We've got Ollie and The Ghost Council this time! They were a bit more challenging to write for, I wanted to figure out quirks or bits unique to each of them.

With only three more chapters after this one, the plot is starting to pick up.

"Get me the ink stat!"

"Right here!"

It was like a hurricane rampaging around the Dark Dais. Ollie and the Ghost Council were huddled in a small bubble within the storm, crowding around a scroll like an operating table. Who knew one bad typo could lead to such unintended havoc?

Ollie dipped a feather into the ecto-ink and carefully added a line at the top of a 'u', editing the word 'gust' into 'gast'. The storm ceased with the correction and all was calm once more.

With a collective sigh of relief, the five at the dais slumped over and took a breather… metaphorically. They couldn't actually breathe as ghosts. The youngest of the group wearing the black robes spoke up. "Out of all the paperwork and scroll stamping this week… that was the only one I truly hated."

The chaos wasn't too unusual for the group in charge of managing the Ghost World. Dealing with curses and hauntings invited mayhem into their jobs, and they were the ones meant to put out the fires. Luckily, nothing had actually been on fire this week, if you don't count Grimbella mistakenly eating a ghost pepper in her sandwich on Thursday.

Sir Alister read over the newly amended scroll. "One cannot notice the letter has been edited. Excellent work Oliver!" These four old ghosts had been referring to their new leader as 'Mr. Chairman' for some time before one of them slipped and called him by his first name. Ollie didn't mind and said they were welcome to call him 'Ollie' since they were friends, though they ended up sticking to his proper name 'Oliver'.

Lucretia materialized a trailing list into her hands and checked off a box. "Weekly council to-do list item #142, spellcheck spells, has been completed."

"We are progressing through our list quite nicely this week." Grimbella commented. "Though item #54 is still ongoing."

The green ghost of the bunch huffed. "Composing our own theme song is not a quick nor easy task!" Alister had been working on giving the council their own theme song for days, and it was not going well. The rest of the council moved forward with other duties after the song somehow became a limerick. Alister legitimately had no idea how that happened.

Ollie sent the fixed scroll on its way and was ready to tackle his next task. "What's next on the list, Lucretia?"

"We've reached list item #143." The purple ghost didn't seem to be happy about this one.

Bartholomew tried to recall what that item was. "That's not the one with the kiss is it?"

"No, it's recovering that misplaced lightning talisman." Lucretia reminded him.

The chairman hadn't heard of that before. "A talisman?"

Grimbella stepped forward to provide an exposition. "The talisman of great shocks went missing almost thirty years ago. When activated, it causes random lightning strikes throughout the Ghost World. It hasn't been a priority since it only activates after its name is spoken aloud."

Ollie tilted his head. "Didn't you just say its name out loud?"

A moment of silence… then a lightning bolt came from nowhere and zapped Bartholomew. "Great, now it's a priority." The charred blue ghost grumbled.

The chairman clapped his hands together. "OK, tracking down the talisman… Do we know where it was last sighted?"

Lucretia opened up a folder full of reports, now nicely spruced up with scented tabs she received from Ollie for her Death Day, and flipped through the pages. "Unfortunately, it appears we don't have that information on hand. I believe the records room should have what we need, however."

"Then that's where we need to go." Ollie decided. "To the records room!" Another bolt of lightning came down and would have hit the wraith if he hadn't ducked. "And quick!"

OXOXOXOX

The records room had thankfully been reorganized by Ollie weeks prior. The clutter was nonexistent and everything not digitalized had been neatly filed. The tricky part was figuring out how the information they needed had been sorted. "I'm not sure if it's in the 'cursed artifacts' drawer, or the 'supernatural powers' drawer." Ollie admitted, there had been so much to organize that he skimmed through the data until he could figure out what it belonged under.

Alister floated to another cabinet. "We mustn't rule out 'unnatural occurrences' either." All five of them took their share of the contents and searched through for any mention of the talisman's whereabouts.

After twenty minutes with no news, Grimbella took a moment to stretch her back. "Hmm, what's this?" Her eyes drifted over to one of the cabinets and spotted something stuck behind it.

The others put their files down and joined the pink-hued ghost to inspect what she found. "It appears to be a very squished box of scrolls." Bartholomew observed.

Alister motioned to levitate the box out of its hiding place, but Grimbella got in the way. "Up-up! I am the one that found it, so I must be the one to extract it. Carefully."

