Zero Tolerance

by EGB Fan

The Extreme Team plus others help Dr. Venkman's 11yearold daughter out with an embarrassing problem. Well... one reader has been embarrassed by it. You have been warned.

Extreme Ghostbusters: Zero Tolerance

It was Oscar Wallance's day to start eleventh grade. He wasn't feeling too down on going back to school after the summer; at any rate most of his friends would be there. He was now getting dressed to REM, which had woken him up and was still playing on his clock radio. A knock came at his door just as he was rolling on a sock.

Oscar turned off the radio and opened the door. He had on his jeans, t-shirt and one sock; his shoulder-length dark hair was wet from the shower and he hadn't got around to tying it back yet. His younger sister (half-sister technically, but it was not a term they ever used) Jessica Venkman was much less ready than this to start sixth grade. She was still wearing the oversized black t-shirt she had slept in. Her curly brown hair was a mess, but then she probably didn't intend to do much about that anyway.

"Are you ok?" asked Oscar. He sensed that she felt uncomfortable, and with their mother visiting her old colleagues in the LA Symphony Orchestra on the opposite side of the country (yes, they'd be fine without her – and yes, they were quite sure), he was particularly anxious that his sister shouldn't encounter any major problems.

"Yeah," mumbled Jessica, green eyes cast downward. "Hey, can I borrow a t-shirt?"

"A t-shirt?" Oscar echoed confusedly. "But you've got loads."

"They feel kinda snug," Jessica shrugged dismissively. She was tugging at the collar of the t-shirt she wore now, and seemed unable to stand still. "Please?"

"Ok," agreed Oscar. He deemed the sacrifice of one item of clothing worth it to stop his sister acting so strangely. "Here," and he pulled a khaki t-shirt out of his wardrobe.

"Thanks," Jessica smiled weakly. "Um... do you have any that... you know... don't fit you anymore?"

"I expect so." Oscar rummaged around in the back of his wardrobe and emerged seconds later with an armful of dull-coloured t-shirts. "I never wear these anymore. You keep them."

"Thanks," Jessica said again and, clutching the bundle of t-shirts tightly to her chest, she scuttled back to her own room.

Oscar pulled on his other sock, tied back his hair and hurried downstairs somehow all at the same time. He found his stepfather Peter Venkman rummaging around in the kitchen cupboards, presumably looking for something that vaguely resembled breakfast.

"Dad, I think there's something wrong with Jess," Oscar blurted out.

"Really?" Peter's face instantly clouded over with concern. "What?"

"I don't know. She was being weird – but not in the usual way. She took a whole heap of my t-shirts and said that hers felt too snug. Hey – maybe she's anorexic!"

Peter very much doubted that his daughter was anorexic, but Oscar became even more convinced of the possibility when Jessica nibbled half-heartedly on her Pop Tart at breakfast. Peter didn't think this behaviour particularly indicative of any kind of eating disorder, but he could tell that something wasn't right.

"Are you ok, Jessie?" he asked.

Jessica had hidden herself underneath Oscar's khaki t-shirt and a pair of combat trousers that her brother was sure he hadn't officially handed down to her yet. In response to her father's question she sighed and said, "Just not looking forward to going back to school."

"Really?" Peter was surprised. Jessica normally treated school as a social occasion and tended to enjoy herself there. "Would you like me to give you a lift – save you hurrying for the bus?"

At this Jessica seemed to brighten a little, even when Peter agreed to let Oscar drive, which understandably made her feel less safe. However when they arrived at the school and Jessica climbed out of the car, she came over very sullen once again.

"What's the matter with her?" wondered Oscar, watching his sister as she skulked towards a group of boys.

"I expect she'll be ok once she gets back into it," reasoned Peter, trying to convince himself as much as Oscar. "Look – she's fine."

Jessica's group of friends seemed pleased to see her. They had all got into the traditional ritual of thumping each other on the back and suddenly taking the nearest person into an unnecessary spur-of-the-moment headlock, watched with disdain by the group of girls comparing nail polish on the other side of the playground.

"She still looks... I don't know... uncomfortable," Oscar mused carefully, as he started to drive towards his own school. "I hope she'll be ok."

"Her friends'll look after her," Peter decided. "She'll be fine."

"Welcome all of you," Principal Riding chirruped brightly to the auditorium full of students, a clearly fake smile plastered across her face. "And welcome especially to the newcomers. Sixth graders, I want you to make it your special priority to make the little ones feel welcome here and help them out all you can..."

Jessica switched off. It was the same old speech, and since moving here from Los Angeles and joining the school in third grade she had memorised the duties of the older students almost word-for-word. They were to help the younger children, set a good example, try to take on a more active and responsible role in clubs and societies. She could do all that. She'd organise a few girls' sports teams in the lower school and hope they carried on after she left. She felt strongly that the school's athletic endeavours were too male orientated. But, she thought, before she could do that she would have to find some of her misplaced self-esteem and a lot of very big t-shirts.

"Now I can't stress this enough," Riding cut into Jessica's thoughts emphatically. "This school's policy on bullying is Zero Tolerance. If you even suspect that somebody is being bullied you must tell a member of staff immediately!"

There was always bullying going on, Jessica thought sadly: behind the bike sheds, little kids in specs too scared to do anything but hand over their lunch money. One or two bitches from the popular crowd had tried it on Jessica when she first arrived: the non-violent, Cold War kind of bullying that consists largely of dirty looks with the occasional snide comment. But Jessica never stood for it. She made it absolutely clear that she didn't care what the likes of Amber Lightfoot thought, and it wasn't long before they gave up on it.

Thinking about it now, Jessica reflected that she must have had so much confidence in herself to square up to a whole gang of bitchy third graders. So why didn't she feel like that now? Despite having tackled the problem three years ago Jessica could still feel phantom looks, eyes boring into her, particularly when she was anywhere near Amber Lightfoot. Or was it more than her imagination? Jessica cut a sideways glance along the row of seats and distinctly saw Amber staring at her, peering sideways through strands of her much prided long blond hair. And it was only too obvious where she was staring. Jessica looked straight ahead and tried to forget the weight that she felt was dragging her towards the floor. So somebody else had noticed. She wanted the ground to swallow her up.

x x x

Strictly speaking Peter wasn't needed at the firehouse that day, but he felt restless at home worrying about Jessica so he went anyway. Hopefully somebody there might be able to give him some advice on the problems of adolescent girls – maybe even particularly masculine adolescent girls.

When Peter arrived Egon Spengler was there as usual, chatting to his wife Janine at the reception desk. Peter watched them for a moment, wondering if they'd be able to offer him any sage advice where his daughter was concerned.

"What?" demanded Janine, intercepting his gaze.

"Nothing," mumbled Peter, and he started to make his way upstairs.

Egon and Janine had no experience of tomboyish eleven-year-old girls, being the parents of a set of slightly eccentric five-year-old twins. Peter thought his best chances lay with Roland Jackson. He had two younger sisters and four younger brothers, and Peter felt sure that whatever Jessica's problem, Roland must have encountered it before.

"Hey," Peter smiled a greeting at the gathering around the coffee table.

Roland was there; so was Garrett Miller with his girlfriend Joanna Kendall. She was a fitness instructor – curvaceous with light-brown eyes and shoulder-length dark-blond hair – who shared Garrett's passion for sport and chocolate. Their first date had taken place a little under four months ago and now they were at the stage of never letting go of each other if they could possibly help it.

On the sofa sat Kylie Griffin and Eduardo Rivera with their seven-month-old baby Rose, who was sitting on her seemingly subdued mother's lap and looking characteristically grumpy. Rose Rivera really was extraordinarily moody. It was too bad she so rarely smiled because she was cute with puppy fat, downy black hair and huge dark-brown eyes.

"Hey." Interestingly enough Jo was the first to respond to Peter, smiling warmly at him even though she hardly knew him. "Kids get off to school ok? My little brothers missed the bus and my dad made me sit with Alex to drive there."

"How's he doing?" Peter enquired politely.

"Pretty good. He stalled the car a couple of times but it's only my mom's crummy old Ford, so it probably wasn't his fault anyway."

"How about you?" asked Peter, sitting down next to Kylie. "Did Conchita go to preschool ok?"

"Ugh!" Jo rolled her eyes. "Don't get them started. You'd think they were performing Japanese water torture in there or something. Every five minutes it's, 'Do you think she's all right?'"

"Wait 'til you've got kids," retorted Eduardo.

"How was she going in?" asked Peter.

"Fine," answered Kylie. "She was a bit coy but she didn't cry or anything, which I suppose is a good thing. I found it very emotional, though."

"So did I," added Eduardo. "And I'm really missing her."

"Me too," Kylie agreed glumly.

"Yeah, it's weird when they're suddenly not around anymore. But you'll get used to it," Peter assured them. "And she didn't mind at all? No tears, no nothing?"

Eduardo and Kylie both shook their heads, looking almost hurt by this.

"Jessica was like that," went on Peter. "More so probably – she wasn't in the slightest bit coy. Of course I doubt if you'll get a call telling you Conchita's destroyed all of the paint pots. Weird thing, though. This morning Jess complained of BTSS."

Everyone looked blank.

"Back To School Syndrome," Peter elaborated. "She's never had it before in her life. I think there's something wrong."

"Like what?" asked Roland, concerned.

Peter hadn't expected quite such a large audience for this, but nevertheless he described Jessica's symptoms: the sudden need to wear massive clothes, the embarrassed mumbling, the awkward way in which she carried herself and the initial reluctance to join her friends.

"Ah," Jo nodded sagely, exchanging a knowing look with Kylie. "That sounds like a woman problem."

"Woman problem? Oh no!" Peter looked suddenly sick. "Her mom's out of town."

"Oops," remarked Kylie.

"And she doesn't even have any girl buddies to talk to," added Peter.

"You mean all of her friends are boys?" asked Jo. "That can't be much fun for her."

"Nightmare," agreed Kylie. "Poor kid. She must be having a rotten time."

"Stop!" begged Peter. "What can I do?"

"Well there isn't really very much you can do," mused Jo. "Nobody can make the problem go away, and she won't want to talk to you about it."

"Should I call Dana?"

"Let Jess call her mom if she wants to, but you don't want to worry her needlessly," ordered Jo. "Just be nice to Jessica but don't fuss. Try to act normal. Except you mustn't hug her too much."

"Why not?" Peter asked in surprise.

"She won't want you touching her at the moment," Kylie took over. "That'll pass, but she's feeling very sensitive to touch right now."

Peter sighed deeply and said, "Serves me right, I suppose. Dana had to cope with Oscar when he was going through it. We were living in LA then and I was backwards and forwards from here all the time."

The alarm bell sounded, surprising everyone because they hadn't heard the phone ring. Garrett smacked Jo on the lips and then moved off after Roland and Eduardo. Kylie kissed Rose and then bundled her into Peter's arms with a chirpy, "Can you watch her? Thanks!"

"You're ok with babies, aren't you," smiled Jo, going to join Peter on the sofa. "There's a bag of stuff in the kitchen – I'm assuming Kylie remembered to express some milk this morning. Speaking of which, try not to worry too much. Jess will soon get used to it and she'll wonder what she was so upset about."

"Is that some kind of secret code?" asked Peter.

"Ah – forget it," shrugged Jo. "If you still don't understand I'm not going to explain it to you. You know, I really think your kids and I bonded on that weekend in Brooklyn. Tell Jess she can always talks to me if she wants to."

"Thanks," Peter smiled gratefully. "I will."

x x x

"The girls have been complaining of strange noises and funny feelings in this bathroom all morning," Principal Riding explained as she led the four Ghostbusters down a locker-lined corridor. "It may be nothing, but there's no harm in looking."

"No harm at all," agreed Roland.

"Here we are." Riding stopped outside a door marked with the traditional ladies' toilet stick figure. "Can I leave you to it?"

Once Principal Riding had wandered off, Roland absolutely insisted that Kylie go in first just in case the bathroom was occupied. Kylie obliged, and saw at once that one of the cubicle doors was closed. She made up her mind to wait for a moment until whoever it was left, but then she heard what sounded very much like a sob.

"Hey." Kylie wandered over to the cubicle door and asked anxiously, "Are you ok?"

