a Casper sequel
by Sparky
Introduction
Feel free to skip this introduction and go straight to the story; I just felt the need to explain a few things about this fic first since I wrote it so long ago.
I actually wrote this story between 1995 and 1996, shortly after the movie Casper came out, intending it to be a proper sequel, unlike the direct-to-video 'movies' that came out years later. But what I ended up with was something with a weak plot, contrived characters, and jokes that wouldn't amuse a two-year-old. In other words, something that reads very much like a direct-to-video movie. :)
I recently dug out the only hardcopy I had (it was originally on a Mac which I don't even have any more, let alone the floppy disc the story was saved on) and retyped the whole thing onto my new computer, and this is what you have here. I didn't bother attempting any rewrites; this is the original fic, as I wrote it back in '96. Plotholes, dumb characters, everything. Aren't you lucky? 8)
I saw Casper Meets Wendy once, and as I recall there were many similarities between that and this story - but like I said, I wrote this in '96, and CMW came out in 1998. So, don't blame me, I didn't copy! And I'm too lazy to change this story now.
I really really really want to majorly overhaul this thing and make a proper fanfic of it someday, but since I know I will probably never find the time, I decided to swallow my pride and share the current version with the world, only because there are so few Casper fics out there, yet I know there are many Casper fans.
I apologise now, though. ;)
- Sparky
Chapter I
The squirrel had found a nut.
It stood in the middle of the snow-covered highway, clutching the acorn with both paws protectively. Would anyone try to take the nut away? It had taken a lot of work to dig it out of the snow. The squirrel peered around suspiciously. No - no one in sight. Good.
But before the rodent could begin to try to crack the acorn's tough outer shell, there was a roar from overhead. The squirrel watched a helicopter, painted an army drab, fly out of the hazy sky and head off towards the nearby town of Friendship, Maine. That interruption over, the squirrel again prepared to devour the acorn, but this time had to abandon its hard-earned meal entirely and scurry to the side of the road as a military jeep was followed by a long, impossible line of similar jeeps, all heading for Friendship. Somewhere in the middle of the procession drove a large truck with "Corwyn Glass Co." airbrushed on the doors.
As the jeeps made their way through the town heading for the coast, the citizens of Friendship began to awaken. People peeked out their windows to eyeball the procession wearily, then went back to bed, grumbling. They'd seen this all before. Many, many times before.
As for the men in the jeeps, well, none of them had actually been on this mission before, as new soldiers were recruited every time. These men knew nothing of what awaited them.
Their destination: Whipstaff Manor.
The helicopter reached Whipstaff first, and began to circle over it to give the jeeps time to arrive. The mansion on the hill was dark, forboding, and one could even say it seemed to loom over Friendship like some sort of scavenger waiting for a dying animal to finally turn belly-up and provide a free meal. (In fact, those were the very words recently used to describe the manor by Channel 8 reporter Jerry Gerard, who was admittedly known for theatrics during his broadcasts.)
The first jeeps reached the gate, and two soldiers hopped out to push the protective (but unlocked) gates open before getting back in their vehicle. With that done, the jeeps made way for the construction truck, which pulled into the mansion's impressive long driveway, followed by as many of the jeeps as could fit on the property - but they left a space large enough for the helicopter to land in, which it did. The soldiers vacated their jeeps, creating quite an impressive sight. Decked out in helmets, rifles, more than enough ammo for any situation imaginable, and heavy packs complete with bedrolls, the soldiers marched left and right. An outsider would have thought they were in Vietnam, if it weren't for the Atlantic Ocean view.
The helicopter's door opened, and two men wearing blue suits, dark glasses (despite the early hour), and clutching walkie-talkies that appeared to be permanently affixed to their cheeks climbed out and stood stiffly on either side of the helicopter door. A third man stepped out of of the aircraft and stood between the other two. He wore a drab brown tweed suit, peach dress shirt, and dark green tie. He smiled childishly at his two companions. "Is this Disneyland?" he asked eagerly.
The blue-suited men did not answer. Instead, they prodded the man in the tweed suit with their elbows and all three of them started towards the front door of the house.
Behind them, the pilot of the helicopter, who also wore a blue suit (but had dark goggles rather than merely dark glasses), put his his right hand to the side of his headphones. "Yes sir," he said into his headgear's microphone in response to a distant question, "the Mayor has arrived."
The Mayor and his bodyguards climbed the porch steps and faced the door. One of the blue-suited men nodded to the other, who noded back; then they were nodding in succession. When they were finished, they took a simultaneous step forward and rapped firmly on the door with the hands that were not clutching their walkie-talkies. They paused, then did it again.
