Mr and Mrs Smith

by EGB Fan

When Kylie's grandfather dies, it doesn't seem to be much of a cause for commiseration. However when his grandson Matt inherits his house and a new set of neighbours, events take a few unexpected turns.

Disclaimer: Ghostbusters (c) Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Columbia Pictures. Mr. and Mrs. Smith and associated characters are creations of the author's late grandmother. All other original characters are creations of the author.

Extreme Ghostbusters: Mr. and Mrs. Smith

"Sorry you only got ten thou," Matthew Fowler-Davies smiled consolingly at his cousin across the quaint little seaside café table.

Kylie Griffin spent a few seconds choking on her banana milkshake. Then, once she had recovered, she said, "Matt, ten thousand is plenty. It's more than I need, in fact."

"So why the long face?"

"Because I feel like such a whore."

"Really?" Matt said sympathetically. "So what did you have to do for ten grand, then?"

"I called him a couple of times," said Kylie. "Sent him a picture of the girls, told him all about my life thus far… and I spent a very long time agreeing with his unfavourable comments about my mother."

"I shouldn't imagine they were altogether untrue, though, were they?"

"Well… yeah, they kinda were. It wasn't about her abandoning me or any of that stuff - it was about all the injustices she ever did to him."

"The guy was a little crazy," Matt said soberly. "I honestly think that he genuinely forgot about how he used to beat up our grandmother. Did you have to tell him you don't have anything to do with Jill nowadays?"

"I may have mentioned it," said Kylie.

"See, at least that's actually true. I had to pretend I never talk to my mother anymore, even though Maddy and I are getting along fine now. I said to her a few times, 'Mom, why don't you come with me? He might leave you that kick-ass Mercedes or something.' But she's too much like you and your mother - she has principles."

"I don't have principles."

"You do."

"But clearly I don't, or I wouldn't be here."

"You do," said Matt. "Yeah, ok, you called the old guy a couple of times because you wanted a little bit of his money, but look how guilty you're feeling. I, on the other hand, feel no remorse whatsoever. I spent a couple of years sucking up to Jeremy and now I'm ninety thousand dollars, a really cool car and a fully - well, partially furnished semi-detached house richer."

"It must be wonderful to be so unscrupulous," said Kylie.

"I tried having scruples for a short time in the nineties, and found them to be extremely restrictive. So you never came down to see him, then?"

Kylie shook her head. "I made up a wonderful excuse - I said Eduardo wouldn't let me."

Matt grinned. "Oh, I bet he loved that."

"Yep."

"So you haven't seen my house, then. Let's go there now - I'll give you a guided tour."

Kylie glanced across the table at Matt's watch, and said, "I can't see the house today, Matt, I have to go home."

"What? Kylie, come on," Matt said disdainfully. "You took the whole day off, you got up at six to get down here, the will had all been dealt with by noon and now it's only just after one o'clock. You can stay for another couple of hours and still get back before the girls' bedtime. And you trust Eddie to look after them in the meantime, don't you?"

"They're not with him - Beth has them today."

"Well, there you are, then. Beth is extremely responsible and makes a mean roast dinner, as I recall. I may employ her as a cook in my new house - get her away from that very large scary husband of hers. But in the meantime" - Matt leaned back in his chair and spread his arms dramatically - "it is a beautiful summer's day in New Jersey. There's a big balcony off the master bedroom - you can totally see the beach from there."

"I can totally see the beach from here, thank you," said Kylie.

"Kylie," said Matt. He sank slightly in his chair, and did a very good imitation of Kylie's daughter Conchita executing her pleading puppy-eyed look. "I have spent every other weekend for the past two years sitting on that balcony with a horrible old man drinking rosé wine. Have you ever tasted rosé wine, Kylie? It is vile! So what I'd really like to do now is go back to that house and spend a couple of hours on that balcony drinking lemonade with a not so horrible young woman - I think it's the least I deserve."

Kylie raised her eyebrows. "You don't think the least you deserve is ninety thousand dollars, a house and a car?"

"No."

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

"Whoa!" exclaimed Kylie, when they were standing outside the impressive semi-detached house. "Old guy living alone by the coast - I thought it'd be smaller."

"Only half of it's mine, Ky," said Matt. "I know you know what semi-detached means."

"Yeah, I know, but even so… How did he make all of his money, anyway?"

"Just by penny pinching," said Matt, as the door to the house on their left inched open. "Put some aside, never gave it away, never even bought anybody a birthday present… Oh, there's Mrs. Smith! Hi, Mrs. Smith!" and he began jogging towards the little old lady who had hobbled out into her front garden.

"Matthew!" she exclaimed, in a voice that was cracked and elderly, but still Kylie thought she detected an English accent. "I heard that Jeremy passed away. I'm so sorry."

"Yeah, thanks," said Matt, as Kylie approached them at a more sedate pace. "He, um, left me the house."

"Oh!" Mrs. Smith's wrinkled old smile widened. "Will you be living in it?"

"Well, I thought I might, at least for a little while. I don't need three bedrooms, though. I could get some tenants in, or rent it out to tourists - we'll have to all sit down and talk about it, Mrs. Smith. I wouldn't do anything without your and Mr. Smith's approval."

"Oh now, Matthew, it's your house…"

"Oh," said Matt, as Kylie coughed politely. "This is my cousin Kylie. Kylie, this is Mrs. Smith. She and Mr. Smith are from England - they retired here in the spring."

"Matthew was the very first friend we made here," said Mrs. Smith, taking Kylie's proffered hand in a vicelike grip. "Was Jeremy your grandfather too, dear?"

"Well," said Kylie. "Yes."

"Oh, my dear, I am sorry."

"I'm going to show Kylie the house," said Matt. "Then maybe afterwards I could bring her round to meet Mr. Smith?"

"Oh no, no, don't trouble yourselves," said Mrs. Smith. "Mr. Smith and I will come round with a nice packet of chocolate biscuits."

"Thanks," beamed Matt.

"Chocolate biscuits?" Kylie asked quietly, once she and Matt were heading up the latter's newly acquired driveway.

"It's what the English call cookies," said Matt. "We had a long conversation about this. Pancakes are just pancakes, flapjacks are these totally awesome things she makes out of oats and all kinds of fatty stuff - I tell you, Kylie, they're like sex, honestly - and they don't have biscuits. Well, they have English biscuits, and they've managed to bring vast quantities of the things into the country. Ever since they came here in March they've been coming over with all different packets of biscuits I'm pretty sure you can't get in the US - you definitely can't get them in New Jersey, or New York."

"That's weird," remarked Kylie.

"They must just like their biscuits," said Matt. "So anyway, this is the hallway. I'm gonna take that rug up - it's tasteless, don't you think?"

Without a moment's delay, Matt stooped down and immediately began rolling up the vast patterned rug that covered about two thirds of the wooden floorboards in the hall. The room was sparsely furnished; there was a dusty old piano, a couple of bookcases filled with antiquated hardbacks, a small table with a telephone on it and nothing else. Kylie immediately wandered over to one of the bookcases and ran her eye along the books' spines, squinting at the faded copy.

"Oh, I might have known," said Matt. "What the hell am I gonna do with this rug now? I guess I could put it in the attic - there's a huge attic up there. I've never been in it, though, attics creep me out - and imagine if I found he had porn up there! Eugh. Maybe I should start learning to play the piano, seeing as I now own one."

"One of my bosses' wives'll teach you to play the piano," Kylie said distractedly, flicking through a yellowed copy of the Old Testament. She had no idea whether or not her grandfather had been a religious man, but the book did look well used. "You might want to come and see us too, while you're there - Rose probably doesn't even remember you."

"Actually," said Matt, "I was gonna suggest you bring them here to visit. You could all stay the night - that would be so cool. When I was about Chita's age I wanted to spend the night in a creepy old house, but nobody ever asked me. And you and Eddie could make love in the bed where our grandfather died."

