The Unseen World of Poppy Malone: A Gaggle of Goblins Read online

  THE UNSEEN WORLD OF

  Poppy Malone

  A Gaggle of Goblins

  SUZANNE HARPER

  Dedication

  For Bill Boedeker

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter One

  Poppy Malone wasn’t the kind of girl who saw goblins. That was what made the whole thing so strange. If it had been anyone else in her family—her parents or Will or Franny or even Rolly, who was only five—it would have made much more sense.

  But they didn’t go into the attic on that hot June afternoon, and Poppy did. And that made all the difference.

  “Why do we have to move all the time?” Poppy had complained in first grade when she, Will, and Franny were told they would have to change schools in the middle of the year. Not only would she have to start all over again at a brand-new school, but she would miss the big Halloween party at her old school, which she had been looking forward to for weeks. “Why can’t we stay in one place like normal people?”

  “Because your mother and I do not have normal jobs,” Poppy’s father had answered shortly. He had just finished reading the moving company’s letter explaining how much they planned to charge, and he was in an irritable mood. “We go where the ghosts are.”

  Poppy’s mother had put down her magnifying glass—she had been peering closely at a blurry photo of an alien spacecraft hovering over the White House—and beamed at her husband. “That’s got a nice ring to it, Emerson,” she had said. “It could be our new motto!” She repeated it more loudly, as if doing a voice-over for a TV commercial. “‘We Go Where the Ghosts Are.’”

  “And where the grants are, of course,” Mr. Malone had added gloomily. “Not that there are many of those to chase these days! And even when we do land one, it barely covers our moving costs. Look at this bill, Lucille, and tell me exactly when out-and-out robbery was made legal in this country. . . .”

  That had led to an extremely long and boring discussion about money and bills and not ordering so much takeout food, so Poppy had drifted away to brood over what her father had said. She realized, of course, that most of her friends did not have parents who tracked UFOs, pursued monsters, and investigated rumors of vampires. If she put her mind to it, she could even understand why some people might think her family’s life was rather exciting. But that night, she had her dream for the first time, the dream that she would have dozens of times after that. In it, they were moving into yet another house, but this time the house felt mysteriously as if it were already her home, and her mother was saying, “Don’t worry, Poppy, we’re going to stay here for years and years and years.” The dream always seemed so real that, for the longest time, she was sure it would come true.

  Now, of course, she was much older—almost nine and three-quarters—and she knew the dream was simply the result of random discharges of neurons in her brain. If she needed any more evidence that dreams did not come true, Poppy only had to point to one fact: fourth grade had just ended and they were moving again. This time, Poppy’s family was leaving Emporia, Kansas, where her parents had taught a ghost-hunting class at a local college for two semesters, and heading to Austin, Texas, where they had won a grant from a foundation interested in paranormal research.

  This was Poppy’s eighteenth move (she had started a journal to keep track), so she could predict exactly what would happen. She knew that Rolly would get spectacularly carsick before the first rest stop, that Franny would spend the entire trip sighing over some boy she’d left behind, and that Will would get a window seat. Once they got to their new house, they would spend days unpacking boxes, moving furniture around, and arguing over who got which bedroom. School would start, she would make a few friends, and then, before she knew it, they’d be moving again.

  Everything, she thought drearily, would happen exactly as it always had before, her future would look exactly like her past, and there were no surprises in store for her at all. . . .

  Then two days later, they arrived in Austin, Texas, drove down a tree-shaded street, and pulled into a long driveway.

  “Well?” Mr. Malone said proudly. “What do you think of your new home?”

  Everyone tumbled out of the car and stared at the three-story wooden house. The outside had once been painted purple, but had now faded to a soft lavender. A swing swayed lazily on the wide front porch; large, gnarled oaks cast a cool shade over the lawn; and a tortoiseshell cat slept on the front steps. The house looked worn and comfortable and exactly like the house in Poppy’s dream.

  She was too happy to say a word. She just stood there, smiling up at the house as the rest of her family headed for the front door.

  And then everything had gone completely and utterly wrong.

  “I sense something sinister here,” Poppy’s mother said two hours later. The movers hadn’t yet delivered their furniture, but they had discovered two dusty chairs standing forlornly in the middle of a cavernous kitchen. Mrs. Malone was sitting on one with her foot propped up on the other, an ice pack tied onto her ankle. “Very sinister indeed.”

  She looked quite pleased at the idea.

  “I’ll tell you what’s sinister,” Mr. Malone grumbled as he tried to open one of the kitchen windows. “No air-conditioning, in the summer, in Texas!”

  His wife gave him a sharp glance. “Perhaps you didn’t hear me,” she said stiffly. “I said—”

  “And whoever decided to paint these windows shut was not just sinister,” Mr. Malone interrupted, grunting as he shoved the window sash. “That person was diabolical.”

