Tales of the Tea Shop

A Lemur's Ghost Story

The phone rang at half past one in the morning. Unlike modern phones which have ringtones, the Zhao's Industrial Revolution era phone had loud two metal bells and instead of plastic, had a solid, hardwood body with heavy brass accents and rang loud enough to wake the dead. If she had the desire to throw it, she could have brained a platypus bear with the thing. It rang out loudly and anyone within a kilometer could hear it.

Azula stumbled down the staircase prepared to yank the phone out of the wall after yelling at her brother for phoning late or enduring another one of her mother's 'when will you get married' lectures.

"Hello?" Azula yawned into the phone.

"I am the old lady that lives one door down the street. Do you have a pet lemur?" A frail voice of an elderly woman came out of the receiver.

"We do." Azula didn't have any idea where this conversation was heading.

"He has taken to screeching from your chestnut tree." The elderly lady's voice strengthened. "Please do something."

Azula heard the old lady hang up and listened for the sound of a lemur in distress and heard it.

She tromped up to Karo's room and stomped through the door. It had been a warm sunny summer day and Karo had his window open and Azula could see a large hole in the wire mesh. Outside in the chestnut tree Mitsumi sang in the manner beloved of lemurs and hated by humans.

"Karo!" Azula shook Karo's shoulder.

"House on fire!" Karo snorted to awareness and sat up in bed. "It's one in the morning. Is Katara practicing her Southern Water Tribe throat singing?"

"No." Azula pointed at the dim outline of the hole in the screen. "Your lemur busted out the window and is serenading the neighborhood. The old lady next door called a minute ago."

"What has gotten into that demented primate now?" Karo looked out his window.

"He wants a mate." Katara replied from below. "Male lemurs sing to attract a mate. If the female likes his song they will pair up. I came out here to shut him up because he woke me up."

"I'll toss Karo's Third Place bowling trophy at his head." Azula leaned out the window and spoke at the dim outline of Katara in her night robe standing under the tree. "Why would he want a mate!"

"He wants to make more lemurs." Katara answered back sarcastically.

"We paid good money so he couldn't." Karo shrugged. "They don't grow back do they?"

"You looked at me like I would know." Azula scowled.

"Mitsumi!" Katara made an attempt to attract the lemur's attention.

Mitsumi ran along a branch while maintaining a perfect C sharp above Middle C and jumped onto the roof. A slate tile broke off and nearly took off Azula's head as it fell past the window and made a loud shattering glass sound below. She said a few unmentionable things in the general direction of Mitsumi. Azula swung up out the window and broke what remained of the screen and in a delicate maneuver ended up on the roof.

"Get in there." Azula returned a few moments later with Mitsumi under her arm. "Stupid primate."

Karo heard Katara enter the house more conventionally through the ground floor entrance. Azula slammed the window closed to ensure the lemur would not leave by that route.


"Mitsumi is lonely." Karo told Azula as she passed though the living room on her way to claim to some tea. Karo had given up on getting any sleep and finally left Mitsumi in his room and decided to retreat to the couch.

"How can he be lonely?" Azula said casually. "Don't you need a working central nervous system to have emotion?"

Mitsumi chattered at the basement door.

"I let him out of your room." Azula told Karo. "You should take him for a walk since he probably needs to go to the bathroom."

"Why don't you?" Karo raised his eyebrow. "You're all dressed."

"I still may want to shove him under a carriage for all the trouble he has caused." Azula warned.

Mitsumi whined at the foot of the door.

"I think we have a ghost in the house." Katara emerged out of the basement as Karo stood up and set out to clean and dress himself for the coming day.

"A ghost?" Azula looked dubious.

"Who owned the house before your mother purchased it?" Katara asked as Karo walked upstairs.

"I have no idea." Karo shrugged. "This place is a century old so any number of people could have called it home."

"No one has made tea." Azula shouted from the kitchen. "Where did your mom go?"

"To the market I think." Karo shouted as he closed the washroom door.

"I heard footsteps in the basement." Katara walked into the kitchen. "Mitsumi has begun to act weird and I get cold chills."

Mitsumi ran into the kitchen with his eyes wide open and hair standing up on end.

"Our lemur sees dead people?" Azula lit the front burner of the stove and placed a kettle of water on it. "Quite the talented lemur."