Kylie looked up sharply. "You're not keeping that?"

"Why not? I changed the sheets."

"Oh, Matthew…"

"Shall we move on?" asked Matt. "It's not a small house, and I want to be ready when Mr. and Mrs. Smith come over. They are so cool. So." He led her into another sparsely furnished room, this one with just four old armchairs and a coffee table, and no carpet or rug of any description. "This is the living room where we sat on cold days, me freezing my ass off and him apparently oblivious. I'll definitely get central heating installed before the winter, maybe get some carpets in, the curtains could do with replacing too…"

"It needs a lot of work," said Kylie. "How could he live like this?"

"I think Mr. and Mrs. Smith thought the same thing. They never said it, though."

"Did they come over often?"

"Yeah, when Jeremy let them - with their flapjacks and their chocolate digestives and their custard creams… Have you ever had a custard cream? They're cute little things."

"No, I never have," said Kylie, wandering through to the next room. "Wow - it's cold in here even in August."

"The kitchen," Matt said unnecessarily, gesturing around him at the primitive units. "It takes about an hour to boil the kettle. Actually, maybe I should get it going - Mr. and Mrs. Smith will want tea."

"Why do you think they're so great?" asked Kylie.

"They're really nice people, Ky."

"You get on with old ladies, don't you?"

"I get on with Mr. Smith too. Back here we have a second reception room, but there's no furniture." Matt led Kylie through to another large room, this one with a carpet but, as he had said, no furniture. "I'll get a nice big table, and when you bring the girls we can all sit round it and eat dinner - it'll be so much fun!"

"Did you ever go to their house?" asked Kylie.

"Hmm?" Matt said distractedly, apparently fantasising about having a new table.

"The Smiths. Did they ever ask you back?"

"Oh," said Matt. "No. And if you would like to follow me upstairs - watch that third step. And the eighth. One foot wrong and you'll be in that cupboard down there. I'd like you to help me try and get that open later, by the way. You'll like this landing, Kylie - this is where he kept most of his books. He had quite a collection, didn't he? You're welcome to take any that you want - I could never read them all."

"Why not keep them in that empty room downstairs?" asked Kylie.

"Beats me. Why physically and mentally abuse your wife and alienate your daughters? Anyway, I am pleased to announce that I can show you the bathroom, because since I started visiting I took to cleaning it. There were a lot of spiders that had to be let out. My first night here I was in the shower, and a seriously massive one dropped down from the ceiling and, er… started getting rather fresh. I won't tell you how the toilet looked."

Kylie was relieved to find that the bathroom was now in a fit state to be made use of, and asked Matt to leave her alone while she did so. When she was done she found him kicking back on a single bed - the only piece of furniture in the smallest bedroom.

"I don't know if anybody ever slept in here," said Matt. "Jeremy had the big bedroom, obviously. I had the slightly less big one. There's two beds in there that the girls can use. I'll take this one while you're all here - you and Eddie can - "

"Make love in the bed where our grandfather died, you said."

Matt smiled slightly. "You don't have to make love, if it makes you uncomfortable."

The second bedroom was better than Kylie had expected, being better than the rest of the house generally. It had a carpet and decent curtains, and a wardrobe. There was also a dresser beside each of the beds, and a tasteful reading lamp on each.

"This room's great," said Matt. "You can put the little light on, have your glass of water on the dresser, read in bed for a bit, then put your book on the dresser and turn the light off, keep your undies in those drawers there…"

"Yes, thank you, I figured that much out," said Kylie, sounding slightly amused. "You're really excited about this plan to have my kids for a night, aren't you?"

"Yeah, well - I used to like staying places overnight when I was a kid. Y'know, I mean, the grown-up would give you something nice for dinner in a strange dining room, and then you'd play cards on a strange coffee table, and then you'd have a bath in a strange tub, and go to sleep in a bed that wasn't even yours - and you'd just think, Wow, this is so cool! I want them to think I'm cool, Kylie," he said levelly. "Now come on - I'll show you where the old bastard died."

Kylie expected an uncomfortable chill in what had once been Jeremy Davies' bedroom, and got one. This was the biggest of the rooms in which Jeremy had stretched to a carpet. The curtains, however, were in terrible disrepair. There was a large double bed that was just oozing creepy vibes, a wardrobe, a chest of drawers and another couple of bookcases.

"Here's the balcony," announced Matt, throwing open a pair of French doors and stepping out onto said balcony. "Oh, look, Mr. and Mrs. Smith are coming! Hi, Mr. and Mrs. - OH MY GOD YOU'VE GOT FLAPJACKS!"

Kylie went to join Matt on the balcony, and looked down to see Mrs. Smith and her husband chuckling indulgently, the former holding a clear plastic tub of something in her withered old hands.

"She was referring to him as 'Mr. Smith' earlier, wasn't she?" said Kylie, as she followed Matt downstairs.

"Er, yeah, probably - they always call each other Mr. Smith and Mrs. Smith."

"Well, why? They're married, aren't they?"

Matt shrugged. "They're old fashioned."

"Do you think that's what they call each other in bed? 'Ooooh, Mr. Smith…'"

"Kylie, don't be juvenile."

Less than five minutes later they were all sitting around Jeremy's - or rather Matt's - coffee table, Kylie and Matt experiencing both sinking sensations and severe back pain while Mr. and Mrs. Smith enjoyed the two marginally less dilapidated armchairs. Each had a cup of tea and an English flapjack in his or her hands. Kylie, much to her dismay, heard herself letting out an orgasmic groan as she bit into her flapjack.

"Wow," she said, hoping to make the sweet old couple forget the slightly embarrassing sound she had just made. "Mrs. Smith, these are just… wow."

"See, what d'I tell ya?" grinned Matt.

"I'll bet these are really bad for you, aren't they?" said Kylie.

"Oh yes, dear," chuckled Mrs. Smith. "Butter, sugar and golden syrup all melted together with a wooden spoon in my lovely big saucepan."

Kylie laughed. "Oh my goodness."

"The oats are just to hold it together, really," said Matt. "You're not one of those no-sugar moms, are you, Ky? I bet Mrs. Smith would let you take a couple of these home for your girls."

"Oh!" Mrs. Smith broke into a wide smile. "Do you have little girls?"

"How delightful!" beamed Mr. Smith.

This inevitably led to Kylie telling Mr. and Mrs. Smith all about Conchita and Rose while they smiled indulgently at the picture of them she had sent to Jeremy, which Matt managed to dig out of a drawer full of old letters and photographs.

"Aren't they pretty little things," said Mr. Smith. "Gosh, this little one isn't fond of photographs, is she?"

"No, she's not," said Kylie, not adding that Rose wasn't fond of anything very much.

"How lovely," said Mrs. Smith. "They must bring you such happiness. Of course you must take a flapjack for each of them. Look, if we all have one more each…" - she handed round the box containing the remaining eight flapjacks - "then there's one for yourself later, one for each of your little girls and one for their father. He'll like them, I think. You know what they say: the way to a man's heart is through his stomach."

Beth had said that once, and Kylie had answered that she'd found a much better way, a little south of the stomach. She didn't say that now, though. Instead she said, "Mrs. Smith, anyone who doesn't love these needs their taste buds seeing to."

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

After spending a pleasantly relaxed afternoon with Matt and the Smiths, Kylie arrived home just in time to put Rose to bed. Conchita was allowed to stay up for another hour, during most of which time she and Kylie played Snap.

"So?" asked Eduardo Rivera, once he had put Conchita to bed and found Kylie washing up in the kitchen.

"Ten thousand," said Kylie. "And just in time - so I guess this means it's on."

"That's fantastic news."