  “Speaking of diabolical,” Mrs. Malone tried again. “I was just saying that I feel that there is something malevolent in this house—”

  “You’re not pushing up at the right angle,” Will told his father. Poppy’s twin brother was sitting on the kitchen counter, drinking a soda. His brown hair was sticking up in damp spikes and his T-shirt was sweaty, but he still managed to look like a four-star general watching with disbelief as one of his soldiers botched an easy job. “You should bend your knees more. We studied this in science class. It’s a simple problem of force and leverage—”

  “Maybe you should try, then,” his father suggested irritably. “After all, I only have a doctorate in applied physics. This problem is undoubtedly too simple for me to understand.”

  Unfazed, Will took another gulp of soda. “I’d be glad to demonstrate, but my shoulder still hurts.”

  Mrs. Malone spotted an opening and took it. “That is exactly what I was trying to tell you! There is Something Here that does not like us! The shoulder is simply the first bit of evidence. Consider!” She glanced around the kitchen, her blue eyes sparkling with delight. “First, the front door fell on Will and almost killed him.”

  If she had hoped to impress her audience, she was disappointed.

  “Those hinges were ancient. They were practically crumbling with rust,” Poppy said. She had brought thei
r cooler in from the car, unloaded the last few snacks and sodas, and was now sitting on it and hoping that the movers would soon arrive with their furniture. “And, anyway, it was just a glancing blow.”

  “Serves Will right for trying to get inside before anyone else,” Franny added. Her voice was somewhat indistinct, since she was washing her hair under the kitchen faucet, but she still managed to sound outraged. “It’s so unfair! He always gets first dibs on the biggest bedroom, just because he’s pushier than the rest of us.”

  Her mother ignored this. “Then Franny walked into the pantry and that sack of flour fell on her head—”

  “That’s not the same thing at all,” Will protested. “Flour’s not dangerous. I probably won’t make the football team now that my throwing arm’s been hurt.”

  Franny flung back her head, spraying water over the kitchen. “I could have been suffocated,” she pointed out, her long blond hair, usually so curly and golden, hanging down her back in sodden rat’s tails. “I could have breathed that flour into my lungs and suffocated and died.”

  Poppy refrained from pointing out that Will’s throwing arm was wildly inaccurate even before the door fell on him and that, as far as she knew, no one had ever been killed by a sack of flour.

  Her mother refused to be diverted. “Then that venetian blind fell down, practically on poor little Rolly’s head—”

  “He probably pulled it down,” Poppy said. “You know how he is.”

  Every head swiveled to look appraisingly at Rolly, who was prying up a linoleum tile with a fork.

  Feeling the force of their stares, Rolly looked up. “What?” he asked. Then before anyone could answer, he added, “I didn’t do it.”

  “Of course you didn’t, dear,” his mother said warmly before returning to her main theme. “And then I tripped over that garden hoe.” She gingerly wiggled her foot. “So unlike me.”

  Poppy did her best to inject a note of logic into the discussion. “Just because we’ve had a few accidents—”

  “Accidents?” her mother asked. She raised one meaningful eyebrow. “Or evidence of unseen and possibly malevolent forces?”

  “Accidents,” Poppy said firmly. “There is a completely rational explanation for everything that’s happened.”

  “Well, I’m certainly used to addressing the doubts of skeptics, although I didn’t expect to be forced to do so within the bosom of my own family,” said her mother. “Give me a moment to get in touch with my intuitive side.” She took a deep, dramatic breath, then thrust her fingers through her dark curly hair and closed her eyes, humming nasally.

  Poppy looked at her brother and crossed her eyes to show her mortification. Will just grinned back at her, kicking his feet and watching with interest as his mother went into a trance.

  After a moment, Mrs. Malone’s eyes opened. She stared soulfully into the distance. Then she said, in a deep, hollow voice, “There is a Dark Presence here.”

  This finally caught Mr. Malone’s attention. He forgot the window and turned to stare at her, his eyes shining with excitement. “Really? That would be an amazing stroke of luck!” he said. “What do you think, Lucille? A poltergeist?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” she said thoughtfully. “Their energy always has such a spiteful edge to it. I’m not picking up on that at all.”

  “Maybe it’s a boggart,” he suggested, a note of hope in his voice. It had long been Mr. Malone’s dearest wish to confront one of these mischievous creatures, although he had been thwarted by the fact they were said to live mostly in Scotland, a country he had yet to visit.

  “No, I’m getting something more like . . . hmm, it feels like . . . yes, a restless spirit! Trapped on the earthly plane, unable to move on!” said Mrs. Malone.

  “Oh, please,” said Franny, “not another restless spirit.” She had wrapped a dish towel around her head and was leaning against the wall, moodily nibbling a cracker. “They always turn out to be a loose shutter or a trapped squirrel or something, and we always end up looking like complete idiots.”

