The Wish List Page 11

  “Ah, Great One,” he said, executing a low bow.

  “Thank you,” replied Beelzebub, flattered in spite of himself. Myishi didn’t bother to correct him. “Is the moron still operational?”

  “Arf,” said Belch.

  “Regrettably, it would seem so.”

  Beelzebub groaned. “Even your holograms are condescending. Now, Myishi, tell me why I shouldn’t fry your fairy friend right now.”

  “Allow me to answer,” said Elph, smoothly whirring to his master’s side. “Unlike your Soul Man, my analytical programming, as patented by Myishi Incorporated, Internal Solutions for Infernal Problems, has allowed me to access Mister Brennan’s memories, and forecast where our errant soul will appear during her sojourn on the mortal plain.”

  Beelzebub glared at Myishi. “It looks like you, and it talks like you. I hate it.”

  Myishi bowed low and repeatedly, all too aware that his digital creation was nanoseconds from a fiery destruction.

  “It means, Beelzebub-san, that it knows where Meg Finn will go.”

  Beelzebub allowed the full strength of his doubt to show through violet eyes. “For certain?”

  Elph completed some complicated computing.

  “According to my host’s video feed, the girl is an obsessive-compulsive. If she believes herself to have unfinished business on Earth, she will attempt to manipulate the old man, so that she may complete it.”

  Beelzebub was sold. He wouldn’t admit it, but the charge on his trident fizzled out. “Hmm. And there is, I take it, unfinished business?”

  Elph projected a picture of a sullen character on the cell wall. “Her stepfather. Franco Kelly. Meg Finn harbors strong feelings of resentment toward this man. Despite previous actions, she feels there is still a score to settle.”

  Beelzebub nodded reluctantly. “Okay. One more chance, but only because I have no choice. This lump of blubber is the only unregistered soul I have. If I could send someone else, anyone else, I would.”

  Myishi heaved a relieved sigh. His prototype would survive for another day.

  “Since the goodness incident the host’s brain capacity is even less than before. I’ll juice him up as much as possible, but with all the damage—”

  “How long will he have?”

  “Twelve hours. Eighteen at the most. After that he’ll have to get his life force from somewhere else.”

  Beelzebub belly butted the programmer against the wall. “This is your last chance too, Myishi. You do know that, don’t you?”

  Myishi nodded weakly. Funny how a man’s smugness deserts him in the face of oblivion.

  “If all your clever technology cannot secure one little soul for the Master, I think we may have to trade you in for a newer model. Upgrade, to use one of your own terms.”

  Beelzebub chuckled. He adored turning the tables, in a blackly humorous way of course. He was, after all, a demon.

  Myishi considered muttering some abuse, but thought better of it. Beelzebub could read weak minds; maybe he could speak Japanese too. “Of course, Beelzebub-san. Most humorous.”

  Beelzebub delicately flicked a forked tongue over his fangs. “I thought so.”

  The programmer sighed. He would have to go fiddling around in that hybrid creature’s repulsive brain again. It was like asking Michelangelo to work with crayons.

  MEG WAS WATCHING HER FINGERS, OR RATHER SHE WAS watching the shimmering aura flickering around them. Red blue, red blue. It still looked purple to her. The intensity was fading though, as her life force diminished. It was getting harder to think hole or chair, and hovering wasn’t as easy as it used to be. She recalled the words of Flit, the tunnel mite. Time is ticking on, ticky-ticky-ticky.

  “You know what the problem is?” she said to Lowrie, who was doing his best to grab a wink of sleep. An almost impossible task with a forever alert spirit prowling the room.

  “This bed-and-breakfast ain’t cheap, you know,” he responded testily, hauling himself up on one elbow.

  “So why waste your money sleeping? Stay awake and talk to me.”

  Lowrie sighed. She’d left him alone for six hours. He supposed he should be thankful for that much.

  “All right. I’m awake. What is it?”

  “The problem? Do you want to know what it is?”

  Lowrie rolled his eyes. “Oh, the problem! I’m afraid you’ll have to narrow it down a bit for me. The two of us have an inordinate amount of problems, you see. What with me dying shortly, and you being a ghost—”

  “No,” Meg interrupted. “The problem with your list.”

