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Chapter 26: Ball: The Prelude
The school dance was the talk of Casper High. We students were all hoping to get asked on dates. Well, almost all the students. I wasn't actually very hopeful. Besides, that would require me being human. I was still doing badly at controlling everything. The week had passed quickly, and Saturday loomed ahead. I haven't given up yet. I kept the gun in my pack until I reached home, and dumped it in the lab before I could rethink my decision.
Jazz was terrifying. She appeared to be avoiding me. I had tried to avoid her, but it made me ache on the inside every time she walked past me, ignoring my existence, burying her nose in a book. She probably hated me for lying to her, and I couldn't think of anything I could do to regain her trust. But then again, I deserved it. She should scream at me, yell at me, or ignore me. The screaming would have hurt less than her actions. She was spending time with a boy named Spike, a Goth. I was worried. She didn't know the rumors. I did.
My refuge was school, and it showed. I read and studied like never before, making A's consistently in all my classes. Nobody noticed except my two best friends, who enquired. I smiled and told them I was trying to bring up my grades. They didn't look like they believed me. Ah, well. Tuck was standing at the door to the school every day, and asking if anybody wanted to go to the school dance. Not much would have been very remarkable about it if not for the incident in the basement on Thursday night.
I had walked down to the basement to give Jack a cup of soda for his latest food-related device. It had two soda cans on top, sat on his head, and had straws that went from the bottom of his cup to his mouth. He was holding a rod, and had cast the line on it through the portal. It was a fishing rod, which he told me he called the Fenton Fisher. He waited, reeled some more, and hoped he got a "bite".
"Check out this line. Coated with a special high-test ectoplasmal resin that ghosts can't break. Quiet now. Don't wanna spook 'em." He whispered, or as close to whispering as he could come. My lips quirked up at the warning about spooking the ghosts. Seconds later, Jack's stomach rumbled, and he frowned, saying, "Whoa! That soda goes right through you like Sherman through Georgia." He handed me the fishing rod. "Here! Hang on to this. I'll be right back after I use the Fenton Urinal." I winced. Did he have to put "Fenton" in front of everything he made? He left the basement, dashing for the bathroom.
It might not have gone so terribly badly, if not for what happened next. The line jerked, and a now-familiar wisp of blue mist rose from my mouth, the signal that a ghost, other than myself, was near. "Oh, no." I mumbled, irritated, and a little bit worried. Abruptly, as I attempted to keep my hold on the rod, the line snapped, hitting me in the face. A claw emerged from the portal, and then more of a being that could only be a ghostly dragon. The remnant of the line hung from its mouth. "Dad?" I called, feeling the start of panic in my stomach.
"I want to go!" The dragon roared, furiously. I absently wondered what it wanted to go to, before I screamed for Jack. I made a run for it, but was caught before I could make it to the door, or even ten steps. "I have to go!"
A funny thought occurred to me: "You'll have to stand in line behind my dad. In the meantime..." I transformed, realizing that Jack was not going to come down soon enough to rescue me. The ghost looked surprised as the rings enveloped me, before I did something new, something I didn't know I could do. I turned into mist. Every molecule in my body screamed at me, telling me to stopstopstopnow before the pain got worse. It was comparable to being shredded into a million pieces while still conscious, with a heightened nervous system. Basically, as bad as the portal, minus dying. I hoped I never did this, ever again. I landed on the ground hard, pain stopping as soon as I returned to normal, somehow not screaming. Maybe because my vocal chords had disappeared.
The dragon tried to hit me, and then blasted me with fire, which I narrowly escaped. Well, mostly escaped. My foot hurt pretty badly. I used my other foot to kick back, somehow powerfully enough to throw the ghost back towards the portal. I spotted a soaring flash of gold, but didn't pay it any attention. Something far more worthy of my attention was taking place in front of me. The dragon, which I could have betted was a male because of the voice, started to shrink in stages, before becoming a girl, young, no older than her twenties. "All I wanted was to go to the Princess Costume Ball. And my horrid mummy won't let me!" She shrieked, and flew through the portal. She had a mom?
"If that dragon suit's her idea of a costume, I'm on mummy's side." I pulled on the warmth that would transform me back to a human appearance, saying, "Phew! Man, that's a relief." I had dealt with a ghost, all on my own. My core, as I had learned to call it, pulsated briefly, strangely. It gave me a little bit of energy, enough so that I felt a little bit more awake, like having a (very small) candy bar.
Dad walked back into the room, looking far more relaxed. "I'll tell you what a relief is...Darn, I almost forgot!" He turned around, dashed back for something, and I heard, with my super enhanced hearing, the distinct sound of a toilet being flushed.
I had gotten away with only a limp, though I knew my teacher noticed it, Mr. Lancer. He enquired, and I told him I was fine, I had merely hit my leg. He gave me a confused look, a little bit worried, but didn't push farther. Sometimes, I just didn't get him. He punished me one second, and acted concerned the next. Of course, I could tell he was sincere when he did both, but it was still confusing.
How do you like this chapter? I liked my last chapter better, but I don't really know if anyone else thought the same, because nobody told meā¦Please review! Oh, by the way, just as a warning, the next chapter may go back in time some, though I'm not certain.
-MiaulinK