Before they could do it a third time the door was opened by a disheveled man in crumpled pyjamas. He put on his glasses and pushed back his unruly hair to blink at his familiar visitors. "Yes?" he said in a voice that matched the tired look on his face.
"Mr. Harvey?" barked the blue-suited man on the Mayor's right.
"Mr. James Harvey?" barked the man on the Mayor's left.
The disheveled man leaned in the doorjamb. "Dr. James Harvey," he clarified.
"Dr. Harvey," sneered the first man, "in ordinance with agreement C and in compliance with requirements H, D, and L, Mayor Hymer of this town, namely, Friendship, Maine, has made arrangements to install a window on the third floor of this structure to replace one that is cracked."
James opened his mouth to interrupt, but was interrupted himself by the second man:
"You, Dr. Harvey, and your child, one Kathleen Harvey, are asked to stand aside while the workers complete the task outlined in Contract Q. They have requested protection as granted to them in Subparagraph V."
The second man broke off and nodded to the first man. He nodded back, then they both nodded to the Mayor.
The Mayor was pouting. "Mother wouldn't let me go on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride," he whimpered.
The bodyguards glanced at eachother, then nodded over their shoulders at the boot camp being set up behind them. In response to their signal, the soldiers marched, single-file, past James and into the house. It took more than a minute for them all to get inside. They were closely tailed after by two men in bright orange hardhats who had arrived in the construction truck. They carried between them a large pane of glass.
The Mayor was guided down the porch steps by his bodyguards so they could view the replacement of the cracked window, which was in plain sight on the third floor at the front of the house. There were several moment of silence. James bowed his head and, moving clear of the door, waited patiently.
Loud, manical laughter echoed throughout the house.
The two construction workers, minus their pane of glass, ran spastically out of Whipstaff, screaming in hysteria. They jumped into their truck and barrelled their way through the jeeps on their way back to the highway.
The construction workers were soon followed by the entire military troupe, who were also screaming hysterically. It took a lot less time for them to get out of Whipstaff than it had taken for them to get in. The last of their members had lost his helmet and was clutching his head as he ran. The soldiers shoved past the oblivious Mayor and his stiff bodyguards, broke camp, jumped in their jeeps, and drove away. Sensing real danger, the helicopter pilot switched on his vehicle and took off in haste, even forgetting to close the door.
The Mayor began practicing bird calls.
A final figure rushed out of the house. It was a twelve-year-old girl, viciously swinging an aluminum baseball bat like a Mongol warrior's club. She was wearing a flannel nightshirt and a military helmet.
"Kat!" cried James, truly awake for the first time. "What are you doing?" He grabbed the bat away from his daughter.
"I hate - " growled Kat, ripping off the helmet and flourishing it at the Mayor, who was honking like a Canada goose, " - that man."
"Young lady," said the bodyguard on the Mayor's right, stepping forward, "you are in serious violation of Subcontract X, Paragraph 387."
The second bodyguard nodded his agreement. "If this behavior continues, the entirety of Plan A will have to be terminated."
Both bodyguards nooded at the Mayor, who took this as a prompt to speak.
"I have a rock that looks like Marge Simpson," he announced proudly.
Before either of the Harveys could consider this, however, another manic burst of echoing laughter was heard, this time specifically from the third floor. A second later, the cracked window swung open to let out the new pane of glass. It arced through the air, then plunged, corner first, into the snow at the Mayor's feet.
The Mayor promptly put his mouth close to the glass, breathed on it, and proceeded to draw a smiley face in the resulting vapor with an index finder.
The laughter from the third floor started again as the bodyguards grabbed the Mayor by his elbows and began to haul him away.
"Wait!" cried the Mayor. "It needs a nose!"
"You are not complying," said the first man over his shoulder to the Harveys.
"We will retalliate," added the second man. They beat a hasty retreat through the gates and down the hill.
James put an arm around his daughter, who absently tossed the helmet out into the yard. He led her back inside and shut the door behind them with the baseball bat.
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
Kat scribbled furiously on a piece of paper. Upon noticing her father peering curiously over her shoulder, she quickly folded the sheet and stuffed it in her math book.
"What was that?" James asked, after taking a sip of his coffee.
"Um..."
"You didn't finish your homework again last night, did you?"
Kat shrugged. "Well Dad, I think better in the morning."
James looked up as he poured maple syrup in his coffee. "Don't be silly," he informed her. "No one thinks better in the morning."
A small ghost with large blue eyes flew in with the newspaper. "They forgot to put it in a bag again," he told everyone, dropping the soggy mess on the kitchen table. "Hey Kat," he said eagerly, "wanna go hang out at the mall today?"
Kat shook her head. "Nah, Casper," she said. "It's the last day of school before Christmas Break. Everyone will be there."