"Ah crud, it's you," a familiar voice muttered, and moments later Jessica Venkman emerged from the cubicle, shamefaced with red-rimmed eyes.

"What's the matter?" Kylie asked, surprised and concerned.

Jessica sniffed and shrugged nonchalantly, "I'm just having a lousy day."

"Shouldn't you be in a class?"

"Yeah. Gym. Somehow I just didn't feel like doing a lot of jumping around."

"You look terrible," Kylie persisted. "I wish you'd tell me what's wrong. Do you want us to take you back with us?"

"No, no." Jessica shook her head. "I can't do that. I'll be fine, really. What are you doing here anyway? Do we have a ghost?"

"There have been complaints about this bathroom," explained Kylie. "Have you heard or felt anything while you were in here?"

Jessica shook her head again, and then made her way over to a basin and started splashing water onto her face, presumably to dispel any trace of tears.

"What were you crying about?" asked Kylie.

"It's not important."

"It must be important if it's making you this upset."

"Look, just drop it, ok?" suddenly snapped Jessica. She caught Kylie's surprised look in the mirror as she checked her face for telltale signs of tears. "I'd better go."

She pushed her way forcefully through the swing-door, cursing quietly as she walked into Garrett's wheelchair. Once over their initial surprise, Kylie's three colleagues followed her into the bathroom and set to work with PKE meters. They weren't overly concerned about Jessica; she'd done a good job of disguising her tear-stained complexion and they assumed her visit to the bathroom had been simply in response to a call of nature.

"There was something here," asserted Roland. "But it's gone now."

They were all reluctant to go too near anything that may or may not be ectoplasm in a set of public toilets, but in the end Kylie found the courage to approach a puddle of slime by one of the basins. She beckoned Roland over and he set to work with a pair of latex gloves and a little plastic jar.

"Jessica was in here just now," Garrett stated the obvious. "You gotta hope that's just coincidence."

"She was crying," Kylie murmured quietly.

"Why?" asked Roland.

"She wouldn't tell me," answered Kylie. "It might just be her – you know – 'woman problem', as Jo calls it. She's bunking off gym."

"If she's that upset the ghost might have something to do with it," mused Roland. "But then again it might be complete coincidence that they chose the same bathroom. Should we tell Dr. Venkman she was ditching gym to cry in a toilet cubicle?"

"Well," mused Eduardo, "if it was Conchita I'd want to know."

"So would I," agreed Kylie. "But Jessica's older, which does make a difference. I think it's a problem she wouldn't feel comfortable talking to her father about. And she was very anxious that I didn't ask too many questions. Seems to me like she wants to keep it to herself."

"Peter would spend the rest of the day worrying like crazy," put in Garrett. "But it seems wrong somehow to keep it from him. Jessica's obviously really upset."

"Right." Kylie envisioned Conchita bawling inside one of the tiny toilet cubicles at her preschool, and grew angry at the mere speculation that she might not be informed if this happened. "We'll mention it. But Jessica won't thank us later."

x x x

Peter was trying to comfort a grizzling Rose by jigging her on his hip when Kylie wandered into the kitchen.

"Thank God," sighed Peter, handing Rose over to her mother. "Jo threw her at me when she started crying and now she and Janine have mysteriously disappeared."

"Hello darling," Kylie smiled at Rose, rocking her gently. "Sorry. She's at that age where she'll only stop crying for about three people – namely me, Eduardo and Kevin. I suppose you studied all of that stuff for your PhD."

"Yes," confirmed Peter, "and it's one of the things I bothered to remember. There's not a lot of that stuff you actually need to know, but child psychology can come in pretty handy when you've got kids."

"Ha – yeah – and adolescent psychology too, I suppose. There's – uh – something I should tell you," Kylie began uncertainly. "That call was from Jessica's school. The principal took us to a girls' bathroom; I found Jessica in there ditching gym. She looked kind of upset."

"Why?" Peter asked anxiously.

"I think it's just the woman problem," Kylie told him reasonably, still robotically rocking her baby. "She said she was having a lousy day, but that was all: she really didn't want to talk about it. She said she'd be ok, but I don't know. I'm sorry. I know you'll worry but I thought you should be told."

"Thanks," Peter murmured distractedly. "Maybe I should call Dana. If Jess is unhappy she'll want to be home."

"It's just her age," Kylie tried to reassure him. "Eleven sucks."

"I remember," Peter smiled dryly. "Thanks for telling me."

x x x

Oscar was walking home from school with his friends Danny, Ella and Tim. They were a close group, having all met shortly after the Venkmans New York and soon after forming their band Mood Slime. Oscar had arranged to meet Jessica from school on the way home, unaware of Peter's decision to meet her himself, which obviously had been made as soon as he heard of his daughter's unhappiness.

"Ok, so where is she?" wondered Tim, scanning the playground full of five-to-twelve year olds. "I thought you said she'd be waiting."

"She said she would be," Oscar murmured distractedly, his eyes moving scrupulously over the crowd of children. Soon enough he thought he saw a flash of his sister's unkempt brown curls, and he found himself focussing his eyes on a group of girls all wearing bright clothing, plastic jewellery and excessive makeup.

There was the hair again, and the familiar khaki t-shirt: green eyes flashing angrily, fighting back tears, as a particularly skinny blonde shoved Jessica towards one of her companions. Anger instantly started to well up inside Oscar. Those kids were surrounded by teachers and parents. Why in God's name wasn't somebody doing something?

"Hey!" exclaimed Oscar, nimbly jumping the low wall beside him and sprinting quickly towards the gathering.

The girls all looked round and shuffled awkwardly when they saw Oscar; absolutely every single one of them had a hopeless crush on him. Oscar forgot all gallantry and forcibly shoved one or two of the girls aside to reach his sister. She stared at him with empty eyes; he pulled her out of the circle of girls and steered her quickly towards the school gates, favouring her attackers with a vehement glare over his shoulder.

"Are you ok?" Oscar asked, once he had parked his sister beside his suitably anxious looking friends.

"What's going on?" a familiar voice suddenly demanded, and Peter pushed his way in between Danny and Ella.

"Those Barbie dolls over there were pushing Jess around," Oscar told him angrily.

"WHAT?" exclaimed Peter. "Why?"

Jessica said nothing.

"WHY?" demanded Oscar, shaking his sister by the shoulders. Then, seeing her wounded expression, he let go of her and murmured, "Sorry. But what was that about? Does it happen often?"

"No, that was the first time," mumbled Jessica.

"Do you know why they were doing it?" Danny was joining in now. All of Oscar's closest friends were fond of Jessica and he was concerned. "You know guys, it might just be a one-off because they were feeling particularly bitchy today."

"That's it," agreed Jessica. "As far as I can tell they're jealous or something because I hang around with the boys."

Peter looked searchingly into her eyes, desperate to ask her if that was the truth. Maybe there was some kind of bullying campaign going on. Was that why she spent her gym lesson in a toilet cubicle? It was very worrying. He hadn't been able to reach Dana earlier, but he decided to try calling again the moment they got home.

"Have they been bullying you?" Oscar asked sharply. "Is that why you didn't want to go to school? And why you looked so down all morning? And why you came to my room and...?" He tailed off, knowing the end of that sentence would just sound silly.

"What? Borrowed your t-shirt?" snapped Jessica. "I'm not weak enough to let anybody bully me. It's nothing."

Knowing what he knew, of course Peter was totally unconvinced. He sensed it would be a bad idea to ask Jessica about the incident in the bathroom right now. For one thing she probably wouldn't want an audience if and when she decided to talk about it. Ignoring Jo's advice, Peter went with his gut instinct and put his arms around his daughter. He felt quite hurt when she tensed up the moment he touched her.

Jessica waited only a moment or two before pushing her father away and asking irritably, "Can we go home now?"

"Yes," Peter sighed morosely. "The car's across the street. Oscar, do you want to come with us or stay with these guys?"

"I'll go with you," Oscar answered at once. However he hung back a moment to say to his friends, "Sorry, but I have to go. You understand."

"Absolutely," Ella nodded vigorously. "Your sister's upset. Look – call me the moment you find out who's responsible. I'll beat them up."

"I'm tempted to beat up the bitch crowd right now," put in Tim. "But I suppose it'd be morally wrong to hit a bunch of eleven-year-old girls, however much they deserve it."

"I hope they all go through high school with acne," Oscar intoned darkly. "Anyway, I'd better go. We really need to get Jessie home."

x x x

When Kevin Rivera went straight to the firehouse from school, Conchita found herself telling the story of her morning at preschool all over again. He listened while she sat on his lap and told him what she'd played with, how many friends she had made, how she missed her parents a bit but everyone was really nice and she had fun.

"It was a bit stupid," Conchita told him, slowly and deliberately, "when they tried to teach me the alphabet."

Kevin thought that his cousin was absolutely sweet. She was by general consensus of opinion a pretty little thing. She had a light tan and long, straight dark-brown hair that she usually wore in bunches or a ponytail. She had a round face that came out in dimples when she smiled, and the same big dark-green eyes that Kylie had inherited from her own mother (to her regret – she couldn't stand looking like the much hated Jill Griffin).

Eduardo and Kylie (and Rose, as it happened) were hearing the story for the second time, and so was Roland. Jo had had to work a shift at the gym during Conchita's first recital, and now she and Garrett were listening to the story for the first time.

"She already knows the alphabet," Garrett explained to Jo.

"And they did it wrong," added Conchita.

"Oh yeah, they do it phonetically there," said Jo, who knew all about the preschool because her mother worked there part-time. "You know: ah, buh, cuh and so on. It's stupid because it just confuses them when they start trying to learn the letter names."

"I know the letter names," Conchita told her complacently. "And I know the sounds."

"Really?" Jo was impressed. "Can you write anything?"

"Most of the letters," answered Conchita. "But not words – except my name."

"What, all of it?" Jo asked incredulously.

"Of course all of it."

"Oh no, she's smarter than me!" complained Jo. "I couldn't write my name until I was five and there are only two letters in it!"

"How long before you could write 'Joanna'?" asked Garrett.

"I'm not telling you."

"Hi everyone!" a new voice suddenly called out, and they all turned to see Kylie's cousin Matt Fowler-Davies strolling into the room.

Conchita squealed with delight and jumped down from Kevin's lap, running over to Matt and wrapping her arms around his thighs. Kevin was extremely hurt by this gesture, not least because he hated Matt and they seemed to see each other as rivals for various people's affections – even Kevin's mother and paternal grandmother.

"Ooh Chita, look how you've grown!" Matt screeched in a caricature elderly-relative voice.

Conchita giggled as Matt stooped and hugged her tightly. He was small for his nineteen years and had a cutesy, almost elf-like appearance with huge green eyes and short spiked auburn hair. In truth he had a minor inferiority complex about his looks, but he had spent much of the last year learning to accept that there was nothing he could do about it, so he might as well suffer his fate with good grace.

"Hey Rosie!" exclaimed Matt, beaming widely as Kylie handed him her baby without hesitation. "My God, you're massive!" Then he looked round at the gathering and greeted everyone in turn: "Hi Ky, hi Eddie, hi Roland, hi Garrett, hi..."

"Jo," Jo smiled pleasantly at him.

"Hi Jo. I'm Matt." Then he turned to look at Kevin and said dispassionately, with a watery smile, "Hello Kevin."

Kevin said nothing, so Conchita marched over to her cousin and thumped him quite hard on the shin. This jolted Kevin out of his rage-induced catatonia and he said sarcastically, "Hello Matt. It's very nice to see you."

"You are absolutely beautiful," Matt told Rose. "So Chita." He sat down on the sofa next to Kylie, cuddling the baby to his chest. "How was Preschool?"

Conchita had just finished her third recitation on preschool when Egon came in and announced, "I've analysed that sample you brought me this morning."

"This should be interesting for us," Matt smiled at Jo, and she gave a sarcastic nod of agreement.

"It was very interesting," Egon went on. "I can't come up with an explanation for it as yet, but it seems that the negative feelings accumulating in that bathroom over the years have resulted in some sort of manifestation."

"There does tend to be a lot of crying in elementary school girls' bathrooms," remarked Jo.

