Sunny Sweet Is So Not Scary

by Jennifer Ann Mann

  To Nayeli Dalton

  Contents

  Sunny Sweet Is So Not Scary

  Don’t Chew Gum in Turkey

  Be the Tiger . . . or the Antelope . . . or the Guinea Pig

  Team Smasha

  So You Think You Have a Ghost?

  Warning Signs

  Ridding Your House of Unwanted Spirits: Just Ask Nicely

  The Story of Trudy Day

  Ridding Your House of Unwanted Spirits: Dress for It

  Ridding Your House of Unwanted Spirits: Show It the Way

  Positively Sparkly

  A Ghost-Hunting Knot

  When Flushing Doesn’t Work

  The Wheelbarrow Probably Wasn’t a Good Idea

  Being a Hero Is Lonely

  Trudy with a Fishing Net?

  A Ghostly Showdown

  Sunny Sweet Is Too Scary

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Jennifer Ann Mann

  Sunny Sweet Is So Not Scary

  I’m in charge!” I said.

  “Mom said Mrs. Song was in charge,” said Sunny.

  “Mrs. Song is in charge only in an emergency,” I told her. “And watching a movie is not an emergency.”

  This was my very first sleepover, and I didn’t want my little sister hanging out with us the entire night. I was trying to pay more attention to Sunny since we got back from summer camp, and I had already let her stay for crafting (Junchao, Alice, and I made friendship bracelets while Sunny strung DNA strands), karaoke (Sunny sang something she called a gregory chant that went on forever), Scrabble (Sunny won with jonquils), and painting our nails (Junchao chose purple, Alice chose black, I chose orange, and Sunny melted all our Styrofoam cups with the nail polish remover). It was time for this to be my first sleepover and not Sunny’s.

  “Good night, Sunny,” I said.

  Sunny hung her little head and walked out of the living room.

  Once she was gone, Junchao broke down. “I feel bad for her, Masha. What about letting her stay for the movie?”

  “Yeah,” said Alice. “And then you can tell her to go to bed. Because you have to admit, the Styrofoam cup thing was kind of cool. What did she say happened? Something about pollywogs?”

  “Polymers,” said Junchao, “which are long chains of monomers.”

  “Guys,” I said. “Forget Dr. Frankensunny. This sleepover is only for the Xing Yun San You,” which is what Mrs. Song always called Alice, Junchao, and me. In English it meant the “Lucky Three” because we were three great friends and the number three was lucky in Chinese culture. “Plus,” I added, “it’s a scary movie, and Sunny doesn’t like scary movies.”

  This was totally true. Sunny didn’t like scary movies. Not because she got scared but because none of it was “scientifically possible.” The movies annoyed the skinny little genius. And the skinny little genius annoyed me while I was trying to watch them. She always wanted to talk about matter and molecules when all I wanted to do was shout, “Don’t go down into the basement!”

  Alice, Junchao, and I huddled together on the couch with a big bowl of popcorn in front of us. I hugged my cuddly stuffed Eeyore that Alice got me from Disney World and clicked through our choices for the movie. I’d been looking forward to this night with my two best friends ever since I got home from summer camp.

  The whole sleepover thing had actually been my mom’s idea. She felt so bad about Sunny turning the dude ranch into Camp Newton and my surprise horse turning into my father’s new girlfriend, Claudia, that she suggested I have my very first sleepover. But after we planned everything, she was asked to attend a conference for work at the last minute.

  It looked like the whole night was off, and I didn’t know what was worse—that I wasn’t having the sleepover or that I had to tell Alice that I wasn’t having the sleepover. Alice flipped out just like I knew she would. She said if I canceled the sleepover that her parents would probably never let her go to another one again because it had taken her a week to convince her mom and dad to let her go to this one. Her parents were mega nervous about Alice needing special stuff because of her spine problems from spina bifida.

  But then Mrs. Song saved the day. She said she’d help out with the sleepover and spend the night at our house. Mrs. Song had been a nurse back in China, and that made Alice’s parents really happy.

