Christmas Comes Squirrely to Morris Mill

Image source: https://www.modernpest.com/blog/squirrels-scourge-holiday-lights/

     Ricky Hill and Bill Mead* stood at the tinsel-bedecked counter of Carol’s Coffee Cup Café.

     “Carol!” cried Ricky. “Carol, Carol, Carol! Christmas Carol!”

     Carol nodded absently, her eyes barely leaving the television in the corner.

     “Carol. A Caramel Cappuccino and a Classic Coffee,” said Ricky.

     Carol hardly looked at Ricky and didn’t notice Bill, until she handed him his coffee. The golden highlights in Bill’s tousled hair glinted in a beam of sunshine. He wore his work boots with an air of manliness that nearly made her drop the coffee cup. Besides, she liked a man who ordered Classic Coffee. It spoke of strength and simple living.

     Carol met Bill’s eye and offered him a mug filled with candy. “Care for a complimentary candy cane?”

     “Categorically, Carol,” answered Ricky, stepping in front of Bill and reaching for the candy. He shrugged when Carol pulled the mug away. “Conversely, candy canes clash with caramel cappuccinos. Consuming cranberry croissants could counteract the conflict. Complimentary to courteous customers?” His fingers stretched toward pastries arranged on a glass plate.

     “Can it, Ricky,” said Carol crossly. She moved the croissants out of his reach and plunked his cappuccino down before him. Then she turned back to the television, making a show of ignoring him.

     “Cantankerous,” said Ricky, leading Bill toward a table by the empty café’s back window. “Cantankerous with a capital ‘C.’”

     Bill looked over his shoulder at the shop owner. She was scribbling notes on a napkin while watching the television. “What was that all about?”

     Ricky laughed. “Funny, right? I don’t even like cappuccinos, but I had to order something that started with the letter C. To tease her.” Bill still looked confused. “She’s my sister, Bill. Didn’t you know that?”

     Bill shook his thick mane of hair.

     “Where have you been, Billy boy? Everyone is supposed to know everything about each other in a town as small as Morris Mill, though I guess you are technically from a few towns north of here.” He sipped his cappuccino and made a face. “Yuck. Too bad ‘latte’ doesn’t start with C. But about Carol: I’ll introduce you in January. She’s too busy and distracted in December.”

     Bill looked around the café. “Seems pretty quiet to me.”

     “Not busy with work, Bill. She’s busy with her shows. Carol spends the entire month of December watching Hallmark holiday movies. The ones where a jaded professional from the city ends up in a picturesque village where the kind-hearted yet eccentric locals remind her what is important in life, while—of course—she meets a ruggedly handsome bachelor she initially hates but who eventually wins her over, resulting in jubilant Christmas romance.”

     “So all Carol does is watch TV in December?”

     “Yes, except this year she’s also living a Hallmark holiday movie.”

     “Impossible,” said Bill. “No one would make a movie about the tedious lives of people in an insignificant town in central New Jersey—a town only known for traffic and squirrels.” He pointed at two squirrels digging in a pot of ivy outside the window. “There’s nothing romantic about squirrels.”

     “Since when do you have something against squirrels?” asked Ricky.

     “Since a few months ago when I rear-ended an out-of-towner who braked in the middle of Washington Street for a squirrel. Bloody pests.”

     Ricky snorted into his cappuccino. “New Yorker, I assume? They’re overrunning this area worse than squirrels. But getting back to Carol, I didn’t mean she’s the holiday heroine. She’s the quirky local who befriends the heroine. See, she got a new neighbor in September who—according to Carol—fits the criteria for a starring role. Carol listens to her problems over coffee and then dispenses sage advice straight from all the movies she’s watched: follow your heart, forgive, be generous, love conquers all. That sort of thing. According to Carol’s calculations, the plot is right on schedule. Her neighbor’s situation should reach its adorably chaotic climax on December 23, exactly a week from today.”

     “Why does the day matter?” asked Bill sullenly. He was still stewing over the squirrel incident.

     “Because it means the satisfying resolution will fall squarely on Christmas Eve. That night, they should find themselves sharing a lamp-lit park bench or a snowy sleigh ride. They’ll forgive one another. As they kiss, their silhouettes will form a heart shape. Then all that’s left to do is roll those credits.”