"Oh, don't." She shook him off when she felt his hands on her shoulders. "I feel terrible! He's dead and we're celebrating."

"So what? Nobody liked the guy, from what you've told me."

"That's cruel."

"Kylie, c'mon," said Eduardo, making another attempt at physical contact. "It's what you want. You're happy, aren't you?"

"Yeah… yeah, I am. I still feel bad, though. It's like I was holding out for him to die and hoping to get something out of it."

"You were," Eduardo said bluntly.

Kylie sighed heavily as she put down the last of the crockery and tipped the dirty water into the sink. "I know."

"Ky, come on, be happy. It's important to you, isn't it?"

"Yeah," said Kylie, allowing herself to smile as she leaned back against his body. "More than I knew. I mean, it was always an idea, but I never really seriously considered it. I wouldn't have done it right after college even if I hadn't had a small baby, because of all those student debts - and you remember when that whole stupid thing happened with those people from the future?"

"Yes," Eduardo said blankly, failing to see the relevance of this.

"Well, they were all Dr. Roland Jackson this, and Dr. Roland Jackson that - and I was just Kylie Griffin. Thinking about it now, what they had to say probably wasn't really much to go on - I mean, not having heard of Garrett! They had my journal - I've mentioned Garrett in my journal loads of times. But anyway, I had no real desire at the time, so I just thought maybe I'd never want to. I mean, there are so many more important things, aren't there?"

"Yes," said Eduardo, "but this is important too."

"Yeah… At the end of last year, when I had the idea, I was only thinking: well, Rose is starting preschool next year - I might as well apply and see what happens. I always thought I'd end up having to bow out or defer anyway because I didn't have enough money - and then one day I realised I'd been finding excuses to put it off. So I guess the long and the short of it is that I'm actually grateful he died. That's terrible, isn't it?"

"That's a negative attitude to start out with."

"It might not work out anyway," said Kylie, now making her way through to the living room. "It was probably a really stupid idea to pick this year just because Rose is starting preschool. What if she has a terrible time? We know she's not exactly what one might call socially adept, and she - "

"Ky," said Eduardo, pulling her gently towards the sofa. "Come here, sit down. Now listen to me. You're really gonna love studying again, and you'll still find time to be a fantastic mother, and whatever happens with Rose it'll be ok because everybody is going to be incredibly supportive. Especially me," he added.

"I appreciate that," said Kylie, squeezing his hand. "I know guys who'd hate to be married to a woman with a PhD."

"Oh yeah? Who?" asked Eduardo.

"Well… Carl."

"Yeah, and…?"

"And… my grandfather."

"He's dead."

"I know."

"How's Matt?" Eduardo asked disinterestedly.

"Oh, well," said Kylie. "Rich. Jeremy left him his house, his car and ninety thousand dollars. The house needs a lot of work, though - I think that'll take quite a chunk out of the ninety grand."

"Well that hardly seems fair," said Eduardo. "You only got ten."

"He worked harder than I did. Jeremy only got a couple of phone calls from me - Matt's been visiting him practically every week for the past two years."

"I still wonder how he managed that. Doesn't he have a job?"

"Well, you know how he flits between jobs - but I think Jeremy's been keeping him well fed for a while now. You might even say Matt was a paid companion. I met his new neighbours while I was down there - they're a sweet old couple from England called Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Oh, that reminds me…"

Kylie disappeared into the kitchen, and returned with the plastic box that Mrs. Smith had given her.

"I didn't want to give these to the girls tonight," said Kylie, "because there's an immoral amount of sugar in them, but I think you and I are mature enough to cope with a little bit of sugar before bed."

"What are they?" asked Eduardo, looking sceptically at the offering.

"Flapjacks."

"No they're not."

"They're English flapjacks. They only have one name for pancakes, which seems reasonable to me. Go on, try them - they're great. Matt says they're like sex," she added, as though she thought this might persuade him.

"Well," said Eduardo, once he had finished eating his flapjack in rapt silence. "Not quite like sex."

"Better?" asked Kylie, who was in the process of licking syrupy residue from her fingers.

"No."

"Really? Eduardo, I am extremely flattered."

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

Eduardo and Kylie were the last to arrive at the firehouse the next morning, as they were taking both of their daughters with them, and Rose had decided that she would rather spend the day under the table (she was finally persuaded out with a rash promise of more flapjacks). Predictably, then, Egon and Janine Spengler (and presumably, somewhere, their own brand of offspring), Garrett Miller and Roland Jackson were all present when they arrived. And, less predictably, Matt.

"I thought that was his Mercedes outside," Kylie muttered to Eduardo.

The only person who was actually pleased to see their visitor was Conchita - although Kylie didn't feel quite the same suspicion that Rose did, nor the apprehension Eduardo felt every time he saw Matt. She had certainly warmed up to him in recent years.

"So anyway," said Kylie, once Matt and Conchita had established that she had got taller and he hadn't, "what are you doing here?"

"He's hiring us," Garrett said dryly.

"Why?" Eduardo asked guardedly.

"My house is haunted," said Matt.

"He's reported banging and wailing, and a vampire outside his window at three o'clock this morning," Egon put in helpfully.

"You know how I feel about vampires," said Matt, cringing slightly at the memory of his last encounter with a couple of vampires. "This one wasn't like the last ones, it was kind of… cartoon… but even so. And I really don't think the banging and wailing was Mr. and Mrs. Smith celebrating their love for each other."

"Yes, well, anyway," Kylie said hurriedly, before either of her daughters had a chance to ask what Matt meant by his last remark. "I guess if we're going all the way to New Jersey I'd better call Beth and ask her to take the girls again - we might be all day."

"Oh no no no no don't," said Matt, wrapping his arms protectively around Conchita (Rose did indeed seem to have forgotten him). "Bring them along."

"What? No!" said Eduardo. "If this house is haunted…"

"Oh they'll be fine," Matt said breezily. "Nothing happened to Kylie yesterday, did it? And nothing's happened to me either. And anyway, you want to see my new house, Chita, don't you? And, and, and." He paused for dramatic effect. "We might even persuade Mrs. Smith to make us a batch of flapjacks."

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

"This is highly unorthodox, Eduardo," said Roland, watching from inside the Ecto-1 as Matt, Kylie, Conchita and Rose all climbed out of the Mercedes.

"Yeah, well," said Eduardo. "It wasn't me who said 'All right, you can come,' if you recall. And anyway, they'll keep Matt out of our way."

Roland, Eduardo and Garrett all climbed out of Ecto-1 as Matt was letting himself and his guests into his house. He had wanted to take the girls in his car alone, but Rose didn't like that idea and had little trouble persuading her mother to go with them.

"So what do you think?" Matt asked brightly, as the three Ghostbusters traipsed into the house. "I mean, you have to use your imagination, but I think once I get this place spruced up a bit it'll be pretty neat."

"Where did you see this vampire?" asked Roland.

"Upstairs, back bedroom," said Matt. "It was hovering outside the window and baring its fangs and looking longingly my jugular vein. I figured he probably couldn't get in, but it was difficult to sleep with him out there so I went downstairs and tore a bit of wood off one of the windowsills in case he did get in - I'm getting new windows anyway - and I made coffee, and then I drove to New York as soon as it was light."

"You slept in the twin?" asked Kylie.

"Hmm?" Matt said distractedly. He was taking Conchita over to the cupboard under the stairs, and Rose was following them, apparently curious enough now to drop her guard a little. "Oh. Yeah. You were right about the old guy's bed, Kylie, it's creepy - I'll get a new one. Look at this, Chita - I can't get it open."

"It's probably locked," Conchita said helpfully.

"Yeah, I know, it's the darnedest thing. There's gotta be a key around here somewhere - what say you girls help me find it?"

"Hey," said Garrett. "What about the banging and wailing? Where was that?"

