A Good Night for Ghosts

Annie. “We’re looking for—”
    “I know beggars when I see them! Out!” said the waiter.
    “Let’s go. I don’t think Dipper’s in here, anyway,” said Jack.
    “Wait a minute, I have to tell them that we’re not beggars!” Annie said.
    “It’s not worth it, come on,” said Jack.
    Jack was mad, too, but he pulled Annie out from under the awning. “I think it’s the way we look,” he said. “Our clothes make us look poor. And we don’t have shoes on.”
    “It’s not fair,” said Annie.
    “Forget it. We’ll ask someone else where to find Dipper,” said Jack.
    On the street by the café was a mule cart filled with coal. A young teenager was putting a bucket and shovel into the back of the cart. He was barefoot and wore clothes like Jack and Annie’s.
    “Excuse me!” Jack called. “Do you know Louis Armstrong? Or Dipper?”
    The boy turned. When he saw Jack and Annie, he grinned. He had the friendliest smile Jack had ever seen. “Louis Armstrong?” he said. “That’s me. How can I help you, man?”
    Jack was at a loss for words. He hadn’t thought about what to say to Louis Armstrong when they found him.
    “Hi, Dipper!” said Annie, walking up to the boy. “We’re Jack and Annie from Frog Creek, Pennsylvania. Friends of ours told us to find you when we came to New Orleans.”
    “What friends?” asked Dipper.
    “Teddy and Kathleen,” said Annie.
    The boy looked puzzled. But then his gaze fell on Annie’s trumpet. “Hey, nice horn. Can you play that thing?”
    “Only when the time is right,” said Annie.
    “And when’s that?” asked Dipper.
    “I won’t know till I feel it,” said Annie.
    Dipper smiled his radiant smile again. “Ha! I know just what you mean!” he said. He wiped his hand on his pants and held it out to shake. “Any friends of Teddy and Kathleen’s are friends of mine.”
    As Jack shook Dipper’s hand, he sputtered, “You—you know Teddy and Kathleen?”
    “No, man, never heard of them,” said Dipper. “But I consider everybody my friend.”
    “Oh. Oh!” said Annie. She and Jack laughed.
    “Only problem is I can’t hang out with y’all right now,” said Dipper. He climbed onto the mule cart.
    “Where—where you going, man?” asked Jack.
    “I’m making my rounds with this coal cart,” said Dipper. “And I have lots more work to do today. But be sure to look me up the next time you come to town. And say hi to my pals, Teddy and Kathleen.” Dipper waved at them and then shook the reins. “Go ’long, mule,” he said.
    The mule clopped over the brick street, pulling the coal cart away from the River Café.
    Louis Armstrong was gone.

“W at now?” Jack said.
    “We have to follow him,” said Annie. “We can’t let him out of our sight.”
    Jack and Annie walked quickly after the mule cart. The hot brick road burned their feet. “Ow, ow, ow,” they both whispered.
    “So let’s figure out—ow—what we’re going to say to him,” said Jack.
    “Simple,” said Annie. “We’ll tell him we’d like to work with him. And then while we’re working, we’ll start talking to him about music. And put himon the right path to becoming the King of Jazz.”
    “Hmm,” said Jack. It wasn’t much of a plan, but he couldn’t think of anything better.
    Up ahead, Dipper’s mule cart stopped near the back of a candy shop.
    “Hey, Dipper!” yelled Annie.
    Dipper looked over his shoulder. He smiled. “What’s going on? Y’all are sticking to me like glue,” he said.
    “Well, actually, we were wondering—” started Jack.
    “If we could work with you?” finished Annie.
    “Work with me?” said Dipper. “I’m just delivering coal.”
    “Yeah, we know. We think it might be fun,” said Annie.
    Dipper laughed. “Y’all are crazy,” he said.
    “No, we’re not. We just like to work,” said Annie.
    “Yeah, yeah, we really do,” said Jack.
    Dipper laughed again. “Okay. I reckon there’senough work to go around today,” he said. “There’s extra shovels and buckets in the cart.”
    “Cool. Just tell us what to do, Dipper,” said Annie.
    “Fill your buckets with coal and toss each bucket load into the bin,” said Dipper. He pointed to a large wooden box at the back of the small candy shop. “Twelve bucket loads should do it.”
    “Got it,” said Annie.
    Annie carefully set the magic trumpet on the ground near Dipper’s cart. Jack left his cloth bag beside it. Dipper handed each of them a heavy shovel and a