  “What about my list?”

  “Well. I’m supposed to help you, and this will make my aura turn blue.”

  “Right. With you so far.”

  “But all the things we’re doing, well, they’re not exactly legal, so . . .”

  Lowrie nodded. “I understand. The deeds themselves are counteracting your good intentions.”

  “Dead on. My time is running out too. And with you snoring your head off half the time . . .”

  “Us fossils need our rest, you know.”

  “I know. I could jump into your head while you’re asleep.”

  “But that just uses up more energy. It’s a heads-you-lose, tails-you-lose sort of a situation.” He fished the crumpled wish list from the pocket of his jacket, which was drying on the radiator. “You’re not going to like number three, then.”

  “Enlighten me. What is it?”

  Lowrie took a deep breath. “It’s . . . uh . . .” He began patting pockets for his glasses.

  “Stop stalling, Lowrie. You wrote the list. Don’t tell me you can’t remember, all of a sudden.”

  Lowrie clicked his fingers. “Ah! It’s come back to me. Number three on Lowrie McCall’s Wish List . . .”

  “What?”

  “Number three is: Burst Ball.”

  Meg nodded. “What’s this one? Let me guess. You burst one of your soppy friend’s soccer ball, and now you want to replace it after all these years, and fall sobbing into each other’s arms?”

  Lowrie shook his head. “Wrong,” he said, without a trace of humor in his voice. “There’s a man. A vicious bully by the name of Brendan Ball. And I want to punch a hole in his head.”

  “Do you want me to go to hell? Is that it?” Meg was furious. Here she was, having just explained her good-intentions-versus-bad-deeds theory, and now the old codger wanted her to assault someone. Not just any someone, but a senior citizen! Someone who wouldn’t see or hear it coming. She’d be damned for sure. One punch and her aura would turn red faster than a lobster in a pot.

  “Don’t worry. The last one is totally legal, and moral.”

  But Meg was not to be placated. “The last one! I’ll never make it past this one. As soon as your knuckles touch this guy’s chin I’ll be off, zooming down the red hole with a pitchfork hanging out of my backside!”

  “Listen, if you were sent back to do this, then this must be the right thing to do.”

  Meg paused for a second to compute that statement. “Easy for you to say. Your immortal soul is not on the line.”

  Lowrie sighed. “Meg, please.”

  She searched his face. Honesty and decency fluttered from it like albino butterflies. Meg made a decision then, based on a hunch. One she would keep to herself, but would drag out later for a big I-told-you-so session, if it proved accurate.

  “Okay,” she smirked. “I’ll do it.”

  Lowrie was instantly wary. “Are you sure?”

  “Of course. I said I’d do it, didn’t I?”

  “Hmmm,” grunted Lowrie suspiciously. But he had learned that where his spooky partner was concerned, you took your victories where you could.

  They checked out of the bed-and-breakfast on Leeson Street, hopping on a bus to Heuston Station. Well, maybe hopping is the wrong verb. More of a hobble really, considering the state of Lowrie’s kicking foot.

  Meg wasn’t her usually floaty self either, deciding to walk in or
der to conserve what was left of her energy.

  The bus was packed, and as much as Lowrie put on the pathetic old-man face, he looked too suave in the new suit for anyone to offer him a seat. He got recognized too. A grinning grandma, sporting a shocking-purple bouffant hairstyle, detached herself from a group of giggling buddies and barreled down the center aisle.

  “It’s you, isn’t it?”

  A bit of a strange question. No option but to admit it. “Yes. It’s me.”

  The woman turned and shouted down the length of the bus. It was a roar that would have done a sergeant major proud. “It’s him, all right, girls. Didn’t I tell you?”

  “Go on, Flor,” one shouted back. “Go for it!”

  She turned her attention back to a suddenly nervous Lowrie. “Well, are you going to kiss me?”

  Lowrie swallowed. “I wasn’t planning on it, madam.”