"Right," agreed Kylie, who happened to have quite some personal experience of this common phenomenon. "So what is it – like the embodiment of pubescent angst?"

"Something like that," Egon nodded. "It's not unusual for some spirits and demons to feed of people's emotions. In this case I'm fairly sure that it's insecurity."

"Insecurity," Kylie repeated thoughtfully. "Well I can't help thinking of poor little Jessica Venkman."

"She was crying in a toilet cubicle," Roland said, for the benefit of those who didn't know.

"Crying in a toilet cubicle?" echoed Egon. "Did you tell Peter?"

"Of course," answered Kylie. "So what exactly does this mean for her?"

"It might not be anything to do with Jessica," reasoned Egon. "A lot of girls that age are insecure. So are boys, come to that. It might be worth checking out the boys' bathrooms and locker room as well when I send you back there."

"When will that be?" asked Eduardo.

"Tomorrow morning. I think it'll help if there are students around. I need more than what you've given me. This spirit evokes feelings of insecurity but it also seems to thrive on them, and at the moment I can't tell which came first."

"A chicken and egg situation, you mean," Matt cut in. Then as an afterthought he added, "Who's Jessica?"

"Dr. Venkman's daughter," answered Roland. "You've heard of Dr. Venkman. And we still can't be sure this is anything to do with her."

"I just think of how I found her in that toilet cubicle," Kylie told them all thoughtfully. "It was so strange. I don't know her all that well, but she usually seems so happy and she's always struck me as having a lot of confidence."

"But she's at that age," reasoned Jo. "Her body's changing. That's really scary."

"Surely all the sixth graders are going through it," Garrett pointed out.

"Yes," agreed Kylie, "but she seems to be taking it really badly."

"Interesting," remarked Matt. "I wonder if I can help."

"You?" Kevin asked scathingly. "What can you do? You don't even know her."

"No I don't," Matt answered calmly, "but I do know what it is to hate your body – even to hate it so much you that want to hurt it. Now I know it's a long shot, but if Jessica's been crying in the bathroom and making ghosts appear – which I understand you've just told me is a possibility – there's a chance I can make her feel better about herself, in which case the problem should go away... right?"

"I'm reminded of Janine's Lotsabucks incident," remarked Roland. "And we've all been through changes at some point, even if they weren't of a paranormal nature. There are a lot of people Jessica could talk to."

"It's just a case of persuading her," Eduardo deduced. "When it was me I wouldn't talk to anyone."

"Honourable though it is, I think this is turning into a discussion on Jessica Venkman's emotional well-being," Egon deadpanned. "As Garrett says, a lot of those children are going through it. It could be that they're all involved; it could be one or a select few that Jessica has nothing to do with. We won't know more until you've gone back to the school and seen it for yourselves."

x x x

After they got home, Peter regressed about five or six years and made Jessica some hot chocolate. While she drank it he and Oscar asked her a lot of questions about the playground incident, and Jessica could only shut them up by announcing that she was going upstairs to take a shower.

The shower did actually make her feel better. During it she was very careful not to look down at herself or to move her hands around too much, but then when she wandered back to her bedroom she caught sight of the full-length mirror on her wardrobe door. Practically every article of clothing she owned was draped over it, dangling from hangers hooked over the top of the door. Jessica stared, remembering how she had shielded the mirror that morning in a fit of raw, powerful emotion. Then, slowly and carefully, she began to peel away the layers of jeans and t-shirts until she was looking at her own strangely calm expression.

Taking a deep breath, Jessica untied the cord around her waist and let her towelling robe fall to the floor. And then she looked. She felt strangely composed. Though still repulsed by the sight, she didn't feel compelled to hide from herself or to burst into tears. She sighed resignedly, realising that there wasn't much she could do about this and that she'd just have to get used to the idea of change. She didn't feel ready but she had to accept it. She just had to. And besides, just because her body was changing that didn't mean the rest of her had to change with it. She was still Jessica: still the same light-hearted, fun loving tomboy who could make her friends laugh. She'd always been able to look on the bright side of any situation. She couldn't quite feel it in her heart yet, but she knew that logically this occasion needn't be any exception.

Jessica tugged on a pair of jeans and one of Oscar's old t-shirts. She looked at herself again. You could still tell, she thought gloomily, but perhaps it was just because she knew the change was there and she was looking for it. She lifted her gaze to her face and hair. That mess of curls probably took most people's attention anyway. She looked firmly into her own eyes and vowed that she would not let her rebellious body dictate the pace of change inside her. Mentally, emotionally, she would stay the same. She knew that she'd eventually grow up, but not until she was ready. She thought about pulling off the t-shirt and taking another look, but she didn't feel ready for that yet.

"Hello!"

Jessica turned round sharply at the unexpected intrusion. At first she saw no one, and then her eyes slipped towards the floor and she caught sight of a tiny, glowing ghost-like girl whose big eyes and unreal size gave her the comical appearance of a Powerpuff Girl.

"Are you kidding me?" Jessica asked the thing scathingly. "What the hell are you supposed to be?"

"Sweetness and light," the Powerpuff Girl sang happily, in a ludicrously high-pitched voice. "You're not very happy, are you Jessie."

It was a struggle for Jessica not to laugh. She hadn't watched "Pokémon" a great many times, but somehow this ridiculous little ghost reminded her of the Jigglypuff. It had the same vacant smile and sounded exactly like it.

"I'm fine," shrugged Jessica. "Could you get out of my room now please?"

"But I can help you," the Jiggly-/Power-puff creature sang happily. "You want to return to the way you were years, months – even weeks ago. The change is too sudden."

"I'll get over it," Jessica told the thing dryly. "Now piss off."

"Look in the mirror again."

"No."

"Please?" the thing blinked cutely up at her.

Sighing, Jessica spun round and looked again at the full-length mirror. She supposed she should have expected something like this, but nevertheless she gasped with shock and amazement when she found that she was looking at herself about six years younger.

"Do you miss her?" squeaked the creature.

"She's still here," Jessica told the annoying little thing firmly, turning back to face it. "My body may be changing but I can deal with it. I'm still the same person."

"Are you?" crooned the creature. "You don't like yourself as much as you used to. Your new body is shrouding your confidence and it's changing all the time. Imagine what Amber Lightfoot and her cronies will have to say to you next week."

"I don't care what Amber Lightfoot thinks," snapped Jessica.

"Really?" The creature blinked its big, heavily lashed eyes slowly. "Why were you so upset when she called you a Hollywood beach bunny? You spent your gym lesson crying in the bathroom."

"Yes, I remember. You really don't know why that made me cry?"

"That girl hurt your feelings," the thing insisted.

"No she didn't," Jessica snapped. "I've never cared what she thinks of me and I'm not going to start now. She just confirmed it for me, that's all. She noticed the change, and it just made it seem more real. I wasn't crying because of what she said. She just got me wondering if my friends thought the same – and I wasn't about to jog around the gym jumping for basketballs with that thought in my head."

"So you want to change back," the creature persisted.

"No," Jessica was adamant. "I'd rather not be changing, but I know I have to so I might as well accept it. Look sweetheart, I don't know what you're trying to do, but it won't work. I feel fine with myself, eventually my body will stop changing and I'll feel comfortable in it again. I might feel self-conscious around my guy friends but I won't worry about them treating me differently until it happens, ok?"

Jessica watched her annoying visitor for a few moments, and realised that the thing appeared to be fading.

"Look," Jessica went on firmly. "I don't care what the Amber Lightfoots of this world think and I don't care what you think. Now piss off!"

The creature vanished into quite a beautiful silvery mist. Jessica watched with some satisfaction as it flew out of the window. In a way she supposed she should be grateful to it. She had realised a lot about herself before she even knew the thing was there, but it helped to argue it out with somebody.

Smiling now, Jessica flounced out of her room and started downstairs. She immediately saw Oscar dialling the phone by the stairwell, so she leaned over the banister and said to the top of his head, "You're calling Mom, aren't you."

"Maybe," Oscar answered evasively.

"Don't."

"Why not?"

"I feel fine now. Honestly," she added, catching sight of Oscar's dubious expression. "Come on, put the phone down. There's no need to worry Mom because I'm ok. Where's Dad? Come with me and I'll tell you both why Amber Lightfoot and her patsies were throwing me around after school."

Eager to hear this, Oscar obediently put down the phone and followed Jessica into the sitting room. He and Peter were both relieved to see that the spring seemed to be back in her step. That t-shirt was about five sizes too big for her, but never mind that. Wearing her brother's clothes was a habit Jessica had had since the day she figured out how to open his wardrobe.

"It was just Amber being stupid. You know what girls are like," Jessica said scathingly. "She's decided she's in love with my buddy Josh, and the way I understand it Josh turned her down for a Coke after school and immediately came to ask me if I wanted to play soccer with him and some guys at the weekend. So Amber got jealous and called me a slut before gym class, and then at some point she got together with her stupid friends and they decided to – you know – chuck me around a bit. It was just a stupid girly spat, and quite frankly I didn't tell you because I'm ashamed to have been involved."

"You didn't exactly have a choice," Peter pointed out. "You will tell us if it happens again, won't you?"

"It won't happen again," Jessica returned coolly. "I can handle it. She'll probably be desperately in love with somebody else by the end of the week anyway."

"I thought she was desperately in love with me," Oscar put in, almost sounding hurt.

"Oh, they all are," shrugged Jessica. "I expect she was just trying to be original. And that's it, ok? No more questions. I'm fine."

"So why did you ditch gym to cry in a toilet cubicle?" Peter blurted out.

"WHAT?" squeaked Oscar. "Why don't I know about this?"

"Oh Dad." Jessica doubled up at the waist and buried her head in her crossed legs, vowing to strangle Kylie the first chance she got. "I was upset about something but I'm over it now. I don't want to talk about it, ok?"

"Ok," Peter agreed, though very reluctantly. "But you know you can always talk to me."

"Yes, I know," Jessica told him with forced patience. "Can we just forget it now please? I'm fine and I'm sorry I worried you. Want me to put the oven on for dinner?"

Peter was surprised by the question, but he answered it as best he could: "Um... yes."

"Ok." Jessica stood up and made for the kitchen, calling over her shoulder, "And don't talk about me while I'm gone! There's no need!"

x x x

Amber Lightfoot was standing in front of the pine-framed full-length mirror in her bedroom, just staring with cold blue eyes. Her long blond hair was wet from the shower and droplets of water fell deftly onto the towel that shrouded the girl's skinny, unripe body. Scowling, Amber tugged on the towel and let it fall to her feet.

"Look at that," she said scathingly. "I'm twelve next week. Venkman doesn't turn twelve until next year and she's already getting boobs. I'll bet she's loving it. She is such a slut – always hanging around the boys. It'll be even more fun for her now she's got those monstrosities to wave in their faces."

"Well," crooned the tall, beautiful apparition behind her, "you know what women from Los Angeles are like."

"I meant it, you know," Amber spat vehemently. "She should go back to Hollywood with all the other fakes. That girl is so shallow. Mind you, Josh Kingsley obviously likes it. He turned me down flat and then went and drooled all over her."

"Is that why you want to grow?" crooned the apparition. "So this Josh will like you?"

"Partly," Amber smiled slightly. "I wish I had your figure."

"Like this, you mean?"

Amber suddenly felt compelled to blink slowly. When she opened her eyes and looked into the mirror she saw herself perhaps five or six years older, with a generous hourglass figure.

"Beautiful!" she breathed. "Will I look like that someday?"

"We can but hope," the apparition smiled serenely.

"When?" Amber demanded impatiently. "When can I look like that? How much longer will I have to wait?"

"Perhaps not long at all," the apparition answered vaguely. "Josh would notice you if you looked like that, don't you think?"

An image of Josh suddenly appeared in the mirror. He looked faint and faraway, but Amber could clearly see his eyes on her, transfixed and heavy with desire. She felt strangely uneasy. Nobody had ever looked at her like that before.

"Of course he still has a lot of growing up to do," the apparition went on. "Is there anyone else? Someone a bit more mature, perhaps."

Josh and the beautiful blonde in the mirror both faded away, only to be replaced by the image of a handsome long-haired teenage boy. The image moved, gently caressing the strings on an electric guitar.