"Have you or Karo heard anything odd?" Katara asked Azula.

"Nothing I would consider a ghost." Azula snickered.

"What could make sounds like footsteps?" Katara watched in horror as Azula emptied raw tea into a cup.

"The boiler decided to make a dash for freedom?" Azula looked down at the lemur hiding behind her and deftly avoided dumping the kettle of boiling water. "The Ba Sing Se sewer 'gater digging his way to surface level?"

"And the cold chills?" Katara watched and wondered if such a large amount of tea could kill as Azula sipped her tea calmly. "Isn't that tea a little – uh – chunky?"

"We could call ourselves The Ghost House of Melbourne Street." Azula quickly drank the tea. "Come on and let's have a look."

Azula picked up Mitsumi and walked with Katara to the basement stairway. Mitsumi had decided he wanted none of this and squirmed out of Azula's grasp and flew upstairs to hide as he squealed in terror.

"I still think that demented animal has developed a brain tumor or something." Azula muttered.

"I heard footsteps in this room this morning at five." Katara pointed at the light tan wooden floor in her basement apartment. "I came out turned on the light and saw nothing."

"You have a dead animal rug and are neat to the point of insanity." Azula bounced up and down on the floor but the floor had no give. A large white bearskin rug covered the floor but in a tribute to her mother the living room of her apartment was neat and orderly. The kitchen had white cabinets and a gray marble counter top and neatly arranged glass jars lined up perfectly sat next to the clean sink. Azula felt out of her element.

"Feel that?" Katara shivered.

"Why is Mitsumi hiding in the light in the hallway!" Karo yelled down to the girls. Mitsumi had climbed into the wrought iron and amber glass light fixture and Karo wondered if the wire it dangled from would bear his weight.

"Katara thinks we have a ghost!" Azula yelled up.

"As long as he pays rent!" Karo came down the stairs adjusting the red and gold collar of his vest. He looked back as a loud thump, the sound of breaking glass and a panicking lemur resonated though the entire house.

"See!" Katara pointed up at the source of the sound.

"That stupid lemur!" Karo growled. "That proves nothing except that the hallway light can't bear the weight of a lemur and my mom will probably have me fix it."

"Did anyone die in this house?" Katara asked Karo.

"I like to think I'm slowly dying within its walls." Karo scowled.

"I knew it." Katara held a yellowed piece of newsprint. "I found out about our ghost from the back issues of the newspaper."

"That fuzzy moron took out the light and ripped off the metal box that kept it in place." Karo stood on a stepladder and tightened a screw as he replaced the metal box that held the wiring in place. Azula held out the tools and on the floor Katara spotted the new and equally ugly green light with ugly brass accents


"Did you know the bricklayer died when a wagon load of bricks fell on top of him?" Katara held out the old article. "He died in the basement! I knew it! We do have a ghost!"

"Creepy." Karo pulled on the wires in the box. He climbed down the wooden ladder and picked up the box with the new light in it. "That must be a hundred and thirty years ago."

"He may have left some unfinished business." Katara said. "He wouldn't expect to have a ton of bricks fall on him."

"What unfinished business?" Karo tried to find a set of instructions for setting up the light but found none. "As far as I can tell we have all the bricks we need in the places we need."

"We can call him the Ghost of the Melbourne Street Townhouse Complex." Azula made her voice sound eerie and distant.

"I don't think you two are taking this seriously." Katara said starkly. "I have seen things I can only explain by a supernatural presence."

"So our lemur starts acting like a whackjob?" Azula began. "And you go to the library and find out about a workplace accident a century or more ago?"

"We had no idea." Karo examined the wires in the box which consisted of a black and a white wire and a bare copper one. The new hall lamp had two brown rubber wires and Karo realized the standards for the new electrical technology had not been fully worked out. "What do we do now? Stage an elaborate ceremony to exorcise the bricklayer. Maybe he will go away if we have the house done over in stucco?"

"No." Katara said sadly. "But such tragic deaths often leave the spirit of the person trapped on this level of reality."

"Indeed." Azula heard Mitsumi chattering in Karo's room as the lemur took a nap and dreamed of catching flies.

