by Katie Tsang
“Definitely a real snake,” said Bernard.
“And definitely a tough one, despite his size,” said Zoe. “I bet even Spaceman Jack and Captain Jane would be impressed with Fang.”
I beamed.
7 At least I hoped he couldn’t get out.
8 I didn’t.
At the dinner table, Bernard and Zoe were staring at their plates, their mouths slightly open.
“Where did your dad put the duck’s head?” Bernard whispered to me.
“We don’t eat the head!” I whispered back. “Why would anyone do that?”
Bernard stared at me blankly. “How would I know? I don’t want to eat it. I just want to know where it went.”
“Sam, this doesn’t look like cake,” Zoe whispered, poking her turnip cake with a chopstick. “And can I have a fork?”
Dinner was NOT going well.
“Just try it,” I whispered back.
“This is Sam’s favorite meal,” my mom said, smiling at us. She hadn’t heard all the whispering. “I hope you like it!”
“I hope I like it, too,” said Bernard. He didn’t sound very optimistic. “Any chance you also have chicken nuggets?”
“Bernard!” Zoe kicked Bernard under the table. Then she looked up at my parents. “But do you?”
I’d made a huge mistake. I should have known better than to invite my friends over to my house. What if they thought I was Sam Wu-ser now, too? I looked down at my delicious turnip cake.
“How about I make you a deal?” my dad said, leaning forward. “If you try the duck and don’t like it, I’ll order pizza.”
“What about this thing?” asked Zoe, poking her turnip cake again.
“Let’s just start with the duck,” my dad said. “I’ll get you both forks.”
“You don’t know how to use chopsticks?” Lucy said, her eyes wide.
“Not everyone knows how to use chopsticks, Lucy!” I said. This was just getting worse and worse. At least I didn’t need to worry about Na-Na saying anything embarrassing. She was tired, so she’d already gone to bed.
Bernard and Zoe stared down at their plates.
“Maybe on the count of three?”
I suggested. That always works on .
“All right,” said Bernard.
“Okay,” said Zoe.
“One,
two,
three!”
Zoe picked up the tiniest piece of duck with her fork and put it in her mouth. She chewed. And chewed. And . . .
Smiled!
“It’s actually pretty delicious!” she said.
“Really?” I asked.
“Really,” she said.
“Really,” said Bernard, taking another bite.
And that made me really, really happy.
After dinner we went into the living room to watch a new episode of . My mom even let us eat ice cream on the sofa. The evening had gone from a disaster to one of the best nights ever.
“Okay!” I said, bouncing on the couch. “That’s Captain Jane—”
“She looks cool,” Zoe interrupted.
“She is! And that’s Five-Eyed Frank—”
“He looks cool!” Bernard butted in.
“Yes, he is! They are all cool. Now, like I said, their ship is called TUBS—”
“Like your bike?”
“Yes, like my bike. Now please listen so I can explain everything so you understand!”
I explained how on the last episode of the crew thought they had defeated the Ghost King, but at the very end he came back. I told them the Ghost King was the trickiest and most terrifying bad guy ever.
The new episode opened with Captain Jane driving TUBS.
“Spaceman Jack, do you hear that?” asked Captain Jane.
“Hear what?” said Spaceman Jack.
Captain Jane pointed above them. “That sound. I’ve never heard it before.”
“Oh, it’s probably just TUBS acting up again. Knock it off, TUBS,” said Spaceman Jack as he elbowed the wall of the spacecraft.
“That is not me,” said TUBS in his robotic voice.
“And it isn’t me,” said Five-Eyed Frank, his mouth full of space worms and cheese.
“Chew with your mouth closed, Frank,” said Spaceman Jack.
Then all the lights went out on TUBS! (It was just like when I was in the Astro Blaster Simulator!)
“Oh no,” said Captain Jane. “You know what that means.”
“The Ghost King is back!” said Five-Eyed Frank. His jaw dropped open and a few space worms climbed out.
