Zara, The Ghost Zapper

by Katrina Kahler

  Hammy closed his eyes and took a deep breath, followed by another. He opened his eyes and smiled faintly. “Thanks, Betty. I needed that.”

  Grandma returned Hammy to the table, but kept a hand on him just in case.

  “A super ghost is a ghost that refuses to leave to go to the next dimension. Sometimes when there are lots of ghosts hanging around, their energy is transferred to one ghost and it becomes a super powerful ghost. It’s like that cat ghost you had trouble getting rid of in the Henderson house.”

  “Oh, that is so not good,” I said.

  “Now, she gets it,” Hammy said sarcastically.

  “What does a super ghost look like?” I asked.

  No answer. I could have heard a very small pin drop and echo in the room.

  “What does it look like?” I repeated, this time louder.

  “That’s the thing,” Mom said. “It can look like anybody. You won’t know it is a super ghost until you try to get rid of it.” “Oh.”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Mr. Lopez said. “There hasn’t been a super ghost in centuries. The large amount of cat ghosts could just be a random event. The universe is prone to doing random things sometimes.”

  Hammy shook his head. “It doesn’t feel random to me. I don’t like the look, sound, or smell of this.”

  Mom looked at Hammy through the computer screen. “Hammy, you’ve always been a big worrier.”

  “Hey, when you’re four inches tall and weigh two pounds, worry is what keeps you alive!”

  Mr. Lopez remained calm and steady. “Zara, I suggest you go about business as usual. Just find and eliminate all the ghosts you can at the main ghost entrance in Hallow Falls,” Mr. Lopez said coolly.

  “Where is that?” I asked.

  “Hallow Falls Middle School,” Hammy said.

  “My school,” I nodded my head. “Of course the ghost entrance is at my school.” For the first time today, something actually made sense.

  Chapter 8: Thinking

  That night, I laid awake in bed just thinking. I woke up this morning a normal kid. Tonight, I’m still a normal kid, only it’s my job - excuse me, my duty –to hunt down ghosts and zap them back to where they belong.

  All in all, I would have preferred a new computer or phone for my birthday.

  Still, I did get to see my parents for the first time in a long time. I loved that, even if I just saw them on a computer screen. Plus, now I have a super power I can move things with my mind. Okay, my hamster could do it too and better than I could, but I knew I would improve.

  Maria and me, chasing down a ghost...just like playing a video game, only for real. I would have no off or undo or reset buttons. What happened, happened. Not to mention that there may be some sort of super ghost thing on the loose. Of course, nobody knew if it really existed.

  I decided that I might as well try to read some of the material Hammy had assigned. Hammy slept in his cage on my desk; I guess the day’s activities had taken a lot out of him. I turned my attention to the books he’d levitated there. The top book, a worn, leather covered slim book, caught my attention. I figured it would be light enough to levitate across the room and quick to read. I pointed at the book. Nothing happened. In my head, I could imagine Hammy saying, “Concentrate, but not too hard.”

  I fixed my eyes on the target book and took a deep breath. I let it out, then imagined my hand stretching across the room to the book. The book lifted off the table. I imagined my hand pulling the book to me and the book responded, floating across the room to my lap. Okay! A girl could certainly get used to this.

  The title on the book read:

  Basic Ghost Manual

  Almost Everything

  You Need to Know about Ghosts.

  Best to start with the basics, right? I flipped open the cover. There in large text, it read:

  RULE ONE:

  REMEMBER, GHOSTS ARE THE DEAD WHO ARE MISPLACED. THEY ARE IN THE WRONG DIMENSION. THEY MUST BE SENT BACK. THE FASTER, THE BETTER.

  Those words took up the entire first page. Apparently they wanted to make this book easy to read. I flipped through a couple more pages. Each page only contained one rule written in big, fancy, curvy type.

  On page four:

  RULE FOUR:

  SOME GHOSTS WANT TO DOMINATE AND CONTROL HUMANS.

  THIS IS BAD.

  HUMANS AND GHOSTS SHOULD BE SEPARATED.