And careful she was, Grimbella nudged the box upwards with her arms. Slowly. Very slowly. The rest of the council stood and silently watched in awkward silence. So very awkward was the silence. It felt like an overly drawn out gag with the amount of time it took the prideful ghost to dislodge the box.

Once the box was finally free, Grimbella passed it over to the chairman who looked it over. "These scrolls should have been digitized months ago! How could they have ended up stuffed back there?"

The Ghost Council had a pretty good idea. "Scratch." They sighed simultaneously.

"He was nowhere near as enthusiastic about paperwork as you are, Oliver." Sir Alister pinched the bridge above his nose. "Scratch may be our friend, but he was a nightmare to work with as our boss. You are a child, and he was vastly more childish despite being a grown man."

"Aw, come on. How childish could Scratch have been?" Ollie gave his predecessor the benefit of a doubt.

The four elder ghosts shared a flashback:

The council were fast asleep, bunking together in one bed due to space issues. A portal opened up on the ceiling and Scratch plopped down with an armful of pillows. "SURPRISE PILLOW FIGHT!" He threw the pillows like a madman, or maybe like a ghost who'd overindulged in sugar and boredom. The council scrambled for safety, but there was no escape, only chaos and feathers.

"I can still hear his laughter…" Lucretia shivered. "Anyway, how should we handle these scrolls Mr. Chairman?"

Faced with a few dozen scrolls overdue for computer entry, Ollie couldn't leave it alone. "I'll enter these into the system right away, you four keep searching for more on the talisman." The chairman pulled out a 90s computer and manually transferred the information, one scroll at a time. He typed as fast as he could without making errors, he had to finish this quickly and get back on track.

"Wonderful job Oliver! Always so diligent!" Grimbella praised the wraith typing a mile a minute, already on his second scroll.

The search for clues continued, the council picking up where they left off. Except for Bartholomew, "Hey, who moved my stack?" His papers had been nudged aside, unknowingly by himself. He refound his place and speed read through, as the youngest (not counting Ollie) Bartholomew earned respect by being the most serious about his work, which might also cover up the fact that he was the most sensitive. At his pace he'd finished his papers a good while before the rest did. With maybe another two minutes before the others caught up, he quickly checked his flip phone and opened the council's ghostial media page (which he ran). The latest comment got a frustrated sound out of the blue ghost. "We got a couple reports about random lightning strikes."

Ollie didn't take his eyes away from his work. "How's the damage looking?"

Bart scrolled through the messages for damage assessment. "Eh, nothing major yet. Just singed ground and walls, a ruined umbrella…" He clicked the next page. "Ooh! Your 'Move Along Lil Ghosties' initiative has helped another one percent of ghosts find peace and move on, bringing the total percentage up to eighteen!"

That was one of Ollie's first acts as Chairman, to help reduce the overcrowding issue and assist ghosts with their unfinished business. Eighteen percent was much higher than he could have hoped for, but with more ghosts always arriving, that percentage would fluctuate. "That's great news, thanks for the update Bart!" The orange ghost took a second to look back.

The youngest of the council smiled. "It's nice to feel apprecia-" ZAP! Another bolt of lightning shocked the ghost. "AGAIN?!"

Not long after, Ollie finished the data transfer of the last scroll. He wiped his sleeve across his forehead. "Whew! All done. Were you guys able to find anything?"

Lucretia held a stone news tablet up for all to see. "As a matter of fact, we did. As you can see chiseled here, there was a donation made to the museum of supernatural history. It is dated a few months before the talisman was reported missing."

Ollie leaned over and took a closer look at the carving on the slab. He'd wonder why they were using rocks for newspapers in the nineties some other time. "There's a good chance it was mistakenly added to the donation!" He connected the dots.

"Precisely." Sir Alister nodded. "We must make haste and visit the museum at once… right after we put away these files we took out!"

OXOXOXOX

The supernatural history museum has a fair number of daily visitors, especially now with their latest exhibit on dead horses. The quintet in charge of running this world portalled onto the front steps, floating up to the top to purchase entry tickets. Grimbella was the first to reach the top and came nose to nose with a ghost bear. "Oh, are there exhibits outside now?"

