The Mapmaker and the Ghost Read online

  The MAPMAKER

  and the GHOST

  SARVENAZ TASH

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1 NO FUN

  2 THE MAPMAKER

  3 THE EXPLORATION BEGINS

  4 THE OLD LADY WHO LIVES BY THE WOODS

  5 INTO THE WOODS

  6 THE TRANSPARENT MAN

  7 BOREDOM AND CURIOSITY

  8 CAN’T REWIND

  9 DOWN, DOWN, DOWN

  10 GHOSTS AND BUTLERS

  11 BOOMING VOICES

  12 ENTER SPITBUBBLE

  13 MORE LIES

  14 THE LAB

  15 GOLDENROD’S FAN BASE

  16 A DISHONEST LIVING

  17 TWO MORAMS ARE BETTER THAN ONE

  18 THE LOST DISCOVERY

  19 PLAN B

  20 A BONE TO PICK

  21 TOUGHER, STRONGER, GROSSER

  22 A DUSTY DISCOVERY

  23 THE ATTIC

  24 TO GRANDMOTHER’S HOUSE WE GO

  25 SOMETHING EVIL

  26 PLOTTING OVER CHOCOLATE MILK

  27 A SPOOKY EXPERIMENT

  28 BRILLIANT TROUBLEMAKERS

  29 THE PLAN IN ACTION

  30 AN A-HA AND AH-CHOO MOMENT

  31 THE PATH OF THE BLUE ROSE

  32 THE COOKIE STRATEGY

  33 SWEET REVENGE

  34 THE GOLDENROD AND BIRCH EXPEDITION

  35 THE GARDEN

  Map

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Imprint

  To Golnaz and Arash for making growing up an adventure.

  And to Homa for being my compass.

  1

  NO FUN

  Goldenrod Moram had a first name that sounded like it belonged in the middle of a fairy tale, where she would be the dazzling princess in need of rescuing. But this couldn’t be further from the truth. For one thing, fairy-tale princesses probably didn’t get in trouble practically every day of the fifth grade. (Then again, they probably didn’t talk back much either.) For another, fairy-tale princesses probably had more than one friend in the whole entire world. (And if they didn’t, they at least had servants or courtiers or some such other fan base that could pass for friends.)

  But Goldenrod had only been named Goldenrod because her mother was an avid gardener and her father had lost the coin toss on the day of her birth. Had her father won, she might have been named after one of his hobbies, which included cooking and amateur house repair. When daydreaming, Goldenrod often thought about all the other things she could have been called and how they all would have been preferable: Oregano Moram, Staple Gun Moram, Brisket Moram, Spark Plug …

  “Goldenrod!”

  Nope, she couldn’t escape her name. And here it was being hissed at her by a tall woman with dark hair and pursed lips.

  “Yes?”

  “Are you going to answer the question or not?” Ms. Barbroff pointed at the blackboard with a stiff finger, the purple bags under her eyes moving in time with her words. She was just the sort of teacher who insisted on teaching right up to the last bell of the last day of school.

  Goldenrod didn’t know the answer, and it seemed like Ms. Barf wasn’t about to let her off the hook, even though elementary school was almost over—for good—and even though her very best friend had just moved away to a whole other state and left her to deal with the upcoming ordeal of middle school all alone.

  “Goldenrod, have you stopped and considered that this is information you’ll actually need next year?”

  “Not really.” Under normal circumstances, she would have relished this opportunity to say something funny. But her heart wasn’t in it, not without Charla to come visit her at the principal’s office when she inevitably got sent there.

  “Well, I suggest you start thinking about it. Sixth-grade math is no joke.”

  For a second, it looked as if Ms. Barf was going to turn away without further comment. Goldenrod should have known better. “I’m not going to have much more of an opportunity to say this to you, Ms. Moram, but mark my words. If you don’t shape up and start paying attention, you’re going to spend most of your middle-school career in the principal’s office. And that’ll lead you straight into the life of a hoodlum. And then what will your mother think?”