  Yeah kind of figured that out. I flipped through a few more pages and stopped on page six. It read:

  RULE SIX:

  THE LONGER GHOSTS REMAINS HERE, THE MORE POWER THEY CAN GAIN.

  THE MORE POWER THEY GET, THE MORE

  POWER THEY NEED AND THE MORE DANGEROUS THEY BECOME.

  POWER BREEDS POWER.

  POWERFUL GHOSTS NEED TO BE MOVED ON.

  I thought I had read part of that one in a Spider Man comic book once. Man, most of these rules were just common sense. Common sense about a non-common subject, anyways.

  I heard a soft knock on my door.

  “Come in, Grandma,” I said.

  Grandma came in carrying a tray of cookies and hot chocolate. Smart lady. She knows there isn’t much that can’t be fixed by cookies and hot chocolate.

  “I noticed your light was still on and I thought you could use a late night snack,” Grandma said.

  I showed her the book. “I’m okay Grandma, just reading and thinking.”

  Grandma sat next to me on the bed and poured some hot chocolate. “Put the book away. Those books are best read in the morning when you’re awake and alert.”

  She didn’t have to tell me that twice. I let the book drop to the floor.

  “You shouldn’t encourage the girl NOT to read,” Hammy called over from his cage. Apparently, the smell of food woke him. “And what? No hot cocoa for me?”

  “Cocoa makes you gassy!” Grandma told Hammy.

  “Being gassy never bothers me!” Hammy said.

  Ignoring Hammy, Grandma focused on me. “Zara, it’s never easy…finding out you’re a ghost hunter and all.”

  “Yeah,” I said, taking a sip of hot chocolate.

  “We threw a lot at you today.”

  “Do you think there really is a super ghost?” I asked.

  “Yes!” Hammy said quickly.

  Grandma took her time to answer. She looked away. “Truthfully, I don’t really know. There hasn’t been one since Attila…”

  “Attila the Hun?” I gulped.

  “No! Attila the Snuggle Bunny!” Hammy shouted. “Of course it’s Attila the Hun!!”

  Grandma nodded without looking at me. “Yes, that Attila. Now you can see why they are considered to be so bad.” Grandma finally turned her gaze back at me and gave me a weak smile. “Don’t worry. You’re not in this alone. There’s an entire network of other ghost hunters who we can call in if - and I do mean IF - there is a super ghost.”

  This news made me feel slightly better. “So, my school is like a ghost gateway,” I said.

  “Yes,” Grandma said.

  “How do we find the ghosts?”

  Grandma lowered her eyes. “Every ghost is different.” Patting me on the shoulder, she added, “You’re just going to have to use your and Maria’s instincts.”

  That didn’t make me feel any better. I’d done OK with the ghost cats, but I knew my instincts about stuff wasn’t all that great. None of the sports teams I ever root for ever win. Seriously, any TV show I like gets canceled after three episodes. I’m never good at knowing what teachers expect me to say.

  Grandma leaned over and hugged me. She said, “Don’t fret, my girl. When the time comes, the instincts will kick in.”

  “I hope so,” I said.

  “I pray so,” Hammy said.

  Grandma and I both shot Hammy a look.

  “What?” Hammy said. “I just tell it like it is. Animals can’t lie.”

  Grandma stood up, taking the tray with her. She leaned over and kissed me on the forehead. “Get some sleep.”
>
  “Yeah, ghost hunters need to be well rested,” Hammy shouted.

  “Not just ghost hunters, all kids need sleep,” Grandma said. Walking out of the room, she added, “And if I recall correctly, you have a math test on Monday.” She flicked off the light as she left the room.

  Lying back down in bed I closed my eyes. I just hoped I didn’t have nightmares about ghost cats giving me math tests.

  Chapter 9: School Daze

  The weekend passed fairly quickly. I spent my time reading, studying math, and talking about ghosts and practicing with Hammy. I also got around to looking at another page of my basic ghost primer.

  RULE THREE:

  GHOSTS CAN CHOOSE THEIR FORMS.

  THEY CAN EITHER APPEAR IN THEIR HUMAN FORM

  WITH SKIN

  OR THEY CAN APPEAR

  AS SKELETONS.