"I have lived in this house for sixteen years and I didn't know this place had a dark history." Karo tightened the wire nut and began to stuff the loose wire into the box. He tightened the screws on the base of the lamp and let it hang in place.

"You don't believe in ghosts." Azula held up the light bulb.

"I didn't know this place was the site of a workplace accident." Karo grudgingly went back up the small ladder and snapped the bulb in place. "I find it sad that a young boy died so tragically in this place."

Azula flipped the switch and the light came on. It filled the hallway with a putrid green glow that looked much like cheap mint mouthwash.

"Why did you get such a hideous light?" Azula asked almost as an aside.

"It was on sale at Earth Kingdom Tire." Karo shrugged.


"Come and bring Mitsumi!" Katara rushed up to the dining room table as Azula made a house of cards. Karo had decided to spend his evening reading while Azula sipped tea and had a large house of cards assembled in front of her. The sun had set and the house became pleasantly cool in the evening. She had used four card decks to get it a meter tall. Mitsumi slept on the living room couch next to Lady Ursa who had embarked on knitting a rug out of dark red wool or one of those house tents for use in killing termites. Lady Zhao seldom had a clear idea where her knitting would take her.

Azula's office block of cards fell over and scattered on the floor. She stood up and glared at Katara then went over to the living room and picked up Mitsumi. Lady Ursa smiled pleasantly as her knitting project metastasized into a large blanket.

"What do you need fudge brain for?" Azula asked with some irritation. Mitsumi chattered louder as they went toward the basement door and then squirmed, yowled and leaped away from Azula.

"Ow!" Karo screamed from upstairs when Mitsumi ran over him as he lay on his bed reading a book. Mitsumi hid under the bed and had no intention of coming back out.

"I keep hearing footsteps." Katara pointed at the furnace room. "I heard a voice from in there."

"Hello?" Azula opened the door to the furnace room and pulled on the metal chain that turned on the light in the room. She tapped the concrete floor and walked around the small room.

"I heard a voice from in here." Katara stood at the edge of the door.

"No one but us chickens, a middle aged gas boiler, the fuse panel and boxes of stuff we should sell at a yard sale." Azula looked in a box of hockey cards. "Number 22 -Yu Shui – Goalie for the Ba Sing Se Warriors."

"How do you explain the footsteps, the voices and the fact Mitsumi won't come near this place?" Katara remained standing at the door.

"The pipes creaking in an old house?" Azula found a box of hockey pucks in another box. "The boiler makes noise when someone calls for hot water. What did the voice say?"

"I thought it said help." Katara looked uneasy.

"Perhaps the boiler has something to say. Maybe you have a future as a appliance whisperer?" Azula found a goalie stick and tapped it on the cement floor. Karo had long enjoyed hockey but proved too small to play and the hockey memorabilia found its way here.

"Where does the large metal door in the floor go?" Katara pointed to a metal door painted gray to match the concrete about the size of a large book in the floor.

If something leaps out at me, hit them with this." Azula handed Katara the goalie stick. Azula opened the hinged door and stood back.

"What is it?" Katara asked and looked over Azula's shoulder.

"A hole in the floor." Azula said quietly. "With pipes – it's the access hatch for the household drains."

The room grew very cold and the bulb blew out with a pop.

"Crap!" Azula swore and kicked the metal door closed.

"Now what do we do?" Katara held the goalie stick in her hand.

"Get a new bulb." Azula shrugged.

"Shh!" Katara hushed Azula and whispered. "Can't you hear that?"

"Footsteps." Azula looked around the unevenly lit room but saw nothing. Azula refused to believe in ghosts and began to try to find a direction on the rather ominous sound. She looked in the small furnace room and in the room under the stairs but found no clues. It surrounded her and didn't come from inside walls or change loudness when she moved to Katara's neatly kept kitchen.

"All the hairs on the back of my neck went up." Katara said quietly.

"Tell him I like the tan colored brick and he did a very good job on the chimney." Azula peered in Katara's bedroom.

"I realized something you might find even more unsettling." Azula looked around for something to land a fire bolt on. "You know this may provide evidence for evolution in action."

"Evolution?" Katara stared in unfocused confusion at Azula.