"Oh, y'know, around," Matt said dismissively.

"You're not being very helpful here, Matt," said Roland.

"Yeah, well - you guys are the Ghostbusters, aren't you? Oh!" Matt looked up in extreme surprise as the dusty old telephone started ringing. "Who the hell is that?"

"This ghost could very well be Jeremy," said Kylie, as Matt went to answer the phone.

"Who?" asked Garrett.

"Our - Rose, don't wander off - grandfather. You know, the guy who died here."

"Yeah, that's me," Matt told whoever was on the phone.

"Perhaps he's figured out all that time Matt spent with him was just so he'd get some inheritance," said Eduardo.

"Yeah, well, I went out early," Matt said defensively. "I'm sorry, ok? Jeez…"

"It's a sound theory, Eddie, but I really don't think he ever believed otherwise," said Kylie. "I wonder if maybe we should drop in on Mr. and Mrs. Smith - maybe they saw or heard something last night."

"Oh! Well what are you calling me for?" asked Matt. A pause, and then, "Oh, I see… Yes, of course, I'll be right there. Guys, I have to go out," he said, hanging up the phone without saying goodbye.

"What?" said Kylie. "You said you were going to entertain my children!"

"Yeah, well, I didn't know I was gonna have to bail anyone out of jail, did I? Mr. and Mrs. Smith got arrested last night, and I'm the only person here they knew to call."

Kylie's jaw dropped. "Arrested? What for?"

"Um… they didn't say."

"Of course they said - they have to," said Eduardo.

"Oh, check you out, Mr. My-brother's-a-cop," Matt said childishly. "They didn't say, all right? Look, I'll be as quick as I can, and surely it doesn't take four of you to do whatever it is you're planning to do - so why doesn't one of you take the girls and frolic on the beach until I get back?"

"Oh, Matt, wait - their sun block's in the Mercedes," Kylie said urgently, following Matt out of the front door.

"You see, it's not a good idea to bring kids on calls," Roland said knowingly, looking at Conchita and Rose, who were now tinkering noisily with the old piano.

Eduardo sighed heavily, and then approached his daughters, saying, "Come on, you two - we're going to the beach for a couple of hours."

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

Kylie, though she hadn't been at all aware that she was curious about this place, found herself conducting a much more thorough investigation than she really needed to. She scoured the whole house, including the attic (empty), trying all the doors and cupboards she came to and getting more annoyed than she wanted to whenever she found one to be locked. She began to wonder what the hell her grandfather had been hiding, and quickly realised that she had started looking for a set of keys rather than ghosts and vampires.

In the drawer from which Matt had pulled the picture of Conchita and Rose the day before, Kylie found a large collection of photographs, getting older the closer they were to the wood that formed the bottom of the drawer. Her daughters were on top; and behind them, pictures of herself and Matt, sometimes together and sometimes separate, occasionally with their respective mothers. There they were aged about twelve and six; then a little further down, eight and two, until Matt disappeared from the pictures entirely and Kylie regressed back to babyhood. Then came the pictures of Jeremy's own daughters, Jill and Maddy. Teenagers, children, toddlers, babies…

"Hey."

Kylie jumped out of her skin - she had almost forgotten that she wasn't alone. When she looked up, she saw Garrett waving a PKE meter around.

"There is absolutely nothing paranormal inside this house," he said. "But we are getting quite some spectacular readings coming from that direction."

He was pointing to the left, and facing the back of the house, meaning that the readings were coming from the direction of Mr. and Mrs. Smith's house. Without saying anything, Kylie put down the photographs she had been looking at and marched out of the room.

There was no fence between Matt's front yard and the Smiths', but there was a strawberry runner, and the Smiths' entire lawn was filled with very beautiful plants that Kylie didn't want to step on - so she walked all the way down the path from the front door, and all the way up Mr. and Mrs. Smith's mirroring path.

"Y'know," she said to Roland, who was dithering outside the Smiths' front door, "they did seem just a little bit suspicious to me. Matt says he and Jeremy never got invited into their house, and they seem to have an extraordinarily large supply of food that they've brought over from England, and with a name like Smith…"

"It's not much in the way of evidence, Kylie," said Roland.

"Well, how do you explain these readings?" demanded Kylie, who had finally started using her PKE meter. "It's jumping off the scale!"

"Not quite, Kylie."

"Yeah, well, nearly. It looks like several different entities to me - I'm getting all kinds of conflicting information from this thing."

"They're just a sweet old couple with a haunted house," said Roland. "As soon as Matt brings them home, we can explain the situation and go in there and deal with it for them."

"Right, fine," said Kylie. She'd had the idea of breaking into the Smiths' house, but then she remembered how nice they were, and decided that it would be far better manners to wait. "And in the meantime…?"

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

When they found Eduardo he was sitting next to a small cluster of sandcastles, attempting to read to Rose from a paperback Kylie didn't remember bringing, whilst also keeping an eye on Conchita as she wandered around filling a red plastic bucket with shells. Kylie didn't remember bringing the bucket either, and deduced that they must have paid a visit to one of the numerous nearby shops that sold tat to tourists.

"Oh, hi," Eduardo said, when Kylie sat down on Rose's other side. He waved the book at her, which turned out to be an abridged copy of The Wizard of Oz, and said, "A dollar ninety-five from that gift shop back there - not bad, huh?"

Conchita caught sight of Roland and Garrett, and immediately went to show them her collection of shells. Roland did a rather better job of looking interested than Garrett.

"This is not how I saw today going," Kylie said expressionlessly.

"So what happened?" asked Eduardo.

"Well, we had a scout around, and the long and the short of it is that it's all coming from the Smiths' house," said Kylie.

"So what do we now?"

"We're waiting until Matt comes back, we hope with Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and then we're going in."

"Dad-deeee," whined Rose, tugging at Eduardo's sleeve.

"Sorry, Rosie," said Eduardo, and resumed his reading of The Wizard of Oz.

Roland was helping Conchita to decorate her sandcastles with pebbles and her impressive shell collection when his cell phone rang. When he answered it, he heard Egon's extremely distorted tones: "What are you doing now?"

"Um." Roland glanced down at the large pebble-drawbridge he had just pressed into the front of the sandcastle. "Investigating."

"And?"

"And it all seems to be coming from the Smiths' house - Matt's neighbours, that is. But they're not home, so we're just waiting for - "

"You'll have to stop whatever it is you're doing," Egon interrupted him. "We just got a call from a supermarket less than a mile from Matthew's house. Apparently there's a monster stealing all of the breakfast cereal."

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

"What would a monster want with breakfast cereal, anyway?" Garrett finally voiced what was on all of their minds.

"Breakfast?" Roland suggested helpfully from the driver's seat.

"It seems cruel to trap it," said Kylie. "I mean, if it's only stealing cereal…"

"Oh Kylie, c'mon, we have to," Garrett said irritably. "No one wants monsters going around stealing breakfast cereal. And anyway, we can't keep letting them get away."

"One," muttered Kylie. "One in ten years," but really it bothered her too - none of them had felt good about letting that demon slip through their fingers last month.

"Ro," said Garrett, "did Egon tell you what this monster looked like?"

"No, the signal was too bad," said Roland. "But I'm sure we'll spot it."

The monster, as it turned out, wasn't difficult to spot at all. It was a squat, legless thing with a lot of body fat and two short arms - not entirely unlike Slimer, they couldn't help noticing, though it was rather bigger. The monster was a stereotypically ominous red in colour, but there was nothing in its face to suggest that it was at all malevolent. It looked quietly contented, if a little pensive, as it slid slug-fashion out of the supermarket's main doors, dragging a trolley full of breakfast cereal behind it.

It was rather cute, really, which made Kylie all the more reluctant to blast it. The expression of surprise and anguish on its face when Garrett and Roland's proton streams hit it was almost more than she could bear. Then suddenly she heard Roland saying urgently, "Kylie, the trap!"

