by Leslie Edens
They both froze and turned slowly around.
“Did you say PEPPER?” Lily stared.
“It’s PEPPIC! Portales Espirituales Paranormal Phenomena Investigation Club!” said Trenton in his shrillest voice.
“That’s quite a mouthful,” I said, smirking.
“Paranormals for short,” said Trenton.
“Okay, whatever. Are any investigators from PEPPIC for hire? Because I think I have . . . a case.”
“A case?” Lily’s eyes opened wide behind her huge glasses.
“Interested?” I said.
Lily looked around the hall, like maybe some other club was going to steal this chance. “Trenton and I might be available. What’s this about?” she whispered.
“It’s Sam,” I gulped away the ache in my throat. “He’s missing.”
“Sam’s gone?” Lily’s frown deepened. She kinda had a thing for Sam, got all nervous when he walked by.
“Disappeared under mysterious circumstances,” I said. “My stepfather says he kicked him out, but I suspect that something else happened. There’s more. Right before it happened, I saw a ghost,” I whispered. I took off my backpack to get my notebook, so I could show them the weird message. Sybil’s head popped out and she panted happily at Trenton and Lily.
“Why do you have a dog in your backpack?” Lily asked in a low voice.
“Never mind about that right now. Sybil was lonely. I want you to take a look at this!” I held up the page with Cross over sketched across it.
“Nice lettering,” said Lily. “Your calligraphy is really coming along. But I think we should be more concerned about Sam, don’t you?”
“It’s a clue!” I insisted. “The spirits wrote it through me. Or something did. I think it was the ghost I saw in the junkyard, right before Sam disappeared. Maybe it wanted Sam to cross over.”
“Cross over to where?” said Trenton. “Not very specific directions.”
“I don’t know! That’s why I need your help!” I said. “I think Sam’s been paranormally kidnapped or something.”
That had them hooked. Trenton’s voice squeaked with excitement. “A real mystery! This is what Paranormals live for! ‘Investigating the paranormal wherever we find it!’ That’s our motto.”
Lily nodded. “We’d better look into this. PEPPIC will most likely want us to take the case.”
The buzzer for first period went off, reverberating through the hall.
“Uh oh. We’re going to be late,” I said. “Meet me at lunch and I’ll tell you the rest. There’s twenty dollars in it for you.”
I flashed a twenty-dollar bill. All the money I had in the world. Trenton’s eyes bugged out.
“We are so there, Heather Despair!” He gave me a thumbs up.
They strolled off, whispering this time. I tucked Sybil into my backpack.
I didn’t want them to find out about my plan to run away. Knowing Lily, she’d call the police, and I’d wind up back at the junkyard. I couldn’t have that happen right now. Finding Sam was my first priority.
I bent my head into the open locker, like I was praying. Sent out another message to Sam.
—Please, Sam. Just one clue where you are.
Nothing. I slammed the locker and turned to head for class.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a dark shadow. Watching, lurking, in the doorway of an abandoned classroom. Oskar. I tried hard not to flinch as I went by, but I felt the hair on my neck raise. Why was he watching me?
I whirled to confront him. In the darkness of the doorway, I saw . . . nobody there. But I was sure I’d seen him! Maybe I was hallucinating. It wouldn’t be the weirdest thing that had happened to me lately.
I scanned around the empty hall one last time. Creepy. I’d have to keep my eyes open. Something was very strange—something besides me, I mean.
Chapter Four
The Chocolate Milk Trick
Trenton and Lily awaited me at a far table, while I lurched through the lunch line. All morning, I’d struggled to focus. I had no appetite. The dry lasagna and limp salad greens turned my stomach. Sybil wouldn’t like them either. I swiveled back toward the milk bin to grab a chocolate milk.
“Don’t cut in line!” bawled a hulking girl named Janet Hughes. She cracked her knuckles.
I backed away from her. Janet always had it in for me. No way I wanted to attract attention to myself fighting with her today, with a dog in my backpack and my weirdly buzzing hands. But I had only ten minutes to eat. Lily and Trenton were waiting, and there was no time to go back. I slunk off, wishing desperately for just one pint of chocolate milk.