James, who had discovered the recent mistake with the syrup, cleared his throat as he poured himself a fresh cup of coffee. "About Christmas, honey," he said, unsure of just how to phrase what he wanted to say.
Kat stopped him by speaking up. "I know there isn't much money, Dad," she said. "We'll be on the road by then anyways." Here she stole a glance at Casper, who was busy packing her lunch for school. Kat and her father usually tried to avoid talking about moving, especially around Casper, but they had to talk about it eventually, right? It was just over a week before Christmas, and the Mayor had only given them until the thirty-first of December to get out of Whipstaff. They planned to start the drive to Wisconsin, where James had once held a practice, Christmas morning. They'd already packed most of their stuff in boxes, but then living out of boxes was nothing new to the Harveys.
Casper, for once, didn't speak up at all at the mention of his living friends moving away. He just silently put a banana in the brown paper bag and folded the top over.
There was a loud thump from the second floor, followed by two raucous voices joined in teasing laughter. Kat chewed on her lower lip. No one was sure exactly how to feel about the other three residents of the household, the ghosts who called themselves Casper's uncles (Casper had, in fact, verified that they were not truly his uncles, but it had always semed convenient to call them that). While they continued to be noisy and rude and to make sick jokes whenever the humans were around, they had stopped torturing Casper with their horseplay and actually could be trusted to leave most of the Harveys' possessions alone.
But what really bothered Kat was the way they pestered her father.
"Hey Doc," said Stinkie loudly, poking his head through the coffee maker, "are we getting' a session today?"
James, wisely not turning around, grumbled something into his coffee mug.
"Yeah, come on, Doc," agreed Fatso, appearing half out of the refrigerator. "We haven't had a session in a long time!"
James still didn't turn around. "We had one two days ago."
"But," protested the big ghost, throwing his arms wide, "we're not cured yet!"
Casper sighed and shook his head.
"I have an appointment with Viola Laslowe at nine-thirty."
Fatso's lower lip began to tremble. "But Doc," he cried. "We want to become happy, well-adjusted ghosts! You promised to help us!"
Stinkie sobbed piteously. Kat hid her face in her hands.
Fatso began to blatently overact. "You care more about that wrinkled old fleshie than you care about us!" he wailed, flinging a forearm over his eyes. Casper managed to turn a chuckle into a cough.
James put his mug down on the counter. "All right," he said. He glanced at the clock. It was almost eight. "But you only have until nine."
Fatso and Stinkie beamed happily.
"And," James felt compelled to add, "Mrs. Laslowe is not old, she's just...middle aged."
Fatso shrugged.
Kat got up and accepted her lunch from Casper. "All right, I'm going to school," she announced to the room, putting the brown paper bag in her backback after her math book. She hoisted the backpack over one shoulder. "Bye Dad. Bye you guys." She kissed James on the cheek and headed for the door. On her way out she almost ran into (or through) Stretch, who had just gotten up and had descended from upstairs like a stormcloud. He was still sleepy and irritable from having been woken at dawn after a typical night of partying. He and Kat glanced at eachother the same way they always did - with distaste - then the tall ghost floated past Kat to join his smiling companions in the kitchen.
"Learn something!" Fatso called after Kat as she slammed the front door.
"Don't count on it," snapped Stretch on his way across the room. "Outta my way, Microbe." He shoved Casper aside.
"All right boys," said James, putting his empty mug in the sink and heading upstairs. I'll go get my charts."
Stretch immediately brightened at James' words. "Charts?" He grinned wickedly. "A session, eh?"
"You know," said Fatso, inflating himself proudly, "I'm the one who got the doc to agree to a session in the first place."
"He was good, too," Stinkie had to admit.
Stretch grimaced. "You actin' again?" he asked Fatso. "Good thing I missed that."
Stinkie shrugged. "Well, the doc has to have a session with us," he said. "He's our therapist. I don't see why he has to go see that frumpy old Laslowe gal anyways."
"Mrs. Laslowe pays him," Casper said quietly from the sink where he was washing the breakfast dishes. "That's how he can afford to pay the Mayor so he and Kat can stay here until the end of December."
Stretch sneered at the little ghost. "Nah, you got it all wrong, Balloonhead. They're stayin' here cuz we let 'em."
Fatso and Stinkie agreed wholeheartedly. "Yeah," said Fatso, leaning on the counter, "it's our house."
Casper shook his head. "No, we told you guys," he reminded them, shutting off the faucet. "It's really my house - only...only dead people can't legally own anything."
Stretch laughed loudly, echoed by his buddies. "You?" he demanded. "Well, tell you what, Snotnose: The day you ever legally own anything is the day we hit the road. Right, boys?"
