The Secret of Smith’s Hill

Chapter 15: FIKGREF

After a flood in the kitchen, spilled cat food, and salt in the sugar bowl, Mom and Dad suspect the twins and make them stay inside. But what of Frances Smith?

Kelly could hardly believe her ears when Dad said, “You’re both staying in till we get to the bottom of this.” But when she started to protest, he shot her a warning look, and followed Sam outside to investigate Sam’s report of “junk dumped in the cellar hole.”

“Mom, we really didn’t–” Kelly began, but Mom said, “I’m very confused. I know you say you’ve been looking for an explanation. But I can’t think of any explanation for salt in the sugar bowl except one that involves you, and that makes me feel very sad and disappointed. I’m going to get Cory up, and then I’m going to go outside and see what’s happened there.” And Mom left, too. “We’ve got to do something.” Kelly sat down at the table.

James sat down, too. “I don’t believe this,” he said. “They’ve never suspected us of lying before.” “I know. It feels awful.”

“It sure does. I feel like a criminal, and I haven’t even done anything wrong. We could explain, but there’s no way they’re going to believe in a ghost.”

“I know.”

They were silent again. Mom came back, carrying Cory. Silently, as if the twins weren’t there, she put him in his high chair, gave him his breakfast, and then took him outside.

Kelly got up and began pacing. “Okay. Let’s think. We know Frances Smith is a poltergeist and has been making all the noises and stuff to get our attention. We know she wants us to go away, and that she knows we can’t. We know she wants fikgref, whatever that means. We know poltergeists annoy people to get them to do what they want. And then they stop–”

“We hope poltergeists stop,” James interrupted. “We don’t know that for sure.”

“For almost sure.” Kelly sat down again. “We’ve got to figure out what Frances wants. What clues do we have for that?”

James shrugged. “None, really,” he said. “The diary’s no help, at least as far as we know. We have the things she did to try to get our attention, and the things we found that led us to her–the horseshoe and the locket and the bits of gravestone.”

“Gravestone!” Kelly exclaimed. “Maybe that’s it!”

James looked at her expectantly, but Kelly hardly noticed.

“The cellar hole,” she muttered, her mind whirring with ideas. “The sticks and dirt in that bit of concrete. The junk that’s been dumped in the cellar hole itself. Clemmie digging. And .... ” She whirled around, pointing at James, shouting excitedly. “The cement truck’s tires! Don’t you see, James?”

“No.” James sounded annoyed. “I see that you’re raving, but I don’t see what you’re raving about. Unless .... ”“Gref!” Kelly shouted. “Couldn’t that be grave? Couldn’t Frances be mad because the cellar hole’s been dug over her grave? Or maybe just the left-hand corner of the cellar hole has been, because that’s where Clemmie was digging, and .... ”

“And where the sticks were in the concrete.” James went to the window. “Darn. I can’t see it from here. But if that’s where the junk is .... ”

“Come on.” Kelly raced him to the door. “We can hide at the edge of the woods.”

They snuck out of the house and across the field, staying low so they wouldn’t be seen, and then they ran behind the first row of trees and bushes at the edge of the woods, stopping when they could see the cellar hole.

“Duck down,” Kelly whispered, but James was already kneeling. She peered over his shoulder.

Dad, Mom with Cory in her arms, Sam, and a couple of other men from the construction crew had formed a sort of bucket brigade. Sam and Dad were in the cellar hole, handing junk–old bottles, bits of sod, stones, trash–up to the others, who passed it along to a workman standing by the big dumpster the crew had brought the day before.

“Left-hand corner,” Kelly whispered significantly, pointing. “That’s where the junk is.”

James nodded. “And so,” he said, “that must be where Frances’s grave is.”

“Fik,” said Kelly, when they’d watched for a few more minutes. “I bet that means fix. Fix grave.”

“Yeah,” said James. “I do, too. But how can we possibly do that? No one’s going to want to move the shed.”

Discouraged again, the twins headed back to the house. To be continued Wednesday, May 30 Next Time: “No Other Way”