Just then the TV sparked and
“Arghh!”
yelled Zoe.
“Arghh!”
yelled Bernard.
“MOM!”
I yelled.
My mom came running in.
“Calm down — we just blew a fuse. The lights will be on in a few minutes,” she said. “Here, I’ll light some candles.” She put a candle on the table and then left.
The three of us sat around the candle. It flickered and cast shadows on the wall.
Then I heard it. A scratching, clanking sound. Right above our heads. A sound very similar to one we had just heard on .
“Can you hear that?” I whispered.
“Hear what?” Bernard whispered back. Bernard isn’t great at whispering, so it came out just as loud as his normal voice.
“Shh! I can’t hear anything!” said Zoe.
The scratching, clanking sound happened again. This time it was even louder. And closer.
“What is that . . .” Zoe asked, but before she could finish her sentence, THE CANDLE WENT OUT. I knew what it was.
“It’s the
GHOST KING!’”
I said. “He’s back!”
“It’s NOT a ghost,” said Zoe. “Ghosts aren’t real. And the Ghost King definitely isn’t real.”
Now that the candle had gone out, it was dark in the living room. I could barely see Zoe and Bernard.
“Weren’t you watching that episode? This is exactly what happened to the !” I said.
“Sam, it looks like a cool show, but . . . it’s just a show,” said Zoe. “You know it isn’t real, right? Just like ghosts aren’t real?”
My face felt hot. I was glad my friends couldn’t see me turning red. “I KNOW the show isn’t real,” I said. “But spaceships are real. And wormholes. And moons. And ghosts!”
Bernard got out his glasses. He doesn’t need glasses, but he likes to wear them when he’s thinking. He says they make him smarter.
“There has been substantial research into ghosts,” he said. “But we shouldn’t jump to conclusions.” Bernard is always saying things like that.
The noise happened again. This time it was even louder and sounded as if it was getting really close.
“Sam, are you sure it isn’t just your house making weird noises?” asked Bernard.
“Bernard, I’ve lived in this house my WHOLE life, and it has NEVER made that kind of noise.”
It was true.
“And what do you think made the lights go out? And then the candle?” I added.
“I still don’t think it’s a ghost,” said Zoe, but then, as if something was ANSWERING her, there was a
from inside the coat closet.
“What was that?” asked Zoe, sitting straight up.
“It’s OBVIOUSLY the GHOST KING!” I said. “I told you!”
“It is NOT!” said Zoe.
“Well if you are so sure it isn’t, why don’t you go and look inside the closet?” I asked.
Zoe didn’t move.
“That’s what I thought,” I said, folding my arms across my chest.
“You . . . you really think there is a ghost in the closet?” asked Zoe. She was starting to sound scared.
“Only one way to find out,” I said. I took a deep breath. “Let’s open the closet.” I couldn’t believe how brave I was being. Probably even braver than Spaceman Jack would be in this situation. Just thinking abo
ut how brave I was being made me a little nervous.
We crept up to the closet. My heart was beating so fast I was sure it was going to jump out of my chest.
“What are we going to do if we find the ghost?” asked Bernard.
I hadn’t thought that far.
“Zoe is super fast,” I said. “She can catch it.”
“With what?” asked Zoe. For someone who’d claimed she didn’t believe in ghosts she sounded pretty scared.
“With this!” I said, grabbing a basket that my mom kept blankets in. I dumped the blankets out.
“I don’t think we can catch a ghost with a basket,” said Zoe.
“This is all we’ve got! I don’t have a
like the , so this will have to do,” I said.
Zoe nodded. Bernard put his glasses back in his pocket.
“Okay,” I said, “here we go!”
I took a deep breath and pulled open the coat closet door. Then something FELL ON US.
“Arghhhh!”
I yelled.
“Arghhhh!” yelled Bernard.
“I’ve got it!” yelled Zoe, throwing the basket on me and Bernard.