  “Okay,” I said, “we can watch Zombie Revolution, Creatures of the Mist, Soul Snatchers, or Dark Poltergeists.”

  “I choose none of those,” Junchao cried. “They sound too scary.”

  “That’s the point.” I giggled. But I secretly agreed with Junchao. These movies did sound too scary. But this was what you did at a sleepover. It was required.

  Junchao yawned.

  “No, no, you can’t be tired,” I yelled. “It’s way too early. We have to stay up all night.”

  “All night?” asked Junchao. “As in, until my mom picks me up in the morning?”

  “Yes, that’s the entire point of a sleepover . . . to stay up,” I told her.

  “I’ve never done that before,” she said. “I don’t know if I can.”

  “Humans are able to stay awake for up to 264 hours, or approximately eleven days,” came a voice from behind the armchair. “Although you will show signs of progressive, and possibly significant, deficits in higher mental processes as the duration of sleep deprivation increases.” It was Sunny’s voice.

  “Sunny!” I yelled. “Get out!”

  I heard her scamper back to her room.

  “Come on, you guys. We can do this,” I said.

  “Then let’s choose Dark Poltergeists,” Alice suggested. “I heard it was super scary.”

  “That’s the spirit.” I laughed. “Get it, spirit?”

  “We get it,” laughed Alice.

  “I don’t get it,” said Junchao.

  “Anyway,” I said, “being scared will definitely keep us up.”

  “That’s because the brain’s hypothalamus activates both the sympathetic nervous system and the adrenal-cortical system, which make you become tense and alert with an increase in your heart rate and blood pressure, known as the fight-or-flight response.”

  “SUNNY!” I shouted. “I’m going to tell Mrs. Song.”

  Again I heard her feet patter back down the hall.

  I wasn’t really going to bother Mrs. Song. She was already the greatest person ever because she said yes to doing this and she’d made us dumplings! I promised myself that no matter what happened, I wasn’t waking up Mrs. Song. She had gone to sleep in my mother’s bedroom after karaoke.

  We shut off all the lights except for the lamp next to the couch, and I started the movie. As the music began and the beginning credits came on, a little story ran on the screen saying that the events were based on a real incident that took place in New Bedford, New Jersey.

  “That’s not that far from here,” Junchao breathed.

  “Don’t worry. We’re all together,” I said.

  But I was worried. I didn’t like that this was a true story and that it happened so close by. I pulled the blanket from the back of the couch and put it around us. Alice took one of Junchao’s hands and I took the other. Junchao smiled a little less worried-looking smile. It made me feel better too, and the three of us settled onto the couch.

  At first, the movie looked like it was just about a normal family that moves into a new house. But then strange things started to happen. Footsteps echoed down the hall at night. The lights flickered on and off for no reason. And the family heard a strange moaning sound coming from empty rooms in the house. Then a huge storm hit.

  Lightning flashed across the screen. Thunder rumbled out of the television. All three of us jumped.

/>   The boy from the family woke up, got out of bed, and walked slowly through the dark house—down a looong hallway where an old clock stood tick, tick, ticking . . . past a shelf next to books where a doll sat with open, staring eyes . . . through a lonely dining room with lots of empty chairs . . . and then into the kitchen, where he switched on the light.

  Junchao snatched the blanket away from us and threw it over her head.

  “Nothing happened yet,” I said.

  “I’m getting ready,” she answered, her voice muffled by the blanket.

  Then the lights in the boy’s kitchen went out, making Alice and me jump.

  “What happened?” Junchao asked.

  Before we could answer, the light next to our couch went out.

  I looked at Alice. Alice’s eyes glowed back at me. We dove under the blanket with Junchao.

  “What happened? What happened?” asked Junchao.

  “The light went out,” Alice said.

  “Did you see the ghost?” Junchao asked.

  Alice gave a yelp, and the two of us practically crawled on top of Junchao at the idea that a ghost had turned off our light.