     Ricky sat back and gave his friend an appraising look. “I suspect you don’t want the details. You’re more into the commercialism than the sentimentality that culture uses to crowd out any thoughts of the Incarnation of Christ.”

     Bill shrugged. “You might as well tell me. I’m stuck here for the next half hour. I bought something online, and the seller’s delivering it here.”

     Ricky lifted his cappuccino in a toast. “I salute you with my holiday-revenue-generating beverage. Because you never disappoint.” He took a sip before continuing. “Here’s the plot. A city professional quits her glamorous but soul-sucking real estate developer job in Manhattan to buy a quaint, historic house in Morris Mill and work as a humble bank teller.”

     “Bank teller?” said Bill. “Seriously?”

     “Apparently they still exist. Anyway, heroine meets eligible bachelor soon after moving next door to Carol. Some sort of accident, followed by a nasty quarrel. The guy’s a jerk—a handsome jerk—and she tells him she hopes he rots in Hades. They don’t say ‘hell’ on the Hallmark channel. For the next few months, she’s frosty to him in the grocery store, library, gym, church, et cetera. Her frostiness is wasted though. He doesn’t seem to notice.”

     Bill nodded. “Jerks never do. Can they say ‘jerk’ in a Hallmark movie?”

    “I’ll ask Carol. No, you ask Carol, since I only talk to Carol in C words when I’m consuming coffee in her café. Cunning, correct?”

     Bill didn’t respond, as was his usual way of dealing with his friend’s odd humor.

     “Never mind.” Ricky waved a hand, as if swatting the thought away. “Next, picture an autumn scene with colorful leaves fluttering past the bank windows, when who should walk in wearing his seasonal plaid flannel shirt but Mr. Jerk. He asks for a loan to start a pest-control business specializing in squirrel removal.”

     Bill plopped down his coffee cup. “Hey! That guy’s a real jerk if he thinks he can… Wait a second.” Bill scratched his stubbly chin in thought.

     “What’s wrong, Bill? I thought you didn’t like squirrels.”

     “I don’t. I hate them. But— Go on.”

     “Our appalled heroine confronts him. She reminds him of their previous exchange. Then she speaks for the squirrels, describing them as innocent animals in desperate need of protection from humans messing up their habitat. His heart isn’t softened. Worse yet, her boss—the bank owner, who looks a lot like Scrooge but, of course, is due to have a redemptive moment in the second-to-last scene—says that a squirrel ‘management’ business is just what Morris Mill needs. He takes the sneering Mr. Jerk into his office, and our poor heroine is forced to watch through the plate-glass window as they seal the deal with a hearty handshake. She vows to do everything she can to block the business.”

     Ricky stopped to take a long swig of his cappuccino.

     “Go on,” said Bill, leaning forward. “What‘s her plan?”

     “She goes before the town board with an impassioned plea on behalf of squirrels everywhere. Half the board is sympathetic; the other half is tired of attic pests. The town is divided, friend against friend, neighbor against neighbor. She starts a heartfelt but morally problematic Squirrel Lives Matter campaign and even convinces Carol—who would normally spend evenings in her bathrobe watching television—to go door to door for the cause.”

      Bill frowned. “Squirrel Lives… Of all the…” He shook his head.

      Ricky continued. “Cut to a few weeks ago. Now the streets of Morris Mill are the perfect backdrop for a holiday movie.” Ricky gestured out the front windows of the café, where lamp posts were wrapped in velvety red ribbons and evergreen boughs poked from the planters lining Washington Street.

     “Our heroine is busy raising money for her cause by selling homemade gifts online: toys, jewelry, fine china, all featuring squirrels. Carol speculates that the plot resolution will involve the business being so successful that Mr. Jerk will see the commercial value of squirrels, then have his heart touched by their endearing cuteness, and then by our heroine’s endearing cuteness. Carol is currently 90% sure they’ll end by decorating the tree in the center of town with hand-painted squirrel ornaments. Only $9.99 each at www.luvmysquirrelfriends.com.”

     Bill burst out with, “Of all the stupidest, craziest—“

     He was interrupted by the tinkle of the sleigh bells on the café door. A woman entered, her slim figure wrapped in a beautifully tailored green coat. Red curls tumbled from her white woolen cap.