  Goldenrod thought, She will say, “Oh, if only my daughter had answered that question on negative numbers in the fifth grade. What a world, what a world!” But Goldenrod didn’t say a word, concentrating instead on doodling a rather striking portrait of the Wicked Witch of the West in her notebook. Ms. Barf turned away with a humph and continued on with the lesson.

  The only highlight of the day was that it ended with Ms. Barf going over Goldenrod’s favorite lesson: the five parts of a map. Even though she knew them by heart, and had for at least two years, she perked up as Ms. Barf’s booming voice talked about the legend, the scale, the compass rose, the title, and the grid. Just the mere mention of these things made her smile dreamily at the memory of how she and Charla had spent their previous map-filled summer.

  All too soon, the lesson was over, and Goldenrod was only one bus ride away from a long, vast stretch of summer vacation. True that she didn’t know whom she was going to spend this summer vacation with, but at least she knew it wouldn’t be Ms. Barf.

  And it wouldn’t be Charlie Cookman either, she thought angrily, as she saw the large, muscular oaf in the hallway tormenting some smaller kid eclipsed by Charlie’s enormous behind and his equally enormous backpack. Charlie was well known for carrying at least two to three large bottles of energy soda with him in that backpack at all times. His father was an amateur wrestler, and it was rumored that Charlie himself had been lifting dumbbells since the age of six and drinking protein shakes since he could hold a bottle.

  “Listen.” Charlie’s whiny voice drifted over to Goldenrod as she walked past him to catch her school bus. “You’re telling me these are all the video games you have on you? Do you expect me to believe that?”

  Sometimes it’s no fun being a kid, Goldenrod thought, just as she caught a glimpse of a purple backpack and dark brown moppy hair. She felt a bolt in her chest. The smaller, trembling kid Charlie was threatening just happened to be her little brother, Birch. Sometimes it was no fun being a big sister either.

  Especially when she’d never been all that big. The only thing both Goldenrod and Birch had inherited from their mother—besides their garden-themed names (their dad was notoriously unlucky at coin tosses)—was her tiny frame, and it looked like this detail was going to make getting out of school on this day extra difficult. Difficult, Goldenrod thought, but not impossible. At least I can put some of my deception training to good use.

  She stood up to her full height of four feet three and a half inches, hoisted her backpack higher, took a deep breath, and marched over to Charlie, her dark brown ponytail swinging with determination.

  “Hey,” she said once she was right beside him.

  Charlie looked confused, as if it was taking his brain some time to understand the one word she had spoken. His mouth gaped open a little, showing his soda-stained teeth and tongue.

  Goldenrod took this opportunity to address her brother. “Hey, little bro. Got yourself in trouble, huh?” She smirked. “Serves you right, twerp.”

  Birch looked mortified, like he couldn’t believe his own sister was turning on him at this very humiliating, likely to be physically painful, moment. Even the freckles on his face seemed to redden.

  “This is your brother then, huh, Mold-and-rot?” Charlie asked.

  Goldenrod knew Charlie must have heard that lovely nickname from one of the other kids—he was definitely too stupid to have come up with it himself.r />
  “Yeah. Take him for whatever he’s got. He deserves it. See you, dunderhead,” she said to Birch and turned around to leave.

  “Hey, wait a minute,” Charlie said, finally starting to catch on. “You mean you actually want me to mess with your little brother?”

  Goldenrod shrugged. “He’s a brat. Always getting me in trouble at home.”

  “Hey, Charlie.” Goldenrod turned to see Jonas Levins, Charlie’s trusty sidekick and—most obviously—the brains of their operation. “Hey, man. If Mold-and-rot wants you to mess with him, you better leave him alone.”

  “How come?” Charlie asked.

  “Because,” Jonas said a little impatiently, “why would you want to do anything that would make that weirdo happy?”

  “Oh. Yeah.”

  Jonas took Birch’s limp hand in his own and shook it. “Keep up the good work, kid. It must be hard, having that loser for a sister.” He started to laugh and Charlie joined in with his big, wheezy chuckles.

  Goldenrod almost walked away. Really, she did. Later on she would tell the school principal this. And her parents. She wouldn’t bother telling Ms. Barf, though, because let’s face it, it wouldn’t have made a bit of difference.

