The Broken Cup

The Broken Cup

Crash!  The sound of breaking glass jerked Millie Johnson out of her daydream. 

“Oh, Lord!” she screamed and dived to the floor, covering her short blonde curls with her hands.  She was certain someone had shot at her through the window of the antique store where she had started working that morning. 

She lay there fervently praying for a few minutes and then opened her round blue eyes and cautiously looked around.  She realized that she was not in heaven, but was still in the store.  "Thank God!" she whispered.  "I wasn't hit!"  Then she discovered that the source of the noise was not a gunshot after all. A broken cup lay on the floor a few inches from Millie’s nose. 

Millie hauled her five foot tall, 250 pound self to her knees and examined the remains of the cup.  It had been a delicate china teacup, decorated with hand painted pink roses.  She remembered seeing it on display with a matching saucer in the back of the store.  So how had it flown from there to the floor near the front door?

“Who threw that cup?”  Millie demanded.  “Who’s there?”  There was no answer except the ticking of a chorus of old clocks.

She was sure that she was alone in the store.  Her employer, Gerald Thomas III, was at lunch and no customers had come in for the last half hour.  Every story of poltergeists and other malevolent spirits that Millie had ever heard ran through her mind.  The store was located on the main floor of a restored mansion that reminded her of the one in the old TV series "Dark Shadows".  It was easy to imagine ghosts, werewolves, or vampires lurking behind every antique china cabinet or inside every old trunk.

The door opened and Mr. Thomas, a tall dark haired man in a neat black suit, walked in to the store.  He looked quite distressed when he saw his new employee on her knees before a broken cup.  “Millie, what happened?” he asked anxiously.

“Oh, Mr. Thomas,” Millie babbled.  “It just flew across the room by itself!  I’m so frightened!  What if it’s a poltergeist?”

“Now, Millie, don’t worry!” Mr. Thomas said soothingly as he helped her to her feet.  “This store has been in my family for three generations.  If it was haunted I’m sure I would know about it.  Come on, we’ll get to the bottom of this!”

Millie followed him to the back of the store, expecting to be ambushed with a barrage of flying glassware at any moment.  She watched as her boss examined the row of plates standing upright in a display rack with their matching cups hanging in front of them.  He found the plate that matched the broken cup and picked up something that was lying on the shelf in front of it.

“Here we are!” he said triumphantly.  “Here is your ghost!”

It was a hook attached to a broken spring.

“The cup was hanging on this hook in front of the plate like all the others,” Mr. Thomas explained. “The spring stretched over the plate and attached to the back of the display rack.  The spring broke and sent the cup flying across the room.  See, the rest of the spring is still attached to the back of the display rack.”

Millie was both relieved and embarrassed.  “You must think I’m a complete fool!” she said.  “You aren’t going to fire me, are you?”

“Of course I’m not!” Mr. Thomas said, patting her shoulder.  “Why don’t you go and get yourself some lunch?  I’ll take care of the broken glass.”

After she had gone, Mr. Thomas looked around to make sure there were no customers in the store.  “Grandfather, breaking that spring wasn’t funny!” he shouted angrily. “You started this business so why do you keep trying to ruin it? For the last time, please stop breaking the merchandise and scaring my employees!”

Gleeful laughter echoed throughout the store and the spectre of Gerald Thomas I materialized sitting cross-legged on top of a grandfather clock.  A small man in an old-fashioned gray suit, he still possessed the curly gray hair, twinkling blue eyes, and impish grin that he had in life.  "Oh come on, Jerry, don't be so serious!"  he said.  "You know I only break worthless junk that won't sell anyway!  Those cups are a dime a dozen. I promise not to scare your employees if you promise to stop hiring silly idiots who are so much fun to scare!"

The younger Mr. Thomas shook his head in disgust and began sweeping up the broken glass.  His grandfather's ghost watched him and said teasingly, "You're a smart young man, Jerry, but you aren't ready to run the store by yourself just yet.  I'm going to have to hang around a little longer!" He laughed merrily at the memory of the fat lady hitting the floor.  Maybe tomorrow he would pull out her chair as she was about to sit down.