     “Oh,” said Ricky.

     The newcomer reached over the counter to hug Carol and exchange animated greetings. Then she looked around and walked toward Ricky and Bill. She reached into her bag and held up a plush toy squirrel wearing a candy-cane-striped scarf.

Image source: https://www.christmascentral.com

     “Bill? Is one of you Bill Mead?” she asked, looking from one to the other.

     “You!” gasped Bill.

     “You!” gasped the woman. She held the squirrel against her chest, shielding its button eyes from the sight of Bill.

     He pointed at it. “That’s false advertising. I ordered a stuffed squirrel. Taxidermy, not a toy. I need it for target practice. For my squirrel hunting business.”

     “You disgusting monster. As if I would sell the dead bodies of dead animals. As if I would sell anything to you, you jerk.”

     “Stop! Wait!” yelled Carol. She hurdled the counter and ran toward them with her apron flapping.

     Carol positioned herself between Bill and the woman in the green coat. “If he is who I think he is, Angela, you two need to step away from each other. It’s too early to resolve your differences and fall in love.”

     “Ha!” scoffed Bill. “As if I could fall in love with someone passionate about squirrels.”

     “Ha!” countered Angela. “As if I could fall in love with someone passionate about killing squirrels.”

     Carol grabbed her brother’s sleeve. “Ricky. Do something.”

     “Well,” said Ricky, sitting up a little straighter. “I could fall in love with someone passionate about squirrels.”

     Angela glowered at him.

     “More importantly,” Ricky added hastily, “I was just thinking that, if I were Santa Claus, I’d give every child in Morris Mill a squirrel toy just like the one you’re holding. It would remind children of their love for our fuzzy friends.”

     Angela stopped glowering. She turned the plush squirrel so it peeked at Ricky rather coyly.

     He pointed. “How many of those little darlings do you have? I’ll buy them all and distribute them today.”

     “You would do that? Why, you kind, generous…” Angela’s voice was choked with emotion. “Please. Can we deliver them together? Early Christmas presents. A squirrel for every child in Morris Mill.”

     Ricky gently took the squirrel toy from her arms. He cradled it like a baby and made little chattering sounds at it.

     As they left, soft snow began to fall outside the café windows. Inside, a violin rendition White Christmas swelled with feeling on the television.

     Carol collapsed into Ricky’s chair and buried her head in her arms. “My own brother ruined Christmas.”

     “No,” said Bill. “Squirrels ruined Christmas. They always do, coming down chimneys to leave gnaw marks on the mantle and stash sunflower seed in your stockings—seeds stolen from your very own birdfeeder.”

     “I don’t care about squirrels,” stormed Carol. “Right now I hate squirrels.”

     “You do? You really, truly hate squirrels?” Bill sat down beside her. “Carol, would you like to share my coffee with me and talk about your feelings?”

     Carol wiped her tear-stained cheeks and looked into Bill’s eyes. “You mean like we’re on a date?” She reached into her handbag for a tissue and her planner. “In that case, I hope you’re free for the next seven days. It’s going to be tight hitting our romantic conclusion on December 24.”

~S. B. Steen, 2019 

*Ricky Hill and Bill Mead are wordplay on two towns in central New Jersey: Rocky Hill and Belle Mead

Squirrels in the Belfry

            I was sitting at my desk wearing a white-collared shirt with a rust-colored stain shaped like New Jersey on one sleeve, right where a tattoo ought to be. My shoes were spit-polished, and my pin-striped trousers had creases sharp enough to thin-slice Taylor ham.*

I looked exactly like a private eye.

Image source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Hill,_New_Jersey

Not that I am a private eye. The road of life takes some crazy turns, and one doozy of a jughandle* turned me into a preacher instead. Served a quarter century at the only Jesus Joint left in town: Third First Presbyterian of Morris Mill. It’s a one-horse church in a one-horse town. But a town without a cop, a slammer, or even a bank to rob still has all those troubles that fester and niggle in the human heart, like mosquito larvae in a birdbath.

It was a Saturday morning in early June and already hotter than sin. The good citizens of Morris Mill were at home praying—praying their air conditioners still worked now that the season for furnace prayers had been snuffed out.