My hands tingled, and the tingle became a crackle. POP! Stars spiraled before my eyes. My empty hands filled with a cool cube—a pint of chocolate milk. Out of thin air.
Oh no, no, no! Not more weird stuff! I quickly hid it behind my back. I strolled to the corner table where Trenton and Lily sat. They stared past me. The whole cafeteria stared. I wheeled oh-so-slowly around. On the floor near the milk bin, five students sprawled, in various stages of unconsciousness. Janet had been hit the hardest. She was passed out cold.
A tightness clawed up my throat. “Oh no,” I whispered. This was bad. I had to get out of here.
Teachers crouched over the downed students, soon lost to my view, as crowds closed in. Sickly guilt settled in my stomach. What had I done? Monitors were shooing students back to their seats. A nurse ran across the cafeteria. One of the floored students wobbled up, then another. I sighed with relief.
I slid in across from Trenton and Lily. They faced me, open-mouthed. Trenton recovered first. His mouth snapped shut, his knitted brow forming a dent between his eyes.
“Heather Despair. What happened over there?” He nodded to the milk bin, the remaining downed students.
I slid my chocolate milk under the table. “Uh . . . are they okay?” I peered back; Janet lay flat and motionless. Two others groaned from the floor. They had to be okay!
“They’re recovering, but Janet Huge looks wasted.” Trenton snickered. He squinted at me, at my hand under the table. Shaking his head, he said, “Heather Despair, how did you get that chocolate milk?”
I blew out a big breath. “Look, I don’t think school is a good idea today. It might be . . . problematic. Could we get out of here?”
Lily’s eyes were wide. “You mean like skip school?”
Trenton nodded rapidly up and down. “Great idea.”
“No way.” Lily folded her arms.
“Please?” I held out the twenty dollars. “You said you’d take the case.”
Lily’s eyes narrowed behind her oversized lenses. Her mouth was a prim line. “I’m a straight-A student and so is Trenton. This could ruin us. And for what?”
“A chance to see the paranormal?” I slid the twenty dollars across the table. Trenton snapped it up.
“So, PEPPER will investigate?” I asked.
Lily huffed. “It’s PEPPIC! And I’m not skipping school. I have a test next period.”
“Oh, come on, Lils. You’ll ace that test later. When will we have another chance like this?” Trenton went to work on Lily. I waited.
“What exactly is this chance?” Lily frowned, very suspicious, at me.
“This is for real,” I said. “If you take this case, you’ll see the paranormal. I can’t guarantee your safety, though. I hope you’re prepared.” I nodded in the direction of the downed students. Janet groaned, come around at last. The nurse knelt next to her, helping her sit up.
“That was you?” Trenton looked from the students, to me. “OMG!”
“PEPPIC agents are always prepared.” Lily squinted at me. “Unfortunately, you are right. We do need to get you out of here. Before you cause a lockdown.” She pulled out a big, padded phone. “We’re taking this case.”
Once Lily made up her mind to go, she got us out, fast. She knew exactly where to find a classroom with a side door propped open, and we slid out with nary an alarm.
“Explai
n to me what that was back there,” said Lily, as we hiked along a sandy path through the desert toward town. “You knocked out five people!”
Trenton put on sunglasses. “How did you do it, Heather Despair?”
“Something weird is happening to me,” I said. “If I can find Sam, he might know what to do.”
“And if you can’t?” Trenton stared at me through his sunglasses.
I couldn’t think like that. “I’ll find him,” I said. “I have to.”
Lily drew her smartphone, sheathed in a weird rubber casing. She hit a key and when someone answered, she used a deep voice. “I’m checking on Sam Despair. Did he get to school today?” A beat, then, “Thank you.” She hung up. “Absent in all his morning classes.” Her forehead creased with worry.
I patted her arm. “We’ll find him,” I said. She nodded.
After hiking through the patch of desert, we popped out on the main street. Portales Espirituales was not large.
“Ah,” I said. “Civilization!”