  That rule kind of freaked me out. Ghosts were weird enough, but ghosts that showed up as skeletons? I decided from now on I would wing it when it came to learning about ghost stuff.

  For once in my life, I anxiously awaited school to start. As anxious as a kid could be about school, I guess.

  Not like...waiting for Christmas Eve when I’m anxious to rip into presents.

  Not like...getting ready to go to the dentist when I’m anxious just to get it over with.

  Now I had a mix of excitement and anticipation with a touch of not knowing what to expect tossed in. Could I end up dealing with ghosts while taking a hard math quiz?

  Walking to school, Maria tried to keep things as normal as possible. We had done this walk many times. Today the walk seemed the same but different...different in a weird way.

  “Are you ready for Mr. Bell’s math test?” Maria asked.

  “First period math tests should be illegal,” I said.

  “Legal or not, are you ready?” she asked.

  I sighed. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

  “So, you’re doomed,” Maria said with just the hint of a smile.

  “Yeppers,” I said.

  “And are you ready to take out any ghosts I detect?” Maria asked me as casually as if talking about a TV show.

  Before I could answer, Maria and I both heard the muffled words, “No, no, of course she isn’t,” coming from my backpack.

  “Since when do you have a talking backpack?” Maria smirked.

  Flipping my backpack off my back, I unzipped it. Sure enough, I found Hammy, nibbling on my lunch.

  “Hammy!” I exclaimed, probably louder than I should have. “What are you doing?”

  “I thought it would be obvious. I’m going to school with you to supervise,” Hammy answered in between bites of my apple. “I thought it would be appropriate, being it’s your first school day as a ghost hunter!”

  “But, you’re a hamster.”

  “A smart, talking hamster,” he noted.

  “All the more reason you shouldn’t come.”

  Hammy waved at me dismissively. “Please. This hamster is smart enough to know when to talk and when not to talk.”

  “But, you’re still a hamster...at school.”

  “I’ll stay out of sight,” Hammy insisted. “Hamsters are great at hiding. When you squish easily, you learn to blend in.”

  I took a deep breath. No use fighting Hammy. Maybe he would even prove useful. Just as long as I kept him out of sight. Zipping up the backpack, I swung it to my back. “Just don’t eat ALL my lunch!” I warned Hammy.

  Suddenly, Maria stopped in her tracks. She staggered a bit, then righted herself.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “I felt a new ghost,” she said.

  “Where?”

  “At the school. Its presence is so strong I can feel it from here.” She stopped and took a couple of deep breaths. “It’s in the basement. I think…”

  I didn’t even know the school had a basement.

  “I have a plan to get us down there,” I said.

  “Really?” Maria said her eyes wide open.

  “Really?” Hammy mumbled from my backpack, seemingly with a full mouth.

  “First, Hammy, STOP eating my lunch. Second,” I pointed to Maria. “Maria, we’ll use your powers to convince Principal Charmer to send us down to the basement on a special project.”

  “What kind of project?” Maria asked.

  “Yeah, what kind of project?” Hammy repeated, then added a BURP!!

  “Anything. We could do sweeping for extra credit?”

  “Okay, I guess,” Maria said.

  Holding up three fingers, I added, “And third, I also have a way we can see if there really is a super ghost around.” I put my hand on Maria’s shoulder. “You couldn’t read Bob Brown’s mind. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “Well, then it makes sense that you shouldn’t be able to read a super ghost’s mind. Right?”

  Maria nodded slowly. “Right, I guess.”

  I smiled. “So that’s it. You try to read the minds of everybody at school. If you find somebody you can’t read, then we have a super ghost.”

  “Your plan involves using my powers a lot,” Maria said.

  “True,” I agreed. “You can do it Maria, I know you can. And besides you are no longer alone, we make a great team.”

  “Kind of a loose plan,” Hammy mumbled in between burps from my backpack.

  “At least we have a plan!” I said.

  So, we had a plan of action. Like Hammy pointed out, not the best plan or the most complete plan. Still, we’d go from there and see where it took us.