“Ow! Zoe, that’s us, NOT the ghost!” said Bernard.
The lights flickered — once, twice — and then came back on.
Bernard and I were sitting under a pile of Na-Na’s old sweaters.
Bernard still had the basket on his head.
“So . . . no ghost?” said Zoe.
“But what knocked everything over?” asked Bernard. “The ghost must have gotten away before we could catch it!”
I was about to agree with him, when we heard the clanking sound again. The sound that I’d NEVER heard before. “And what is that sound?” I asked.
Bernard’s eyes were huge. “Sam . . .” he said in a small voice, “I don’t think that is the Ghost King . . . but I do think it might be a ghost.”
“What do you mean?” Zoe whispered back.
Bernard leaned toward us. “Haven’t you ever seen A Christmas Carol? The ghost ALWAYS shows up in chains! That’s why we’re hearing chains. It all adds up! I think there might actually be a ghost in the house. But maybe NOT the Ghost King.”
“But the Ghost King might have sent this ghost,” I said. Bernard had made a good point, but as relieved as I was that it wasn’t the Ghost King, I was sure that he was still involved. Somehow. He was tricky like that.
“What are we going to do?” Zoe whispered.
“Let’s go back to my room to make a plan,” I said.
“But . . . aren’t you . . .” Zoe paused and exchanged a look with Bernard. I knew what that look meant.
“I am NOT afraid!” I declared. They didn’t need to know how sweaty I was getting.
Back in my room, Bernard had gone into
and was on my computer looking up everything he could find about ghosts. “Okay, okay. If there really is a ghost in the house, our first step is to figure out what we want to do with it,” he said.
“What do you mean, ‘do with it?’” I asked.
“Do we want to chase it out of the house? Do we want to catch it?”
“Catch it? What would we do with it then?”
Bernard scrunched his eyebrows together as he leaned toward the computer.
“According to this website, apparently we can put it in a bottle or something.”
“A ghost isn’t a genie!” I said.
“Um, you guys . . . ?” Zoe was staring at Fang’s tank.
“And what would we do with it once it was in a bottle, anyway?” I went on. “I think we want to chase it out of the house. Or . . . make it evaporate or something. Like in Ghostbusters.”
“You can’t evaporate ghosts, Sam,” said Bernard in his kind-of-annoying-I’ve-won-the-science-fair-three-years-in-a-row-so-I-know-everything voice. Bernard is always an expert on everything. Even ghosts, apparently. But that’s one of the reasons I was glad he was on my side.
“You guys!” Zoe shouted.
Bernard and I turned toward her at the same time. “What?”
She lifted a shaky hand and pointed at Fang’s tank.
“Fang’s tank is open, and he’s GONE!”
“Fang’s NOT gone,” I said, trying to ignore the fact that my stomach felt like it was full of jumping beans. “He’s just hiding, like he was earlier. Snakes like to hide. Right, Bernard?”
Bernard came over and looked in the tank. “I don’t see him, Sam,” he said. “Look under his rock!”
“You look under his rock!” I didn’t want to lift up the rock in case Fang was actually under it. He is, after all, the most dangerous pet snake in the galaxy.
“You just said you didn’t see him!” said Bernard.
“YOU GUYS! THE TOP OF HIS TANK IS OPEN!” said Zoe. “FANG IS DEFINITELY GONE!”
“Nobody would open Fang’s tank . . . nobody except THE GHOST,” I said.
Zoe and Bernard gasped. Zoe actually nearly fell over.
Bernard nodded. “That is the most logical conclusion. I should have thought of it myself.” Bernard is always disappointed when someone else figures out the answer to a problem before he does.
“What would a ghost want with a snake?” Zoe asked.
“Why do ghosts want anything?” replied Bernard. “To SCARE people! And what is scarier than a ghost? A GHOST WITH A SNAKE.”
