“Cover the mirrors and open the windows?” Junchao asked.
“It says that when you perform the ghost-removal ceremony, you don’t want the ghost going into the mirror by accident because then it will be stuck in your house. You want it to go out the window. That’s why you open every one of them, to make it easy for the ghost to leave.”
“That makes sense,” said Alice.
I stood up and opened up the bathroom closet and took out all of our bath towels. “Let’s go room by room.”
“Can I just stay in this room?” asked Junchao.
“But you’ll be alone,” I said. “Because we’re leaving it.”
“Never mind,” she said, getting up.
Alice moved over to the bathroom window. She opened it up about two inches. I climbed up on the sink and threw a bath towel over the bathroom mirror. “One room done!” I announced. We all smiled at each other.
Sunny pulled something from her backpack.
“What is that?” I asked.
“It’s an electromagnetic field meter,” she said. “It measures electromagnetic fields, which are physical fields produced by electrically charged objects.”
“Do ghosts not like electricity?” I asked hopefully.
“No, they use electricity,” she said. “It should begin to beep if the ghost comes near us.”
The thought of that little machine beeping made all the hairs on my arms stand straight up. I picked up my mom’s baby powder and gave myself another dose of it. Alice and Junchao did the same.
“Hey,” I said. “Why didn’t you pull that thing out in the bedroom?”
“It said the first step was to use the bathroom. And I wanted to follow the steps,” she said.
I couldn’t stop myself. I picked up the baby powder and dumped the whole thing on Sunny.
Junchao gasped.
Alice grabbed the powder from my hands.
Sunny sneezed, causing a pencil to fall from her hat and hit the tile floor with a plunk.
“Quick,” Junchao said. “Say you’re sorry.”
Sunny’s eyes looked unbelievably spooky shining happily out from her powdery-white face.
“But . . .”
“Hurry, say it,” Alice said.
Sunny’s white lips turned up in a grin.
I thought my head would explode. But I thought about Trudy and her monster anger, and I managed to get out a tiny “I’m sorry.”
Alice and Junchao looked around the bathroom, hoping that this little apology would keep the ghost away.
“I’m sure that Masha was just making me extra safe with the powder,” Sunny said. She patted my arm just to rub in the fact that I had to apologize to her. She knew that the touch of her tiny evil hand would totally get to me.
I counted to twenty in Chinese . . . By the time I got to shi liu, or sixteen, the danger of walloping little Dr. Freakenstein had faded.
“Let’s start with the mirrors and windows at the back of the house and work our way to the living room,” Sunny suggested.
“Do we have to do your mother’s room?” asked Alice. “Mrs. Song is in there.” She looked worried.
“We won’t wake her up, Alice,” I said. “We will be as quiet as four little mice.”
She didn’t look convinced, but we couldn’t leave the big mirror on my mother’s dresser uncovered. And my mom had two giant windows in her room too.
We lined up in front of the bathroom door. I held the flashlight, and Junchao and Sunny held the towels. Once we were all set, I slowly opened the door.
I checked the hall.
Nothing.
I looked back at Sunny’s little meter thingy.
It was quiet.
“What happens if that thing goes off?” I whispered. “Maybe you should stay here in the bathroom.”
“NO!” she cried. “I’m too scared.” She looked up at me with those giant blue eyes of hers and I couldn’t make her stay.
“Okay, then stand right outside the door to Mommy’s room. Don’t come in. Just in case. We don’t want to wake up Mrs. Song.”
“Yes,” Alice said. “We don’t want to wake up Mrs. Song,” she repeated.
I crept out into the hall. Alice, Sunny, and Junchao followed. We started down the hall toward my mother’s room, sticking to the side of the hallway so the floor wouldn’t squeak. I’d learned from sneaking out of my bedroom at night for illegal snacks that the middle of the hallway was the squeakiest part. But it was hard to stick close to the wall with our hanger hats on. My pencils kept scraping the wall. If the ghost didn’t get us, my mom sure would in the morning for all the pencil marks.