"The Fire Nation has a saying: you have nothing to fear but fear itself and spiders." Azula began to sound professorial. "Before we had the basement remodeled, I used to find large spiders down here along with abnormally large roaches. I killed lots of roaches because they were immensely stupid but the spiders seemed to grow smarter as I faced off with them."

"What are you going on about?" Katara ignored her concern about ghosts for a moment.

"Assume that I killed the large dumb bugs because only they were stupid enough to walk across the basement floor where I could land a spanner on them?" Azula paced the kitchen with her hands locked behind her back. "I would have selected for smart spiders that grew large on a diet of roaches and the odd rat."

"Smart spiders?" Katara sneered at Azula's Darwinian theory of the rise of the smart spider.

"We haven't had rats come around." Azula looked under the sink. "Oh mother of all creation!"

"Can I ask you something?" Karo kept a calm in spite of the fact Azula had run into his room screaming something about a blight to all things bright and beautiful and climbed on his desk. "Are you avoiding the floor because you hate my rug or did you just decide gravity just isn't your thing?"

"How big to spiders get?" Azula looked at Karo.

"I would rather not know." Karo answered back. "I read about a spider the size of a carriage in a fantasy novel."

"The largest one you have ever seen?" Azula did not step down from the desk.

"The size of a tea saucer?" Karo sounded doubtful. "Anything larger and I probably would have repressed the memory in an act of self preservation."

"I killed the spider." Katara walked slowly up the stairs.

"How?" Azula asked back. "No one can kill that thing without inventing some kind of weapon of mass destruction."

"I would prefer ghosts." Karo sighed.

"I froze it to death with water bending and used the goalie stick to slapshot it against a wall. It shattered into hundreds of pieces!" Katara appeared at the door. "Do you want to see what's left?"

"No!" Karo and Azula shouted together.

"Azula?" Karo asked. "Get off my desk."

"Wait!" Karo continued. "You used my prized autographed goalie stick? The one I in my prized collection of hockey memorabilia?"

"Yes." Katara said unemotionally.

"I could deal with ghosts." Karo grumbled. "Where did you find this spider?"

"Azula found it." Katara said. "Then she became a blur as she ran up to hide on top of your desk."

"I have a healthy instinct for self preservation." Azula answered calmly.

"I want to hold a seance." Katara announced. "While you have some big spiders I still have the feeling we have a ghost."

"Are we invited?" Azula asked somewhat sceptically.

"Of course." Katara said. "We need at least four people to make this work."

"Oh goody." Azula said sarcastically.

"Can you get off my desk?" Karo asked quietly. "You have trampled all over my tax return."


Karo came home from a brief shopping trip to buy ink and stationary. He had need of some office supplies and had walked to the local Wing Shu Printing and Office Supply Depot. This store advertised that if they didn't have it then your office didn't need it. A young girl could have a stack of 'Have You Seen My Lost Poodle Monkey' posters printed for two copper pieces a copy but the staff did not promise to get all of the characters correct.

In spite of the fact the day was sunny and clear Karo tripped into the front door on a large wooden crate the size of a coffin on the front stoop and banged his head on the sturdy front door of the house and then cussed loudly. His bag of office supplies landed in the juniper bushes beside the stairs.

"What the..." Karo rubbed his head as the front door opened and Katara stuck her head out the door.

"Oh! It arrived." Katara said enthusiastically. "Aunt Wu promised to send me a parcel of supplies for the séance."

"The Fortuneteller shipping cadavers in the mail?" Karo said as he waited for his vision to clear. "You hadn't mentioned that séance thing in a week and I had hoped you had forgotten about it."

"The toaster doesn't work!" Azula yelled from the kitchen. "The bread is jammed."

"Hold on." Karo replied. "Can you move this thing out of my way so I can get in the house."

"I will have to read Aunt Wu's instructions and maybe we can have the séance tonight!" Katara picked up the box and Karo walked in the house scratching his head.

"Can you fix this?" Azula walked into the living room as Karo sat down and Katara set he package down on the coffee table and she held the silver toaster in front of Karo.

"You said bread was jammed." Karo looked inside his favorite break burning device. "That is a bagel."

"I didn't think it made a difference." Azula turned the toaster upside down and shook it.

"You have to cut a bagel in half." Karo said in a tired voice. "You stuffed the whole thing in one slot and it jammed."