  But just then the sight of those two horrid kids standing there, filling her little brother’s head with nonsense about her—stuff he didn’t ever have to know, really—got the best of her. Yes, she had expected that pretending she wanted them to bully Birch would make the kids leave him alone. But now they had taken it too far. She knew the kids thought she was a weirdo; the last time Jonas had thought she was cool was probably in kindergarten, when they actually still played together at her house. Up until a few months ago, though, at least she was a weirdo with a friend and it didn’t matter so much what anyone else thought. Now that she was on her own—well, she just couldn’t have her little brother turning on her too.

  With one hand, Goldenrod grabbed a sharpened pencil from her case; with the other, she grabbed onto Charlie’s backpack and started to shake it, hard.

  “What are you doing, you dork?” Charlie shrieked as he tried to pull away.

  But before he had the chance to, Goldenrod had stabbed the pencil right into the heart of his backpack. There was a great, loud pop, and suddenly a fountain of orange energy soda shot out of the top of Charlie’s half-open backpack and showered down all over his head. Goldenrod, Birch, and Jonas got out of the way just in time. Kids in the hallway started to roar with laughter.

  Goldenrod smiled. But the smile wouldn’t last long.

  “Goldenrod Moram!” a deep voice boomed.

  Of course Ms. Barf had to have seen the whole thing. She was pointing a shaking finger at Goldenrod.

  “Five minutes! Five minutes before the end of your career here at Pilmilton Elementary, and this is how you choose to send yourself off. I don’t know why I should be surprised. To the principal’s office, you no-good hoodlum!”

  Jonas was the one laughing now, though Charlie still looked too shaken up by his sticky encounter to fully appreciate what was going on.

  Birch stared awestruck at Goldenrod. “What about Mom…?”

  “Yeah, she’s probably going to have to come pick me up now. You can tell her,” Goldenrod said softly as she followed Ms. Barf down to the hallway she knew so well.

  2

  THE MAPMAKER

  As the first Monday morning without school dawned for hundreds of kids all over the town of Pilmilton, Goldenrod was stuck in her room. She was starting her summer vacation grounded for a whole week.

  She didn’t think that her punishment would have been quite so harsh if Ms. Barf hadn’t personally called up her parents and used the words “hoodlum” and “lack of parental discipline” so many times. She had also made a point of calling Goldenrod’s crimes “damage to personal property” and “attack with a sharp weapon” and then saying that she wouldn’t be surprised if “the victim’s” parents took legal action. The thought of Charlie Cookman and his muscles being a victim of anything other than a math test almost made Goldenrod laugh.

  Almost, because although she could handle the other kids being mean to her and she was even used to Ms. Barf’s anger, what she really hated was hearing her parents say they were disappointed in her. Which is exactly what they did say before grounding her for a whole week.

  So, as the sun shone brightly outside, Goldenrod spent that Monday lying belly-down on her bed, poring over her books—almost all of which were atlases—and thinking about Charla.

  Goldenrod and Charla had always loved maps. They found an indescribable thrill in seeing all the possibilities of places to go laid out in front of them on a page, like they could be reached at any time. They loved maps that showed mountain ranges and valleys, and those that showed names of capitals and cities. They even loved the ones that told you which state produced the most sugar snap peas.

  One day the previous year, while they were browsing the library for a book of maps they maybe hadn’t come across before, Charla found a biography that was haphazardly shelved in that section. It was for two explorers named Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, who, a long time ago, went on a three-year adventure across most of the western United States, making maps and discovering loads and loads of plants and animals that no one had ever known existed, and even getting accidentally shot in the leg while being mistaken for an elk by a nearsighted fellow explorer (well, one of them did anyway—Lewis). Before Lewis and Clark, no one knew that there was land past the Rocky Mountains (which seemed preposterous to Goldenrod and Charla, who actually lived on some of that very land).