  “Oh, do you hear him, with his madam. Yer a real smoothie. Like that fellow Sean Connery. Only ugly.”

  “Thank you,” responded Lowrie uncertainly.

  “So, how about it? Isn’t that what you do? Run around the place kissing mature women?” Flor closed her eyes, puckering glossy pink lips.

  Meg giggled. “Go on.”

  Lowrie shot her a desperate glare. “Help,” he mouthed silently.

  He was saved by the bus driver. “Heuston Station,” he shouted, opening the pneumatic doors.

  Lowrie slipped through the rear exit.

  “My stop, Madam,” he called from the safety of the street. “Till we meet again. Adieu!”

  The bit of French was a great success. Flor flattened her face against the bus window, leaving sloppy lip marks on the glass. Lowrie hid a grimace behind a grin, waving at the departing vehicle.

  “Who was that?” asked Meg.

  “I don’t know, some stranger.”

  “Not her. That man with the madams and the adieus.”

  “What are you talking about?” snapped Lowrie, ignoring the puzzled glances from passersby.

  “Well,” continued Meg, “the Lowrie McCall I know doesn’t carry on with any of that romantic stuff. He’s too busy being a grumpy old coot feeling sorry for himself.”

  Lowrie felt a grin coming on and fought hard to contain it. No luck, teeth forced their way out.

  “Is that a smile? I might pass out with the shock.”

  “Oh, shut up. Sorry—not you, sir,” he explained to a passerby.

  In spite of his harsh words, the smile would not go away. Meg was right. He was changing—into his new self. The person he might have been.

  There were no empty cars on the southbound train. A race meeting in Wexford town, apparently. So the partners were forced to suspend communications. That is, Lowrie was forced to keep his mouth shut.

  Meg couldn’t handle it. Just sitting and not talking. She was a teenager, after all. One of the MTV generation. She needed entertainment.

  “Think about it,” she hissed.

  Lowrie raised an eyebrow. What?

  “That chap. The bully. Think about him.”

  Lowrie placed two hands protectively over his ears.

  “Don’t worry. I’m not going to go fiddling with your brain. But I can already see most of your thoughts, sort of. Like a television with bad reception. But if you think really hard . . .”

  Lowrie closed his eyes and concentrated. A wispy picture swirled and solidified over his head. It was Cicely Ward.

  “Not her, Romeo. You have a one-track mind, don’t you?”

  Lowrie grinned apologetically. He tried again.

  Another picture appeared. It was grim with bad recollections. Peripheral objects changed or morphed into one another. But the people were solid. Crystal clear. Those memories were sharp as a knife.

  It was a strange way to be told a story, through the eyes instead of the voice of the storyteller. Like a movie about the cameraman, but Meg soon got used to it. She sat entranced, absorbed by this formative episode in the young Lowrie McCall’s life. If she had been looking at Lowrie’s face instead of over it, she would have noticed the stress lines creasing his forehead. This story was not an easy one for him to tell. But once he’d begun, it rolled out of his brain as if it had happened yesterday. . . .

  By the time I hit fifteen, I’d toughened up a bit. Country boys didn’t survive in Westgate without developing a thick skin. Either that or getting carted off home, drooling. Sod Kelly went that way, and Mikser French. Two hardy farmers reduced to sobbing wrecks by years of bullying. No one ever touched them, mind, but there are other ways of bullying. Sly ways.

  I’d always been told that bullies were an ignorant bunch. Big sacks of dung with turnips for heads. I found out that wasn’t the case. Your townie variety considered himself a sophisticated wit, using savage sarcasm and public humiliation to keep the country bumpkins in their place.

  Brendan Ball was a prime example. Anyone else with the surname Ball would have had a nickname— Oddball, for example. But not Brendan. He was too popular to have a nickname. And too dangerous.

  For some reason, Ball decided to take a special interest in me. Perhaps my survival of the Croke Park disaster irked him. He had lost several friends in the mass expulsion. Not that he played soccer himself. Too sweaty. He’d much prefer to stand on the sidelines passing snide comments.