Not me. If I prayed for a luxury like air conditioning, it would only be cancelled out by the prayers of the Building Maintenance and Preservation Committee—prayers their two-bit budget could cover the latest water stains and plaster cracks. Right then, the only things covering those eyesores were needlepoint Bible verses, scads of them, slapped up on every surface and about as useful as Band-Aids on a stiff.

No, I sat in my needlepoint-enshrouded office that morning—eyes closed, hands folded, sweat flowing free as salvation—praying that the people of Third First Presbyterian would think less about wall stains and more about world stains. Spend less time stitching The Word and more time living it.

A knock at the door shook me like a wet dog.

“Enter,” I called.

Two dames stood in my office doorway. I looked them over from their silver hair to their white orthotics and all the pastel leisurewear in between. The usual culprits. Eunice “The Mop” Masterson and Janice “Dust-Up” Dickens, elderly cousins who scrub the sanctuary with soap on Saturdays and polish the pews with their posteriors on Sundays. And apparently spend the rest of the week stitching samplers.

“Pastor Eekhorn, we have a problem.” Janice’s bright pink lipstick grimaced. Her eyes darted across my office walls, either picking out her projects or recalling the horrors they covered.

No sweat, I thought (metaphorically speaking). Every week these dames call on me to solve some problem. Last week’s were The Mystery of the Missing Mop and The Secret of the Stained Sink.

Eunice nodded and giggled. She’s the shorter and beiger of the two. Wouldn’t know a lipstick if it came up and smacked her on the kisser. “Big problem. We’ve got uninvited guests.”

That socked me in the gut. I was nineteen sermons into a ten-sermon series called How to Make Like a Church and Welcome Anyone. I threw in a twentieth, on the spot and free of charge: “Uninvited? No such thing. Anyone can board at this Sanctification Station. Guests are to a church what gin is to a martini: the more, the merrier.”

Janice pursed her pastel pouters. “We have enough problems keeping our beautiful, historic church preserved without hordes of outsiders adding to the wear and tear.” She pointed to a sampler on my left: “Charity begins at home.”

“That’s not from the Good Book,” I told her. “But that is.” I pointed to a bigger sampler on my right: “Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.”

“We’re off topic,” she huffed. “Eunice didn’t mean uninvited guests; she meant uninvited pests. Squirrels.”

Squirrels. The bane of Morris Mill. Gangsters in fuzzy, gray suits. Squirrels are the reason you won’t find an egg hunt on the church lawn after our Easter service. Three years ago, all the visiting grandkids ran outside in their spiffy new Easter threads holding their spiffy new Easter baskets only to find every last plastic egg lying open in the grass, empty as the grave. The Easter symbolism left my eyes misty, but not as misty as those kids’ eyes. Especially when they saw the perpetrators lounging in the trees, gorged to a stupor on jelly beans.

“We went up the belfry tower to tidy the storage room and found compromising evidence,” Janice continued. “Leaves and twigs everywhere.”

Ah. The Case of the Cluttered Cupola. The Legend of the Leaf-Littered Loft.

“I’m on the case,” I announced, standing up.

Eunice rubbed her hands together and giggled. “Judgment Day for those soulless little buggers.”

Strong words coming from the dame responsible for the stitching over my office door: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.”

I led the way up the narrow stairs to a small room in the bell tower to stake out the alleged lair. The hot, humid air pressed in like a guilty conscience. Outside the grimy windows, a handful of businesses and houses stretched down Main Street toward the Millstone River like a boozer reaching for another pint. Inside skulked shifty piles of cardboard boxes, Christmas decorations, and rummage sale leftovers, all as dusty and under-used as the average household Bible. Scattered among them were twigs and dead leaves. Possibly blown in through the broken tower windows, possibly carried in by squirrels.

 “Look, Pastor Eekhorn!” Janice pointed to a corner where the thick dust was sprinkled with tiny, cross-hatched prints, running in lines and loops like the work of a soused stitcher.

“Squirrel prints,” I said grimly.

