Down Ballantyne Road

By Jane McBride

Since the death of her husband, diner owner Alice Gregg has just been going through life's motions, but it all changes when she and her cat, Porkbelly, start seeing the ghost of a little girl named Fanny who needs their help before she can rest.
Alice hopes she's just seeing things and wants Fanny to go away, but she isn't left with much choice when ghostly pranks are pulled at the diner.
Can Alice, Porkbelly and their friend Della solve the mystery of what happened to a little girl more than 60 years ago?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jane McBride
• Release date: Nov 30, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311769114

Jane McBride

Jane McBride was born in Rochester, New York and grew up in a small town called Medina in Western New York in an old farm house. The house, barn and yard allowed for a constant flow and supply of all kinds of different animals who were cherished and loved to the elderly ends of their long lives. She joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1986 and served a mission to Oregon from 1990-1991. She met her husband during that time and they now live in Taylorsville, UT with their two little boys and a whole bunch of animals. She is the author of A Little Hair of the Dog, Reigning Cats and Dogs, The Cats and the Cradle and Cat's Got His Tongue in The Ann and Henry series, as well as Down Ballantyne Road and Asylum song in the Alice and Porkbelly series.

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Praise for Jane McBride and Down Ballantyne Road

Jane McBride not only introduced me to a quirky, but lovable cast of characters in Down Ballantyne Road but she smoothly blends together paranormal, humor and a page turning mystery that begged to be read! Her characters had me laughing out loud one minute, and the next shedding a few tears. On a scale of one to five this book easily garners a six because it's that good! I loved my journey Down Ballantyne Road and can't wait to read more of the Alice and Porkbelly series!

-Reader's Favorite

The story of a 13-year-old missing girl captured my heart. Add in two spunky old women and a cat who thinks he’s king, and you’ve got an amazing, funny, warm-hearted story! I kept wanting to know the end, and that’s what kept me turning those pages. Highly recommend this book!! You’ll love it!!

-Author Natasha House

I didn't know what to expect from this book, and was delighted at the way it revealed itself - starting with the premise of a child ghost seeking answers. The story opened itself gradually to both the characters in the book and the reader in a tantalizing dance between questions and answers that lead all of us together on a satisfying journey down Ballantyne Road.

-Amazon Customer

Also by Jane McBride

The Ann and Henry novels

A Little Hair of the Dog

Reigning Cats and Dogs

The Cats and the Cradle

The Cat's Got His Tongue

The Alice and Porkbelly novels

Down Ballantyne Road

Asylum Song

The Adventures of Beautiful Sayers

Beautiful Sayers

and coming soon Beautiful Autumn

Smashwords edition Copyright 2014 Jane McBride

ISBN: 9781311769114

All rights reserved

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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DEDICATION

To my Mom Jean and her twin sister Jane, The original Dees.

They have so much character, I had to turn them into three girls instead of two.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you most of all to my Mom Jean and her twin sister Jane. They are both gone now but before my mother left this earth she gave me all of their childhood adventures. They look so cute on my cover, peek in the locket! My Mom is on the right and her sister Jane is on the left. I could never have written this without my Mom telling me her wonderful stories and giving me a feel for what life was like in rural Western New York back sixty years ago. Thanks Ma!

Part One

Alice and Fanny

Chapter One

The itsy bitsy spider climbed up the waterspout.

Down came the rain

and washed the spider out.

Out came the sun

and dried up all the rain

and the itsy bitsy spider climbed up the spout again.

Startled by the blood curdling scream, I flipped the perfect pancake on my spatula straight into the air. It was safe, stuck firmly to the ceiling tiles, and so I left it and rushed into the dining room. The Screamer, an elderly woman in pink spandex, was standing on the cracked linoleum floor of my diner staring in horror into her coffee cup. She seemed both appalled and compelled by whatever she was seeing, but she was about to fling my cup into oblivion. Manny, my busboy, looked over her shoulder in horrified amusement, and I rushed forward and grabbed it out of her hand. The way things were going, I couldn’t afford to lose any more cups.

With a shudder I forced myself to gaze into the abyss. Then I understood why she screamed. I barely avoided doing it myself. There in the dregs of her nearly empty cup was a very large, very black, very drowned and very dead spider. I hate spiders. I hate black spiders, and I particularly hate large black spiders. The cup would have to be ground to powder and then the powder would have to be thrown into a furnace.

Gyaah! I yelled, hanging on grimly to the cup. If I flung it into oblivion, it was going through a window or at someone’s head. Della, my old warhorse of a waitress, broke my grip and wrestled the cup from my frozen fingers.