When I got to the door, I took a couple of deep breaths to make up for all the breathing that I wasn’t going to do once I got into the bedroom with Mrs. Song. Then I turned the doorknob and slowly opened the door.
SQUEEEEEEAK.
Alice poked me.
I shrugged at her.
“Open it fast,” she whispered. “It squeaks less.”
I opened it fast. No squeak. I smiled at her. This was good to know.
I peeked over at my mom’s bed.
There was Mrs. Song, a sleeping lump on the right-hand side of the bed. I could hear her quiet breathing, in and out, in and out, with a little whistle to the out part. I turned and gave the “shh” sign to Alice, Junchao, and Sunny.
I motioned to Alice, and mimed like I was opening a window.
She got it.
I motioned to Junchao, pointed at the towels she was carrying, and then motioned for her to follow me.
She didn’t get it. She blinked in confusion.
I opened my eyes wide and went through the plan again: pointing at the towels, pointing at her, pointing at me, and then pretended to hang an invisible towel over a mirror.
She nodded her head. She got it.
I breathed in deep through my nose to keep myself calm. Then I motioned for Sunny to stay just outside the door with her little machine.
We went to work.
Alice had to open two windows, one on either side of my mother’s bed. They were the kind with the crank handles that you had to turn. We had the big mirror over my mom’s dresser to cover, plus her little makeup mirror.
Junchao and I crept over to the dresser. I pulled a T-shirt from my mom’s dirty clothes and hung it over her makeup mirror. Junchao smiled at me in the dark. The big mirror was going to be a lot harder.
I saw that I was going to have to climb on top of the dresser to get the towel up on each side of the big mirror. I put my hand up to Junchao, telling her to stay. And then I hoisted myself up on the side of the dresser, placing my knee on the corner, and then pulling up my other knee. I still couldn’t reach the top of the mirror, so I slowly stood. Junchao handed me one end of the bath towel and I hooked it over the corner of the mirror.
I looked down at Junchao to give her a thumbs-up just as Mrs. Song sniffed and rolled over in bed.
I froze.
If she opened her eyes, she would see me standing on my mother’s dresser covered in baby powder and wearing a hanger on my head with pencils sticking out of it.
That might totally freak her out.
She did not open her eyes.
Junchao and I made a “that was too close” face at each other.
Alice was already back at the door with Sunny, done with both her windows. I still needed to get the other corner of the towel over the top of the other side of the mirror. It looked like the best way was for me to stay on the dresser and walk across it to the other side. But the top of my mother’s dresser was a mess of perfume and makeup and papers and pens and junk of all kinds. She really needed to clean more. This was going to be hard.
I started across. My first step was perfect, right between some keys and a glass of water.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Junchao mouth, “be careful” at me.
My second step wasn’t so perfect; I stepped right on top of a lipstick or a mascara or something. It killed
my foot to stay on it, but if I didn’t, I knew that I’d fall right off the dresser. I quickly took a third step closer to the back of the dresser—
CLANG!
Knocking over a tall bottle of perfume.
Junchao threw herself onto the ground.
Sunny and Alice scooted out the door of the bedroom.
I held my breath . . . hoping that somehow this would make me invisible.
Mrs. Song mumbled. It sounded like it was something about her garden. Then she whispered, “Masha?”
My heart nearly burst. I didn’t know what to do. Alice was probably dying behind the door—thinking that it was all over, and she was pretty much on her way home right this minute.
“Masha?” Mrs. Song repeated. This time, I could almost feel her opening her eyes.
“Your hydrangea bushes are beautiful,” I whispered. “Especially the blue ones. I love the blue ones.”
I heard Mrs. Song sigh. She loved her hydrangea bushes. I think the white ones were her favorites, but mine were the ones with the giant light-blue flowers. They were the color of a Cinderella princess dress. I thought it would be better to stick to the truth in the middle of the night.