The bear roared in her face, it wasn't an exhibit. Everyone else came up just in time to see the bear clamp down onto Grimbella's hair. "Hey!" a familiar voice shouted, causing the bear to stop. "What did I tell you about biting other ghosts?" None other than Sally Tugbottom floated up and held a disappointed finger towards her best friend.

Sally's ghost bear let go of the councilmember and lowered his head sadly. His bandanna-wearing bestie gently scratched behind his ear. "There you go. Sorry about that, this one's with me-Oh, hey Ollie!" She recognized the wraith boy from her hometown. "Come here to see the dead horse exhibit?"

"Actually, we came to find a missing talisman that's causing lightning." Ollie wringed his hands under the sleeves. A random lightning bolt struck behind him, zapping a ghost eating a hot dog. The electricity roasted the weenie and the ghost took a bite, smiling as it tasted better now.

"That would explain why that keeps happening." Sally had wondered about the lightning.

"Yeah, but I'll put a stop to it" Ollie assured the Brightonian hero.

Lucretia looked on proudly at the young chairman. "That's our chairman! After this he'll have completed 142 and a half items on the weekly to-do list! You can blame Sir Alister for the half."

"I'm working on it!" The green ghost interjected.

Sally wasn't as excited to hear that as the council was. "You've already done that much in a little under a week?" It was Friday, the week wasn't even over!

Ollie didn't pick up on her tone. "Oh, there's also been some little things I've helped with here and there. Just engoodifying the Ghost World a little bit every day!"

As Sally watched the young chairman and the council make their way into the museum, she had a sinking feeling in her gut. She did not like what she heard, what he was doing was NOT 'a little bit every day'. Her bear nudged her arm, a familiar worry in his eyes. "I know, I'll talk to him."

Inside, Ollie hardly had a second to check out the exhibits. The curator popped out of nowhere the moment he and the council entered the building. "Mr. Chairman! And the Ghost Council! To what do I owe the esteemed pleasure?" The curator bowed.

Not comfortable having someone bow to him, Ollie tried to present himself as casual. "Oh, hey there! We're here to ask about a donation from a few decades ago."

"We believe a talisman was donated by a clerical error." Bartholomew added, showing the curator what they found in the records.

The curator took a closer look. "Hmm, yes, I recognize those items. And I do believe there was a talisman of sorts in that batch."

"Can you please describe it?" Ollie asked.

"Let's see… if memory serves, it was gold, not quite diamond-shaped but close, and there was a jagged green stone in the center." The curator recalled.

The chairman turned to his council, Sir Alister nodded. "That is the talisman we seek. It is of the utmost importance that we acquire it. Do you still have it?"

"Unfortunately…" The curator grimaced. Pretty much telling Ollie and the council all they needed to hear. "We had a bit of a situation last year…"

The quintet was led to a roped off portion of the museum, an area in total disarray. "What happened here?" The chairman gaped.

"Frightmares. They caused havoc and made off with a few items, that talisman included."

Grimbella tutted at the disorganized mess. "And you haven't cleaned up?!"

The curator was ashamed. "It was decided to focus on new exhibits rather than repair and reopen this area. It wasn't deemed a priority."

"By whom?" Grimbella questioned.

Lucretia leaned over to the pink ghost and whispered, "Ahem, by you." The taller of the female barristers flushed and recalled a matter about this museum a year earlier.

Seeing the state this part of the museum was in, Ollie knew he had to fix this. "I can have this place fixed in just a few minutes. Would you mind if I-"

"Oh, yes please Mr. Chairman!" The curator eagerly accepted the help.

Ollie rolled up his sleeves. Repairing the room was no sweat with his powers, he'd do some good here, locate the talisman, and be home in time for Wolf's Den… wait, was that on today? Ollie couldn't recall what day it aired. Eh, problem for later. The chairman robes stretched his form and brightened his orange hue as he called upon his powers to restore the room and its displays to how they were supposed to be. Museum patrons felt the shift in power and took notice of the chairman at work.

ZAP

A lightning bolt from the talisman collided with one of the walls, the one closest to the crowd of ghosts. Bartholomew was a little bit relieved. "At least it didn't hit me this ti-" he got zapped by another bolt. "WHY?!"

The wall hit by the lightning had started to crumble, threatening to bury everyone in the rubble. I mean, they were already dead, but it would still hurt. Ollie waved one of his arms back and redirected his powers to reverse the damage. "AS CHAIRMAN I REPAIR WHAT HAS BEEN BROKEN, RETURN TO YOUR PREVIOUS STATE NOW THAT I'VE SPOKEN." His 'curse' voice echoed and his orange ectoplasmic aura shined. A wave of his power restored all to its former glory.

