Ghoul-ergies

More Spooky Sputterlings...

“Norma. Watching you sneak around like that is just really . . . creepy.”

She looked at me. “For your information, I am not sneaking!” She lifted her nose into the air with attitude. “I’m tiptoeing.”

Should I say it? My sister is, for want of a better word, bulky. Yeah, I’m going in. “Well, when you do it, it’s creepy.”

This time, I got a glare.

I grinned. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going to trap our ghost!”

I should probably mention to any first-timers out there that my sister and I have a ghost. Well—our house has a ghost. Or some sort of resident.

One that smells nice.

I introduced you to him or her (I’m going with her) here.

I felt my eyebrows go up. When I’m talking to my sister, they do it a lot. “How are you planning to trap our ghost?”

“I’ve figured out what she (my sister agrees on the sex of our secret inhabitant) has a weakness for. And I’m going to bait a trap with it.”

My eyebrows went higher. “And the tiptoeing?”

She looked at me. “I’m trying to keep her from finding out about it until it’s too late.”

“Norma, do you honestly believe that our ghost can’t see everything you’re doing right now?”

She thought about that for a moment. Then, “I’m going to go with no. For one thing . . .” she stepped into the tell-tale spot “. . . I can’t smell her perfume.”

“Oh.” I thought about that one. Maybe she had a point. “Ummm . . . so what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to put down this handful of hay.” She held up some dull green grass.

Okay. Eyebrows again. “Hay?”

“Yes. And when she sniffs it, she’ll sneeze. Then I’ll have her!”

“Norma. When you sniff hay, you sneeze.”

“Yeah. So?”

“I don’t.”

She just kept looking at me. “And?”

“Norma,” I said patiently. “Not everyone is allergic to hay. And besides, she’s a ghost. Ghosts don’t sneeze.

“But when I wave it . . .” Norma did so. And sneezed violently.

It echoed weirdly around the room.

I suddenly felt something go creepy-crawly down my back. “Norma,” I said quietly. “Do that again.”

She waved the hay. And sneezed.

This time, the echo was a little behind.

And a little to the right.