  From that day forward, Goldenrod and Charla made great plans to be the next Lewis and Clark: explorers, adventurers, and mapmakers. Goldenrod particularly felt a kindred spirit in Meriwether Lewis, in part because he had had to deal with a name as equally ridiculous as her own; Charla was happy to take on the Clark role. Since Lewis and Clark called their crew the Corps of Discovery, Charla and Goldenrod had picked a name for themselves that they thought sounded just as mighty: the Legendary Adventurers. They decided that, along the way, they might have to add some more crew members, perhaps a Sacagawea type, who was the intelligent Native American woman who had been the Discovery Corps’s guide and translator. For just then, though, they felt the Legendary Adventurers could flourish in the very capable hands of its two leaders.

  The girls spent months training for their adventures. In case they ever needed to hide from a hostile animal, they practiced camouflage techniques, using everything from makeup to mud to stealth moves to blend in with their surroundings. In case they were ever captured by enemies, they practiced interrogation and deception techniques, learning the most effective ways to mislead their captors under pressure by acting out different scenarios and taking turns playing the roles of Legendary Adventurer vs. Formidable Foe. And, of course, they continually honed their map-drawing skills by getting their parents to enlist them in art classes at the Y.

  There was only one real glitch in their grand plans: neither Goldenrod nor Charla could think of a single area in the mile-wide radius around Goldenrod’s house that called for discovery because, unfortunately, that was exactly as far as Goldenrod was allowed to go without adult supervision. This was definitely one of the drawbacks to being eleven (ten, at the time).

  They had had one possible breakthrough: the previous August, Charla’s mom had mentioned offhand that they might go camping in the fall and had told Goldenrod that she would be welcome to come if they did. Both Goldenrod and Charla agreed that this was excellent news. Camping meant a forest and trees—in other words, undeveloped land—and that was exactly the type of land that needed exploration.

  They eagerly waited for Charla’s mom to mention the camping trip again, and in the meantime started collecting some of the supplies they thought they might need. Goldenrod asked for a compass for her eleventh birthday, and Charla asked for The Encyclopedia of North American Flora and Fauna for hers.

  But in late
November, instead of mentioning what was to be the great important camping trip that would change the American landscape forever, Charla’s mom announced that her job was moving the family to another state. By February, they were gone.

  And now Goldenrod was left alone to look sadly at her books of maps and her beautiful, unused compass sitting in its case on her desk. She sighed and stared out of her second-story window, where she could see her mother in her straw hat and gardening gloves. Mrs. Moram was a very small woman with short, blond hair and tan olive skin that made a perfect contrast to all the bright flowers she was working against. She was joyously bent over her garden now, probably excited that her beloved dahlias and, eventually, goldenrods would soon be in full bloom. My name could have been Dahlia, Goldenrod thought to herself. So much better …

  BANG! CLACK! WHACK! She was shaken from her grumpy thoughts by the rooftop sounds of her father, a scientist who had taken a week off to pursue one of his favorite pastimes: fixing rain gutters.

  And from downstairs came the beeps and wails of Birch’s video game.

  It seemed like everyone in the world was having a great time … except Goldenrod.

  But then again, wallowing is not a good trait for a Legendary Adventurer to have, she thought. In fact, she was almost certain that Meriwether Lewis would never have wallowed had he ever been eleven years old and grounded.

  Goldenrod took out a pencil and a fresh sheet of grid paper and, looking out the window again, started to sketch a map of her mother’s garden. Chrysanthemums next to the rosebushes next to the magnolia tree. A ring of soon-to-be-blooming goldenrods surrounding it all—a ring that her mother had to take very special care of because her daughter’s namesake flowers were the kind that would absolutely run rampant and take over the whole garden if they weren’t carefully monitored.

  Suddenly, as Goldenrod squinted out at the flowers, one of those brilliant a-ha ideas hit her as sharply as the sun’s rays. What if her project for the summer was to make a map of Pilmilton? Not just any map, though. The most accurate map in the world. Every house, every tree, every shrub. Okay, so maybe it wouldn’t be as grand or as long an expedition as the one Lewis and Clark went on, and maybe she would discover nothing new at all. But then again … maybe she would. And then she could take the best map and sketches of any new specimens she discovered and mail them to Charla. That way, she could still be like her longdistance Clark. Yes!