We strolled down the narrow sidewalk on Fantasmas Street, jostling each other for space. It was fun to walk down the street at mid-day, past the downtown businesses and office buildings. At the movie theater, we stopped to laugh at the posters for cheesy zombie and ghost films. We lingered in front of the tourist shops, with their signs for “spirit tours,” and all the ghost-hunting equipment in the windows. Trenton inspected the Spirit Hunters T-shirts and swag on discount, out front of the Spookmart. We passed the bookstore with all the paranormal stuff in the front windows, books on everything from alien sightings to vampire role-playing. The town practically ran on paranormal tourism, every kind of fake supernatural trend there was. Mostly, though, Portales Espirituales was known for its ghosts.
“Spirit Portals,” said Lily. She held up a cheap T-shirt with a map of our town, showing all the supposed locations of heavy haunting activity. “Sure make a few bucks off this town’s reputation, don’t they?”
Trenton and I nodded. It was nothing new. The town had been a paranormal tourist attraction for more years than we’d been alive, competing with towns like Roswell, New Mexico (alien tourism), Forks, Washington (vampire tourism), and Salem, Massachusetts (witch tourism). Portales Espirituales had ghosts, its stock in trade.
“What I can’t decide,” murmured Trenton as we continued along the sidewalk, “Is what came first. Did the town get paranormal tourism because there were ghosts, or did ghosts come here because there was paranormal tourism?”
Lily rolled her eyes at him. “You’ve been to the museum. You know the history. They couldn’t make mining or ranching work here. Too haunted and cursed. So, it became a gathering place for spiritualists. Ever since the early days, the town’s been a magnet for colorful people and those that want to gawp at them.”
“And spirits,” I said. “Don’t forget the main attraction.” I held up a pink T-shirt with a silly Casper-like ghost print. Stay Ghosted! it read.
“Give me that!” Trenton snatched the shirt and ran into the store to buy it.
“There goes our profit.” Lily sighed.
“What the official history doesn’t mention is all the real spiritualists living here,” I said.
Lily gave me a curious glance. Trenton came out of the store with a bag and a blushing face.
“Heather!” he whispered into my ear, spitting a little. “I saw him! Señor Hotness!”
He nodded toward the cheesy little swag store.
I said, “Oskar’s in there? Are you sure it’s him?”
Trenton just laughed.
“Okay. So, the odds of mistaken identity are not great,” I said. “What would he be doing skipping school?”
“I might ask you the same question, Miss Despair,” said Trenton. He peered back into the store, and I leaned in too, trying to get a glimpse.
“Come on, you two. We’re supposed to be investigating,” said Lily, pulling on Trenton’s arm.
“We are investigating. I’m investigating Oskar right now,” said Trenton. An enormous smile lit up his face. Far in the back of the store, I caught a peek of Oskar’s auburn hair.
“He’s so cute!” Trenton squealed.
“He’s hot,” I agreed. “He has excessive hotness.”
Lily rolled her eyes at us. “Could we please focus?”
The street’s sudden silence put me on my guard. All the pedestrians had disappeared or gone inside. Only we three remained in the street. I cast out, like sensing for Sam. Couldn’t get a read on anything definite.
“Something’s not right,” I muttered. I nudged them back into an alley. “Get down!”
BLAM! An explosion rocked the ground. Five feet in front of us, sand plumed high into the air and rained down. A flickering, black fog filled the street. Trenton grabbed Lily. I stood before them, all my senses on alert.
“Where’d that come from?” said Lily.
I squinted into the black fog. “I can’t see. It was for us, though.”
“Trent,” Lily’s voice was shaking. “Call 911.”
Behind me, I heard a button bleep, then silence. “I can’t. My battery crapped out again,” said Trenton.
“I specifically told you to ecto-proof your phone!” snarled Lily. “You know technology can misbehave or fizzle out around the paranormal!”
“It’s not burned out on p-waves! This battery never worked right!” said Trenton.
“I’ll have to do it.” I heard a muted beep from Lily’s padded, rubberized phone. “Oh, no! Mine’s not working either.”
I was too busy watching, listening, sensing the street. Nothing formed up in the weird black fog that flickered with blue light. Then, I did see something. A movement, across the street. Red hair.