Well, what in the world’s that doing in there? That ain’t supposed to be there, Mrs. Dean, she said to The Pink Screamer. Alice, there’s a spider in Mrs. Dean’s cup, she said to me matter of factly. As if I hadn’t noticed!

I drank that! I drank that spider! Ugh, I’m gonna be sick! The look on The Screamer's face told me that was a very real possibility. Telling Manny to see to the grill, I came to and guided Mrs. Dean quickly out the door and to the bushes by the bowling alley. I had enough problems, I didn’t need my bushes puked on. She didn’t resist, apparently wanting to leave my place as much and more as I wanted her out of there. I stood at a discreet distance as she emptied her insides of problems, while contemplating my own.

I’d had just about enough of this. I would wind up in bankruptcy if this went on. Why me? Why my diner? One morning the week before there had been a dead rat in my oven when I came in. Lucky for me I was the one who found it and got rid of it. If someone else had been there, the health department would have swooped in to shut me down, and quick.

First I thought one of the waitresses did it. Rose had asked for Friday off and I told her no. Her mother was a grown adult. What was wrong with her that she couldn't get herself to the doctor? Those girls only worked part time, they had enough days off that they should be able to arrange their schedules accordingly.

Then, two days before the spider, a customer had tripped over a crack in the pavement in my parking lot-a crack that had absolutely not been there that morning. None of the waitresses had been out there that day with a jackhammer, so I couldn't very well blame them for that one.

Fanny had warned me that if I didn’t help her, she would never leave me alone. She was a real terrorist. She wanted there to be no doubt in my mind that she was the one who was doing these things. She claimed responsibility after every incident. She would be waiting for me when I got home, sitting in my easy chair, arms crossed, staring at me. Couldn’t she see that I wouldn’t be helping her or anyone, myself included, if she managed to put me out of business with her pranks?

I would be tempted to kill her myself, if she wasn’t already dead.

Chapter Two

Did you ever see a lassie,

A lassie, a lassie?

Did you ever see a lassie,

Go this way and that?

Go this way and that way,

Go this way and that way,

Did you ever see a lassie,

Go this way and that?

You are gonna get me sued! I accused as I stormed into my living room. The chair was empty. She wasn’t there. Fanny, I know you’re here. I walked into the kitchen, through to the boot room. All empty. Arms akimbo, I whirled around, not believing my eyes. She had to be here. It struck me as ironic that at the beginning, I’d needed to convince myself that I really was seeing her. Now I was all fired up because I wasn’t!

I headed back through the living room and there she was, coming down my stairs like she owned the place. What were you doing up there?

She shrugged. I'm sorry. I had to go the bathroom.

Fanny, there are a lot of things I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure that ghosts don’t go to the bathroom.

She nodded respectfully. Yes ma'am.

All right. Okay. I surrender. I don’t know what makes you think I can help you. But you are going to put me out of business if you don’t stop doing things to people at the diner. I think I convinced poor Mrs. Dean not to sue me. If I get sued, I’ll lose my insurance and probably my business too. I had to get that crack fixed, and pay extra to get a rush job. I don’t know what you want me to do for you, but obviously, if I don’t help you, you’re going to make sure I lose everything. Why me?

I'm sorry, really I am. I don't wanna hurt anybody. She did look sincere, but I asked again, why she was picking on me. I told you, she answered. Because you’re the only one who can see me or hear me. I don’t have anyone else. I’ve been stuck a long time. You're my only hope.

Well, why can I see you? I was trying to be disgusted, but in truth, that last line got to me a little.

I don't know.

Okay. Why now? I’ve lived here in this house for forty years, since I married Will. Have you been here all that time?

I don’t know. I don't think so.

What'd you start coming to see me for?

I don’t know. I don't think I was here. I wasn’t in this house. I was…it was dark. I just know something brought me to you. What's your name?

I was pretty sure I had already told her my name, but considering she couldn't even remember anything about her own self, I started to think that maybe ghosts have really bad short term memories. My name is Alice. Alice Gregg. What do you want me to do?

It had started a week or so before. Della and I had closed the diner at seven and walked home. Charlestown, NY was a small town, and I lived only a few doors down from Gregg’s Diner. My late husband had inherited the place from his father, and when Will died, I carried on alone.

That diner wasn’t exactly my passion, but Will had been. And he had loved that place from a child. And so I kept it going. Della lived only around the corner from me, and so we would leave together. When we got to my little house one perfect July evening after closing, I had seen a woman, a girl? No, a woman. Sitting on my porch chair. Huh, who’s that, I wonder?

Who? Della looked around curiously.

There on my porch. Someone waiting for me, I guess. Hello! I hollered as we approached. Can I help you? I realized that Della had stopped walking and I looked back at her. What's wrong with you?

She looked at