Bernard was, once again, proving he is the brains of our group.
“So what are we going to do?” I asked. I didn’t know what I was more worried about:
1. The fact that my new snake was loose
2. The fact that there was a ghost in my house
3. The fact that the ghost had let my snake out
4. The fact that my parents would find out about my missing snake and ground me forever
I had promised, after all, to take care of Fang. And it was like my dad always says:
A Wu is only as good as their word.
Just then, my mom called out, “Sam! It’s getting late — time to take everyone home!”
“You mean, what are YOU going to do. You heard your mom — we should probably be going,” said Bernard.
“What? You two can’t leave me alone!” I said. “There is a GIANT predator on the loose. And a GHOST.” I didn’t know the size of the ghost yet.
“Five minutes, Sam!” my mom called up.
“We’ll be right down, Mrs. Wu!” Zoe yelled back. “Just . . . getting our stuff.” She came over and looked me in the eye. She had to crouch down a little to do it because she is so much taller than I am.
“You’ll be all right, Sam,” she said. “And we’ll come back over to help you find the ghost AND Fang.”
“But . . . what am I supposed to do tonight?”
“Well,” said Bernard, “I did just read that pickles are apparently a natural ghost repellent.”
“Pickles?” I said.
Bernard nodded wisely. “Yes. I just read it on this ghost website, NaturalGhostRemedies.org. Some man named Bob runs it, and he sounds like a ghost expert. If I were you, I’d sleep in pickle juice.”
“And maybe wear a protective suit,” said Zoe. “You know, just in case.”
“Okay,” I said. “That sounds . . .” It sounded crazy, but I didn’t have any better ideas. And if Bernard said it was a good idea, it probably was. Like I said, he’s the smartest kid I know. “All right. I’ll do it.”
“Good luck tonight,” said Zoe solemnly.
I looked at them the way that Spaceman Jack looks at Captain Jane and Five-Eyed Frank right before he has to leave on a secret mission.
“If I don’t make it through the night,” I said, “I want you both to know that you are the best friends in the whole world. And you two can split my collectible cards.”
“Really?’ asked Zoe. “Wow, thanks, Sam. I know how much those mean to you.”
“Yeah, thanks, Sam. I call dibs on the limited edition Five-Eyed Fred!” said Bernard. “He’s my favorite character so far.”
>
I glared at them.
Zoe coughed. “I mean, we hope you survive.”
“You’ll be fine,” said Bernard. But then he hugged me, which he NEVER does. Zoe hugged me, too. All the hugging was starting to freak me out.
“I’ll definitely see you guys at school tomorrow,” I said in my bravest voice.
Zoe and Bernard nodded nervously.
“Good luck,” they said.
And then they left me. All alone.
After I brushed my teeth, I went into my parents’ room.
“Mom? Dad?”
They looked at me. “Sam, it’s past your bedtime — what are you doing up?” asked my mom.
I took a deep breath.
“I . . . I think there’s a ghost in the house.”
My parents exchanged a look. A look that meant they didn’t believe me.
“Sam, there’s NO ghost in our house. Ghosts aren’t real,” said my dad.
“But I’ve heard Na-Na talking about them!”
“Na-Na says a lot of things,” said my mom. “You can’t believe all her stories.”
“Why do you think there’s a ghost?” asked my dad.
I knew I couldn’t tell my parents that Fang was missing. I’d only had him a few days. They’d never let me get another pet. It didn’t matter that a ghost had let him out.
“I just heard something,” I said.
“You’ve been watching too much of that space show,” said my mom. “Now go to bed.”
“But . . .”
“Go to bed, Sam.”
That was it. There would be no convincing them. It was going to be up to me, Zoe, and Bernard to catch the ghost.
But tonight I was on my own.
And I had a plan.
I waited for everyone else to go to sleep, and then I crept into the kitchen, stealthily. Like when Butterbutt is stalking a butterfly.
I needed to get my supplies.
