So I read this book when I was still in elementary school, no older than 12 years old, meaning this book couldn’t have been published after 2003. Sadly, I cannot recall anything about the title or author, only that the cover, if I remember correctly, featured a boy with a lady ghost on his left side, with black and white colors.
So the story is about a school class that somehow ends up lost in a forest during a bad storm, I believe they were all in a school bus for a trip but it crashed. As far as I recall, no one died, but everyone ended up being separated. The story is linear but there are a some flashbacks we get to see while the characters are lost in the woods.
Speaking of characters, these are the people I recall:
- A boy whose mother died and the text implies he can see ghosts, including the ghost of his mother; he might have been the protagonist, but I don’t think the book narrated from his point of view often, if at all.
- Another boy called Alvin (or at least I think it was Alvin, I distinctly remember being distracted by his name because I always thought of Alvin and the chipmunks, so it’s either that or Theodore or Simon) who was implied to be involved with some shady business people. He had a briefcase that he carried around, though we never get to know what the contents are. If I recall correctly, he owed money (or something else) to these said shady people, and two men in suits are after him and manage to find him while he’s lost in the woods.
- The suits, the two men (might have been more though, but I’m nearly certain it was two) that are going after Alvin. The impression I got is that they were trying to kill him.
- The class teacher, who was a woman.
- An unnamed boy and girl who were part of the class.
And these are the scenes that I remember involving said characters.
- The class teacher has a flashback while she’s lost about the boy who can see ghosts, she recalls poems that they wrote in class, and how reading the poem of this one kid worried the teacher because it either implied that he could see ghosts, or that he wanted to die following the death of his mother, or both.
- The unnamed boy and girl are ‘regular’ kids who were friends, might have been love interests too, and while lost they have a scene where they reunite and fiercely embrace each other under the rain, I remember thinking the description was very heavy with emotions, even a little dramatic (in a good way though).
- Towards the end of the book, Alvin is found by the two suits, and have him cornered under an old/abandoned tunnel. Either that or Alvin tricks them into thinking he went to the tunnel while he hid. Either way, the suits end up meeting with the boy who sees ghosts instead, threaten him, but the ghost of his mom appears and I believe it was implied the ghost got rid of the men, or at least that’s how I understood it.
- The next morning (I believe they were lost during nighttime) the whole class reunites, Alvin made it out safe; I remember a classmate asks about his briefcase he always carried around (cause he was so defensive about it) saying he was leaving it behind, but Alvin replies that he doesn’t need it anymore. I believe the text also implied that the boy who can see ghosts no longer can see his mother after the tunnel incident, but gets closure somehow as a result.
That’s all I can recall… I believe the book was illustrated too, with some pictures every chapter or so, but here’s the catch. I’m from Mexico, so I’m not certain if what I read was a book originally written in Spanish, or a book that was translated from English to Spanish. Given the Alvin name (not a common one in Spanish) I’m leaning towards it originally in English, but I’m not 100% sure.
I hope all this helps, this book has been haunting me for years and I just want to get closure somehow haha.