"Oscar," whispered Amber, reaching out to touch the mirror. "He is lovely. But I think I'll stick with Josh if it's all the same to you. I suppose in some way I'd rather have Oscar, but he's Venkman's brother. It would be a hollow victory to steal him from every girl in my class except the one I really hate."

"I can't help feeling that you've got Venkman a bit wrong," the apparition remarked. "She doesn't think of boys in the same way you do. They're just friends to her; that's why she can talk to them so much better than you can."

"Yes, well, having jugs like that can't hurt," snapped Amber. "Slut. Her brother's a slut too – and her dad. Why ever did they leave LA?"

"Perhaps they found it too superficial. For all you say that Venkman is a slut, she has intelligence."

"Yes, she has more of that than me as well," murmured Amber. "I suppose physically I'll catch up, but I'll never be as smart as her."

"Perhaps you could be," the apparition smiled dryly, "but you'll have to talk to somebody else about that. Shall I leave now, Amber?"

"Yes, I suppose you'd better."

"But I'll come back to check on you."

"Yes," Amber agreed. "Thank you. You're very kind."

"Think nothing of it," and the apparition slowly vanished.

x x x

Jessica looked at herself in the mirror again the next morning, felt momentarily sick and then pulled Oscar's old charcoal-grey t-shirt over her head. Then she turned ninety degrees, pulled the t-shirt taut around her front and carefully regarded her profile. Good God, they were growing faster than bamboo. She groaned, dismissed it from her mind, clambered into a pair of jeans and then went downstairs for breakfast.

Oscar got a lift to school from his friend Tim, and Jessica took the bus like usual. She felt ok walking out of her front door, but when she stepped onto the bus and saw first the driver and then her friends waving and smiling at her, she felt suddenly very awkward and for some reason much bigger. She hugged her book bag tightly to her chest as she walked self-consciously down the centre of the bus, eventually stopping to sit next to her friend Josh.

Josh had floppy light-brown hair, a clumsy smile and a terrific sense of humour. He was very into sports, which was probably why one or two of the girls had started looking his way. He was also a brilliant friend: loyal and understanding with a good sense of humour. It wasn't often that Jessica needed him to be understanding, and now that she actually had a problem she was sorry she couldn't talk to him about it.

"Hi Jess," Josh greeted her pleasantly.

"Hi," mumbled Jessica, feeling awkward and clumsy. The bus started up and she flinched when she felt distinct movement in the general chest area. Feeling extremely uncomfortable, she clutched the book bag crushingly against her.

"Are you ok?" asked Josh, smiling clumsily at her.

"Fine." She tried smiling back at him, and her skin felt tight just under her left eye. Oh perfect – she was coming out in zits as well!

A few more of Jessica's friends boarded the bus at the next stop. They all greeted her pleasantly, and she did her best to act naturally around them. It was a horrible feeling: for the first time in her life she felt that she and her friends were divided by a big difference between them. It was just no longer possible to think of herself as one of the boys.

At the next stop Amber Lightfoot bounced brightly onto the bus. Her long, lush, lavishly treated blond hair was pulled back into a ponytail, which she flipped grandly as she made her way to sit beside one of her cronies. Jessica usually did a good job of ignoring the ostentatious shows Amber put on whenever she entered a room – or a bus, as the case may be – but on this occasion she couldn't help but stare. Just why hadn't she noticed this before? And more to the point, what had she being worrying about? Setting the book bag down on the floor, Jessica looked down at herself and realised there was practically nothing there!

"Whoa," she heard one of the bitch crew whisper. "What happened?"

"Are they real?" another asked dubiously.

"Mai oui, of course," Amber answered smugly.

"Wow," Josh murmured to Jessica. "Did you see that?"

"Hmm, very impressive," Jessica smiled dryly. "Too bad her brain didn't suddenly get huge as well. Guys." She turned round in her seat to look at a pair of boys behind her. "She didn't look like that yesterday, did she?"

"Who cares?" asked the one of them dismissively. They were both staring down the bus at Amber, probably not really aware of Jessica's words at all.

"Honestly." Rolling her eyes, Jessica turned back round to face the front of the bus. "Put your tongues away guys, before someone trips over them."

A straggler took his seat and then the bus juddered into life again. Jessica felt that unfamiliar movement and immediately reached for her book bag. While Josh was busy staring at Amber, she sneaked another look down. Admittedly it wasn't all that much to look at, but to Jessica it felt heavy and cumbersome.

"Whoa!" somebody exclaimed as the kids filed off the bus outside the school. "The Ghostbusters are here!"

Frowning with puzzlement, Jessica stepped off the bus and immediately caught sight of Roland, Kylie, Eduardo and Garrett. Well, they weren't exactly difficult to miss. She started running towards them, felt that tugging movement a little below her neck and so slowed to a dignified walk.

"Hey," she greeted the four Ghostbusters. "What are you guys doing here again?"

"There's a ghost in that bathroom you were..." Kylie tailed off, remembering that this was a taboo subject at least as far as Jessica was concerned. She risked a quick glance at the girl's chest and longed to tell her that whatever she had there, she was almost certainly the only one who knew about it. Instead she asked, "How are you doing?"

"I'm fine," Jessica smiled reassuringly. "Totally, absolutely and utterly fine. It was just a girl giving me a hard time. I'm ok now."

Roland thrust his PKE meter under Jessica's chin. "She's not giving me a reading," he reported. "Are you sure you're ok, Jess?"

"Yes," Jessica insisted, her tone irritable.

"Good," Kylie smiled at her. "You know, if you ever want to talk to anyone..."

"Thanks, but I think I'll just use my mom," returned Jessica. "So what about this ghost? Is there anything I can do to help?"

Of course she remembered the ghost/angel/Pokémon/Powerpuff Girl in her bedroom the day before, but she was sure that it had nothing to do with whatever was haunting the toilets. And besides, she didn't really want to tell anybody about what the Pokémon/Powerpuff Girl thing had said to her.

"Not just now," Garrett smilingly answered her question. "But thanks."

"I'll leave you to it then."

They watched as Jessica turned and started sprinting towards a group of boys. However in less than a second she had slowed to a walk.

"This ghost has been absolutely everywhere," Roland reported, as he and the other three Ghostbusters scanned an empty corridor with PKE meters. "Playground, cafeteria, girls' bathroom, here..."

"I wonder about the lockers," mused Kylie.

"Yeah," Roland agreed. "If one student is tied up in all of this..."

He left the sentence unfinished, instead walking over to the nearest line of lockers and slowly running his PKE meter over it. Interestingly there was almost nothing there: just faint residual traces, certainly a weaker reading than in the centre of the corridor. The previous whereabouts of the ghost seemed to suggest that it might well be following one student, so they set off in search of the locker that they hoped would give them a clue as to where to look next.

"I've found Jessica's classroom," Garrett announced, shortly after turning into another corridor. "She seems to have cheered up quite a bit."

Kylie was a lot more sensitive to Jessica's problem than her three colleagues were, and she felt compelled to take the opportunity to check on her. Glancing through the glass in the door to the sixth grade classroom, Kylie could see what Garrett meant by his last remark.

"What's she so hysterical about?" wondered Eduardo, drawing up beside Kylie.

Jessica was crying with helpless laughter, the group of boys surrounding her all struggling to keep a straight face. Garrett, Eduardo and Kylie watched as Jessica, still laughing uncontrollably, struggled towards the teacher's desk and accepted a hall pass. Then she made her way towards the door and exited the room, her hiccupping laughter reverberating around the large empty corridor.

"Hey," Garrett greeted her pleasantly. "What's so funny?"

Jessica gulped a few times before she was able to stop laughing and say, "It's Mr. Lloyd's physics demonstration. He uses..."

"Yes?" Garrett prompted her.

"He uses a towel to keep his balls still," and she burst into a fresh torrent of laughter.

Kylie, Eduardo and Garrett suspected that this was one of those stories where you had to be there in order to see the funny side. Jessica had been there of course, and she didn't stop laughing until Roland called her name sharply.

"Jessica!" he shouted across the corridor. "Would you happen to know whose locker this is?"

Jessica calmed her hysteria and took a moment to look at the locker Roland was pointing at. Then she walked over to it, checked its position against the other lockers and said firmly, "Yes. Two doors down from mine – that's Amber Lightfoot's."

"Know her?" asked Garrett. He joined Roland by the locker and took a reading from it. Yep – there was definitely something going on there.

"I know her all right," Jessica intoned darkly. "She's the queen bee around here. She and I tend to avoid each other but yesterday after school she and some of her cronies decided it'd be funny to push me around. And then she went home and suddenly grew boobs overnight," she added as a point of interest.

"Interesting," Garrett deadpanned, cocking an eyebrow.

"Think it's relevant?" asked Eduardo, half-serious.

"Well, I don't think it usually happens that suddenly, but then again I suppose it isn't that spectacular," mused Roland. Thinking of his sisters he added, "When AJ was possessed by the ghost in Tara's oven, she stuffed herself with socks."

"I didn't think of that," Jessica admitted. "It's the sort of thing Amber might do. But if there is a ghost, and if you're getting something from her locker, it might be more than just socks. It seems pretty weird – especially since she supposedly started stuffing on the second day back at school – but then she is weird."

"There were some real vipers in my sixth grade class," Kylie cut in. "Some of them were desperate to – you know – mature. And yes," she added, "some of them did used to stuff themselves with socks."

Jessica pursed her lips, thinking that she should tell them about Amber staring at her chest the morning before. But there were three men present and she really didn't want to. Maybe she'd tell Kylie about it later – if indeed the whole issue turned out to be relevant. Perhaps she was just obsessed with suddenly inflating body parts and that was why she thought of it. Thinking of it now, Jessica became suddenly very self-aware and felt desperate to get away from them – particularly Garrett, who was pretty much on eye-level with the offending objects.

"Need anything else?" she asked. "Only I'm s'posed to go and see the principal."

"Better go then," advised Roland. "Thanks for your help."

x x x

Matt had volunteered to do the preschool run at lunchtime, and Conchita had willingly agreed. When the time came Matt took Rose with him in her carrier, if only as proof of his identity. He had felt strangely ominous about trying to take a child from the preschool ever since Kylie casually announced, "I'll call now and tell them you're collecting her today. They don't let the kids go off with just anyone, obviously."

However when he and Rose arrived at the preschool, Matt was instantly converted: he was one hundred percent in favour of the strict anti-kidnap policy. For there, standing and arguing with a middle-aged blond lady out on the quad, was his aunt and Kylie's mother Jill. His fingers tightened around the handle of Rose's carrier and he wondered what to do.

Should he confront her? Well, there were two problems with that. Firstly Matt had Rose with him, and Kylie was prepared to go to extreme measures to stop her younger daughter from ever meeting her maternal grandmother. As to Conchita, Jill had seen her once when she was a baby, and Kylie was determined that she shouldn't see her again. And besides all that, if Matt marched over to Jill and addressed her by name, that woman whoever-she-was would realise they knew each other and she'd probably cross-question Matt and insist upon making a lot of phone calls before she would allow him to take Conchita.

Matt dithered behind a lamppost until Jill finally gave up and walked away. He watched her carefully, willing her not to look in his direction, and then slipped out from behind the lamppost and hurried onto the quad when she had her back to him.

The blonde watched Jill suspiciously. Matt gave her the once-over while she was distracted, and quickly deduced from her nametag that he had been correct in assuming she worked there. The tag read, "Sarah Kendall". Wow – Jo's mother! What luck!

"Hey," Matt smiled cutely at her, switching on the charm in anticipation of awkward questions. "I'm here for Conchita Rivera. Hey – you're Jo's mom, aren't you?"

"Yes," Sarah Kendall smiled at him. "You must be Kylie's cousin."

"Matt Fowler-Davies." Matt moved Rose's carrier from his right hand to his left and offered a handshake. "So how'd Chita get on?"

"Great," Sarah smiled at him, shaking his hand. Then her smile wavered as she went on uncertainly, "I should tell you that a woman claiming to be her grandmother just asked to take her home. I didn't let her – I hope that was the right thing to do."

"Of course it was," Matt told her firmly. "She could have been anyone."