"I noticed it did take some force to load it in the toaster." Azula mused as she scattered burned, brown and smelly bread crumbs on Katara's package. "Can you fix it?"

"Can you two listen to me!" Katara said loudly. "Forget about that toaster."

"Can you fix it?" Karo asked politely.

"No." Katara began. "Last time I checked water and electricity don't mix. Listen! I need you two to help me host this séance so we can contact the spirits of the dead! Azula quit rolling your eyes!"

"Your plan seems perfectly rational." Azula lied.

"I invited Meng over to help with the ceremony." Katara explained. "Karo! You quit rolling your eyes."

"Meng always kisses me on the cheek when she sees me." Karo said sheepishly. "It makes me uncomfortable since I'm shy."

"Azula is your fiance!" Katara almost seemed to speak as if explaining something to a moron. "How do you make that work if you are so shy?"

"He has learned to obey me." Azula explained. "That helps overcome many barriers."

"This day gets better and better." Karo sighed heavily and tried to look small as he sat on the couch with his injured toaster.

"How do you play poker with Tarot cards?" Azula sat at the small wooden table in the middle of Katara's living room and shuffled the deck of Tarot cards that had come in the crate sent by Aunt Wu. Katara had soon come to regret the decision to ask Azula to help her prepare for the séance later that evening. Katara had tried hard to try and get along with Azula but Azula tried hard to make herself a complete and utter pain. Katara tried her best to put up with Azula because the princess had such a tragic life and had to live with a shattered mind. Katara suspected many of Azula's irritating traits arose from her great intelligence and her incurable social incompetence.

"Meng knows how to read them." Katara placed a red cloth over the small table as Azula stared at a card labeled Death. Katara had picked a light blue color for the walls of her apartment, white for the trim and the blood red tablecloth clashed perfectly with the décor.

"So irrational belief in the supernatural runs in the family." Azula mused. "What happened to Karo?"

"He left to pick up some things for tonight and escort Meng from the tea shop to here." Katara looked at the table.

"I didn't know the local greengrocer sold ectoplasm." Azula shuffled the deck of cards in her hand.

"Do you remember what I asked you to do?" Katara looked at Azula.

"Not off the top of my head – no." Azula shrugged. "I thought you wanted my company."

"Lady Zhao said I could use her best red tea set." Katara picked up a pair of heavy brass candlesticks with blood red candles and adjusted their position. "I asked you to bring it downstairs.

"Oh." Azula walked up the basement stairs then returned a few seconds later with a light bulb in her hands.

"Why?" Katara could only bring herself to ask that one question.

"Karo just arrived with Meng and he bought light bulbs." Azula pointed at the glass bulb. "Do you know it took the inventor two years almost ten thousand tries to find the right filament for inside this bulb."

"What about the tea set?" Katara asked in exasperation.

"He didn't invent that." Azula placed the bulb on the counter.

"I have my mom's tea set." Karo labored down the stairs with a large wooden box filled with gray packing paper. "She has only one request – don't let Azula make tea."

"Where is Meng?" Katara asked. "You did remember to meet her at the tea shop?"

"She is visiting with my mom." Karo placed the crate containing the tea set on the counter.

"Did she call you cute and kiss you on the cheek?" Azula cooed.

"How many Fire Nation princesses does it take to change a light bulb." Karo noticed the bulb sitting on the counter.

"How many?" Katara had never heard a light bulb joke before and thought this was a serious discussion.

"Well it takes five." Karo began. "One princess holds the bulb, the other four turn the stepladder."

Azula hit Karo in the head.


"The séance will allow us to contact the spirit of the deceased." Meng began with all the seriousness of Sunday Mass. She gestured over the table with great ceremony and looked intimidating in her ornate black robes. She had ordered Azula to quit sneering.

"How many brain cells did Azula kill when she hit me in the head?" Karo fussed over the boiling kettle on the gas ring in Katara's kitchen. "Of course my father came back from the dead so what do I know?"

"How long have you had the sense that you shared this place with a ghost?" Meng asked Katara.

"I moved in and almost immediately I felt something." Katara explained as she teased her hair loops.

"Have you ever felt a presence in this house?" Meng asked Azula.