"Come on, Ky, he'll be happy in the containment unit," Garrett said patronisingly.

Kylie didn't like his tone, and she wasn't sure about his sentiments either - there probably wasn't much in the way of breakfast cereal inside the containment unit. But she was never going to win an argument about this, so she decided just to throw down the trap and get it over with.

"I still wanna know," said Garrett, as he wheeled his way over to the monster's trolley, "what it wants with all this breakfast cereal. Hey," he added, pulling out a green box about two-thirds the size of your average cereal packet. "Max eats this."

"Chita used to like it," said Kylie, taking yet another box of the powdered just-add-water formula from the trolley. "We tried giving it to Rose but she won't eat it."

"Have you ever had any?" asked Garrett.

"No - have you?"

"Yeah, Jo persuaded me to try some. It's actually not bad - it mostly just tastes of apple."

"Thank you," someone said, and Garrett suddenly found that the green box was no longer in his hand. Turning his head, he saw that an officious looking man in a smart suit had taken it from him. "This can all go back on the shelves now, I think."

"Are you sure about that?" asked Roland. "I mean, a monster's been handling it."

"We'll throw out any on which the seal is broken," the manager, or whatever he was, said as he took hold of the handle of the trolley. "How do you people want to be paid?"

"We'll send you an invoice," said Roland. "Ky, do you think we should do a little grocery shopping while we're here? Or is Matt's kitchen well stocked?"

"Matthew has many faults, but poor preparation is not one of them," said Kylie. "He'll have plenty of food, I'm sure."

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

As Roland parked the Ecto-1 outside Matt's house, the front door flew open and Eduardo emerged, looking a bit lost.

"Is everything all right?" Kylie asked anxiously, clambering out of the car.

"They're all inside eating ice-cream," said Eduardo. "The girls are having a great time, but there's something really weird going on around here."

"Well," said Garrett, "we knew that."

"Yeah, well, listen to this," said Eduardo. "When Matt came back he didn't have the Smiths with him. He wouldn't tell me why not, he wouldn't tell me anything that happened at the police station and he still won't say why they were arrested in the first place. Then he asked me what we found out, so I told him all the PK activity around here is coming from Mr. and Mrs. Smith's house, and then hesaid he'd pay us for our time but he doesn't need us anymore."

"Well," said Matt, suddenly materialising, with Rose hanging onto his left hand and Conchita following behind them. "If my house isn't haunted I don't need you anymore, do I? I'll write you a cheque and then you can go home. No, actually - you two can go home," and he gestured towards Garrett and Roland. "You guys can stick around and we'll have that sleepover we've been planning!"

"No!" Kylie said quickly, before the girls could get too excited. "Matt… the Smiths' house is haunted - we should deal with it."

"Oh no no no, you can't go in there," said Matt.

"Why not?"

"They don't want you to."

"Who says?"

"They just don't like people going into their house, all right? Jeez, I've said I'll write you a cheque - what does it take to get rid of you people?"

With that, Matt turned and stalked back into his house, with Rose still holding onto him. Conchita made to follow, but Eduardo said, "Chita, querida, esperar." (He often spoke to his daughters in Spanish, and had done since they were babies, to get them in the habit of using it.) "Roland, can Chita borrow your cell phone?"

"Um… sure," said Roland, looking baffled, but handing Conchita his cell phone nonetheless. She and Eduardo then had a little chat, still talking in Spanish, and finally Eduardo started reciting a phone number that Kylie recognised as his brother's.

"Is he at home?" asked Conchita, as she punched in the number.

"Yeah, I think he's still working nights," said Eduardo, though he didn't sound sure.

"Why don't you call him?" asked Kylie.

"He likes her more than he likes me," said Eduardo. "A lot more."

"Hi, Uncle Carl," Conchita said sweetly, using the name that Carl preferred to hear from his nieces, although Rose was already in the habit of calling him Carlos. "No, that's ok, we're in New Jersey… Well I need you to do me a favour…"

Kylie raised her eyebrows. She needed him to do her a favour. That sounded most unlikely.

"Thank you, Uncle Carl," trilled Conchita, less than a minute later. She handed the phone back to Roland without hanging up, and said to Eduardo, "He's going to call back."

"When?"

"Soon."

"Good girl," said Eduardo, stooping to kiss her on the forehead. "You can go back in now if you like."

"Matt said he'd make you guys some lunch," Conchita told them, before disappearing back into the house.

"She can be manipulative when she wants to be, can't she?" remarked Garrett.

"Tell me about it," said Eduardo.

"Well," Garrett went on, "lunch sounds good."

"I think I'll join you," said Roland, bundling his cell phone into Eduardo's hands. "Here, you take this. I'm assuming you've already eaten."

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

While his three colleagues ate the modest meal that Matt had whipped up for them, and while Matt himself was upstairs entertaining Conchita and Rose, Eduardo decided to have a nose around the house and quickly discovered the photographs Kylie had been in the middle of perusing. He knelt on the floor next to the open drawer, and began looking through the pictures. The ones of Kylie and Matt together as children were interesting - he'd never seen any of those before. Matt seemed somehow not to have made it into Kylie's extensive photograph collection, along with the rest of that branch of the family.

Before very much time had passed, Eduardo began to hear strange thumping noises coming from upstairs. His first thought was ghosts, considering the nature of his visit there, but he quickly realised - with a considerable amount of trepidation - that it was in fact the sound of two little girls trampolining on a couple of beds. That couldn't be good. They'd both eaten a lot of chocolate ice-cream…

Roland's cell phone started ringing, and Eduardo answered it immediately. "Hello?"

"Oh, it's you," said Carl.

"Yeah, well, Chita's a little busy right now," said Eduardo, wincing as he heard a thud that was considerably heavier than the last. "Did you find out?"

"Yes, I found out. It's a strange one, Eddie - they were arrested for attempting to break into a blood bank."

Eduardo was silent for a few seconds. Then he said, "A blood bank."

"Yes."

"Right… thanks, bye."

Eduardo hung up, and then went through to the furniture-free room, where Garrett, Kylie and Roland were eating off their laps, the latter two sitting cross-legged on the floor.

"You're not gonna believe this," said Eduardo.

"They're jumping on beds up there, aren't they?" said Kylie, which was an incredible guess, because Eduardo wasn't aware of the sound at all in that room.

"Um… yeah, I think so."

"Well go and stop them - they just ate."

"Right, ok," said Eduardo. "And while I'm up there I'll find out why Matt decided not to tell us the Smiths were arrested for attempting to break into a blood bank, shall I?"

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

"Matthew," Kylie said sternly. She had forced him into an armchair in the living room; he had all four of the Ghostbusters standing over him, while Conchita and Rose added ambience by having another go at the piano out in the hallway. "You're going to have to tell us exactly what went on at the police station. Why couldn't you bail them out?"

"It's not anything suspicious, all right?" said Matt. "They weren't allowed to leave because they wouldn't let the police see their passports and visas and stuff."

"So they're in this country illegally," said Eduardo.

"No!" Matt looked positively scandalised. "God, honestly, you with your unfounded accusations…"

"If they have passports and green cards and everything," said Roland, "surely it would have been small trouble for you to let yourself into their house to get them, Matt."

"Yeah, well, I offered, ok?" said Matt.

"Go on," Kylie said warily. "Why didn't your offer come off?"

"Because they told me not to."

"They told you not to go into their house?" asked Kylie.

"Yeah… yeah, that's right. I offered, but Mrs. Smith told me not to trouble myself and they'd just stay in jail."

"Well, Matt…" Roland began hesitantly.

"Don't you think that's suspicious?" asked Garrett.

"Well… no, not really."