A shudder passed over Janice and Eunice like a boardwalk gull over a fresh funnel cake.*

I grabbed a large, water-damaged box labeled “Nativity Costumes” that was disgorging brown shepherd robes and purple wise-guy tunics. We hadn’t done a Nativity play in donkey’s years. Apart from the bewildered grandchildren in the C&E (Christmas and Easter) crowd, the average attendee on any given Sunday would need a cane, a crane, and a chiropractor after dressing like a shepherd and kneeling before a manger.

“Check these costumes for damage,” I told Eunice. She eyed the box the way a newcomer eyes the collection plate, then picked up a blue shawl between finger and thumb and gave it a wary shake. No squirrels fell out, so she went back to breathing. I went back to the pile. I was determined to get to the bottom of this.

Janice grabbed the blue shawl from Eunice. “Is this the Mary costume? I haven’t seen this in ages!”

“I miss Nativity plays,” said Eunice with a sigh. “They were such a meaningful part of Christmas.”

I couldn’t resist pushing my usual agenda. “If we start that after-school childcare program I keep proposing, we could help working parents in our community and stir up enough kids to do a Nativity play.”

That got their knickers in a knot. “Neighborhood kids? In here? The same ones who tear across my lawn and holler like lunatics? Imagine the mess! Imagine the plaster they’d shake off these historic walls!”

I mentally re-titled tomorrow’s sermon Living the Word, Not Flipping the Bird: Cultivating a Loving Spirit for Your Community, as I wrestled aside a heap of heavy black curtains. The dust cleared to reveal a rough wooden box stuffed with moldy straw.

“The Nativity manger! What a nice surprise!” Janice exclaimed.

That wasn’t the only surprise. As I approached it, the straw stirred.

Out popped a squirrel.

We stared at it, and it at us, with all the horror of an atheist at the Second Coming.

As a seasoned man of the cloth, I’m not proud to tell what happened next: I screamed in unholy terror. Eunice and Janice joined in with the soprano line.

At our noise, the squirrel began whizzing around the joint—pile to pile and rafter to rafter—like an apocalyptic pinball.

I stood there with my mug in my paws, my ticker in my gut, and a final prayer on my lips. Until the squirrel cut short. It perched on a rafter above us, panting and scolding.

Janice and Eunice stayed glued in place, eyes wide, mouths wider, still squealing like middle-aged moms at a Bon Jovi concert.*

“Can it!” I barked. Janice and Eunice, stunned by my un-pastor-like tone, canned it like Campbells. My eyes stayed locked and loaded on the squirrel. I grabbed the nearest weapon―a shepherd staff from the Christmas props.

Then we heard another sound. A rustling sound. It came from the manger.

We looked down. Three newborn squirrels squirmed in the straw, barely able to lift their heads. They were naked, pink, and shiny with dark bulges for eyes and maggot-like tails.

Janice and Eunice gasped in horror.

“Disgusting!” whispered Eunice.

“Hideous!” added Janice. “But that should make your task easier, Pastor.”

“My task?” My task was solving a mystery. And now it was solved: squirrels. In the belfry.

“Your task,” Janice repeated firmly. “Eliminating these future garden-plundering, belfry-squatting reprobates. What’s your plan? Something Biblical perhaps? A fiery furnace? A stoning? A thump with that shepherd’s staff? What’s your modus operandi?”

That stopped me. Do preachers have an m.o.?

I realized I did. Moving stealthily, I chucked the staff, nabbed the Mary costume, and gently tucked it around the babies. That hay looked scratchy.

“Pastor Eekhorn! What are you doing?” Janice demanded.

I stood up. “My m.o. Learned it from the Big Guy.”

 “Don’t start that whole ‘His eye is on the sparrow’ bit! These aren’t sweet, innocent birds nibbling at our feeders. These are hideous, gluttonous, useless, destructive vermin responsible for ruination and despair!”

“Agreed,” I said. “Nothing like sparrows. More like us.”

Janice and Eunice couldn’t have looked more outraged if I had rerouted Route One* through their front yards. I clarified in my deepest, most sonorous preacher voice:

“We are all naked baby squirrels in the eyes of the Lord.”

There’s a line they don’t teach at Princeton Theological Seminary.*

Before Janice and Eunice could call down Levitical curses on my head, a ray of sunshine broke through the dirt-streaked windows and shone down on the manger. The naked pinkness of the baby squirrels seemed to glow and pulsate. Eww.