  Hallow Falls Middle School came into sight. It looked like your average boring, slightly old school: a long, two story brick building, square tinted windows and a flat roof with a paint job that could only be described as dirty, dark white. The building seemed to have no life of its own. If there existed a more boring looking building in town, I hadn’t seen it. I guessed that kind of made the perfect home for a spot where ghosts like to hang out on their way to another dimension.

  Not sure who decided to paint the school’s hallways in a light, rotten pea color and the lockers that lined the walls, a bright yellow. It looked like a crazed color-blind person had picked out the color scheme. Grandma once told me, the school had gotten a deal on the paint and that’s the reason why the inside of the school clashed so much with the outside of the school.

  Ming and Matti, probably my best friends, besides Maria, greeted us at our lockers.

  (I’m not sure why all my friends have names that begin with M.) Even Matti’s real name starts with M, it is Matilda…but only Maria and her mom dare call her that. I always saw Ming and Matti together, even though to look at them you would never think of them as a duo. Matti stood at least 5’9”, really tall for a 12-year-old girl. Her skin always looked pale white and she had super light colored hair.

  Ming didn’t look anything like Matti. My grandma called them my ‘ying and yang’ friends because they were like opposites, but at the same time they complimented each other. Ming was super short about 5’1”. Ming loved two things, her cell phone and her music. And she had never met a computer she didn’t like.

  “How were your weekends, girls?” Ming asked us.

  “Nice,” Maria said.

  I hesitated for a moment then said, “Uneventful.”

  Then I heard, “Yoo hoo!" Zara! I have a birthday card for you!”

  I turned to see Lizzy Sullivan running towards me, waving a card in her hand. I sighed and shivered a little. Let me explain Lizzy Sullivan. She is about average height and weight and has long strawberry blonde hair that is always tied in plaited pigtails.

  She always - and I mean always - wears ‘hippy’ clothes. Grandma reckons that Lizzy should have been living in the 1960’s. Grandma told me that when she was a teenage girl everyone wore clothes like the ones Lizzy wears…she even showed me some groovy pics of her in hippy clothes. But fast forward to now and Lizzy looks totally different to everyone else at my school, she has her own style and the c
onfidence to pull it off. I really admire that about Lizzy, she really doesn’t care what anyone thinks. But, describing Lizzy’s looks doesn’t give nearly the whole picture.

  To understand Lizzy, you have to know how she acts. Lizzy is, without a doubt, the smartest seventh grader in our school. Heck, she might be the smartest seventh grader in the world. There is nothing she doesn’t seem to know. She doesn’t show off and brag; she doesn’t have to. It just kind of bursts out of her, like a loud hurricane of endless knowledge. Lizzy is ultramega hyper! Everybody knows this, but Lizzy doesn’t seem to care. I actually respect her for that.

  “Zara! Zara!” Lizzy shouted, even though she was now right next to me. She started waving the card in my face. “Here! Here’s your card!” She said it all so quickly as if she didn’t need to breathe between words.

  “Thanks,” I said, taking the card from her.

  “It’s a birthday card!” Lizzy repeated, jumping up and down. “It’s got a copy of your birth announcement in it!” she shouted.

  Opening the handmade card, I saw that it read, HAPPY 12TH ZARA. And sure enough, there was a copy of my birth announcement in it.

  “Ah, thanks,” I said meekly.

  “I think the birth announcement makes it more real,” Lizzy said proudly.

  Maria and the girls looked at the card over my shoulder.

  “How’d you get his birth announcement?” Maria asked.

  Lizzy smiled, the smile seemed to occupy her entire face. “The school library has microfilm of every issue of the Hallow Falls Gazette.”

  Ming patted me on the shoulder. “Zara, why didn’t you remind us this weekend was your birthday? We could have come over and hung out.”

  “And brought presents,” Matti added.

  I turned to them. “I knew you guys had a camping trip with the Girl Guides. I didn’t want to bother you.” I shrugged. “Besides, twelve is no big deal.”

  Lizzy patted me frantically on the back. “Oh, Zara, you are so modest! Twelve is a big age! It’s a cool age since it’s a dozen years!”

  I shrugged again. “If you say so.”

  “You seem different,” Lizzy said, raising her left eyebrow.