"Well the thing is that she looked kinda like Kylie," said Sarah. "And Conchita. And you too, come to that – but I didn't know that then. I'm afraid I sent her away."

"Yeah, like I said, that was absolutely the right thing to do," Matt insisted. "Look, Mrs. Kendall – between you and me, Kylie doesn't exactly want her mother around right now."

"Oh!" Sarah looked startled and even slightly alarmed. "Yikes! Was she trying to kidnap her?"

"She might well have been," Matt smiled dryly. "I'm sorry. I'll try to get hold of her and make sure she doesn't do it again. God!" he suddenly spat angrily. "I can't believe she'd do something like this! Kylie is gonna be so pissed."

"Right... well... we're expecting you," Sarah told him uncertainly. "Conchita seems to recognise you anyway," and she flashed a smile at the brown-haired little girl waving enthusiastically from the classroom window. "I'll fetch her for you."

Matt had walked the way there, but he'd forgotten to bring Conchita's pushchair and it was probably too far for little legs like hers to walk. He managed to hail a cab and had the driver take him to Eduardo and Kylie's apartment. They had given him keys because their sofa was the only accommodation he could afford i.e. free. He was a little nervous of being alone with a baby and a three year old but he could always try to reach their parents at work, and if they were out on a case (which he knew they were) Eduardo's sister-in-law was number one of the speed-dial.

Number one on the speed-dial, thought Matt, as he walked with Conchita along the corridor that led to the flat. That's easy enough to remember. She knows exactly what to do with these girls and she'll gladly come over if it's anything I really can't handle. Too bad she can't tell me what to do about Jill.

Matt directed a polite smile at yet another stranger on the receiving end of Conchita's cheery, "Hello!" – and then finally he was able to usher her into the flat, kick the door shut behind him and breathe out. Between here and the cab he'd half expected Jill to leap out from somewhere, prise Rose's carrier from his hand and run away with it shouting, "I'll be back for the other one too!" Well – perhaps nothing quite that bad, but he imagined something horribly similar.

"So." Matt shook off his hoodie and kicked off his shoes, smiling enthusiastically at Conchita. "Looks like the cab ride sent Rosie to sleep. What would you like for lunch?"

x x x

The school playground was filled with noise, and Jessica was kicking a ball around the adjoining playing field with a group of boys. She had already pointed Amber Lightfoot out to the Ghostbusters, who were now watching as the malicious blonde yakked incessantly to a group of simpering Barbie dolls.

"So what do we say to her?" wondered Garrett. "'Excuse me honey, could you just whip your top off for us?'"

Kylie rolled her eyes and said, "Typical man. That was only an offhand comment, guys. It seems to me very unlikely that this ghost is anything to do with the contents of Amber Lightfoot's sweater."

"Well I wouldn't be so sure." Garrett was suddenly serious. "Egon said this ghost had some kind of cause-and-effect link to insecurity. Now we know that Jessica feels insecure, and we think we know why. Maybe the same thing is happening to Amber."

"We should just talk to her," Kylie decided. "Go get her, honey."

"Why me?" demanded Eduardo.

"She'll respond best to you," Kylie replied simply. "She and her friends have been giving all of us looks, but yours are different. I think they kinda like you."

Reluctantly Eduardo slouched over to the group of girls surrounding Amber, who was sitting on a low brick wall with one leg slung over the other. Garrett, Roland and Kylie watched as the girls all batted their eyes at Eduardo – probably just for show in most cases – and he said something to Amber. Moments later he returned, the pretty young blonde bouncing along behind him.

"Ok, get it over with," Amber instructed tartly. "I won't be seen with this freak show for a moment longer than necessary."

"Well we'll get straight to the point then," snapped Kylie. "There is a ghost haunting this school and we've traced it back to you. What's going on?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Amber told her evenly. "I don't believe in ghosts, and you might as well know that I'm pretty sure you and that Venkman girl have got some kind of scam going. Can I go now?"

Roland thrust his PKE meter at Amber and reported at once, "This girl's the problem all right – or at least part of it. You'd better tell us what's been happening, Amber."

"Don't point that thing at me, you weird perv," spat Amber, batting Roland's hand away. "It's faulty, whatever it is. Now let me go. I don't mind you scamming the school but at least let those of us who actually have lives get on with them."

"Can we just blast her?" Eduardo asked dryly.

"No!" exclaimed Roland. "We'll kill her!"

"Exactly."

"Go on then, get back to your fan club," Kylie said coldly to Amber. "But we know you're involved. You haven't heard the last of it."

"And if I hear you've been bothering Jessica Venkman again I won't hesitate to use this thing," added Garrett, gesturing threateningly towards his proton gun.

"Don't worry – I wouldn't be seen dead anywhere near Venkman," retorted Amber. "It's no wonder she's so weird if her dad's anything like you."

"What a bitch," remarked Roland, as Amber flounced back to the Wall of Gossip.

"Hardly anyone's that bitchy. Maybe the ghost's making it worse," suggested Kylie. "So she's definitely involved, then. We can take PKE readings from the other kids – she might not be the only one – but after that I don't know what else we can do at the moment. We need Egon to tell us what's happened to her."

"We should try and keep an eye on her for the rest of the day," asserted Roland. "And maybe get Jessica to watch her during class."

"Good idea," agreed Garrett, and he beckoned to Jessica. She said a few words to her friends, jogged over to the four Ghostbusters (evidently feeling better about running now) and looked at them expectantly.

"Can you keep a secret?" asked Roland.

"Absolutely," enthused Jessica.

"This is absolutely to do with Amber like we suspected," Roland told her. "We don't know quite what's happening yet, and we want to watch her. Can you keep an eye on her for us during class?"

"Oh, I can just hear her," Jessica smiled dryly. Then she imitated Amber's obnoxious voice: "'Stop staring at my ass you lesbo.' Yeah, sure, I'll watch her for you. Am I looking for anything in particular?"

"Just anything unusual, I suppose," shrugged Kylie. "I don't think she's possessed exactly, but it might be something similar."

"What about her boobs?" Jessica asked bluntly. "Are they real?"

"We didn't ask her," Kylie answered dryly. "And I don't think it's relevant."

"But it was so sudden," Jessica persisted. "And they're distracting my friends. Josh can't stop staring at them."

"Is that one Josh?" asked Eduardo. He was gesturing to a boy who was standing a little apart from Jessica's buddies' ball game and staring open-mouthed at Amber.

"Yes," Jessica confirmed. "And he's not the only one. Apparently the boys all spent their summer turning into perverts."

"Ha," snorted Kylie. "That, Jessica, is the sad fate of all men. Better start getting used to it, kid."

While Jessica kept a close watch on Amber during a PE lesson, it occurred to Kylie that they should try and get hold of some stuff from the school's archives and find out if anybody died there – paying particular attention to that girls' bathroom.

"Nobody's died here to my knowledge," a helpful lady in the office told them, "but I'll dig out the files as far back as I can and you're welcome to have a look."

"What about before the school was built?" wondered Roland. "What was here before?"

"A lunatic asylum? I'm sorry – I don't know," the helpful lady smiled apologetically. "I can try to find out...?"

"Oh – that's ok," Roland told her hastily. "You don't have to do that. We can find out ourselves. Thank you."

They trawled out of the office, each carrying a fairly large ring binder, just in time to see a crocodile of sixth graders trailing out of the gym. At a certain point the boys and girls veered off in different directions, presumably aiming for their respective changing rooms, and Kylie noticed that Jessica was looking very uncomfortable. It was mainly this that motivated her to grab the girl's shoulder and say politely to the butch lady with the tracksuit and whistle, "Can I borrow this for a moment please?"

All the staff had been instructed to cooperate with the Ghostbusters, so Jessica was allowed to go with Kylie. She was steered along the corridor to where the other three Ghostbusters were gathered outside a computer lab, and then Kylie asked her, "What's Amber been up to?"

"Playing up to the boys and doing her best to accidentally-on-purpose break my shins with a hockey stick," Jessica answered dryly. "It's possible that she's got bitchier since last year, but to be perfectly honest I think she's behaving exactly like herself."

"This is impossible," complained Garrett. "All we know for sure is that the ghost isn't here anymore, which isn't exactly what you might call useful."

"It was here yesterday," Kylie reminded them all. "And we thought it was around here somewhere this morning. So where did it go?"

"You think Amber's done something with it?" Jessica asked dubiously. She couldn't help thinking of the strange entity that had turned up in her bedroom the day before.

"I don't know," Roland sighed resignedly. "We'll take a look at these old files and see if we can find out anything that way. Keep watching Amber for us, can you?"

"Yeah, sure. Oh, hey, I know you don't think it's relevant," Jessica said slowly, "but it's definitely not socks."

"And she didn't have them yesterday?" asked Eduardo.

"Trust you to ask a question like that," muttered Kylie.

"It might be important." Jessica was still thinking of that weird little ghost-thingy-whatever-it-was, which had seemed to show a keen interest in mammary growth during its visit to her bedroom. "Please just keep it mind, ok?"

"Ok," Kylie agreed, though she felt slightly perplexed. "You'd better get back to it."

"Yeah." Jessica looked warily over her shoulder at the changing room and felt sick. She'd been through that trauma once that day already and did not want to have to relive it. "Good luck, guys."

x x x

When Amber arrived home after school, she found the beautiful curvaceous entity lounging languidly on her bed. "Good day?" it asked casually.

"Great," Amber grinned at it. "Venkman is so jealous. Having boobs is awesome! All the boys kept staring at me!"

"You like that?"

"Yah-ha!"

"And you call Venkman a slut," the entity smiled serenely at her. "Well, they do look good – if I say so myself. But Amber – will you look at your hair?"

"What's wrong with my hair?" Amber asked anxiously. She turned her head sharply to look in the mirror and grabbed her long blond ponytail in a protective fist. "I've always kinda liked it."

"It's awfully greasy," the entity told her sadly. "Josh may like the new upper torso attachments, but he won't want you until you do something about your hair."

"Can you do anything?" Amber squeaked anxiously.

"I expect so," smiled the entity. "But you should take better care of yourself, you know. Eat more carefully... shower at least twice a day..."

"Twice a day?"

"Of course. You're a growing girl now. There's a severe perspiration situation going on, which frankly smells and is having a terrible effect on your skin. Haven't you noticed the zits?"

"Zits?" Amber whispered, almost in tears.

"Yeah," the entity nodded sadly. "And while we're on the subject, Amber, you're really starting to put on weight."

"Oh God!" Amber stared in the mirror and suddenly thought that she looked huge. "Oh God! What can I do? Can you help me?"

"Meh," shrugged the entity.

"Please! Please! You have to help me!" begged Amber. "I'll do anything!"

"I'll think about it," the entity told her. "But I refuse to help you if you won't help yourself. I'm going now, Amber. What I suggest you do is skip your dinner tonight and have a good, thorough shower. We'll talk when I come back tomorrow."

The entity disappeared. Amber picked up her hairbrush and threw it at her mirror. The mirror didn't break as she had hoped, so she turned her back to it. Then she collapsed to the floor and wept bitter tears.

x x x

"Hello!" Eduardo and Kylie exclaimed in unison, both hugging Conchita before they were even through the front door. Then Kylie asked brightly, "How was preschool? Have you been having fun with Matt?"

"It was ok. Yes I have," Conchita answered her smilingly.

"Brilliant, Rose is asleep," observed Kylie.

"Has been since lunchtime," Matt told her. "I've been checking her pulse like every ten minutes. Isn't she supposed to wake up and eat or something?"

"She will," shrugged Kylie. "Don't worry. If she's breathing she's ok. I'm making coffee. Anyone want some?"

Eduardo and Matt both said they would like coffee, thank you very much. Conchita followed her mother into the kitchen, where she sat down at the table with a cup of orange squash and described her second day at preschool. Eduardo would have been interested to hear about it too, but Matt instantly adopted the look of a nervous rabbit and beckoned him over to the sofa.

"We've got a problem," he hissed furtively.

"What?" asked Eduardo, automatically imitating Matt's hushed whisper.

"Jill. She was trying to take Conchita home from preschool."

"You're kidding," was Eduardo's response.

"I wish I was. They wouldn't let Chita go with her, obviously. So she left."