Janice gaped. “God doesn’t see me as being that disgustingly, hideously…”

I gave her a stern, convicting look.

That’s something they do teach at Princeton Theological Seminary.

Janice looked from me to the squirrels. I was watching her face, when seven decades of sermons about undeserved grace sunk in at once. Her eyes lit up like the MetLife Stadium.*

“Good God!” she exclaimed.

“Merciful heavens!” added Eunice, laying her hand on her heart.

They backed down the belfry stairs with a reverence usually reserved for Cake Boss sightings,* leaving me with the squirrels. The mother clasped her paws together as if in prayer.

“Ha,” I told her. “I’m not impressed. A praying squirrel is nothing compared to what I just witnessed. Who knew a rodent could pack more punch than a month of Sundays?”

That’s when I realized I was talking to a squirrel. I hightailed downstairs before it could talk back.

Janice and Eunice were standing in front of a sampler reading, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of Mine, you did for Me.”

Image source: https://www.walmart.com

“Morris Mill children like squirrels, right?” Janice said slowly. “If neighborhood children gathered here after school, do you think they’d help us deliver little dishes of birdseed to the belfry?”
“Maybe they’d like to learn needlepoint!” said Eunice. “They could help stitch samplers to cover those water stains in the bell tower. Ooh! And little nest quilts!” 

They scooted off to scheme and scrub. I stood there feeling more shaken and stirred than a Ritalin addict’s martini. Third First Presbyterian hadn’t dropped its stitching habit. But it was one baby-squirrel-sized step closer to something big.  

*It's a Central Jersey thing. 

Published July 22, 2015 by U.S.1 https://princetoninfo.com/squirrels-in-the-belfry/

A Morris Mill Ghost Story*

“Grandma’s not crazy,” Mom says, as she adjusts the rearview mirror to better glare at us. “She’s ECCENTRIC.”

Tommy and me don’t ask what ECCENTRIC means. We’ve only got two more minutes with our game players. Tommy’s got his highest ever score on Chopping Maul VandalZ. I just reached Level 17 of Zombie Massacre III, and I’m about to zap a real ugly zombie in a lace bonnet. It’s August, and we’re headed down Route 1 to Grandma’s house.

Mom only stays long enough to say, “Well, lots to do! Be good for Grandma, boys!”

Tommy and me gotta stay a whole week.

Grandma lives in Morris Mill. She says her tiny town in the middle of New Jersey is “underappreciated.” I say it’s boring, mainly because Grandma takes away our game players as soon as we get out of the car. She says, “Go outside and play.”

Tommy and me stand on the porch with our noses pressed against the screen door, until we get screen marks on our noses and nose marks on the screen. From there we watch the kitchen clock. At noon Grandma will let us in for lunch.

“Take a walk around town,” Grandma says through the screen door. “Or go throw rocks in the river.”

“I caaaaan’t!” Tommy wails.

When Tommy was four, he was eating an oatmeal-raisin cookie in Grandma’s backyard when this squirrel ran up, swiped the cookie— FOOSH! — and took off up a huge tree. Tommy just stood there with his hand halfway to his mouth. The squirrel climbed onto the roof of the church next door to Grandma’s and stood there eating Tommy’s cookie while he cried. (While Tommy cried, not the squirrel.) I pretended to blast it with exploding gold nuggets— POOM! POOM! — like it was a goblin in Mine Train to Hell.

So now when Grandma makes us go outside, Tommy won’t leave the porch. And I’m not going if he’s not going, even though I’m not scared of Morris Mill squirrels.

Through the door screen, I see Grandma’s hunched back. She’s filling her teapot. “I’m having an old friend—I should say an old acquaintance—over for tea,” she tells us. “You two go get some fresh air next door in the church yard, so she and I can talk.”

“The air’s not any fresher there than it is here on the porch,” I say. Tommy nods and tightens his grip on the door frame. “I bet it stinks like rotting flesh,” I add. There’s a creepy, old graveyard behind the church.

“If I hear anything else fresh come out of that mouth of yours, you’ll stink like rotting flesh,” says Grandma.

She might look like anyone else’s grandma (except maybe more hunched), but she sure don’t talk like anyone else’s grandma. She’s crazy. Or ECCENTRIC, if that means the same thing.

