Siebel - The Haunting of Henry Davis

The Trouble with Twins

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright 2019 by Kathryn Siebel

Cover art and interior illustrations copyright 2019 by Celia Krampien

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Childrens Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

ISBN9781101932773 (trade) ISBN9781101932780 (lib. bdg.) ebook ISBN9781101932797

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v5.4

ep

For Gerry

with love

We chase after ghosts and spirits and are left holding only memories and dreams.

CHARLES DE LINT, Moonlight and Vines

If you want my actual opinion, Id have to say that it comes down to this: either you believe in them or you dont. Ghosts, I mean. Sometimes that changes suddenly, of course. Usually, when one shows up in the middle of the night. But lets just say youre a skeptic, a doubter, like I was. I can respect that. Then, you have to start where I always dowith some research. And you have to be ready to uncover some things that you honestly cant explain. So let me just tell you this one story. Its about a woman in England who claimed her daughter was reincarnated and started to remember every bit of her past life.

It seems they were driving in the country one day, and the little girl made her mother stop the car in front of this random house. She screamed at her mother until she did it. And then she hopped right out and pushed through the gate and ran toward this cottagein the middle of nowhere. Her mother followed her, of course.

What is it? the mother asked.

I think I used to live here, the girl said. Im sure I did.

Creepy, right? And how would you have liked to be inside, sipping your tea or whatever, when the two of them showed up?

And then there are the kids with the invisible friends. Pretty common, really. Nobody else can see them except the kid. But theyre all alone in their room just chattering away. What explains that?

Or sometimes its an animal, maybe a dog. And it just stops in its tracks at a certain spot and starts barking like crazy. At nothing?

But maybe its something less obvious, the way it was for mewith Henry. I dont know how to explain it except to say that from the minute he walked into Ms. Biniams class on the first day of the fifth grade, there was something, well, familiar about Henrywhich was impossible, really, because Id never seen him before in my life. I guess you could call it dj vu. You know, the feeling that you already recognize a place, or a person, from the first moment. Its a real thing, and nobody understands exactly how it worksexcept some scientists say its your brain confusing the past and the present. Or maybe, like with that little girl in England, its one lifetime overlapping the next. I dont pretend I can explain it all, even after everything that happened with Henry.

All I know is that Henry appeared that first day of school in the doorway of our classroom. And he was late. Biniam was already taking attendance and telling us where to sit.

Henry Davis, Ms. Biniam said, looking around.

Here, said Henry.

He took a step toward her, no doubt trying to ignore the fact that every kid in the room was staring at him. Even aside from being late, Henry didnt make a great first impression. It almost seemed like he was trying hard not to. First off, there was the way he dressed. He could have made Guinness World Records for Biggest Nerd looking like that. His pants were much too short, his glasses were strapped onto his head with one of those elastic straps that should never leave the basketball court, and his T-shirt said Karsoff Chess AcademyYour Move!

The rest of us were waiting in our podsthe little squares of desks that Ms. Biniam had assigned us. Across from me was Zack Martin, the biggest kid in class. He had a buzz cut, braces, and a fairly bad attitude. Kitty-corner was Renee Garcia, who had the longest hair and the darkest brown eyes Id ever seen. Then, next to me, was an empty desk that I knew, somehow, belonged to Henry Davis.

When Biniam sent Henry our way, Zack made a little grunting sound and said, Figures. Then he slumped even farther down in his seat and stuck one big foot out toward Henry, so that Henry tripped and crash-landed into the seat next to me. Thats how fifth grade started for Henry. Biniam gave Zack the first of about a thousand glares she would aim his way before the year was up.

And Henry, well, poor Henry. He looked pale and exhausted. How else was he supposed to look? I didnt know it yet, of course, but that morning Henry Davis had seen his very first ghost.

I couldnt do anything about Ms. Biniams seating chart, but outside class, I didnt spend much time with Henry at the beginning. My mother, like every mother since the dawn of time, always reminded me to be nice to the new kid. And it wasnt that I was mean to Henry. I said hello to him when he sat down next to me each morning. I was friendly. But I didnt exactly go out of my way to spend time with him. And thats just how it is, mostly, with new kids. Especially at lunch.

Well, apparently, teachers had noticed this too, which was why we all got stuck with this new program, twice a week, called Stir-It-Up Lunch, which is as horrible as it sounds. Everybody draws a colored slip of paper, and that determines which lunch table you sit at twice a week FOR THE WHOLE YEAR. They dont even sort you by grade. Henry and I landed at the Blue Table, with a bunch of little kids. The worst was this first-grade boy named Rodney, who still wiped his nose on his sleeve.

Rodney, I kept saying. Do you want a Kleenex?

No.

Henry looked at me and shook his head sadly. So gross, he said. Rodney could hear him too, but he didnt even seem to mind.

Im losing my appetite, I said to Henry.

Henry didnt answer. He was busy arranging each part of his lunch on top of his lunch bag. Cheese sandwich, carrot sticks, granola bar. I didnt know it yet, but that was Henrys standard lunch. And by standard, I mean that he ate it every day for the whole school year as far as I could tell. Not only that, but he ate it in the same order every time and finished each item before he moved on to the next. Hes one of those kids who wont let any of the food touch on his dinner plate.