  For years I put up with it. Kept my head down and walked on by. Words, I told myself, it was only words. I could live with that. Then I hit a spurt. Fifteen, and up I shot like a weed. I was looking at Ball’s nose instead of up it.

  Things began to change for me. The Brothers forgot all about their grudge when I started lobbing points over the bar in the intercollege league. And when Ball shot his comments at me on his way past, they began to bounce off me like skinny fullbacks.

  That could have been it. But I got cocky. One thing fate can’t tolerate.

  I was heading down to the lockers one afternoon, hopping a ball on my foot. You can guess who was coming up the hall against me. Ball and Co. A few recent wins had given the old confidence a boost. So I didn’t sidle over to the wall, and I didn’t lower my gaze. I gave the lot of them my best grin, spinning the leather soccer ball in my hands.

  Ball didn’t like it. To him, it was like a hound rearing up on its master. He wasn’t sure what to do, but with the lapdogs panting at his heels, he had no option but to pass his tired comment.

  “Two down, farmer boy,” he said. “Two down and one to go.

  I realized at that moment that Ball was uncertain. I’d seen the look before on the sports field, in the eyes of goalkeepers who don’t know whether to come out or stick on the line.

  So I pretended to throw the ball at him. The sort of thing you do a million times a day with your friends. But Ball was no friend of mine. I pretended to throw the ball. And he flinched.

  So what? Big deal, you might think. And you’d be right. But not for Ball. This was a huge deal. In his short, pampered life, this was probably the worst thing that had ever happened to him. Being caught off guard by a country bumpkin.

  I’d say it took about two days for the fire on his cheeks to turn to ice. Then he started plotting.

  I, like an idiot, thought that I’d stood up to the bully and he’d never bother me again. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

  The Westgate College grounds stretched down past the soccer fields, through a wide meadow and down to the Liffey River. Every summer a farmer came in with a bailer and for a modest sum was allowed to cart off the hay.

  Of course it was forbidden to venture down to the river after dark. Except for one week after exams in June. For those few days, it was an unwritten law that the seniors could convene on the riverbank for a twilight smoke. Seniors only. Technically illegal. But overlooked.

  I should never have ventured down. My only allies, the soccer team, were overnighting in Roscommon after a friendly game. I should have stayed in the dorm, nursing the torn shoulder ligaments that had kept me off the field, and counted the hours to home.


  But it would only be boarders down at the bank, I reasoned. Ball and his bunch would be safe at home with their mommies. So, I tightened the bandage around my shoulder, gave my hair a lick of the brush and strolled down across the meadow.

  I tramped down in shirtsleeves, a thick Aran sweater knotted around my waist. The knot was as big as a soccer ball. I remember that sweater. It was a target for the townies. According to them my mother had cornered some innocent sheep and dragged it out of the animal’s coat starting at the hooves.

  The boys were flaked out on the bank, blowing smoke into the blue night, or firing stones into the middle of the river. I settled in with the bunch raking a handful of pebbles from the riverbank. It seems tame enough these days, with all the entertainment young people have. But to us, sitting on a riverbank, with rock and roll music floating across from the city, and no work to do—it was the height of luxury.

  Then Ball arrived. And, of course, Brendan never traveled alone. His fawning hyenas were hovering like planets around the sun. They shouldn’t have been here. Day boys sneaking in was as illegal as boarders sneaking out. But Ball had a score to settle, and so they had forded the river at an upstream dam.

  I put my head in my hands and hoped. Maybe they had another reason for returning to the grounds. After all, what had I done? Nothing. Just pretended to throw a ball.

  I felt them stop before me. Their snickers petered out as they waited for the festivities to begin. Whatever was going to happen, it would be big. Ball didn’t get his shoes wet for just any old bullying session.

  Brendan, of course, broke the silence.

  “Good evening, Mister McCall. And how are things among the farming community?”

  Boys didn’t often use words like “community.” They felt strange in our mouths. But Ball did. He spoke like one of those fellows reading the news at the movies.

  I didn’t answer. It wasn’t a real question. I knew that whatever I said would give him an excuse to start on me.

  He kicked my foot. “Well? How’s life in your squalid little cave?”