A long silver car pulls into Grandma’s driveway, and a lady gets out. She’s got white hair swirled up on top of her head like vanilla frosting. Her flowery perfume stinks. Maybe it’s covering up the smell of rotting flesh.

I aim an invisible arrow at her hairdo in case it’s fake and disguising her snake hair like in Blood Bath IV: Medusa’s Revenge. When she reaches the porch —Kuuuuh-CHUNK! She frowns at my sound effects, but her hair doesn’t move. And not a single snake pops out.

Drat. Only 6 days and 23 hours until I get my game player back.

Grandma unlatches the screen door and says, “Hello, Virginia. Come on in.” Tommy tries to sneak in behind her, but Grandma’s too quick. He goes back to pressing his nose against the door screen. I shove him over so I can see too.

Grandma’s kitchen is yellow with white cabinets. Her kitchen table sits against a window with long white curtains. A breeze makes the curtains poof out over the table so they keep hiding and unhiding a china teapot and flowery napkins like some babyish peekaboo game. I never seen that teapot and flowery napkins before.

We watch Grandma set a plate of oatmeal-raisin cookies on the table. Six big ones. I clear my throat so she’ll remember it’s rude to eat in front of little kids.

Grandma opens the door a crack and shoves two cookies out. “Now, run and play,” she says. We scooch down beside the door where she can’t see us. No way are Tommy and me leaving the porch. Not with all those squirrels around.

“So Morris Mill finally got a traffic light,” says the lady. She laughs like that’s funny. “My dear, you must be simply starved for culture out here.”

“I’m not starved for anything,” Grandma says. She takes a huge bite of cookie.

Her friend takes a teeny nibble and pats her mouth with a flowery napkin. “Why don’t you visit me in The City? I’ll take you to The MoMA or the Guggenheim. It wouldn’t hurt to be exposed to a little… cultivating.”

“If I wanted to be exposed to cultivating,” Grandma says, “I’d visit a farm.”

I peek through the bottom of the door screen. Just like I thought:  Grandma’s hunch has gone straight as a rifle. That means she’s real mad.

Her friend doesn’t notice. “Of course, New York also has exceptional shopping. We could visit Bloomingdale’s or TiffannEEE!”

A big fly is dive-bombing the lady like a vampire pilot in Death Wish 2. She tries to protect her fancy hairdo by waving her hands and giving little “EEE! EEE!” screams. I bet the fly’s real confused that she has a cupcake hairdo but stinks like dead flowers. And maybe rotting flesh.

“What, you don’t have flies in New York?” Grandma mutters. She rolls up a newspaper and chases the fly around the kitchen, swatting the air.

Once the fly’s busy with Grandma, the lady goes back to talking. “You must have a hole in your window screen. Alphonse could repair that. Have I told you about Alphonse? He has the most fabulous little shop in Chelsea and has an absolute gift for repairing historic window screens, as I was telling Marni. The Marni, the interior designer. Her brownstone is in the same historic district as mine, though mine’s older. I was telling Marni over coffee that Alphonse makes repairs in keeping with the historic character of the window screen.” She looks at Grandma’s kitchen window. “Now, your screens aren’t architectural treasures, but Alphonse might, as a favor to m—EEE!”

This new “EEE!” is because Grandma nearly whacks her friend with the rolled up newspaper as the fly buzzes to the window over the kitchen table. Grandma whacks again, so hard she breaks a huge hole in the screen. The fly goes out.

“That’s better,” says Grandma. She plumps back down in her chair and takes another cookie, which isn’t fair since I only got one. Now there’s only one left on the plate, and I bet I’m the hungriest person looking at it.

“Well,” Grandma says, “I’ll tell you of something Morris Mill’s got that’s better than New York’s—our ghost.”

The lady’s eyebrows go up. “Well, for those who believe such nonsense, I’m quite certain The City offers superior tales of paranormal activity.” She eyes Grandma suspiciously. “Besides, I don’t remember hearing of a Morris Mill ghost when we were growing up.”

“You never heard about the little girl at the church picnic?” Grandma looks real surprised. “It happened right outside this window. In the church yard.”