"No." Azula answered flatly. "Of course I may have mistaken the walking dead for a delusion."

"Have you ever felt a strange presence young Karo?" Meng asked seriously.

"Until Katara brought it up – no." Karo scratched his head. "But we never came into the basement and I had no idea the bricklayer who built this house got crushed by a wagon of bricks."

"I can tell both you don't believe in ghosts." Meng lectured Azula and Karo.

"I have my doubts." Azula sneered.

"I have lived in this house for most of my house and never noticed anything." Karo added dutifully.

The lights went out in Katara's basement with a loud electrical pop.

"Ow!" Azula banged her knee on the table as a blue flame grew from her hand. The blue light from Azula's bending bathed the room in an eerie glow.

Mitsumi rushed into the room and climbed up Karo and then hissed loudly as he sat between the two candles.

"Our guest has turned up." Meng stood up.

"The bulb blew." Azula lit the candles. "They don't last forever."

"I bring you a message from beyond the grave." A ragged low voice announced loudly.

"You took out the light bulb." Karo complained.

"Hush." Meng said sternly.

"They cost half a silver each." Karo felt the need to remind everyone of the cost of mass produced items.

"I don't think it cares." Katara pointed to the outline of a human casting a glowing green light in the corner of the room.

"The Ghost of Melbourne Place?" Azula asked carefully.

"How can we help you?" Meng asked with a calm voice.

"I do not approve of the young Water Tribe woman living here." The voice did not seem to come from a direction and everyone felt like it shook them more than spoke to them as it resonated through the basement.

"Oh dear." Meng sighed as the green hazy presence faded away.


"Doesn't it strike you as odd?" Azula sat on Karo's bed as he sat at his desk and combed his hair to prepare for the coming day of classes. "A one hundred and thirty year dead bricklayer can't find anything to complain about except for Katara."

"I wondered about that too." Karo fixed his hair ornament. "I would think he might have complained about having a ton of bricks fall on him. Even a complaint about the pastries served at his memorial service makes more sense."

"I find Katara insufferable at times but I didn't know the undead did so as well." Azula brushed a few flakes of dandruff off of Karo's shoulder.

"The green apparition seemed pretty convincing. Maybe it needs personal space." Karo stood up from his desk and checked to make sure he had his transit pass ready. "How do you explain the green other realm presence?"

"I can't." Azula followed behind Karo as he left his room. "That doesn't mean it couldn't be faked."

"Before you two leave can you help Katara?" Lady Zhao called. "She needs help changing a light bulb."

"We need four more Fire Nation princesses." Karo decided the sharp smack to the head was worth it.

"My light doesn't work." Katara called from the kitchen. "None of these bulbs work."

"They're new." Karo looked at the glass globes. "I find it hard to believe they are all duds."

"Ow!" Azula unscrewed the light bulb from the fixture that hung over the dining room table and tossed it between her hands to cool it off.

"Hand it over." She implored Karo for a new bulb.

Karo handed the bulb over to Azula.

The light worked as advertised.

"I tried one of the new ones." Katara said. "Follow me."

Azula and Karo obediently followed Katara down the basement stairs. The basement reeked of fish oil from a dim lamp Katara had set up on the kitchen counter.

Karo flipped the switch on and off and looked at it in bewilderment when it didn't turn on the light.

Azula picked up the fish oil lamp and headed for the small room that housed the boiler and fuse panel.

"Fuses fused?" Karo asked over Azula's shoulder.

"They look fine." Azula held the lamp up to the panel.

"Could this have happened because of our ghost?" Katara asked from the kitchen.

"Call an electrician." Azula slammed the metal door of the fuse panel closed.


"That transit ride home had to be the least pleasant ride I have had in many years." Karo opened the front door of the house as it began to rain. "What possessed you to complain about the smell of a burly guy with tattoos?"

"Katara cooks some Water Tribe dishes that smelled more pleasant." Azula followed Karo in the house.

"He came close to hurling me off the train and eating my head." Karo grumbled. "I think you want to see me killed."

"You are my fiance." Azula said. "You have to defend my honor."

"Leaping Lizards!" Karo saw Meng in a set of ornate ritual robes and nearly jumped into Azula's arms. Meng had Mitsumi on her shoulders and the little lemur jumped onto Karo's shoulder.