"Kylie's gonna be pissed."

"I know."

"Did you talk to Jill?"

"No. I hid," Matt confessed. "Partly because I'm a coward and partly because I know Kylie doesn't want her seeing Rose."

"Ah man, this is awful," sighed Eduardo.

"Yeah, I know," Matt agreed.

"I suppose we'd better tell Ky about it after we've put Chita to bed."

"She'll go mad."

"If you distract her when she comes back out here I'll hide the knives."

x x x

Changing before and after PE had been the most awful trauma, but Jessica had felt slightly comforted by the realisation that she wasn't the only one. A few of the girls had been shuffling around self-consciously under their t-shirts – and Amber's grand unveiling had brought an end to most of their embarrassment, or at least shifted the focus of it.

Sitting on her bed, Jessica couldn't help but flinch slightly as she imagined herself sifting through a rack of sports bras with her mother, but she supposed sooner or later it would have to be done. That was what she was going to wear: sports bras. Nothing else, and certainly not frilly feminine pieces like Amber had been parading around in. She was determined to keep her promise to herself and remain out-and-out Jessica. It was fairly typical Jessica to wear something with the word "sports" in its name.

Catching her own eye in the mirror on her wardrobe, Jessica realised that thinking about this was actually starting to feel pretty ok. She was taking control and making decisions about how she was going to handle these changes. Then her eyes slid a little to the left and she caught sight of that developing zit. It was about the size of a small pinhead, round and a very obvious pinkish-red.

She laughed when she remembered Oscar's first real zit. "Oh God oh God oh God – it's eating my face! I can never go outside again!" He'd always been much too vain, or at least he had for as long as Jessica could remember. Hold on... Oscar's first zit. She didn't remember a second; there had probably been one but that awful face-eating blemish had since had hardly any successors. Pursing her lips, Jessica thought nobly of her new taking-control philosophy. She jumped to her feet and marched purposefully out of her room.

Oscar's bedroom door was open. He was sitting up on his bed with his legs crossed, reading some music magazine or other and nodding his head in time to whatever was blasting out of the massive headphones covering his ears. He looked up when he saw Jessica standing in the doorway, and she gestured for him to take the headphones off.

"What do you do about zits?" she asked.

"Well," said Oscar, "you know the blue bottle of stuff I keep in the shower?"

"Yeah."

"That's for zits. Ask Dad to get you some next time he goes shopping. Oh Jessie, you've got one!" Oscar exclaimed in horrific realisation. "Bad luck! Here." He opened a drawer and pulled out a small plastic bottle of clear gel, which he then threw to his sister. "Take a little blob of that. It should be smaller by morning."

"Thanks," Jessica smiled at him, catching the bottle of gel. Get smaller, would it? Even though she knew perfectly well it wouldn't work, she couldn't help wondering what would happen if she applied some of the stuff a little further south.

x x x

"I'm gonna kill her!" Kylie fumed angrily. She was pacing the length of the sitting room, Eduardo and Rose watching from the sofa and Matt from an armchair. "I'm gonna f---ing kill her!"

It was nearly midnight. Matt had plucked up the courage to tell his cousin about his sighting of the dreaded Jill around eleven o'clock, and Kylie still hadn't calmed down even slightly.

"Rosie's still awake, Ky," Eduardo said soothingly. "Watch the language, huh? Hey – I think she's hungry," he added, as Rose started grabbing at his chest with fat little hands.

"You too, huh?" Kylie smiled dryly at Rose, sitting down next to Eduardo. She took the baby onto her lap and lifted her t-shirt. "Everybody's obsessed at the moment."

"I'm not," said Matt, just to make the matter absolutely clear, and he even proved his point by politely looking away. "I haven't mentioned them once."

"Poor Jessica," Kylie smiled sympathetically. "It's not nice. I only wish she'd talk to somebody. We've all been through it. I'm dying to tell her she won't feel this way for much longer but I can't mention it before she does. She needs her mom."

Kylie wished she hadn't said that. She sounded wistful, betraying her regret that her own mother wasn't with her for that time in her life. She had her Grandma Rose, of course – but it would probably have been marginally less embarrassing to talk to someone a bit younger. She had wanted Jill then, but she certainly didn't want her around now.

Stroking Rose's downy head as the baby suckled contentedly, Kylie wondered how a mother could possibly walk out on her child. She loved her own two daughters effortlessly and she simply could not envisage a situation where she would leave them. She had been twenty-two when Conchita was born. It had taken her until then to realise that Jill must be the one with the problem, not her.

x x x

Jessica's zit hadn't disappeared completely, but then Oscar had only said it would get smaller – and it had. It looked to have shrunk in all directions, and it wasn't nearly so red as it had been the night before. Peter had said that he was going shopping and did anybody want anything, so Jessica had of course requested some of her brother's highly recommended anti-blemish serum. The zit situation was ok – pretty much under control.

The breasts... hmm... still seemed to be growing at an alarming rate. Jessica thought wistfully of Roland's sister/Oscar's girlfriend (of the very early stages) Amy Jackson and wondered how she had managed to get to fourteen – fourteen-and-a-half, even – while all the time maintaining her childish flat chest. Though neither of them knew it, Jessica and AJ were in a situation of mutual envy. Development-wise, Amy felt very left behind in comparison to her friends. Jessica, on the other hand, felt like some sort of release switch on her body had been suddenly hit and she was shooting ahead long before she was ready.

Anyway, there wasn't much to be done about it besides sticking to the really big t-shirts, which she did. Jessica hopped onto the bus and realised that she felt slightly less awkward while she walked to her seat beside Josh. It looked like she was getting used to it already. She still felt strange, but she didn't feel like running off the bus and shutting herself in her room like she'd wanted to yesterday.

Amber caused a stir for the second day running when she boarded the bus. Jessica was instantly scornful of the stares being shot at her from every angle, until she looked at Amber herself. The long blond hair was hanging loose, obscuring much of Amber's face, which looked strangely pale and drawn. She pushed back a lock of hair self-consciously as she went to sit beside one of her friends.

Jessica thought that Amber's hair looked like it had been touched up recently: it had a lot of volume, a deeper colour and bounced softly with the movement of the bus. It looked pretty good actually – but why was Amber hiding behind it? It wasn't like her... but then Jessica supposed that she hadn't been acting like herself lately either. They were all going through changes. But the thought of that ghost and Amber's involvement with the school haunting kept Jessica constantly thinking and wondering.

During lunch Amber's friends all chatted inanely to one another. Amber sat inconspicuously among them, hiding behind her hair and nibbling half-heartedly at a lettuce leaf. Jessica was watching her closely, blocking out her friends' chat about baseball and wondering what she should do.

Looking ready to cry, Amber picked up the bowl of chocolate cake on her tray and started shovelling it into her mouth. She only stopped when all of her friends' eyes were on her. The entire table froze, Amber with a spoonful of cake halfway to her chocolate-smeared mouth while her friends stared incredulously. Then suddenly Amber noisily threw down the bowl and spoon, burst into tears and ran.

She was heading for the toilets. Jessica leapt up immediately and sprinted after her. When she burst through the swing door she could already hear sick noises coming from one of the cubicles. Almost without thinking Jessica climbed onto the toilet in the adjacent cubicle, leaned over and used one hand to wrench Amber away from the toilet bowl by her hair and the other to unlock the door.

"Get out here!" ordered Jessica, relieved to see that Amber hadn't done anything yet. "Come on," and she pushed open the door and pulled Amber forcibly out of the cubicle. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"I have to!" wept Amber, crying real tears. "Did you see me eating that cake? It was awful! I shouldn't have done it!"

"Why not?" demanded Jessica.

"Why not? Look at me!" wailed Amber. "I'm so fat and I'm covered in zits!"

Jessica did look at her, vainly trying to see what Amber was so upset about. Then at last she spoke: "Amber, you're skinny and beautiful and your complexion is so clear I can almost see through it. What the hell is wrong with you?"

"I'm ugly!" sobbed Amber.

"No you're not! Oh Jesus, what am I going to do with you?" Jessica fretted. "Have you ever made yourself throw up before?"

"No."

"Good, that's something. Can you tell me what's brought this on?"

"I... I can't," Amber sniffed helplessly.

"Is it some kind of ghost?" Jessica asked bluntly. "There's been PK activity everywhere you go. Is that the reason you've gone nuts like this?"

"Please just leave me alone," Amber snivelled.

"No," Jessica said firmly. "I'm taking you out of here. Come on – we're going to somebody who can help you."

x x x

Kylie, Eduardo, Matt, Rose and a friendly cabbie had all accompanied Conchita to preschool that morning, Matt reasoning that there was safety in numbers. The cabbie probably wouldn't be much use if Jill did show up, but certainly Matt and Eduardo would help Kylie to confront her mother if she needed it.

They didn't meet Jill. All but Rose and the cabbie kept an eye open for her on the way to the firehouse, but they knew they were unlikely to spot her in that small stretch of Manhattan road. They didn't, which did nothing to calm Kylie's nerves or help her forget her anger. Matt and Eduardo spent much of the morning trying to distract her, and soon Garrett and Roland joined in, though they had no idea why it was necessary.

"Jo was telling me last night that her mom's really taken with Conchita," Garrett told her, when it became apparent that Kylie wasn't concentrating on the elementary school archives at all. "Apparently she's desperate to learn to read."

"Oh yes, she is," agreed Kylie. "She doesn't like having to rely on other people for stories. I'm told she's quite ahead of most of the other kids."

"Well she is from a family of geniuses," Matt pointed out. He and Eduardo were sitting on the floor on either side of Rose, watching her with amusement as she pushed herself up onto her hands, hovered there for a few moments and then collapsed onto her stomach with a sigh of frustration. And then, after a few moments of lying there looking extremely annoyed, she would start the whole process again.

"Geniuses, huh?" Garrett smiled ironically. "It seems to be very difficult to figure out how to crawl."

"She's early actually," retorted Kylie. "Not a lot of babies can do that at seven months."

This time when she lifted her weight onto her hands, Rose brought one leg forward slightly and then seemed to hesitate, as though trying to figure out what to do next. When she thought she had it sussed she lifted up one hand, and instantly fell down flat. She let out a squeal of frustration and rolled over onto her back in a gesture of defeat.

"Almost," Eduardo smiled at her. He leant forward and took the baby into his arms, cuddling her against him in some attempt to reassure her. "We'll have to start really baby-proofing this place soon."

"Particularly the pole," muttered Kylie, who had spent Conchita's entire babyhood convinced that her daughter would someday crawl across the room and end up on the floor below, either severely brain damaged or dead.

"It's her lunchtime, isn't it?" asked Matt, suddenly jumping to his feet. "Can I do it?"

"Sure, if you want to," shrugged Kylie, so Matt disappeared to the kitchen. "How are you doing, Roland?"

Roland was obviously engrossed in the school archives; he normally got very involved with baby discussions. He had certainly had a lot to say when the Spengler twins and later Conchita were learning to crawl: "Marcus didn't do that until he was ten months old." "AJ was the only one of us who bottom-shuffled instead of crawling," and so on and so forth. But this time he didn't compare any of what Rose was doing to the behaviour of his younger brothers and sisters.

"This is all very interesting, but not at all useful," Roland reported glumly. "If anybody died there I haven't found it yet. A lot of the students died at home of cholera and things in the nineteenth century, but that doesn't really help us."

Matt returned from the kitchen with a plastic spoon in one hand and a little jar of orange pulp in the other. He sat down on the floor next to Eduardo and took Rose into his arms. He set the little jar down on the floor and held the baby in the crook of his left arm, holding the spoon in his right hand.

"Come on Rosie, take it," coaxed Matt, as Rose frowned suspiciously at the plastic spoon heaped with mush being waved in front of her face. "It's nice – you'll like it. Um... here comes the train," he tried desperately, steering the spoon rhythmically towards Rose's firmly shut mouth. "C'mon – get that tunnel open!"

Rose frowned at the spoon and then batted it away when it came too close for comfort. Then she balled a little fist and reached up, just happening to hit Matt square on the jaw. Garrett burst out laughing and said, "You deserved that."