It worked.
“Hydrangeas,” she whispered. And then she rolled over.
I couldn’t help smiling. Mrs. Song sure loved her flowers; she even dreamed about them the way I dreamed about horses.
I looked down at Junchao.
She was staring up at me.
I gave her a nod and then took another step toward the end of the dresser. And then another.
I decided that this was close enough.
Junchao crawled over to the end of the dresser behind me, grabbed the other end of the towel, and then handed it to me behind my back.
I pulled it around me on the side of the mirror, careful not to knock anything else over on my mother’s very messy dresser, and then linked it over the top corner of the mirror.
Done.
Now I had to get the heck down from here.
I crouched, found two empty places to put my hands down on the dresser top, and then I sprung off of it, falling onto the carpet into a roll, kicking Junchao accidentally in the stomach and losing my hanger hat. Junchao found it for me. I smashed it back onto my head, scared to be without it. And then the two of us scrambled for the door, squishing out of it together.
Once I got out, Alice whispered in my ear, “I knew you could do it.”
I hadn’t been so sure.
Junchao closed the door so quietly that the only sound was the tiny snap as the tongue of the door slipped into place. And then all four of us collapsed into a heap on the floor outside my mom’s room. We had a bunch more windows and doors to do, but the worst was over.
Then Sunny’s machine gave a tiny squawk.
And then another.
And another.
Positively Sparkly
Stop that thing!” Junchao cried.
“I can’t,” Sunny whispered.
The beeping got louder.
I couldn’t decide which to worry about more, that the sound would wake up Mrs. Song or that the ghost was getting closer and closer to us.
Clomp. Clomp. Clomp.
The footsteps of the ghost seemed farther away than they had been before, but still Sunny’s machine kept beeping.
I closed my eyes tightly, hoping that if I couldn’t see it then it couldn’t hurt me.
“Masha!” Junchao yelled. “Do something!”
The beeping grew and grew.
I had no idea what to do. How do you fight off a ghost? Does a ghost punch you? Or does something bad happen, like furniture swirling around or forks and knives from the kitchen chasing you?
The beeping grew even louder.
The sound pressed on me from all sides.
Wooo. Wooo. Wooooo.
Sunny yelped.
I leaped to my feet. This ghost better not touch my little sister.
The beeping stopped.
I searched the dark hallway. I saw nothing. I heard nothing. I breathed, and my heart thumped a bit slower.
“What did you do?” asked Alice.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“It’s gone now,” Sunny said.
Junchao yawned.
“How can you be sleepy when we almost came face-to-face with a real ghost?” Alice asked.
Junchao shrugged. And then her belly grumbled. “I’m hungry too.” She laughed. “Ho- ho-ho.” I loved her laugh.
“Shh,” Alice hissed at her. But I could see her covering a smile with her hand.
“Let’s get back to work,” I said, trying to keep us focused. “We need that ghost out of here.”
I picked up the bath towels that were all over the floor and walked into my room. I flicked on the light switch out of habit. But of course, the light did not come on. My closet door was closed, thank goodness. I checked out the rest of the dark corners of my room. Nothing strange or scary. So I walked to my window over my desk, moved my desk chair out a little, and stood on it to open the window. Cool night air hit my face, along with a light misty spray of rain. It felt good.
When I turned around, Junchao and Alice were hanging a towel over the mirror on my dresser. It was a small one compared to my mom’s, so it was much easier. Sunny stood by them holding her ghost-meter thingy. She looked over at me and smiled. I smiled back. We had to get rid of this ghost.
Next, we headed into Sunny’s room and opened her window. She didn’t have a mirror.
All we had left was the kitchen, living room, and dining room. I wasn’t looking forward to this part because the ghost had to be in one of them. I guessed it could have been down in the basement by the washing machine and dryer, or in the spidery storage area where my mom kept boxes and boxes of stuff that we never used. That would actually be the perfect place for a ghost. But something kept telling me that she was in that front hall closet.