"Matt, come on!" yelled Kylie, exasperated.

"Matt, they were attempting to break into a blood bank," said Eduardo. "Did you even ask them why?"

"No I didn't ask them why, it's none of my business. But I'm sure there's a perfectly innocent explanation."

"Well, Matt," said Garrett, "considering the vampire you saw last night…"

"Oh no no no no no," said Matt, rising to his feet but still dwarfed by Roland and Eduardo - and by Garrett, in terms of width. "No you don't. There will be no casting aspersions on Mr. and Mrs. Smith in my house."

"Would you like us to step outside?" Garrett asked dryly.

"Yes, if you're going to throw around wild accusations, I think you'd better."

"Matt," Kylie said wearily. "Sit down. Now I know you like the Smiths…"

"You met them, Kylie," Matt said pleadingly, not sitting down as he turned his big, childlike green eyes onto her. "They're really nice people!"

"I know," said Kylie. "And they're in trouble. You want to help them, don't you?"

"Well… yes," said Matt. "And I intend to figure out a way to do it."

"Then let us help you," said Kylie.

The piano noises stopped, and Eduardo went to find out why.

"Listen," Kylie said reasonably. "I'm going to have to take the girls home this afternoon, but I think these guys should stay overnight, and then I think tomorrow the four of you should go back to the police station and get Mr. and Mrs. Smith to tell you exactly what's been going on. If there's a perfectly innocent explanation - which I'm quite sure there is - they won't mind telling you and letting you help."

Matt sighed heavily, and sank back down into the armchair. "Yeah… yeah ok," he said slowly. "I guess that could work."

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

In the early evening, Eduardo found himself saying goodbye to his daughters while Matt waited patiently by his Mercedes. He didn't like the idea of Kylie losing one of the girls on the way back to New York, and so had volunteered to drive them home and then drive straight back to his house so as to be ready for Operation Smith the next morning.

"Bye, honey," said Eduardo, crouching down and taking Rose into a hug. "Té amo."

"Té amo," echoed Rose, as he kissed her on the cheek.

"Kylie," murmured Garrett. "Is it me, or is your cousin a little crazy?"

"Well actually, I think he's very disturbed," said Kylie, just loud enough for Roland to hear as well. "He had a terrible childhood - much worse than mine."

"Yeah?" Garrett raised his eyebrows. "What happened to him?"

"Well don't tell him I told you, but his father used to drink and get a bit out of control, and then a couple of years ago it came out that he used to beat Matt up. I mean seriously beat him up - and his mother never knew. She felt terrible when she found out."

"But surely he must bruise easily," said Roland, "with skin like that."

Kylie shrugged. "I guess he must have hidden them from her." Then she suddenly just wandered off as she noticed that both of her daughters were now climbing into Matt's car. When she reached Eduardo, she said, "Bye, then. I'll miss you tonight."

"Oh, hey," said Eduardo, as they put their arms around each other. "You never told them your news."

"Oh yeah," said Kylie. "Ah well, never mind - I'll tell everyone when this whole… Mr. and Mrs. Smith thing is over."

"That's terrible!" cried Garrett, turning his chair away from Eduardo and Kylie as they began to indulge in a very long kiss goodbye. "I never knew that about Matt, or I would've been nicer to him."

Roland thought that Garrett had probably always cared about child abuse as much as the next person, but since adopting a little boy who had been abused by his birth parents the issue had become very close to his heart.

"I'm sure he doesn't want to be pitied, Garrett," said Roland.

"Yeah, well," said Garrett, who knew exactly what it was like not to want to be pitied. "I guess I'd better call Jo to let her know I won't be home. Matt can't tell me not to use his phone if he's not here."

Garrett disappeared through the front door (it was a tight squeeze, but perfectly doable) just as Matt's Mercedes pulled away.

"Oh shoot," Roland said suddenly, turning his gaze onto the Ecto-1. "We should have asked Kylie to take that loaded trap."

"Oh yeah," said Eduardo, sounding wholly unperturbed by the oversight.

When they entered the house, Garrett was on the phone in the hallway, saying, "Yeah, it's a guy cousin. Matt - I'm sure you've met him… Oh don't be so childish Joanna." Then he laughed slightly as he said, "Yes, all right, fine, it's totally gay. Oh, hey - you'll never guess what the monster was stealing…"

"It was stealing toddler food that Max eats," Roland told Eduardo. "Kylie said Rose doesn't like it."

"Oh, yeah - it must be that apple stuff. I don't know why she doesn't like it, it's ok."

"Perhaps," said Garrett, as he hung up the phone, "we should organise the sleeping arrangements. Unless… you want to call someone first, Roland?"

"Like who?" asked Roland.

"Like… Grace, maybe?"

Roland scowled at Garrett, and said tightly, "She's not expecting to see me tonight."

"Why the hell not? Honestly, Roland, you've hardly gone out with her at all."

"Look, Garrett, it's early days - let's just wait and see what happens, ok?"

"Roland, this had better not be about Spen- "

"Hey!" Eduardo interrupted hastily. "I think it's safe to assume that none of us wants to take the bed the old dude died in."

"It seems cruel to make Matt take it, though," said Roland.

"Yeah, well, we'll live with it," Garrett said dismissively. "So what else is up there?"

"A single and a twin," said Eduardo.

"Well," said Garrett, "you can take the single, Eddie. You snore."

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

You snore. The cheek of it. Eduardo was finding it impossible to sleep because Garrett was perpetuating some kind of argument with Roland in the next room. It was probably a continuation of the narrowly avoided scrap about one Grace Temple, and Roland's general ineptitude in the romance department. Eduardo, wishing he was at home in his own bed, turned over and groped around on the floor for his digital watch. It took him a little while, because it had somehow got itself tangled up in his jeans. When he found the watch and illuminated the numbers, he was extremely disheartened to learn that it was only half past midnight.

Then, quite suddenly, the banging and wailing started. Eduardo sat up abruptly and listened. Oh yes - it was coming from the Smiths' house all right. Eduardo wondered vaguely what, if anything, to do about it - but then he was distracted by another strange noise coming from downstairs. In fact it wasn't just another noise - it was another banging noise, though this one had a regular rhythm to it and didn't sound particularly ghostlike. Resigned to the fact that he wasn't going to get any sleep that night, Eduardo got out of bed, pulled on his jeans, zipped up his fly and ventured downstairs.

The light was on in the hall, and Matt was there, fully dressed in the oversized jeans and t-shirt that severely hindered any illusion of size he might otherwise have been able to create. He had found himself a heavy looking brick from somewhere, and was on his knees attacking the lock on the cupboard under the stairs.

"Matt, what the hell are you doing?" Eduardo asked drowsily.

"Well that's obvious," said Matt, without turning round. "I think you really want to ask me why I'm doing it now, in the middle of the night."

"Yeah, well?"

"I can't sleep. He died in that bed, Eddie - it's creepy and weird. And the old dude didn't even have a couch! I'm going to buy a couch as soon as I deal with the Smiths. Curtains, couch, a table and chairs for that dining room. And new armchairs. And some carpets. But until then I'm not going to be able to sleep, so I figured I might as well continue my quest to find out what the old guy was hiding in here. Oh, yes!" as one final hefty whack with the brick sent the little cupboard swinging on its hinges. "Now let's take a look at what I've been going crazy wondering abou-… Oh no! I don't believe this!"

"What?" Eduardo asked anxiously.

"It's empty!"

"Oh." He was at once relieved and disappointed.

"After all that it's fucking empty!That's completely insane! Why would you lock your cupboard door if you're not even keeping anything in it?"

"Matt, calm down," said Eduardo. "There's no key, is there? Maybe it was locked when he bought the place."

"Why would you build a house, with a cupboard, lock it and take away the key?"