"Yes, I suppose I did," Matt had to agree. "Here," and he bundled Rose into her father's arms. "You do it."

When Eduardo couldn't get Rose to eat either it had to be assumed that she just wasn't hungry. Kylie suggested taking to her to collect Conchita, as was to become the routine, and trying again when they got back. It seemed a reasonable idea, so Kylie strapped Rose into her carrier whilst telling her brightly, "It's time to go and get Chita!"

Matt went with them again for moral support just in case they met Jill, and he almost collided with Jessica on the way out. "Whoa – sorry honey," he smiled at her. "Not skipping school, are you?"

"Actually we are," Jessica admitted, referring to herself and the very subdued Amber, on whose wrist she had a painfully tight grip. "Are you guys leaving?"

"We're fetching Conchita," explained Kylie. "We'll be back soon."

"Good," Jessica approved. "Because I hope we're about to find out exactly what's going on with Amber."

Matt knew perfectly well that he had seen Jill hanging around the day before, so where was she now? Did she have some kind of secret lair where she was plotting her next evil scheme? He was in the middle of conjuring up a mental image of this when Kylie gasped and suddenly dragged him behind a substation, gesturing for him to crouch down.

"Come on!" she hissed urgently, beckoning for Eduardo to join them.

"What the hell is going on?" Eduardo demanded.

"It's Jill!" Kylie whispered furtively.

"Really? Where?" Eduardo looked around, and finally spotted Jill hanging around outside the open gates of the preschool. "Oh, I see her."

"Well we can't just crouch behind here all day," reasoned Matt. "I'll go and tell her to back off."

Matt rose to his full height, but as he started to walk away Eduardo placed a restraining hand on his elbow and said, "I'll do it. I'm taller than you."

"So?" asked Matt, feeling slightly hurt by this remark.

"So I'll be able to scare her off," Eduardo explained reasonably. "And besides, I'd love to tell her exactly what I think of her."

"Yeah, so would I," murmured Kylie, at last emerging from behind the substation. She handed Rose's carrier to Eduardo and said, "She's my mother. I'll do it. You two got and get Conchita."

Eduardo and Matt followed with Rose a little way behind Kylie, who marched purposefully towards her mother. Jill looked immensely surprised to see her, even though it was what she had hoped would happen. Kylie dug her nails into her mother's arm and dragged her to one side, demanding angrily, "What are you doing here?"

It would be easy to describe Jill as a forty-something Kylie with long, glossy auburn tresses (from a bottle these days, though she'd never admit it) instead of the scruffy black hair. Too easy, in fact – but that was pretty much how she did look. She was short and skinny, had a round face, a small upturned nose and big dark-green eyes. Looking at her now, Kylie could only see Conchita and it made her feel strangely angry and resentful. Thank goodness Rose had more of Eduardo's looks.

"I want to see my granddaughters," Jill said evenly.

"Tough," snapped Kylie. "You have no right! You never even wanted me to have any babies in the first place!"

"I'm sorry about that."

"Sorry? You?" Kylie was surprised, but she soon recovered. "Are you sorry for everything else you did as well?"

"It was all a long time ago," Jill shrugged dismissively. "I've tried explaining it to you, Kylie, but you can't seem to understand."

This was fairly typical of Jill. She seemed genuinely to believe that she had done nothing wrong, despite walking out on her six-year-old daughter and hardly ever coming back to see her. But at least Kylie's recent cold-shouldering had made her drop the sweetness-and-light act she usually put on and realise that she was going to have to make some kind of effort.

"You can't see them," Kylie told her mother firmly. "I don't want anything to do with you. Can't you understand that? You blew any chance you might have had yesterday when you tried to take Conchita from this place."

"I would have taken her straight to you."

"You didn't know where I was!"

"Well Conchita probably did," retorted Jill. "Since you've been ignoring my efforts to get in touch I thought it was the only way I'd get to see her."

"You're not even sorry for trying to snatch her!" exclaimed Kylie, horrified.

"It's just spiteful to stop me seeing them, Kylie."

"Think that if you want to. Just go away and leave me alone – like you've been doing since you walked out nineteen years ago."

If Jill had an answer to that dig she didn't voice it. Instead she glanced over to the quad behind Kylie and asked interestedly, "Is that Matt?"

"Yes," Kylie muttered grudgingly.

"He's hardly changed since the last time I saw him. How's he doing?"

Well actually, thought Kylie, he was so unhappy at college that he dropped out after a few weeks and then your sister refused to let him go home. He's back with her now and he's picked himself up again, but I don't think he's really happy.

"Fine," she said instead.

"I thought you and he didn't used to like each other."

"We didn't."

"But now?"

"We like each other ok."

"How come he gets a second chance and I don't?" asked Jill.

"Because he was just a bratty little kid when I first knew him," Kylie returned tartly. "You're my mother and you left."

"Fair enough."

"At least you concede that much."

"I see your man's still around," observed Jill. "What's his name again?"

"That's none of your business."

"Oh Kylie, Conchita's gotten so big!"

"Go away," Kylie said coldly. "I don't want you to see her."

"She's beautiful. She looks like us."

Kylie turned her head slightly to watch out of the corner of her eye as Eduardo and Matt greeted Conchita. She didn't really want her daughter to see her talking to Jill, because that would certainly raise a few questions and she might even end up having to introduce them. "Chita, this is your grandmother – but you won't ever be seeing her again."

"She does look like me," Kylie had to agree. She refused to admit just now that she looked like her mother. "Facially anyway. Rose looks more like Eduardo." Shit. She didn't mean to say that.

"I'd love to see her."

"I'll bet you would."

"I'm really proud of you, Kylie."

"Oh God." Kylie covered her face with her hands despairingly, saying through her fingers, "Just piss off and leave us alone."

She turned and made her way towards the gathering by the gate. Conchita beamed delightedly when she saw her mother and held out her arms. She hadn't expected quite such a big welcoming committee. Kylie hugged her, kissed her and asked her if she'd had a good day. Then she took her daughter's hand and started leading her towards the nearby bus stop. When she looked over her shoulder, she saw that Jill had gone. Kylie really hoped that they had seen the last of her, though she doubted it very much.

x x x

Amber hadn't said anything by the time the preschool troop arrived back at the firehouse. She was sitting on the sofa, holding a mug of milk in both hands and staring expressionlessly ahead while Roland tried to coax some information out of her. Garrett, Egon, Janine and Jessica were all watching the girl fixedly. She had been sobbing until very recently, but then she suddenly seemed to dry up liked she'd cried all the moisture out of her body.

"Come on, you can tell us," Roland said gently to the girl. "Does this have anything to do with the ghost?"

"Did one come to see you in your room?" Jessica asked sharply. "A little glowing thing that looks like a Powerpuff Girl?"

Amber spoke at last. "Um... no," she whimpered, blinking confusedly. "But it did glow."

With a look from Kylie, Eduardo discreetly took Conchita and Rose through to the kitchen, where he would attempt to feed his younger daughter the orange mushy pulp she had refused earlier. Kylie cut a fleeting glance at Matt, assuming he would follow, but he hovered a little apart from the gathering and listened carefully.

"Ok, so we're getting somewhere," Garrett sighed with relief. "It glowed. What else did it look like?"

"Tall," murmured Amber. "And really, really pretty. It said it would make me look like her."

This announcement sent a shock of painful emotion through Matt. Somebody had made the exact same promise to him during his weeks at college, and the situation hadn't turned out well. Amber's alleged benefactor probably wasn't much better, and Matt wondered if he could help. He thought hard about what should be done for this kid. What did he need when it was happening to him?

It is the same thing, thought Jessica. But it appeared to Amber in a different form: the form it believed she wanted to take. I suppose it went to her after I rejected it.

"So what happened next?" Roland asked gently.

"I woke up the next morning with... with..."

"Boobs," Jessica cut in helpfully. "Why?"

"I don't know," shrugged Amber. "I wanted them."

Jessica shook her head and muttered, "You must be crazy."

"I like them," Amber said defensively. "They make the boys look at me."

"Why would you want the boys to look at you?" asked Jessica. "You're only eleven."

"Twelve next week," retorted Amber. "You're not twelve until next year and you've already got all the boys hanging around you. And you're getting boobs. Real ones."

There was an awkward silence, and then Jessica snapped angrily, "Can we not talk about that please? And I don't know what you think I do with those boys. They're just my friends, that's all. That's the only reason they hang - "

"Jess!" a new voice suddenly interrupted, and a moment later Peter came charging into the room. "There you are! Thank God! What are you doing here?"

"Hi Dad," Jessica addressed her father blankly, his sudden entrance taking her by surprise. "What's up?"

"What's up?" echoed Peter. "What's up is that I just got a phone call asking why you weren't at school!"

"Oh!" Jessica exclaimed in sudden realisation. "Sorry, I forgot that would probably happen."

"Why are you skipping school?" demanded Peter.

"To try and stop Amber here going any crazier," Jessica tried to explain. "She's had a ghost visiting her."

"Hold on," Roland said calmly. "I'm confused. Amber, did this ghost come to you at home?"

"Yes."

"And then all that stuff you told us happened?"

"Yes."

"So where is the ghost now?" asked Roland.

"Still in my room, I suppose," shrugged Amber.

"What else has it been doing?" demanded Jessica. "Was it the ghost that said you were fat?"

"Yes," Amber sniffed miserably. "It said I should go on a diet."

"That's ridiculous," scoffed Jessica. "That's like me using a curling iron. What else did it tell you?"

"That my skin's bad, and I've got zits, and I smell, and my hair's greasy... it did my hair for me but it said I had to start doing things for myself."

"So you try to give yourself bulimia," Jessica returned dryly. "Honestly Amber, you really are an idiot. Did you say the ghost is still in your room?"

"Yes... I suppose so," Amber answered shakily.

"Then you three and Eduardo had better get over there," Egon cut in, addressing Kylie, Roland and Garrett. "Peter, do you want to...?"

"Are you going?" Peter asked Jessica.

"I think I'd better not," Jessica murmured thoughtfully. She was wondering whether she should tell them about her own encounter with this extraordinary ghost, and leaning towards not. "Maybe you should take me back to school."

Then Matt surprised everyone by suddenly joining in. "I think Amber needs to take the rest of the day off," he said. "Can I come with you? I'd like to talk to her."

Kylie was surprised, but she knew it would only waste time to question the idea. Instead she turned to Janine and asked, "Do you mind watching the kids? Eduardo's feeding Rose so she probably won't be hungry before we get back."

"There's always a chance she might need changing though," Janine smiled dryly. "I watch your kids all the time – there's no reason for me to start minding now. Go on, get outta here."

"My mom and dad are both at work," reported Amber, as she took a key from her jeans pocket and unlocked her front door. "I suppose you'll want to tell them about this," she added with a sigh.

"Well somebody has to pay the bill," Garrett pointed out. "But then again it was the school that got us involved..."

He followed Amber into the house with Eduardo, Roland and Kylie behind him. Matt was at the rear of the group, but he now pushed himself to the front and said to Amber, "It's up to you to decide whether you want to tell your parents about this. Even if you don't want to tell them about the ghost it sounds like you've got some problems you need to deal with. Maybe your mom and dad can help?"

"I don't know," shrugged Amber. Then she noticed the four Ghostbusters looking expectantly at her and she said, "My bedroom's on the left at the top of the stairs."

Eduardo, Kylie and Roland all walked in single-file up the stairs, Roland going backwards and dragging Garrett's chair, proton guns at the ready. Matt put an arm around Amber's shoulders and led her gently towards an armchair in the sitting room.

"Ok then," he began, taking a seat on the sofa. "What's up?"

"Why should I tell you?" asked Amber, though not rudely, just out of interest.

"I've been through something similar," explained Matt, "and I want to help you. I dropped out of college because I was being bullied into doing some pretty crazy things by... well, by a butch vampire, if I'm honest. But you can't very well drop out of sixth grade. What's making you unhappy?"

"I often don't feel happy," shrugged Amber. "I'm what you might call a perfectionist. I want to be smart, beautiful, athletic, popular – especially with the boys... and I get so jealous of people. Venkman, for example. She's always surrounded by boys. And she's smart. And she's so into sports. And now she's getting boobs as well!"

