Chapter Two – Friends
Annie's hair bounced from side to side as she looked back and forth between Willow, Oz and Buffy. She turned back to face Xander, who was still totally confused,
"How come you three can see me and he can't?"
Buffy shrugged, "Your guess is as good as mine. Does this happen to you a lot? This whole 'invisible to some' thing?"
Annie tugged at her cardigan awkwardly, "Usually only, er, special people can see me."
"Special?" Willow's eyebrows knitted together, "You mean like, supernatural?"
"What?" Annie plastered a fake smile across her face and waved a dismissive hand towards the redhead, "Don't be silly. Why would you say that?"
"You're not human," Oz spoke up, "You smell… different."
Annie's jaw dropped and her hands shifted to her hips, "What?"
Before Oz could answer Xander started to wave his hands above his head, "Excuse me? What is going on? Who smells?"
"I do not smell!" Annie's shoulders sagged and she looked at the strangers through narrowed eyes, "Who are you people?"
Buffy gave her best 'innocence face' and smiled, showing her teeth, "Us? No one. We're no one."
"We're tourists," Willow added, "Just normal, everyday tourists. Nothing special about us and certainly nothing supernatural…" she smiled half-heartedly.
Annie's eyebrows raised and she folded her arms across her chest, "Yeah right. And I'm still alive."
"Wait, what?" The Slayer's eyes widened, "You're dead? Are you a ghost?"
Xander shifted into a kung-fu pose (he assumed it was kung-fu, he'd seen Neo do it) and looked about desperately,
"There's a ghost? Where?" He grabbed a box of cereal from the shelf and started waving it about, "Did I get it?"
The ghost jabbed a thumb in Xander's direction, "Is he okay? He's not mentally challenged or anything?"
Buffy tried to hide her smile (and failed) and stepped closer to Annie,
"We're just on vacation, a break. Is there something we can do to help you, you know, cross over?"
"Ha!" Annie pushed a strand of curly hair behind her ear, "I'm fine, really. You should come and meet my friends though! They'd love to meet you."
Buffy nodded, "Sure," she turned to her friends, "I'm sure we can make time to meet some new people."
Willow exchanged a wary glance with Oz and Xander finally stopped waving the cereal about, having accidentally burst the box. He slyly put the broken box back on the shelf and turned to Buffy,
"So," he said, "We're going to meet some ghosts?"
Annie bit her bottom lip, "Well, not ghosts exactly."
~ooOoo~
Mitchell tried desperately to scoop the washing powder back into the box; he'd tried to do his own washing and, being the useless man that he was, he'd managed to spill the white powder all over the kitchen counter. He swept it up with his hand and flicked it back into the half-empty box. Failing miserably to clean up the mess he decided to try another tactic: tools. He found a spatula in the cutlery drawer and started to use it as a makeshift brush, dragging the white powder across the counter and into the open box.
"What are you doing?"
Mitchell spun quickly to see George standing in the doorway to the kitchen. He looked anxious.
The vampire leaned against the counter, trying to hide the disaster area behind him, "George! Hey buddy!" He smiled a little too wide.
George cocked his head to one side to try and peer around his friend, "What's that behind you?"
"Nothing! I'm just doing the laundry."
"Is that the new spatula?"
Mitchell picked up the spatula, which was covered in the white powder. It smelt of lavender.
"No," Mitchell rubbed at the instrument with the sleeve of his shirt, "It's a different one."
George stepped forward, "That is the new one! Bloody hell Mitchell, what's that all over it? Is it drugs?"
"Drugs?" Mitchell stopped rubbing and stared at George. Sometimes he couldn't believe his friend was so naïve, "Why would there be drugs on the spatula?"
George's arms flew up into the air and his voice jumped an octave, "I don't know!"
Mitchell sighed, "It's washing powder."
The werewolf pushed his glasses further up his nose, "Oh, because that makes so much more sense."
George took the spatula from his best friend and peered around him to look at the avalanche of powder behind him. He rolled his eyes,
"Great. Look at the state of this! I just cleaned up yesterday!"
Mitchell ran a hand through his dark hair, "I'll clean it up."
George pointed the spatula, wooden handle first, at Mitchell and the vampire raised his hands in surrender,
"Jesus, George! I'm not good with wooden objects being poked at my chest!"
The spatula-wielding werewolf stepped closer, "I want this kitchen looking spotless. Nina's coming over later."
Mitchell nodded and George stepped back. Suddenly Annie burst through the front door, along with four other people who looked a little shell shocked. The ghost dashed into the kitchen, beaming,
"Look! I found some friends!" Annie smiled and pointed towards the strangers milling around in the living room, "We're going to have so much fun!"
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