"I don't think that's what hap- "

"Oh, hey, look, I've got a little roommate!" exclaimed Matt, brightening suddenly and pushing his head and shoulders into the cupboard. "Hey there, Charlotte."

That sounded ominous, and Eduardo reeled back slightly when Matt emerged from the cupboard with a cherry-sized spider crawling over his right hand.

"Isn't she sweet?" Matt beamed. "Do you like spiders, Eddie?"

"No."

"I think spiders are neat - I'm really glad I've got one living here with me."

"You've probably got hundreds."

"Yeah, but now I know this one personally. Have you ever read Charlotte's Web? Oh, I cried! All right, back you go," and Matt gently fed his arm back into the cupboard. "I'll bet you're not happy I opened your cupboard, are you? Don't worry, you're perfectly safe with me. And speaking of crying, Eddie, do you hear that?"

Eduardo, convinced that Matt had finally toppled over the edge and gone completely insane, rather wanted to leave him to it - but with Kylie not there, he couldn't help feeling a responsibility towards her cousin, and so followed him out into the back garden.

"It's coming from Mr. and Mrs. Smith's backyard," whispered Matt.

"What is?" asked Eduardo, whispering as one automatically does when whispered to.

"That sobbing - don't you hear it?"

"I… yes!" he said, surprised to find that he actually could hear crying.

Matt wandered over to the fence dividing his garden and the Smiths' and peered over it, for which he actually had to stand on tiptoe. When Eduardo went to join him, the top of the fence was about on a level with his collarbone.

"There," hissed Matt, nodding towards a hunched little shape by the kitchen door. "It looks like… hmm… it doesn't look like anything, really, does it?"

"It looks like a job for a proton pack," muttered Eduardo.

"What? No way!" hissed Matt. Then he stretched himself a little taller and called softly, "Hey, are you ok?"

"Aw man," muttered Eduardo, taking a step back.

The tiny creature turned and stared, and then began to slide timidly over to the fence.

"Do you have any powdered apple mixture?" it asked, in a very small voice.

Eduardo's jaw dropped.

"N-no, I'm sorry," said Matt.

"I'm so hungry," sniffed the creature. "He said he was going to bring food, but he…"

"I have food," said Matt, raising his voice as the creature began to sob uncontrollably. "I don't have any powered… well, any powdered anything. What else do you eat?"

"Do you have any cereal?"

"Oh, yeah, sure, I've got cereal. Do you take milk with it?"

"Y-yes."

"And sugar?"

"I… I suppose so. I've never had grown-up cereal before."

"You'll love it," Matt smiled kindly. "Wait there, I'll get you some."

"Matt," hissed Eduardo, following Matt back into the house. "What are you doing?"

"I'm giving a hungry child some food," said Matt, pulling open a cupboard in which he had quite an impressive array of breakfast cereal. "It's just a baby, Eddie."

"It's a monster."

"It's a baby monster, and it's hungry. It was crying - didn't it just break your heart? And if it's in the Smiths' backyard, it's probably their pet or something, so they'd want me to feed it while they're - "

"In jail for attempting to break into a blood bank," Eduardo finished.

"Eddie, please, innocent until proven guilty," said Matt, stooping to take some milk out of the fridge. "Once that little guy's had all the cereal he wants, I'll ask him if he knows anything about what Mr. and Mrs. Smith might have been doing."

"Matt…"

"I told you I didn't need you," and with that Matt marched back out to the garden with the freshly prepared bowl of cereal in his hands.

For a moment Eduardo hovered, wondering what to do, and then made his way up to the twin bedroom at the back of the house. Ironically Roland and Garrett were both sound asleep now that they were actually needed. Eduardo shook them both in turn, and said urgently, "Come on - you need to see what Matt's doing."

By the time they had both crawled out of bed and made their way over to window, Matt was no longer outside. The monster was still in the Smiths' garden, though, wolfing down the cereal - and now it had a larger monster of the same variety with it.

"They're just like the monster we trapped at the supermarket," said Roland.

"Yeah, well, cereal," said Garrett, as though that explained everything.

Then suddenly Matt returned. They watched his shape moving through the darkness, his fair skin and auburn hair showing up pretty well as he made his way over to the fence, clutching what looked like another bowl of cereal. When he reached the fence he stretched out his arm, and the bigger monster jumped up to grab the cereal. Then it too started to eat. Matt watched them for a few moments, and then suddenly vaulted over the fence and crouched down next to the two monsters.

"The guy's an idiot!" exclaimed Garrett.

Matt and the monsters conversed for a couple of minutes, unaware that three Ghostbusters were gaping at them from an upstairs window. Then Matt climbed back over the fence and entered the house.

"This makes absolutely no sense," complained Garrett.

"Well," said Roland, "it might make a little bit of sense, if you think about it. Those monsters could very well be the reason Mr. and Mrs. Smith don't want people in their house, and if they rely on Mr. and Mrs. Smith for their cereal, that would explain why one of them was in the supermarket while they're in jail."

"And the blood bank?" asked Garrett. "What's that about?"

"Hey." Matt suddenly appeared in the doorway, making them all jump out of their skins. "Guys, where are the keys to the Ecto-1?"

"I'm not telling you," said Garrett.

"Oh, there they are," said Matt, catching sight of the set of keys that someone had left on one of the bookcases out on the landing, and grabbing hold of them.

"Wha- Matt, no, wait!" cried Roland, hurrying after him.

Matt sprinted down the stairs, jumping the last three, and hurtled towards the front door.

"MATT!" Eduardo and Garrett yelled together, both making their own way downstairs after Roland, Garrett exercising even less caution than usual.

"Look, guys, it's ok," said Matt, when they found him unlocking the Ecto-1. "He can have some of my cereal too - he's not going to hurt anyone."

"But Matt - " began Garrett.

"Garrett, picture this," Matt said soberly, pulling the loaded ghost trap out of the car and holding it up in front of his chest. "Your wife and child, starving hungry for breakfast cereal and crying their eyes out because you disappeared whilst out getting them some. And where are you? You're in this thing, without even so much as a single flake of cereal, wondering where your family is going to get their next meal from."

Garrett blinked. "Wha-… but that's…"

"Tragic," said Matt, heading back towards the house with the trap clutched in his arms. "I know."

"Eduardo," Roland said wearily. "He's your relative. Tell us what to do about him."

"He is not my relative," Eduardo said acidly.

Garrett shook his head. "Sorry, Eddie, but you married into this."

"Yeah, well, maybe we should just let him," said Eduardo. "I mean they only want some cereal, and the baby is kinda cute."

"Well I think we should at least check on what he's up to," said Roland.

None of them knowing what to think now, Garrett, Eduardo and Roland all traipsed back into the house and made their way through to the back garden. Matt was nowhere to be seen, but his voice was emanating from behind the fence. When they got close enough, they heard him saying, "Passports, green cards - they must be in there somewhere. Could you have a look?"

"It'll definitely bring Mr. and Mrs. Smith back?" asked another voice.

"I… I think so. Hold on," and suddenly the top of Matt's head appeared above the fence. "Oh good, Eddie, there you are. Listen - will anything else happen to Mr. and Mrs. Smith? I mean, they didn't actually get to break into the blood bank, and they're only a sweet old couple. They'll get off with a caution, right?"

"Not in New York," Eduardo said dryly. "I don't know what New Jersey police are like, but they're probably nicer."

"Well, probably," said Matt, disappearing behind the fence again. "But there's no way I'll ever get them back without this stuff…"

"I don't think there's anything we can do here," Garrett said suddenly. "Let's go home."

"Home?" echoed Roland. "But Garrett… the vampire…"

"Oh, hey, yeah, I forgot about that - we'd better get inside."

"Eduardo," said Roland. "Like I said, he's your relative - what should we do?"