Fatso and Stinkie agreed, then roared with laughter at the very idea of Casper ever legally owning anything. Casper sighed heavily and went back to scouring the coffeepot.
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
"So - you actually gonna talk to her one day, Romeo?"
Vic trudged stoically along down the main hallway of Friendship Junior High. "Yeah," he told Andreas Steubing in the manliest voice he could muster at eight-thirty in the morning. "I will...today."
"Uh-huh," said Andreas.
"Right," said Andreas' twin brother Nicky.
"We believe you," they said together.
"I will!" Vic stopped to turn to his friends. "I swear."
Andreas squinted at him. "Well, you'd better," he informed Vic. "Especially since today is the last day of school. Who knows if you're gonna see her again before she moves."
Vic shifted his weight to the other foot. "Hey," he protested, "you guys said you wanted to meet her too."
The twins glanced at eachother and shrugged.
Vic paused for a moment, then resumed his march down the locker-lined hallway, joined by the Steubings. He had been dying to talk to Kat ever since the Halloween Dance, but he just didn't have the nerve. That snooty Amber Jensen, who had called herself his friend, had told Kat all about how he had first stood Kat up, then had helped try to humiliate the new girl in front of the whole school. This, of course, happened just before Amber transferred to a private school in Castle Rock - but it was no consolation to Vic. Kat hated him now for sure. He just wished he could at least apologize to Kat before she left and remembered him as a major jerk forever.
"There she is!" Vic hissed to the twins. The three boys watched in silence, along with everyone else in the hall, as the Harvey girl dialed the combination on her locker, hit the top of the door twice with her palm, then swung it open.
"Hi Kat!"
Kat looked around and leaned into her locker. "Casper!" she hissed. "Not here! Someone will see you!"
Casper smiled. "I don't think anyone would get that close."
Kat had to agree. As usual, everyone was keeping their distance from her, preferring instead to keep to the other side of the hallway in order to pass by. "Oh, but in a minute someone will," she reminded the ghost as Vic and the Steubing twins approached. Vic had his locker right next to hers, and he and his friends Nicky and Andreas were the only students in school who would actually get near Kat. Apparently the three boys, who between them had seen all four of the spectral inhabitants of Whipstaff Manor, actually thought Kat was kind of cool for being so...different.
Nicky and Andreas drifted off to their respective lockers (but not without first giving Vic a prodding look), and Kat ushered Casper farther back in her locker as Vic stepped up next to her. As usual, he said nothing, but kept stealing glances at her. Kat thought he was such a flake.
"What's he doing?" whispered Casper curiously when he noticed Kat glancing back at Vic periodically as she put her lunch on the shelf next to the ghost's head.
"He's staring at me again," she whispered back. "Oh wait...Oh God I think he's going to talk to me - " She shoved her backpack in the locker to cover Casper as Vic leaned a bit in her direction. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but then the inevitable happed.
Wendy Wainright arrived.
"Get it away from me! Get it away!" Wendy stumbled down the hallway, a latex squid wrapped around her head. "It's draining my will to live!" She grinned madly at the commotion her act had triggered: terrified students, Vic and the twins included, hastily shutting their lockers and rushing off, early, to first period. Then Wendy casually opened her locker and suffed the squid in. She smiled at Kat, whom she wasn't surprised to see was the only one left with her in the hallway. "Hi Kat," she said.
Kat smiled back at the blonde girl. Wendy was weird, but she sure was entertaining. "Hi Wendy. So what's up?" Kat answered, glad to have a girl around who would actually talk to her without first being dared to. Wendy was one of the few students at their school who didn't attend the infamous Halloween Dance at Whipstaff - Wendy's explaination being that she didn't do anything that promoted school spirit, which, in her own words, "is worse than selling your soul to the Amway Lady."
Wendy shrugged as she pulled a book out of her locker and put it in her totebag. "Oh," she said, "I don't know what to write for that stupid American History paper. You're lucky you don't have to do it."
Kat shrugged too. Actually, she wouldn't have minded doing it so much if that meant she could stay. But she didn't say that. "Yeah but my Math teacher gave me a 'special assignment' so he could see if I learned anything during my 'stay' in his class. He's not going to grade it or anything."
"So, turn in a paper that says 'Sorry but the dog ate my brain' or something. What could he do?" Wendy slammed her locker shut, dislodging a 'Danger: Radioactive Waste' sign and sending it tumbling to the floor. Wendy absently picked it up and affixed it to the water fountain.
Kat smiled.
The bell rang.
"Bye!" Wendy called, skipping off down the hall. Kat waved to her, then pulled her backpack out of her locker, freeing Casper's movements once again.
"See you in the cafeteria?" Casper asked needlessly - both of them knew he would be there.
"Sure."