  “Our light went out, Junchao. The one next to the couch,” I whispered.

  Junchao grabbed onto us. “There’s a ghost in this house?” she screeched.

  “Shh,” I told her. I was afraid that if there was a ghost, it would hear her and then it would know that we knew that it was here.

  We huddled under the blanket, listening to the storm still raging on the TV. I wondered why the ghost didn’t turn that off too. Between two cracks of thunder I heard a tiny giggle.

  I yanked the blanket off my head.

  “Don’t go out there,” Junchao cried.

  I cleared my throat and then in my best outdoor voice said, “Did you know that the pupils in your eyes constrict in the dark?” Mrs. Hull had taught us all about the human eye in science class last year. I knew that your pupils actually dilated, or grew bigger in the dark. They didn’t constrict or get smaller. I also knew that someone else knew this.

  “That’s not true,” said that someone else. “Your pupils dilate in the dark, allowing more light to enter the eye, improving your night vision.”

  Alice and Junchao threw off the blanket.

  “Turn on the light, Sunny,” I said.

  There was silence for a second, and then Sunny said, “It’s a ghooost.” Her voice came from behind the window drapes.

  “It is not a ghost,” I said. “It is a little sister who will be a ghost very soon if she does not turn on the light.”

  The light did not turn on.

  “Sunny, come out from behind the drapes,” I said. “It’s time for you to go to bed.”

  “Hoo, hoo, hoo.”

  “Sunny, that’s the sound an owl makes . . . not a ghost!”

  “Sunny is sleeepiiing; this is a ghoul-ie ghost. I’m made up of pure energy, not ectoplasm, which isn’t even real . . . like me.”

  I paused the movie, hopped off the couch, and turned the light back on. Then I walked to the window. When I swung the curtain back, there stood Sunny.

  “Boo?” she said, smiling.

  “You are so not scary,” I said.

  Before Sunny could answer, the door to the basement rattled.

  “Masha! Did you hear that?” asked Junchao.

  Sunny danced out from behind the drapes. “That was just the flow of gases caused by air moving from high pressure to low pressure. Sometimes it’s called wind,” she added.

  “Did it just get cold in here?” Alice asked.

  “Probably your veins under your skin are constricting to send more blood to major muscle groups as part of the fight-or-flight response, since you’re scared about the door rattling. Less blood in your skin makes you cold.”

  There was a clomp, clomp, clomp of footsteps coming from somewhere, but I couldn’t tell exactly where.

  “Mrs. Song?” I called. But somehow I knew that it wasn’t Mrs. Song.

  “Your veins are definitely constricting now.” Sunny giggled.

  “Shh,” I said. The four of us stood listening . . . listening . . . listening. All was quiet.

  Finally, Junchao sighed, Alice leaned back onto the couch, and I dropped into the armchair. It was nothing. I started to breathe again, and even though I tried not to think about it, I thought about the blood running back into the veins in my arms.

  Wooo.

  We looked at Sunny. Sunny blinked back at us. She hadn’t moved or said a word.

  Wooo. Woooo.

  “What was that?” I asked.

  All four of us jumped under the blanket.

  Don’t Chew Gum in Turkey

  Ghosts aren’t real,” Sunny said.

  “Then why are you under the blanket with us?” I snapped.

  “Because you guys jumped under and it looked like fun.”

  I actually really wanted to believe Sunny. She was a genius. She knew lots of things. She probably knew this too.

  “My grandmother says that ghosts are totally real,” whispered Alice. Her face was so close to mine under the blanket that it didn’t even look like her. I didn’t like it. “And my grandmother was born in Turkey, where they know a ton about ghosts. She says that if you chew gum at night, you’re actually chewing the flesh of the dead.”

  “What!” Junchao howled.

  “She says . . .”

  I put my hand over Alice’s mouth. “We heard you,” I told her.

  “Your babushka is just being superstitious,” said Sunny. “That means she believes in things that are mythical and can’t be proven by science. I only believe in things that can be upheld using the scientific method, which are ideas that are tested using measurable evidence and based on principles of reasoning.”