“We should head to the kitchen,” I whispered, hoping someone had a better idea.
Sunny did.
“Wait,” she said. “I think Trudy can feel us working to get rid of her.”
“Stop calling her that,” I whined.
Alice and Junchao eyeballed me.
“It might be a good idea to protect ourselves more with stuff like the hangers and the powder,” said Sunny.
“That is a good idea,” Junchao said.
“Like what?” I asked.
“I know,” said Alice. “My grandmother said that when she was a kid, they used to fill their pockets with raw meat. It protects you from bad spirits, and also demons.”
“What about wild dogs?” I asked.
“I don’t know about that,” Alice said.
I loved my friends, but neither of them could take a joke.
“I’m a vegetarian,” Sunny said, not looking up from the iPad.
“You don’t have to eat it. You just have to wear it,” Alice pointed out.
“I’m not wearing bloody meat,” Junchao said.
“Me neither,” I said.
“Listen,” said Sunny. “This site says that ghosts don’t like shiny objects.” She looked up and shrugged.
“Let’s put necklaces and stuff on,” said Junchao.
“I have all my grandmother’s fake jewelry in my room,” I said. “Follow me.”
I mean, I liked anything that protected us more, but necklaces sounded so much better than a pocketful of meat. And I liked not going into the kitchen or living room just yet. I wasn’t ready to face the ghost again, especially now that we might know who she was.
The four of us filed into my room. The jewelry was in a box in my closet. Shoot. I didn’t like the idea of opening up my closet door.
“Shine the flashlight on my door,” I told Sunny.
I walked over and put my hand on the door handle. I breathed a couple of times but still couldn’t bring myself to open it.
I heard metal scraping the floor behind me. It was Alice.
“I’m here,” she said, standing next to me.
Alice was so much braver than I was. She knew she couldn’t run if anything bad came out of that door. I turned to smile at her. She looked a little creepy in the light of the flashlight—shadows ran across her face, making her eyes dark and scary.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing,” I said, turning back to the door.
I swung open the door in one big pull . . . squinting . . . waiting for something to jump out at us.
Nothing did.
“Give me the flashlight, Sunny.”
I shined it into my closet. Everything looked normal.
“Can you hold it for me?” I handed it to Alice.
And then I threw a few of my sweaters off the shelf to uncover the box of jewelry that my grandmother gave me. We took the box to the desk and opened it.
“Wow!” Junchao said when she saw all the jewelry inside. It was like a treasure chest. It had necklaces and rings and bracelets and the kind of earrings that snapped onto your ears. All of it was big, because that is the kind of stuff my babushka liked to wear. But more important, all of it was very, very shiny . . . and it wasn’t raw meat.
We dug in. I put on about ten necklaces and two rings. The bracelets were a little too much, so I left those off. For my ears, I chose big diamond clip-ons. They pinched a tiny bit, but if they protected me, I was good with the pain.
Alice put on a giant silver locket and red sparkly clip-on earrings and a few bracelets that jingled when she moved.
Junchao went nuts. She covered herself in necklaces and bracelets and rings and earrings. She was like a bejeweled Christmas tree. She even hung some bracelets from her hanger hat!
Sunny put on a necklace and a couple of rings.
We were all pretty shiny.
I caught Sunny’s eye. “Thanks,” I mouthed. I knew how much Sunny disliked stuff that wasn’t science, and this was definitely stuff that wasn’t science. She was being so helpful. My little sister was okay.
All of a sudden it hit me . . . I was having positive thoughts about Sunny! This ghost didn’t stand a chance.
“Let’s finish this job,” I said.
A Ghost-Hunting Knot
All of us lined up at my door. I had the flashlight. Sunny had her backpack of stuff. Alice had her crutches. And Junchao had Alice.
Sunny Sweet Is So Not Scary Page 6