It couldn’t be.
Oskar’s unmistakable auburn hair. His handsome face peered out from an alley across the street from us.
“It was Oskar!” I said.
Lily and Trenton gasped.
“He’s evil!” said Lily.
“Maybe not.” Fondness crept into Trenton’s voice. “Maybe he’s hiding, like us.”
The red hair disappeared into the alley, then I heard a crackle, growing louder. Through the fog, the flickering intensified, spitting blue sparks and buzzing.
“What is that stuff?” said Trenton.
“I know it,” I said. The fog moved closer. “Get back. Stay behind me.”
I also knew what I could do with it. I reached out, beckoning with my open palm. The cloud of flickering lightning drifted closer, then one bolt jumped to my hand. I clenched my teeth as the blue electricity made my fingers twitch. My whole body lit up with furious blue fire. Trenton screamed behind me and Lily shouted “Dios mío!”
I turned to see if they were all right. The last of the flickering had absorbed into my hand. I shut my fist and held it. Trenton and Lily stared at my hand, then at me, their faces frozen in terror.
“It’s fine,” I said, panting from the exertion. “I do this all the time.” I gave them a big smile, more of bravado than confidence. I think they could tell. “Are you both okay?”
“Fabulous,” said Trenton in a tiny, shaky voice.
“What was that stuff? Dios mío, Heather! Did you just suck that lightning into your hand?” Lily shook her finger at me. “I’ve read what the literature says about this! The paranormal activity will only get worse in scope and magnitude! Up to and including your own demise and that of others!” She was lecturing me full force now. “You need to see a medical professional about this! It’s way beyond what the Paranormals can handle!”
I clenched my fists. All that blue lightning made me zing with power—power that desired release. And I was going to release it, all right. As soon as I saw the perpetrator of these attacks.
“No doctors! They’d lock me up or say I’m crazy,” I said.
I eyed the street. Still no regular people out there, no tourists, no crowds of looky-loos and rubberneckers. Not even the employees of the shops emerged. Of course, I
wouldn’t want to get in the middle of some evil lightning-infused fog either, if I were them.
Silence. I held my breath. Silence was never good when dealing with the paranormal. I had realized that by now.
“Something’s coming,” I growled.
The dark figures, through the fog, the cloaked pair. They slid quickly, but my eyes caught their feet treading the ground. Solid and heavy, footsteps. Probably not ghosts, then. But who—or what—were they?
“They’re not Oskar,” Trenton piped up, and the cloaked figures spun in our direction, aimed their long staffs, and opened fire. Blue bolts filled the air. I lifted my arms to protect us. A blue glow surrounded us, and the bolts bounced off.
“Ow, Lily!” Trenton said, as Lily smacked him again and again. “I’m sorry!”
“It’s all right, Lily. Don’t beat him. It’s too late to hide our position anyway,” I said.
I drew up to my full height of five feet. I fixed my sights on the enemy. I gave them a huge dose—all my fear, my anger, my confusion. I released the blue energy, dead center to the cloaked shapes.
The blast roared through the fog, blue flames filling our sight, burning the blackness away, incredible in its power. I rubbed my eyes, trying to clear the glare. Did I hit them? Were we safe?
The flames died down slowly. Instead of incinerated or retreating shapes, the cloaked figures stood in the middle of the street, leveling their staffs at us.
“Oh no!” The silence. Then the crackling. “Guys. I want you to run for it. I’m going to slow them down so you can get away.”
“What about Oskar?” said Trenton.
Lily grabbed Trenton’s arm and said, “Right, Heather. Just say when.”
“Now!” I said, raising my hands for another shield effect against the blue flames that shot through the air at us. I cursed my own stupidity. I could have gathered their fire power, focused it back at them. But I was pretty new to this paranormal fighting business.
Behind me, I heard Trenton and Lily retreating down the alley. I let loose at the cloaked figures with another huge volley of blue power. What it lacked in aim, it made up in raw force. Stars spun before my eyes as the fire burned across the entire street and into the air above. I huffed with exhaustion. Before they could see where I was going, I retreated into the alley.