The onlookers cheered for their chairman, who made all the damage go away like it never happened. One ghost wasn't cheering, she studied the orange ghost with concern. Ollie returned to his normal height, trying not to appear as tired as he felt. Thank cob all ghosts had lines under their eyes, all he had to do was smile and that would convince himself all was well.

"Thank you Chairman Ollie! I hope that wasn't too much trouble?" The curator bowed again.

"It was no trouble at all." Ollie waved it off. "But back to the talisman, how are we going to find it if a Frightmare took it? Actually, why would they take it?"

Sir Alister tapped a finger on his chin. "Their behavior is quite erratic. Perhaps it was because they are attracted to chaos. The talisman may not have been active, but they could sense its potential for chaos."

That made a lot of sense, enough for the rest of them to agree with the green ghost. The purple one nodded. "There's only a few places Frightmares would nest. Does anyone want to take a break before we resume our search?"

The rest of the council denied wanting to take a break, and though Ollie would like to sit down for a few, he could wait until the random lightning bolts were stopped. "I feel great, let's keep looking."

"Your work ethic is very admirable, Oliver." Bartholomew praised him.

Alister agreed. "Yes, other ghosts could stand to learn to be more like you."

The quintet opened up a portal and flew in one by one. Ollie was about to go in when a hand reached out and tapped him on the shoulder. "Ollie?" None other than Sally Tugbottom was beside him. "Could I speak with you before you leave?"

Bart poked his head back through the portal to see what was keeping the chairman, Ollie turned to him. "I'll catch up in a few." The barrister retreated into the portal before it closed, leaving Ollie and Sally by themselves. The folktale heroine led the young leader over to a bench, patting it for him to take a seat. "Was there something you needed, Sally?"

"Ollie, I've seen you around the Ghost World more often lately. Working harder and longer than usual." Sally started.

She was correct, he had been extending his hours just a bit. The more good he does, the more he wants to do. "It's nothing really. I'm just trying to be the chairman you all deserve." He assumed her words as a compliment.

It was not a compliment. "You are a really kind boy, Ollie. You're always trying to help everyone… but you can't forget about helping yourself too."

"Wait, what?" Ollie was bewildered. "Why would I need to help myself?" That sounded selfish, he wasn't a chairman that would indulge in what he personally desired. He was a chairman giving the Ghost World what it needed.

Sally recognized this behavior, the over-helping altruism that made a person blind to their own needs. "I'm going to tell you something I wish somebody had told me before it was too late. You're only human. If you keep overextending yourself and doing too much… well you won't be able to help anybody if you work yourself to death."

Ollie heard what she was saying, and he understood that she was worried. But he's not 'only human', he's the most powerful ghost in the Ghost World. He had everything under control. "I appreciate it, Sally, but I'm fine. Really." He picked himself off the bench and conjured a portal, bidding goodbye to the ghost and flashing a reassuring smile to convince her before disappearing.

"... yeah, that's what I said too."

OXOXOXOX

In a time-saving montage, the council and Ollie investigated different spots where Frightmares were likely to visit. Each location came up empty, and the lightning continued to strike at random. There was a nightclub, lightning struck the disco ball. At an overcrowded truck stop diner, lightning struck the pie display. A ghost circus, lightning struck a ghost elephant that kicked Grimbella into the tent. Finally, at a playground, lightning struck a sand castle just after a little ghost finished it.

"This is getting us nowhere!" Bartholomew cried out in frustration. "We need to narrow down our options!"

The chairman tapped his wrist against his head. "Come on, think! What do we know about Frightmare behavior?"

Wracking her brain, Lucretia listed out what she knew. "Hmm, they are attracted to and desire chaos… there has to be more-OH! Only the chairman could command them!"

Sir Alister snapped his fingers. "Yes! They feared his power and on some occasions tried to appease his wrath with offerings!"

"Now we're getting somewhere!" Ollie became chairman after the Frightmare's had been resealed, which meant they would go somewhere the previous rulers would go. "Scratch was the previous chairman so they probably left it somewhere important to him!"

Lucretia grimaced. "They would not have recognized that a new ghost had become chairman. It was the robe they recognized, they still believed the previous chairman was the one still around."