"Yeah..." Matt murmured thoughtfully. "I gotta admit though, I don't know why these alleged breasts are such a big deal. I didn't notice them when I saw her."

"I'm very perceptive when it comes to things like that," explained Amber. "I might as well tell you that I'm very insecure, despite coming across as having a lot of confidence. It was the ghost. She showed me all these images of – you know – things in my mirror. Things that I wanted. And she said I could have them."

"That's exactly what I went through," Matt nodded sympathetically.

"But then she went all weird on me – started persuading me not to eat and to shower excessively. So I did. I guess I'm pretty weak," Amber sighed morosely. "Venkman would never let anybody bully her like that. She doesn't care what people think. She's really at ease with herself. I wish I could be like that."

"It'd help if you stopped wishing you were somebody else," Matt said evenly. "I know it's a cliché, but it's true that people won't accept you as you are until you can accept yourself."

Amber looked at Matt carefully. He was short, skinny, bug-eyed and pale. "Do you accept yourself?" she asked carefully.

"Yes," Matt answered firmly. "I still don't like it much, but I've accepted it, so I guess I'm getting there. Are you going to be ok once the ghost's gone?"

"I think so."

"No more making yourself throw up after meals?"

"I suppose not," Amber agreed, though somewhat half-heartedly. "I thought people had to go through years of therapy before they could get over stuff like that."

"I think we caught it very early," Matt smiled reassuringly at her.

"You should be a head doctor."

"You think?"

"Yeah. What do you do now that you're not in college?"

"I help out part-time in a first grade class back home in Pennsylvania, but that's only to fill in the time and earn a living until I decide what I really want to do. I know it's tough figuring out what matters to you and what you want to be and all that deep sh- uh... stuff, but I'm told I'll get there and I know you will too. It was pretty hard for me when I was your age, you know. My parents were splitting up."

"That's rough," Amber sympathised.

"It's ok," shrugged Matt. "My dad's a loser anyway so I don't mind."

Amber suddenly changed the subject. "How do you think they're doing up there?"

"They're being pretty quiet," remarked Matt. "Maybe the ghost isn't there."

"If they can't get rid of it I don't know what I'll do."

"Aw, don't worry. You've just had a psychological breakthrough, right? You'll soon see that ghost off with your newfound willpower."

As it turned out, Amber's newfound willpower wasn't required on this particular occasion. Judging by what it had done to its victim, all four Ghostbusters were all expecting some kind of daunting, powerful demon with the ability to manipulate anyone's mind at will. But when they arrived in Amber's bedroom, they were pleasantly surprised and in one case a little disappointed.

"This is it?" Garrett asked scathingly, eyeing the small glowing mist on the bed with disapproval. "This is what we've been looking for the last two days? It's just a kid!"

What they saw was similar to Jessica's Powerpuff Girl manifestation, only it had less form. It did look like a child: wide frightened eyes, trembling mouth, skinny arms and legs just discernible among the mist.

"This can't be it," Eduardo said confusedly. "How could something like that do so much damage?"

"It's kinda cute. I'm almost reluctant to trap it," added Roland.

"We have to," asserted Kylie. "It must be a shape-shifter. Amber said it was a beautiful woman."

"This is my true form," the ghost said softly. "I am the embodiment of all the misery that has been accumulating in that girls' bathroom for well over a century. I'm just a helpless child: every victim of bullying in that school since it opened. You wouldn't hurt a poor creature like me, would you?"

"Well," Kylie thought out loud, "Egon did say something about the ghost being a manifestation of insecurity. I suppose so many girls go into that toilet and cry that it's resulted in a sort of – I don't know – residual haunting. This isn't any one person's ghost, and it's not any kind of parasitic demon like we suspected. It's just what's been left behind."

"Can I ask it something before we nuke it?" asked Garrett.

"Sure," shrugged Kylie.

"Why now?" Garrett asked the ghost. "If you've been there since the school opened, why wait until now to do anything like this?"

"I wasn't all there," the demon explained meekly. "It just took one more person's tears to bring me into existence."

"Jessica," muttered Kylie.

"I still don't get it," Eduardo cut in. "This thing is pathetic. How could it do all that to that Amber girl?"

"Because it's a bully," Roland said quietly. "All bullies are insecure, and this thing is the epitome of insecurity. In other words, it's the ultimate bully. It doesn't even have a reason for doing what it did to Amber. It only did it because it could."

"You don't understand what it's like!" wailed the ghost. "Years and years of misery – and all I could do to break away from that awful bathroom was follow somebody and try to make them suffer! It was either that or suffer myself, getting more and more unhappy every time a girl cried in a toilet cubicle! Which would you choose?"

"There's always another way," snapped Kylie. "And you should know by now the school's policy on bullying."

"Zero Tolerance," Roland put in helpfully.

"Right," nodded Kylie. "You're nothing but a bully and you need to be taught a lesson. An eternity in the containment unit ought to do the trick. On three!"

"THREE!"

Amber and Matt were both faintly relieved to hear the sound of proton fire above them, followed by a chilling scream as the ghost was sucked into the trap.

"What took you so long?" asked Matt when the Ghostbusters all filed downstairs, Roland pushing Garrett again and Kylie carrying the smoking trap.

"We chatted to it," Garrett smiled dryly. "Just to establish exactly what it was. I hope you've learnt something from all this, Amber. That ghost was bullying you. Sound familiar?"

"I never really bullied anyone," Amber defended herself. "Venkman doesn't care what I think of her, so it didn't really count as bullying." Then she caught sight of their stern expressions and went on hastily, "But I realise I never should have done it. I'm sorry, ok? I was unhappy. It's the only way I know how to cope."

"It's not us you should be apologising to," Kylie said sternly.

"Come on, she's learnt her lesson," Roland cut in. "Let's go and put this thing in the containment unit and get Janine to invoice the school."

While Roland fed the trap to the containment unit and filled in the blanks for Egon, Matt went straight to the kitchen in search of Peter. It had been a very thought-provoking half-hour, and Matt's mind was lingering on something in particular that Amber had said to him during their unlikely heart-to-heart.

x x x

"Amber thinks you should be a head doctor?" Peter looked Matt up and down very carefully as though trying to ascertain whether or not he'd make a good psychologist. "Interesting. It takes a lot of training. You'd have to try going to college again."

"Well I know that, obviously," returned Matt. "I believe I could do it if I really wanted to. I know exactly what I did wrong last time and I really think I learned from my mistakes."

"Interesting," remarked Peter. "That's behavioural psychology. You'd need to be thorough when you're learning and don't just believe everything you see on 'Frasier'. It's not all Freudian theory. You know a bit about him, right?"

"Sure," shrugged Matt. "German guy whose theories say more about him than they do about anybody else. Repression, Oedipus Complex, subconscious; id, ego and superego; very iffy dream interpretation; all your parents' fault; did all of his research on women and came up with a theory entirely about men..."

"Right, right." Peter held up his hands to stop him. "You agree with me, then. It's all a pile of poo."

"Absolutely."

"Well that's fine, because there are a lot of other approaches to psychology, but nothing's proven. That's one of the reasons I don't do it professionally. There are so many ideas and theories and they all have their pros and cons. Unless you believe firmly in your pet approach it's hard to be sure that you're doing the right thing."

"So what's your favourite?" asked Matt.

"Behavioural psychology," Peter answered at once. "Everything we know, think and do is learned. I'm a firm believer in keeping things as uncomplicated as possible."

"Right," Matt said thoughtfully. "So what about Amber? How would a behavioural psychologist treat her insecurity? Get her to talk about herself and administer an electric shock every time she said something negative?"

"Well," began Peter, "first I want you to know that behavioural psychology isn't all about electric shocks. And second, if she had any sense she'd go to a different kind of psychologist: Freudian maybe, or perhaps cognitive. Or one like you," he added with a wry smile. "From what you've told me you sound like a humanist kinda guy."

"Meaning...?"

"It's all about the individual – very touchy-feely: you feel this because you think that and so on. Nothing's general. It's kind of precious if you ask me: you're unique, you're special, let's not take any other factors into account – all part of the me-me-me culture we're living in. It's interesting: humanist psychology is one of those things that you either love or hate."

"And you hate it, right?"

"Whatever gave you that idea?"

"Ok, so there's a lot to consider," mused Matt. "But it's time I made a commitment to something, and I feel like I need to start using my brain again. I'm starting to feel kinda twitchy just coasting through life without any kind of focus."

"Check it out if you want to," advised Peter. "I think you've got a caring disposition, which is the first thing you need to get started. You'd certainly be better at it that I was."

"No harm in reading the literature, right?" Matt smiled crookedly. "Thanks, Dr. V."

That seemed to round up the conversation, so Matt and Peter both went to check on the progress of Rose's crawling lessons – taking place down in the foyer, where there were no holes in the floor. Kylie and Eduardo looked almost about to burst into tears of pride while they watched. Rose was supporting herself on her hands, wiggling her hips uncertainly and looking very pensive.

"You have to bend your knees," Conchita told her sister matter-of-factly, and she took hold of Rose's legs and started trying to pose them. "You can't do it if you don't bend your knees," the older sister insisted, when Rose let out a cry of protest. "That's good. Now watch me."

Conchita fell forward onto all fours and then crawled expertly across the floor a little way. Then she turned round, sat down cross-legged on the ground and said encouragingly to Rose, "Come on, you can do it."

The baby looked distinctly dubious, but nevertheless she put a hand forward, then a leg and then another hand. Conchita was getting very involved, and she sucked in her breath when it looked for a moment as though Rose just might do it. But then the baby floundered and fell forward, now looking resigned to this inevitable fate rather than disappointed as she had done before.

"Close," Conchita smiled sympathetically, and she crawled over to give her flailing sister an encouraging hug.

"That is like so totally cute," Matt said to Peter. "I'm going to be a child psychologist. Kids are so much better all-round than grown-ups. You know where you are with kids."

"Did Jessica seem ok when you saw her?" Peter suddenly asked anxiously. "She looked a lot better to me – more like herself. Do you think I can stop worrying?"

"She seemed fine to me," was Matt's opinion, "but I don't know her. Still, at least she's not so miserable that she's getting picked on by the embodiment of insecurity."

x x x

Peter didn't know that Amber's ghost had originally tried to start a bullying campaign on his daughter, and Jessica wasn't about to tell him. She didn't feel like she needed to. She felt ok now: a little top-heavy maybe, and sometimes even scared of what was happening to her body, but she'd more or less accepted it now. She knew she was going to get used to it, and in the meantime she'd just have to try and get on with life.

Dana called that evening when she knew all three members of her family would be home. Oscar couldn't help expressing his concern for his sister to her, but Jessica overheard before he got the chance to say, "She seems ok now though," and she snatched the phone from his hand.

"I'm fine," she told her mother breezily. "Totally and utterly fine. Don't listen to Oscar – he's talking out of his ass as usual."

"Are you sure?" Dana asked anxiously. "It sounds to me like a woman problem. Do you want to talk about it?"

"Uh..." Jessica glanced into the sitting room, where her father and brother were very much within earshot of her. "Not right now."

"Do you need me to come home?"

"No!" snapped Jessica. "Mom, honestly, I'm fine. It'd be good to talk but I can wait 'til you're back at the weekend. Don't worry about me, ok?"

"Well," Dana said dubiously, "I'll try not to."

"You don't have to," Jessica insisted. "So how's LA doing without us? Are you having a good time?"

By the time Jessica handed the phone over to her father she felt satisfied that she had stopped her mother worrying. She did hear her name in her father's side of the conversation a few times, but she conceded that they had to be allowed to worry a little bit. She had been acting strangely the last couple of days. She felt strange; her body didn't feel like hers... but hey, on the plus side the zit was nearly gone.

Amber gave Jessica a fleeting smile at school the next day. It would probably never happen again, but to Jessica it felt very symbolic: they were growing up, leaving their petty childhood differences behind them – or something like that anyway. She may have begun the spiritual journey towards womanhood, but that was no reason to get too deep. She was still herself; she didn't need to make any big changes... except that from now on she'd be attending friendly sports matches with her friends in seriously big t-shirts.

THE END

Disclaimer: All rights reserved to Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Columbia Pictures.