  “Not always,” said Mr. Malone. He was drumming his fingers on the windowsill, clearly thinking hard. “That investigation in Baltimore—”

  “That was the worst!” said Franny. “If we hadn’t moved to Florida, I’d still have kids calling me ‘Freaky Franny’ and making those stupid ‘whooo’ noises when I walked down the hallway.”

  “Well, you keep saying you want to be a movie star,” said Will. “Don’t you like being the center of attention and having everyone talking about you?”

  Franny gave him a withering look. “Yes,” she said, “if they are talking about my acting. But instead, they’re gossiping about my weird family—”

  “Franny,” said her mother. “We don’t use that word.”

  Franny crossed her arms, slid down to the floor, and stared sulkily at the ceiling. “My life,” she told the cracked plaster, “is beyond tragic.”

  “Nonsense, it will give you something to talk about in interviews once you’re famous,” said Mr. Malone. He returned to trying to open the window, although his mind was clearly distracted. “A restless spirit,” he mused. “That covers a lot of ground. It could be a murder victim or someone who died with unfinished business—”

  “Hey, maybe the house was built on the site of an ancient burial ground!” Will said with the earnest, wide-eyed expression of a choirboy. “Wouldn’t that be awesome?”

  Will winked at Poppy, who crossed her eyes at him again. She felt quite strongly that their parents didn’t need any encouragement, even if it was sarcastic. They never noticed the sarcasm, anyway; they always thought their children were showing a sincere interest in their work. If anything, Poppy thought, someone needed to dampen their enthusiasm on a regular basis.

  “There’s an idea!” said Mrs. Malone. “We’ve never investigated a graveyard curse before.”

  “It would be good experience for us,” Mr. Malone agreed. “Broaden our scope a bit. We should get the magnetometer out of the trunk of the car, do a few readings after dinner.”

  “I have to recalibrate it,” said Poppy. “It’s been wonky ever since Will dropped it when we were chasing that cow through the swamp—”

  “When we were chasing Bigfoot through the swamp,” her father corrected her automatically.

  “We never found any evidence that it was Bigfoot,” she protested.

  “And we never found any evidence that it wasn’t,” he replied.

  “Dad,” Poppy said. “It mooed.”

  “For all we know, that’s Bigfoot’s mating call,” he said, dismissing this with a wave of his hand. “If you want to be a scientist, Poppy, you must learn to keep an open mind.”

  She had just opened her mouth to protest when her father turned back to the window with renewed energy. He gave an extra hard push on the sash, the window flew up with a bang, and he fell backward onto the floor.

  “Ow,” he said, blinking at the ceiling.

  “You see?” Mrs. Malone said triumphantly to the room. “A Dark Presence, hard at work.” She sighed happily. “We are going to have such fun.”

  Chapter Two

  If there was a Dark Presence haunting their new home, the good news was that it had plenty of room to lurk about.

  After the Malones had bandaged their various wounds, they began to explore the house, which had been provided at a very low rent as part of Mr. and Mrs. Malone’s grant.

  It had been built more than a hundred years ago. It was large and square, with a front staircase in the living room and a creaky back staircase in the kitchen. The main floor had a parlor with cabbage rose wallpaper, which Mrs. Malone instantly claimed as her study, and a small room half hidden off the kitchen that Mr. Malone staked out as his office, saying that it had been so hard to find that he was certain to have peace and quiet at last.

  The second floor had eight bedrooms which, although they were small and oddly shaped—one was actually triangular—pleased all the Malones enormously.


  “No more sharing rooms!” said Franny, who had begun clamoring for a room of her own (preferably with private bathroom attached) as soon as she turned thirteen.

  “And no more sleeping on the couch when people come to stay,” added Will, who had often been turned out of his bed for guests.

  Narrow steps led to the third floor, which contained two more small bedrooms and a large attic area where all the Malones’ investigating equipment could be stored.

  “What a lot of space,” Mrs. Malone said happily once they had all gathered again in the living room. “Did you see all those high ceilings! They offer such a feeling of light and airiness, don’t you think?”

  “I’m getting more of a feeling of draftiness,” said Mr. Malone. “And of astronomical heating bills come December.”

  “Oh, I’ve read that it’s very mild here in the winter,” said Mrs. Malone. “And it will be so nice to offer our visitors their own bedrooms instead of pull-out couches in the basement.”

  Mr. Malone looked, if possible, even gloomier. In his college days, before he had met Mrs. Malone, he had founded an organization called the Paranormal Society of Investigators, or PSI. His plan had been basically to pad his résumé in order to get better jobs and to attract members who would fork over enough dues to pay for part of his rent and an occasional spaghetti dinner in town. In return, they received an infrequent newsletter (badly printed and full of misspellings) with news and gossip from the small world of parapsychologists.