"Then let's go somewhere that was important to the original chairman. Do you know where that would be?"

The older ghosts knew somewhere, their reluctant reactions were their tell. Their younger boss was watching them expectantly, he trusted them, so they needed to trust him with this. "We know just the place, young Oliver." Sir Alister relented. "We'll take you there."

Ollie didn't know what to expect with how the barristers were acting. They led him to somewhere he'd never known existed, a chamber hidden away from the rest of the Ghost World yet within floating distance from the Dark Dais. The entrance was blocked off with cursed chains and a keyhole. Alister reached into his hair and pulled out a skeleton key, one which undid the locks and allowed the five inside.

"This is the private chamber of the original chairman." Sir Alister informed the current chairman. "It is where he resided when he was not at the Dark Dais."

"We never dared go in here, even after his destruction." Grimbella recounted.

All five of them were seeing the inside for the first time. A dark and lonely place that had gone unused for quite some time. Despite the grand onyx interior, it felt more like a cave than a room. There was a monolith in the back and some scattered stones against the columns. The rest of the chamber was bare and impersonal.

Ollie approaches the monolith, wiping away a layer of dust to see a carving depicting the original Chairman. The tyrannical being whose role and robes the still-living boy had inherited. "I never met the old Chairman. I've heard what he was like, and I know Molly literally killed him with kindness. But I don't really know anything about who he was." He looked back to his council. "Like what was he like when he was alive? How did he come into power? Would it… would it be alright to ask what you know?"

The four hadn't wanted to speak of their old boss since his destruction. They worked under him and respected him while he was around, and they still feared him and what he would do if they didn't meet his expectations. It wasn't until Scratch took charge that they realized being ghosts didn't have to be all about misery. That there was more to the afterlife than serving a singular entity who did not care about any of them and solely focused on his own needs and desires.

Bart spoke up first. "Truthfully, even we barely knew anything about him. The Chairman was already in power when all of us died. No one could say where he came from or if there were any other chairman before him."

"He may not have ever been human." Lucretia shared. "This is just something we have discussed among ourselves, and Miss McGee's actions have given credit to our theory. We believe the Chairman was never alive, and that he was the embodiment of misery itself." It made sense, there was nothing about the original Chairman that could be called 'human'. Not a single shred of humanity in his entire being.

The young wraith stared at the image of his predecessor. He had big robes to fill. How many centuries had the first Chairman ruled? Ollie was just a fourteen-year-old kid, and he held the weight of the afterlife on his shoulders. He would be the opposite of what the original chairman stood for, he would bring happiness and fulfillment to the ghosts who've spent ages creating misery and being unable to find peace. There were so many expectations of him, he had to live up to them. This was Ollie's purpose, to lead the Ghost World into a new era.

Resuming the search for the talisman, Sir Alister lifted some stray rocks out of a pile. "I actually wish that lightning would strike. Then we'd see where it was coming from."

Bartholomew huffed. "Speak for yourself. You're not the one that keeps getting zapped." The blue ghost felt all eyes settling on him, and a sinking feeling dropping into his stomach. "Oh no."

Within minutes, Bartholomew had been tied to the top of the monolith to be used as a lightning rod. He couldn't even find the words to describe how done he was with everything, his resignation to his fate and annoyance at his coworkers was written all over his face.

"Sorry Bart." Ollie looked at him sheepishly, he was the only one who objected to the plan. "This really was the best idea we had."

"Let's get this over with." Bartholomew sighed.

Sure enough, the next lightning strike went directly for the blue ghost. The rest of the council traced the source of the electricity back to one of the rock piles. Ollie dove over and dug down, finding a not-quite diamond-shaped artifact with a squiggly green gem in the middle. "The talisman of great shocks! I found it-" The gem on the talisman glowed intensely, sparks surrounding it.

"… Did we forget to mention that saying its name out loud a second time increases its effects." Grimbella couldn't have remembered this detail earlier!

The talisman went crazy. Dealing with a windstorm earlier was one thing. But now a lightning storm?! Everyone dove for cover, except for Sir Alister who hurried to untie Bartholomew. He freed the grumpy ghost but got in the line of fire-er, lightning. Alister braces for the shock, but it never comes. "Huh?"