"Katara fetched me to perform an exorcism." Meng held a sensor with a floral scented incense making wisps of blue smoke. "She thinks her lights are possessed."

"Did you get them working?" Azula did nothing to hide her scorn.

"The lights work." Meng hugged Karo in greeting. "Now the toaster is haunted."

"My toaster? The beloved burner of bread for my morning tea?" Karo looked sternly at Meng. "My toaster has a supernatural spirit dwelling in it?"

"I have to see this." Azula marched into the kitchen.

"Your toaster has the spirit of a dead bricklayer dwelling in it." Katara came up the stairs and told a confused looking Karo.

"Does it still toast bread?" Karo asked as he tested the toaster by dropping two pieces of bread into it.

A loud unearthly scream filled the whole house as Azula dodged two slices of toast at ballistic velocity.

"The toaster screamed." Azula spoke as if this happened in the normal course of events.

"So I take it we have to perform an exorcism on the toaster?" Karo had not anticipated ever having to say those words.

"I convinced the spirit of the undead to move from the fuse panel into the toaster." Meng pointed to the toaster.

"We have two slices of bread sticking out of the ceiling." Azula felt the need to point that detail out.

"I will swallow your souls." The toaster spoke in a reedy metallic male voice.

"That seems out of character for a dead bricklayer." Azula told the toaster.

"This is progress in your eyes?" Karo scratched his head.

"Your house lies over a portal to the spirit realm – an ancient Earth Kingdom temple site." Meng explained. "When they built these homes, the city moved the temple into the park. The spirits do not like living in the park next to the tennis courts."

"Uh huh." Azula nodded. "Sounds very much like their problem."

"And yet no one has suggested a fix for the toaster." Karo said politely.

"I will swallow your souls." The toaster replied as the bread lever moved up and down as it spoke. Mitsumi had the common sense to run off and hide.

"I won't clean out your crumb tray." Karo shook his head.

"You will pay for your crimes against the spirit realm." The toaster added and a black hole opened up in the bread slots. Karo stood back as an evil darkness filled the bread slots.

"Fix this." Karo placed two slices of bread and the toaster shredded it into tiny crumbs and spat the remnants all over the kitchen. "We can't live with a demon in the toaster! Our toaster refuses to toast and in my mind this violates the Karo Toaster Contract we had when I paid good cash money for the appliance! Fix this!"

"We can chuck our garbage into it." Azula tossed a lemon slice into the toaster. The toaster chewed it into so much yellow goo. "It can shred paper."

Katara unplugged the possessed appliance and dove for cover as the toaster exploded with a loud bang and died a glorious death. Karo and Azula hit the floor while Meng ducked behind the kitchen door. Silver bits of the toaster lodged themselves in the walls and wooden doors of the cabinets.

"Okay?" Azula looked up at the remains of the toaster. "I didn't see that coming."

"As the foremost expert on demons, what do we do now?" Karo got up off the floor and looked at Meng. "My mom will want answers to many questions. I can't live without toast and so I am off to buy a new toaster and avoid explaining the loss of the last one to my mom."


"It took you two hours to replace the toaster." Azula leaned over Karo's shoulder as he set the toaster on its special place on the counter. Karo had deemed the replacement of the toaster as an urgent priority and had returned after buying one.

"I need my toast and it spared me the awkward explanations you guys had to give to mom." Karo placed the new toaster on the counter. "Where is mom."

"The boiler is possessed." Azula said. "Your mom went to help Meng talk it out of blowing the house to bits."

"Would a brisk walk in the general direction of the hell away from here be a good move?" Karo carefully selected two slices of bread and prepared to make toast.

"I have dealt with the demonic presence." Meng said as she walked up the basement stairs followed by Lady Zhao.

"Mitsumi can come out of the box of Lady Zhao's shoes?" Azula asked.

"Demons must agree to leave." Meng explained quietly. "I had to provide it with a place to live."

"Is he gone?" Karo asked.

"He agreed to leave the house." Meng fidgeted.

"Where did he go!" Azula asked strenuously.

"He took possession of the chestnut tree." Meng answered in a manner that positively insured doubt. "We came to a compromise."

