my mouth. “Yo. They were working together, tricking people on ghost tours. We’ve been played.”
Robby watches me, his eyes screaming an “I told you so” stare.
“Okay, what now?” he asks.
I shake my head. “It still doesn’t explain the orbs in that house,” I say. “Asher’s a trash actor, but I don’t think he would pay someone to flash some lights in an abandoned home. We’re still going in there. Tonight!”
Robby pauses. “Do you really think it’s Mr. Truman’s ghost?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “Still can’t hurt to check it out since no one else will before it’s torn down.”
Robby’s lips twist back and forth. “I’m … a little scared.”
I touch his shoulder with a light squeeze. “Hey, you don’t have to go, you know. It’s okay.”
“No! I want to,” he says.
“Well. If it gets to be too much, you can tell me and we’ll leave right away.”
He groans. “Myah is gonna think I’m being a baby.”
“Okay. Then she doesn’t have to know. We’ll come up with a code word. My dad and I have that. I used to go to all his gigs and it would get really late and Dad would stay talking to everybody. So we came up with a code word that I used when I really really wanted to go home.”
“What’s your code word?”
“Peanut butter.”
“That’s two words.”
We laugh. “Okay, what’s yours?” I ask him.
Robby looks around the room, eyes landing on one of his robots. “Hero.”
“Okay. That works for me.”
He wraps the robot in some type of carrying case. “It’s cool, the way you and your dad have your own language. Code words and stuff.”
“Yeah, I guess,” I sigh.
“And you going on tour with him. That’s cool too. My mom would never let me do that.”
It has been cool touring with Dad. But was it all just a trick to get me out of our apartment?
Robby zips up his bag.
“I think me and my daddy would have had code words. If he was still alive, I mean. My mama said he liked robots too. I think we’d travel and do competitions together.”
I smile. “Well, you can still have a code word with him.”
Robby stares at me straight-faced.
“It’ll be just a word that he knows,” I continue. “Like your own secret.”
Robby sighs. “Let’s go before my mom sees we took off. The bus will be at the stop in four minutes.”
Lena should be long gone by now. But as soon as we reach the front door, her voice startles me.
“Aht aht aht. Just where do you think you’re going?”
She walks out of the kitchen, dressed in a yellow gown, fastening a gold bracelet to her wrist. She has a sparkly clip in her hair, makeup fire.
Robby freezes, his mouth hanging open.
“Oh. Hey, Lena,” I say, nervously. “Uhhhh, where’s Dad?”
“Rehearsal at the museum. Doors open in two hours,” she says, eyes locking on Robby. “I’ll ask again. Where do you think you’re going?”
Robby’s eyes flick from me to Lena and back. “I’m … going out with Harmony.”
“No,” she snaps. “You’re going to the gala. Just like always. Now, go on to my room. I already laid out your suit.”
“But Mama!”
“I said no! Harmony is old enough to make her own choices, I guess,” she says, crossing her arms. “You, boy, cannot. And I don’t want you on any more of them ghost tours. The spirits don’t want to be disturbed. You understand?”
Robby huffs and takes off his book bag, handing it to me. “Here.”
I stare at it, shaking my head. “I can’t work that thing without you,” I whisper.
“You have to,” Robby insists, pushing the bag into my hands. He looks at his mom and runs to the back.
I groan and head out the door.
“Harmony,” Lena calls, following me onto the porch. Her voice is calm, but her face is all business. “I’m not trying to interfere. But this thing with your father … I just feel that—”
“You know,” I say, shouldering the bag. “Robby is much smarter than you give him credit for, even emotionally. Maybe you should start trusting him.”
Lena frowns. “I trust him. I don’t trust the world.”
“Well, how will he ever trust himself if he never experiences the world?”
Lena stares at me, unblinking. And I take that moment to run for the bus.