Kat just sat, playing with the straw that danced around the inside of her iced tea bottle, "Hmm? Oh, ya, ya… it'll be great to see dad again…" Kat bobbed her head, agreeing, obviously a million miles away.
Tracy sighed, "There you go again, Kat. Lately you've been stuck on some other planet!" Kat stopped playing with her straw and just shrugged. Then a thought came to Tracy's mind, "Oh, Kat, you're not still hung up on this Casper guy that you first met in Friendship, are ya?" Kat straightened a bit, but didn't answer. She had told Tracy some of the things about her life in Friendship, but not absolutely everything. If she had told Tracy that Casper was a ghost who lived at Whipstaff Manor with his three ghostly uncles, she would've been committed to some mental institution for sure. She had told Tracy how hung up on Casper she was, and how he stood her up at a Halloween dance she hosted when she first came to Friendship. In reality, it wasn't Casper who had done all this, but Vic, Amber's supposed boyfriend. She had to cover somehow to make sure she left ghosts and her dad, the so-called ghost-shrink, out of her life story so she could keep some friends during her time at the University of Maine. She had so much trouble keeping friends when she moved around that making stories that made her appear more acceptable to others just became second nature to her. She realized she was staring off into space yet another time, and woke herself up to the present and looked at Tracy. "Kat, you have this one summer. Heck, you may not even see this Casper guy! So why worry about him? Yes, he was a jerk to you, but you shouldn't dwell on it to spoil the fun you could have." Tracy flashed a brave smile. Kat reluctantly did the same. Tracy got up and went to her closet, rummaged through it, and pulled out her silver roller blades. "You gonna be okay getting the rest of your stuff packed? I promised Sherry I'd met her at the path at one-thirty."
Kat nodded, "Ya, I should be okay… there isn't much else. I think I can manage." She stood up and put her hands in her back pockets. "I guess this is goodbye till September." she said with a sigh.
Tracy smiled, walked up and gave Kat a hug. "Ya, don't worry about me. Working for the summer cannot be all that bad, right?" she commented with a laugh. Kat smiled.
"Ya, you have fun."
"You too, Kat." They let go, and Tracy walked to the door, and waved. Kat waved back, and Tracy shut the door behind her.
Kat turned around to face the mess that had become the dorm room. She had most of her stuff packed, she just needed to pack up a few odds and ends. She walked over to her CD player that sat on top of her computer desk, filed through a few CD's, and took out one that had been at the bottom of the pile. This particular CD looked like it had seen better days, for the cover was scratched, only one of the hinges held onto the casing, and the lyric booklet was coming apart at the fold. It had certainly been played well. Kat smiled as she carefully took the CD from it's case, placed the CD in the player, and hit play on track 7, her favorite song…
Kat put the CD case down, and walked over to her closet. The hanger rack was bare except for a few plastic blue hangers, and a shelf above that held only a few year-old chemistry textbooks. She bent down and pushed a few stuffed animals, which sat on the floor, aside. Concealed behind the stuffed animals was a square, silver metal case that had two metal latches on the front that locked the box shut. She pulled the box out, put a hand on either side where handles were, and carefully lifted the box off of the floor, and carried it over to her bed. She slowly undid each latch and opened the box. The inside revealed one of the golden vessels of red liquid that made the Lazarus work. The Lazarus was a machine built by Casper's father, J.T. McFadden, which, at the time, claimed to bring ghosts back to life. People at first were skeptical of the machine, and of the on-goings at Whipstaff Manor in general, so McFadden never had the chance to try out his machine. When Casper showed Kat the machine, he told her there was only enough of the solution for one. Kat wasn't aware at the time how great Casper's desire to be alive again was, and was touched when Casper decided to give up his dream to revive Kat's father, Dr. James Harvey, back to life again after a night on the town with the ghostly trio. Casper never did tell her how he became human again for the Halloween dance that night…
Kat took the vessel out of the protective gray foam that lined the box, and held it up at eye level, the red liquid catching the light. After her dad was revived, there were 3 vessels left, each only having a trickle of the solution at the bottom. Before Kat left for university, she secretly sneaked down the basement lab and took one of the vessels from the Lazarus. In doing this she hoped to study the liquid in her spare time, since she was going on to major in chemistry, and somehow recreate the liquid that would revive a ghost back to it's original human form. Just enough for one…