  I was still freaking out over the gum thing, so I wasn’t listening to a scientific word Sunny was saying. All I knew was that she said ghosts were not real and I liked that. I also knew that I was sweating a ton under this blanket with everybody breathing.

  I peeked out.

  The light next to the couch lit up the living room. The movie was still paused. Everything looked normal.

  “I’m getting out from under this blanket,” I said. Sunny and Alice joined me.

  The cool air in the room felt great on my face. I breathed in a giant gulp of it as I looked around to be sure that there was no ghost. After about a minute, Junchao sighed and came out too.

  “Did you know that Albert Einstein believed in ghosts?” Junchao said. “And he is the most famous scientist.” Long strands of her thick black hair were floating up in the air over her head from being under the blanket.

  “Albert Einstein did not believe in ghosts,” Sunny said.

  “He did too,” Junchao insisted. “He believed in the law of physics that says that energy can’t be created or destroyed but only change form . . . so what happens to our body’s energy when we die?”

  “My grandmother knows what happens,” Alice said. “It becomes a ghost!”

  I looked around the room again—scared that Alice just saying the word ghost might make it appear. But it didn’t. And with the lights on, we all started to relax. Alice picked up a big handful of popcorn and shoved it in her mouth. The sound of her crunching made me think about the gum in Turkey again. I was hoping that the flesh thing applied only to gum and not popcorn.

  “The energy does not become a ghost,” Sunny said. “Basic physics tells us that after you die, the energy in your body is sucked up by the environment, either by a wild animal that eats you or worms and bacteria that eat you. Then the plants get our energy from the soil.”

  “Can we stop talking about eating gross things and being eaten by gross things?” I said. “Let’s put the movie back on.”

  “Really?” Junchao asked. “But aren’t you still scared?”

  “Nope,” I said, faking it because I was still scared. But Sunny had said there was no such thing as ghosts. And Sunny was always right. Not that
I was ever in my entire life going to say that out loud. “Anyway, it’s just a movie.”

  “That’s true,” said Alice. “My mom always says that.”

  I was glad to hear something Alice’s mom said, and not her grandmother.

  Junchao still didn’t look convinced.

  “We’ll turn on all the lights,” I suggested.

  “And we’ll hold hands again,” Alice said.

  “You guys are the best gui mi ever,” Junchao smiled. Gui mi meant “good friend” in Chinese.

  “Let’s do this thing!” I laughed.

  I skipped over to the light switch and flipped on both the lights in the living room and the dining room. On my way back to the couch I thought I heard something. It sounded like footsteps. I stopped and listened.

  “What are you doing?” Junchao asked, her dark eyes darting around the room.

  “Nothing, Junchao. Everything’s great,” I said. I was sure that it had only been my own footsteps I heard.

  I picked up the remote and flopped back onto the couch. “Good night, Sunny.”

  Sunny slid slowly off the couch. Before she had even taken a step, we heard it again.

  Wooo. Wooo. Wooooo.

  Alice, Junchao, and I looked at Sunny.

  “There is a scientific explanation for that,” she said. But I could see a lot more white in Sunny’s eyes than I wanted to see right now. It made her look not so sure, and I’d never seen Sunny look not so sure about anything.

  Then there was a click.

  Followed by a beep.

  All the lights in the house blinked off. The television flashed . . . and then went black.

  Be the Tiger . . . or the Antelope . . . or the Guinea Pig

  Sunny was the first to dive under the blanket, but the three of us were super close behind her.

  “What are we gonna do?” Junchao’s eyes were so wide that they seemed to be shouting at me when she blinked.

  “Maybe I should go get Mrs. Song,” I said, totally hoping someone would disagree.

  Alice came through for me. “Nooo! You can’t do that, Masha. She’ll call my mom. And then my dad will be here in less than three minutes to take me home.”

  “Okay, okay,” I said. “We’ll figure this out. Maybe we should go turn on the lights.”