Ollie is floating in front of Alister, holding out his hands to suppress the lightning. It stings his hands and he bites back a shout of pain. With the power of the robe, Ollie takes hold of the electric current and directs it back at the talisman. The blast hits the jewel and shatters it, relieving the talisman of its power source and rendering it useless.

The orange wraith slumped to his knees. That move was really taxing on him. He had the urge to lay down and pass out, but he forced himself to get back up and inspect the source of their troubles. "I think we can check this item off the list."

"Splendid work Oliver!" Lucretia cheered.

"Stupendous!" Grimbella clapped.

Bartholomew was still sizzling from that last shock, and merely gave two thumbs up as his ectoplasm twitched.

Sir Alister held out his hand to the wraith and helped him up. "Sorry guys, I had to break the talisman to stop it." Ollie apologized for the loss of a questionably antagonistic artifact.

"It was just some old relic." Sir Alister assured his liege. "You protected not just the Ghost World, but us personally. No chairman has ever done that for us." Over his shoulder, Bartholomew was going to complain that he still got used as bait. The ladies clamped their hands over his mouth, saving objections until after the nice moment.

Humble as ever, Ollie didn't see what he did as a big deal. "You four aren't just my coworkers, you're my friends. I wouldn't let anything happen to you… and I do feel bad we had to use Bart like that." That part earned the forgiveness of the youngest barrister; he still would give his other coworkers grief about it when they got home later.

The boy's words moved the green ghost before him, earning a genuinely caring smile. "You know Oliver, I was knighted when I was alive. I have served kings and royalty and chairmen since I was close to your age. None of them would have come between me and a lightning bolt. You are a very special soul, a true prince if I may, and working alongside you is one of my highest honors."

Ollie didn't know what to say, except for: "Thank you, Sir Alister."

Their business done, and another item checked off of their to-do list, the five headed out of the chamber. "So what shall we do with the old Chairman's chamber?" Lucretia wondered.

Grimbella stopped, the mention of the old chairman reminding her of something. "The old Chairman-Oh dear! The soul audit!"

The other three old ghosts gasped, reminded of such a matter. The purple one held a hand to her head. "Oh my word! It is time for the soul audit! How could we let that slip?!"

Ollie tilted his head. He'd never heard of a soul audit before. "Um, what's a soul audit?"

Bart shook his head. "Not 'a soul audit', THE soul audit! It is a very important process that the Chairman does every century! We've never personally worked on it and, as such, it completely slipped our minds that the time for it has arrived!"

Lucretia went on to explain just what the process was. "The soul audit takes account of every soul that has been in the Ghost World in the past one hundred years. Every ghost, all who have moved on, even wraiths must be accounted for! The process took days for the old Chairman to complete as more people would die during the audit."

"That's a lot of souls." Ollie's eyes widened.

"It is." Alister confirmed. "This will be the very first one done without the original Chairman. So we will assist you in completing the audit."

They were going to help him? Ollie is the Chairman, he's here to help THEM! "It's alright. I'm the Chairman, I can manage it on my own! You will need to handle the rest of the work while I'm busy with this." The council saw him as the best Chairman they ever had. He can't fail their expectations! He'd do this on his own and prove he's the Chairman they need. "I give my Ollie Oath that I can complete the soul audit by myself."

Ollie figured he had made the right call, they looked so proud of him for being ready to tackle this task on his own. They were so happy that their chairman was competent enough to not need his hand held through a big milestone. He'd get dinner and a good night's sleep and start the audit first thing in the morning!

OXOXOXOX

When Ollie arrived home through the portal, his room was already dark and his shell was in bed. "Wha…" the orange wraith looked at a clock. It was past midnight! He was supposed to come home hours ago! With everything that happened, Ollie had lost track of time, he'd even missed dinner. "I guess if my body ate then it's alright."

Gently nudging the sleeping shell, Ollie's body woke up pretty quickly. "Sorry I'm late!" The soul apologized before returning to his body. A sharp pain coursed through his head and he bit back a pained sound. Were these headaches getting worse? Ollie shook it off and checked his phone. His shell hadn't bothered to respond to the texts his parents sent early in the evening.

'Hey Ollie, when you get back come and meet us at the Root Beer Pub, and we'll all go out for dinner.' Was the text sent by his mom.

"Huh, I didn't know Brighton had a root beer pub-" Another headache interrupted his confusion. He should sleep it off. This was nothing to worry about.

Right?