"I think," Eduardo said slowly, "Matt's not in any danger, but we should stick around and see this thing through. At least let's wait to find out what Mr. and Mrs. Smith have to say for themselves."

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

"Oh, you're still here, are you?" said Matt, when his three guests wandered into the kitchen the next morning. "I'm all out of cereal, I'm afraid, but I can do you toast and some eggs or something."

"You don't have to do that, Matt," said Roland.

"You have plans this morning, don't you?" added Eduardo. "Or did those monsters not find Mr. and Mrs. Smith's documents?"

"Oh, yeah, they're right here," said Matt, picking up a collection of papers from one of the kitchen surfaces. "Here, Eddie, take a look at these - is that everything I need to get them out of jail?"

"I would think so," said Eduardo, looking through the documents that Matt had thrust into his hands. "And you'll wanna take some ID - they'll never believe you're twenty-two."

"Yeah, sure," said Matt, taking back the documents. "Well, if you don't want me to make you breakfast I'll go - just help yourselves to anything."

"Matt," said Eduardo. "Would you like me to go with you?"

"Oh, no thanks," Matt said, though he sounded grateful for the offer. "Look, you guys really should go home after you've eaten. You're not needed."

"Oh yeah?" queried Garrett. "So what exactly did those monsters tell you?"

"Well Garrett, not to be rude or anything, but that's really none of your business."

"And you're not worried about the vampire anymore?" asked Roland.

"No," said Matt. "There's a spare key on top of the piano - just slide it under the door after you've locked up."

As soon as the front door had clicked shut, Eduardo said, "I'm going to call Kylie."

"Why?" asked Garrett.

"To find out what she wants us to do."

"Why is it up to her?"

"Because," said Eduardo, "he's her relative."

He knew that there had been a long time in which Kylie and Matt weren't in each other's lives at all, and they had only got back in touch when Kylie was pregnant with Rose - but since that time she had come to feel somewhat responsible for him, especially after the truth about his father came to light. No one, Kylie said, had ever really looked out for Matt; she said that Maddy loved him but wasn't exactly a brilliant mother, and he just needed a little bit of guidance every now and then.

"I think," Kylie said, when Eduardo had her on the phone, "it might be safe just to leave him to it for a while."

"You think he knows what he's doing?" Eduardo asked dubiously.

"Well… no, not entirely, but he's grown up since that whole fiasco with the vampires at the end of 'oh-three, and Mr. and Mrs. Smith really do seem like genuinely good people. I want you to stick around until you know whether Matt got them out of jail, and then I think you should come home."

"But Ky, we can't just… just not do anything else."

"We won't," said Kylie. "In a week or so, before Rose and I start school, we'll go back and see how the land lies. You never know, Matt might be willing to tell us about it then, and we'll have some idea what the hell is going on."

"Should we still charge him?" asked Eduardo.

"Well," said Kylie, "I can't very well tell you not to charge him - I'm not the boss. And we did put about twenty-four hours into the assignment - so yeah, we need to be paid."

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

One Week Later

"So what do you think of the new bed?" asked Matt, bouncing up and down a couple of times to demonstrate the springiness of the mattress. "I'll bet you and Eddie can have all kinds of fun in this. And curtains, I got curtains - do you think the curtains are cool?"

"Oh, yeah, they give the place a lot of character," said Kylie, quietly wondering how she and Eduardo would feel when they woke up to garish zigzag patterns blowing about in the breeze the following morning. "Matt, look… why don't you and I do the lemonade on the balcony thing while Eddie and the girls are out shopping?"

Between them Eduardo and Kylie had come up with the excuse of grocery shopping - let the girls pick something nice for dinner, they had said - and within minutes Eduardo, Conchita and Rose had set off for the very same supermarket that the Smiths' monsters had tried to steal their cereal from.

"I know what you want to talk about," Matt said shrewdly when, five minutes later, he was setting down a jug of lemonade, two glasses and a few of Mrs. Smith's flapjacks. Jeremy had always kept some patio furniture out on the balcony off the master bedroom, but it had all been half eaten by woodworm and Matt had since replaced it. "You want to know about Mr. and Mrs. Smith."

"Surely you can understand why I'm curious," said Kylie. "It sounds to me like they have three monsters and a vampire living with them."

"And a skeleton, and a couple of ghosts," said Matt. "Oh, don't look like that. I'm sure Mr. and Mrs. Smith wouldn't mind if you went to see them - they're all really nice. The monsters are a great little family. In fact I might have them over for a night or two after you guys have left."

"So why do they?" asked Kylie. "Were all those things here when they moved in?"

"No," said Matt. "They've been living with them ever since they bought their first house together in England, after they got married. I think all of them already lived there. They each occupy a different room, like the monsters live in the kitchen and the vampire's in the attic. And since then Mr. and Mrs. Smith have become kind of like a mom and dad to them all. They never had any children of their own, you see."

"That's weird," Kylie said bluntly.

"Why is it?" asked Matt, helping himself to a flapjack. "You guys have a pet ghost, don't you? Well they have pet ghosts, a pet skeleton, a pet vampire and pet monsters - I don't think that's unreasonable. They had to move away from England because people started getting wind of all the supernatural beings in their house - thought they must be evil or something. That's prejudice for you. Bastards."

"Yeah…" Kylie said slowly. "And they were attempting to steal blood to feed their vampire, I suppose."

"That's right. He apologised for scaring me - he was just so hungry when his midnight snack didn't show up."

"So will they try again?" asked Kylie.

"Well." Matt began to colour slightly, and looked away. "No. They're getting old now, Ky, and they're going to need a lot of help. Two ghosts, three monsters, a skeleton and a vampire is a lot for an old couple in their eighties to cope with."

"I imagine it must be," said Kylie.

"So I… y'know, I go around there occasionally with some cereal and… stuff."

"Blood?"

"Can we talk about something else now, Kylie, please?"

"Sure, all right," said Kylie, deciding just to let it go for now. It really did sound perfectly innocent, apart from the theft of potentially lifesaving medical supplies, but she couldn't really see any way around that as far as the Smiths' pet vampire was concerned.

"Are you looking forward to going back to school?" asked Matt.

"Yes, very much," said Kylie. "I'm nervous, though."

"Well, that's ok - everybody gets nervous before they start something new."

"Have you ever thought about getting back to study? You've got a good brain, Matt, and not all colleges have vampires living on the campus waiting to seduce new students."

"Oh, I don't know," said Matt, shrugging. "I think people place too much importance on college, and everybody's got a degree nowadays anyway - it's like, what's the big deal?"

"I guess it's not for everyone," said Kylie.

"Mom's always saying I should try to find some 'direction in life'," Matt went on. "It's not easy, though - I have absolutely no idea what I want to do. I mean, you're ok: you've got a man, two kids, cool job, you're starting a PhD… I wish I was that sorted."

"Yeah, well - you're helping the Smiths out now, aren't you?"

"But that's not exactly a usual and acceptable thing to do, is it?"

"So what?" said Kylie. "If it makes you happy."

Matt sighed heavily. "I wish everyone had that attitude."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, Jeremy was always criticising me - saying I should go to college, I should get a proper job, I should find myself a nice girl and settle down…"

"Now why would you take any notice of what Jeremy had to say?"

"Yeah, I guess you're right," said Matt. "Who the hell is he to give me advice on finding a nice girl and settling down? Did he think I should hit her too?"

"Just don't worry about him anymore, Matt," advised Kylie. "He's gone for good."

No sooner had she said this than a violent wind suddenly whipped up, and it really seemed to be coming from inside the house. Kylie and Matt both turned round sharply as the French doors slammed shut, and the curtain rail began to rattle violently.

Matt sat in shocked silence for a few moments. Then he said irritably, "Jesus, Kylie, I thought you people were supposed to be Ghostbusters. How could you miss that?"

THE END