"I have tomatoes to attend to." Lady Ursa said as she turned to Karo. "I will be in the back working in the garden if anyone needs me. Get the toast out of the kitchen ceiling."

"We had a real ghost in this house?" Karo asked Meng in disbelief as they stood gazing at the chestnut tree gently waving in the breeze. "Why didn't this all end with a massive black hole that sucked us all into a massive dark hole of nothingness?"

"I still don't believe it." Azula huffed as she walked up to the chestnut tree and looked into its canopy of dark green leaves. In an act of idle disrespect for the plant kingdom, she kicked the tree with her foot. A moment later a cascade of young and unripened chestnut fruit fell on her head. She dodged out of the way just in time to avoid a headache.

"I still don't believe it." She shouted defiantly as she looked at Meng. "That tree has always proven disagreeable."

Azula stared at Meng making sure her scowl conveyed doubt for the supernatural, contempt for chestnut trees and grave doubt about Meng's abilities when a blue fluorescent light engulfed the yard. Azula had the feeling her atoms had begun to fall apart and she had a bit of a concern that whatever sought to rip her atoms apart might not go to the trouble of picking them up and putting them back in place.

Karo held onto Meng and despite his desire to appear manly began to scream like a girl. Somehow this provided some small amusement for Meng as they winked into nothing.

Katara and Mitsumi didn't notice anything at first until their ears popped. Mitsumi grabbed Katara's braid as the house fell apart around them.

Lady Zhao had gone out the back to tend to the garden that she kept in the townhouse commons when the townhouse shrank into a bright blue point of light and vanished with a loud pop preceded by the distinct scream of Karo. She stared with great alarm at the hole where her home once stood.

"I wonder if my insurance will cover this?" She said to herself in shock.


Azula grabbed Karo as bits of the house fell around them. Katara and Mitsumi ran full pelt ahead of them. Meng had found a round hole covered by a plastic green grate where they could take cover and shouted urgently to guide them to it.

"Anything to confess!" Azula and Karo jumped into the hole as the boiler, a wardrobe and various bits of the house including many bricks fell all around them. Katara flashed her water bending prowess to pile drive the red living room couch away from the group cowering in the hole. Katara jumped down into the hole as the crashing sounds of furniture hitting the ground and splintering wood died away.

"Are we dead?" Karo hunkered down in the hole. "And where is my mom!"

"The house has seen better days." Azula saw the house teetering at a forty five degree angle over the edge of an unnaturally large bed of purple and pink petunias in a circular shaped flower bed. "Your mom had gone out the back to do some gardening."

"I didn't do anything!" Meng protested and coughed.

"We're not in Ba Sing Se anymore." Katara peered out over the cloud of settling brick dust.

"How do you know this?" Azula panted as she looked out over the nicely manicured lawn.

"Have you ever seen buildings like those?" Katara pointed to large steel and glass towers in the distance. "Have you ever heard anything like that noise – like Fire Nation patrol boats in the distance?"

Mitsumi cowered behind Katara as a huge human child chased a soccer ball the size of a large World Expo exhibit across the grass. Azula and everyone else decided to cower as well.

"Who wrecked that doll house?" The child asked as he ran up to his parents.

"La la la – Do di do." A voice rang out over the mid morning air. "Oh dear! What will persons think when they see this mess. Oh dear!"

"Oh bloody buggering hell!" Azula said with little or no restraint. Katara instinctively covered Meng's ears as Azula said much more that would prove unsuitable for most civilized groups.

"Other than swearing like a mill worker?" Karo complained as he brushed dust off his clothes. "What have you got to complain about?"

"La la la, do di do – Pearlie is in the Park!" Azula scowled at and then looked up. "We have would up in Jubilee Park!"

"Where?" Katara looked around.

"Karo's mom used to read him these stories about Pearlie the Park Fairy. When I had the flu this winter; he 'entertained' me with these stories." Azula grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. "Don't you recognize this place from those books?"

"What are you guys doing down here?" A delicate fairy with blond hair flew down and stood in front of the group as they cowered in the hole. She had a pink shirt and blue pants and wore pearls in her hair and she fluttered her pale blue wings as she hovered over the group.

"I am really going to pay for this – aren't I?" Karo almost whimpered.

"Indeed!" Azula growled as the rest of the group looked even more confused.