Chapter One
The Ghost in Room 301
A vivid dream now long forgotten was wrenched out from under Anna Christine's feet as a high pitched squeal of her alarm clock screamed in her ear next to her bed once the dial hit six o'clock. She fumbled with the snooze button, but it was too late. The door to her room burst open and her kid brother and sister, Sven and Olaf, rushed in, armed with a pillow and a foam bat.
"First day of school! First day of school! Common, Ann-Ann! First day of school!" They chanted, flailing their weapons of mass fluffiness around, yanking open her blinds and pulling at her sheets. Anna groaned in protest and rolled over, shielding her face from the barrage, already used to the little monkeys attacks. It's been going on for the past week, the little tykes getting excited for their first days of fifth and sixth grade.
"Come down stairs, kids! I have cinnamon rolls and bacon ready!" Their mother called from downstairs.
"Yeah! Cimmanom rolls!" Olaf exclaimed.
"It's 'cinnamon', you nit!" Sven shrieked, chasing Olaf out of the room. Anna slowly sat up, her fiery red hair standing up at all different kinds of odd angels. She blinked sleep out of her eyes as she stood up, her feet tingling when they touched the cool wood of the attic floor. Their attic was refurbish, insulated, and painted a neutral cream color, so it looked more like an actual bedroom instead of a creepy attic one would find in a normal house. Her room was also the second biggest in the house; it consisted of a futon, which she slept on, a lounge couch tucked in a corner near the bed, a large 52 inch flat screen TV nailed to a wall, book shelves on either side of said TV, a corner desk with a computer and a lot of drawing supplies scattered on it, and stretched through the middle of the wooded floored room was a large black shag carpet with a white dot in the center. Hanging on her slanted walls were various band posters, drawings and paintings, and videogame posters.
Anna stumbled over to her closet and pulled out her clothes that would be more school appropriate than red track shorts with a black Evanescence T-shirt. She pulled on dark grey jeans that were tattered on the bottom, a black short sleeved shirt, her blue flannel button up which she never buttoned, and black convers. She was searching her room for her blue nit winter cap with cat ears on top when her mother shouted up the stairs once more.
"Katy and Kristoff are here! I wouldn't keep them waiting much longer if I were you!" Anna muttered something incoherent under her breath, looking frantically now. She finally found it hanging with her school messenger bag, put it on and grabbed her bag and rushed downstairs to meet her two childhood friends. Katy was a short thin girl with kinky curly red hair, lively green eyes, and wearing her trademark red and black striped hoodie, skinny jeans, and DC's, while Kristoff, the tallest and bulkiest of the trio, was wearing his blue and black Lion's High School letterman with a white shirt under and jeans with boots. His hair, which was hiding under a loosely worn green knit cap, was a light brown, almost blonde but more red, but his eyes were an equally lively color as his sisters, but light brown. Katy had her arms crossed and Kristoff was leaning against the stair railing, both waiting on Anna, who completely forgot it was the first day of school.
"Hey, Sleeping Beauty! Finally decided to wake up, huh?" Katy greeted.
"I kinda had no other choice with two dancing imps flailing around like tazed octopi armed with fluffy weapons of mass destruction…" Anna replied, still not quite awake yet. Katy and Kristoff burst out laughing and yells of protest from the living room told Anna that Sven and Olaf both heard her.
"You guys can eat here if you're hungry. School doesn't start for another hour and a half you know." Anna said as she walked past the two to the kitchen to get coffee, cinnamon rolls and bacon. Katy and Kristoff both followed Anna into the kitchen, grabbing paper plates, one roll each and four pieces of bacon. Anna got her coffee and her plate and sat down in front of her friends.
"So, how was your morning?" Anna asked and took a sip of her coffee.
"Not near as lively as yours apparently, although yesterday we heard the rumors." Kristoff said.
"You mean the one about Flynn getting his head stuck in the basketball goal last week?" Anna replied. Katy giggled as Kristoff opened his mouth to reply 'yes', but then realized that what Anna said was something completely different from what he thought, closed his mouth and nit his eyebrows.
"No, but you'll have to go into more detail about that after this." He looked around the room to make sure Sven and Olaf were both back in the living room watching cartoons then leaned in with Katy.
"Rumor has it there's a ghost of a girl in the third floor music room." Kristoff said.
"How'd you find this out?" Anna asked skeptically. Kristoff was notorious to pick up false information a lot, so Anna was weary.
"The music teacher, Mrs. Gerda actually; she said she was working in the music classroom next door working out the kinks for this year's lesson plans when she heard some creepy violin music from the music room."
"Okay, so she forgot to turn off the radio. What else is new?"
"Well, that's not the weird part. The weird part was when she looked in the music room, the music stopped and no one was inside. She checked the surveillance camera throughout the school, and no one but her and Mr. Kai the janitor was there, and he was nowhere near the music room that day, he was downstairs still finish cleaning up the cafeteria from last year's burrito and pudding food fight." Anna paused to think about it for a bit, trying to weed out any other possibilities of what this could be. It's not that she doesn't believe in ghosts. In fact, Anna, Katy and Kristoff were all stalwart believers in the paranormal.
"Did she say what time it happened?" Anna asked.
"Around three o'clock is what she told me." Katy spoke up.
"So around the end of the day pretty much?" Anna asked.
"Yeah, pretty much. You going to scout it out and take notes before we enter like usual?" Kristoff asked. Anna nodded, already starting to get excited. It's been a while since Anna, Katy, and Kristoff had a case like this. It was only the first day of their Junior year of high school and already they have something to occupy themselves with for the rest of the year.
"Alright, so what's this about Flynn getting his head stuck in a basketball goal?" Kristoff asked. Anna laughed and set her mug down.
"Well, apparently, he was practicing last week by himself at the gym. When he was finished and walking to the locker room, the hoop supposedly 'dropped onto him outta the blue'. It got stuck on him really good from the pictures his mother posted on Facebook. Here." Anna pulled up the pictures on her android smart phone and handed it to Kristoff and Katy. As they looked, they exchanged looks of pain, amusement, and lots of laughs.
"Wow, that's pretty bad!" Kristoff said once he calmed down.
"Does anyone know how it happened?" Katy asked, still giggling at it.
"Well, my vote says it was loosened when he was practicing and karma finally caught up to the douchbag." Anna said. They laughed some more and finished their food while talking about details as to what they would do with the Music Ghost Girl. Once they finished eating, Anna checked the time; 7:30.
"We should probably head out now before we're late." Katy said. They said good-bye to Anna's mother and siblings and loaded up into Kristoff's pick-up and drove off, singing whatever came onto the radio. They pulled into the school parking lot, unloaded and walked to the common room where they waited for the starting bell to ring. They sat at the table at the very back corner and they were, as usual, the only ones who sat there. They had been dubbed the 'Paranormal Geeks' in sixth grade, so not very many people talk to either of the three. Kristoff had a second breakfast as Katy sipped on a blue school slushy. The bell rang and the trio walked to their first class; English 2 with Mr. Weselton.