The lady folds her arms and leans back in her chair. “I haven’t believed half of what you say, since we were nine and you pushed me into the river to meet the Millstone Mermaid. My new saddle shoes were ruined.”

Grandma shrugs. “Might’ve been a big fish. But the ghost? Well, now. That’s a real story. Starts years before we were born. Remember old Martha Harrison? It was a little cousin of hers. That’s why no one talked about it. Didn’t want to upset the family.”

Tommy and me flatten our noses, foreheads, and chins against the screen. A real ghost story? Probably not as fun as playing Ghoulinator 2000, but we don’t want to miss a word.

“Remember how the church held a Sunday school picnic in the church yard every June? My grandmother always brought her famous oatmeal-raisin cookies. This exact recipe,” says Grandma, pointing to the last cookie on the plate.

“Now, Martha’s little cousin was spoiled rotten. She grabbed one of my grandmother’s cookies instead of starting with casserole. Seeing all the disapproving looks, her mother took the cookie away and said, ‘Now, dear. You know you must eat some nice casserole first.’

“The girl fussed and cried until her mother was so embarrassed and angry she snapped, ‘You’ll eat dinner first or die trying.’ Tragically, that’s exactly what happened. The girl choked to death on her first bite of Mrs. VanDyke’s tuna surprise. She never got a cookie.”

Tommy sniffs. He’s thinking about the cookie he never got when he was four, because of the squirrel. I put my arm around him.

Grandma’s friend shifts in her chair and looks real uncomfortable. “I never did trust potluck casseroles. But what about the ghost?”

“The little girl’s ghost,” Grandma says in a low voice, “never stopped trying to get that cookie.”

Grandma looks at the last cookie on the plate. Her friend and me look too. The only sounds are the tick-tick of the kitchen clock and the shush of a breeze blowing the long, white curtains against the kitchen table.

Then I see it. Something dark behind those curtains, creeping through the big hole in the screen and across the kitchen table. Something long, like an arm stretching out and a hand feeling around. It reaches the plate and stops. We’re all stiller than dirt, staring at that shape under the curtain as it quivers over the last cookie.

“EEEEEEE!” the lady shrieks.

The arm thing jumps and pulls back out the open window, leaving the curtains hanging down normal. But the cookie plate is empty.

Grandma’s friend keeps screaming “EEEEEE!” as she snatches up her purse and runs out the door.

Tommy missed it all. He’s too short to see the tabletop. “What happened?” he keeps asking. “Did the fly get her?”

“She’s screaming because the last cookie’s gone,” I tell him.

“Who got it?” Tommy wails. “I only got oooooone!”

“It was taken by a —“

Grandma quick shushes me. “Don’t scare your brother.”

“I wasn’t gonna scare him,” I tell her over Tommy’s blubbing. “I saw that flash of bushy gray tail when it turned around, so I know it wasn’t really a ghost arm. It was only a—“

Grandma makes a fierce hissing noise. Her hunch goes straight.

Then I get it. Tommy’s only scared of one thing. And it’s not ghosts. If he hears a Morris Mill squirrel snuck into Grandma’s house, he won’t sleep all week.

“A whaaaat?” whines Tommy.

“A creepy ghost tentacle,” I tell him. “Like in Ghoulinator 2000, except this ghost had a tail too. Next time we’ll blast it with ecto-torch-throwers. FOOOOSH! Splat!”

Tommy cheers up right away. “Awesome!” he says. He’s almost as good as me at Ghoulinator 2000.

While he’s busy saying “FOOOSH! Splat!,” Grandma closes the window and clears off the table.

“How did you know a you-know-what would come in that window?” I ask her.

Grandma shrugs. “I had a hunch.”

“You still do,” I tell her.

Except when she’s mad. But now that her friend’s gone, she seems real happy, even though she says, “Keep mouthing off like that, and you’ll end up with a hunch. Now get off that porch and go play.”

See? My grandma’s crazy. And, if ECCENTRIC means smart, then she’s real ECCENTRIC, too. Though maybe not ECCENTRIC enough to get me and Tommy off the porch this week. 

*This story is meant as a respectful nod toward Richard Peck, a favorite author who died this past May.

Published by U.S.1 on July 25, 2018, https://princetoninfo.com/a-morris-mill-ghost-story/