and I knew that she wasnât really talking about chemicals.
âI like it here too, since I was born here and itâs the only place Iâve ever lived,â said Junchao.
âI like it here too, because you guys are here,â Alice said.
âThatâs the best reason to like it,â I told her. â
Gui mi
group hug!â
We all huggedâincluding Sunny. Our hanger hats clanked together and when we separated, I think Aliceâs hat had a few of my pencils stuck to it.
Â
Ridding Your House of Unwanted Spirits: Show It the Way
Okay, letâs get to work,â I said.
The four of us sat down on the pink bathroom rug. Sunny read from my momâs iPad: ââThe first thing you have to do is to cover up all the mirrors in the house with towels and open up all the windows at least an inch.ââ
âCover the mirrors and open the windows?â Junchao asked.
âIt says that when you perform the ghost-removal ceremony, you donât want the ghost going into the mirror by accident because then it will be stuck in yourhouse. You want it to go out the window. Thatâs why you open every one of them, to make it easy for the ghost to leave.â
âThat makes sense,â said Alice.
I stood up and opened up the bathroom closet and took out all of our bath towels. âLetâs go room by room.â
âCan I just stay in this room?â asked Junchao.
âBut youâll be alone,â I said. âBecause weâre leaving it.â
âNever mind,â she said, getting up.
Alice moved over to the bathroom window. She opened it up about two inches. I climbed up on the sink and threw a bath towel over the bathroom mirror. âOne room done!â I announced. We all smiled at each other.
Sunny pulled something from her backpack.
âWhat is that?â I asked.
âItâs an electromagnetic field meter,â she said. âIt measures electromagnetic fields, which are physical fields produced by electrically charged objects.â
âDo ghosts not like electricity?â I asked hopefully.
âNo, they use electricity,â she said. âIt should begin to beep if the ghost comes near us.â
The thought of that little machine beeping made all the hairs on my arms stand straight up. I picked up my momâs baby powder and gave myself another dose of it. Alice and Junchao did the same.
âHey,â I said. âWhy didnât you pull that thing out in the bedroom?â
âIt said the first step was to use the bathroom. And I wanted to follow the steps,â she said.
I couldnât stop myself. I picked up the baby powder and dumped the whole thing on Sunny.
Junchao gasped.
Alice grabbed the powder from my hands.
Sunny sneezed, causing a pencil to fall from her hat and hit the tile floor with a
plunk
.
âQuick,â Junchao said. âSay youâre sorry.â
Sunnyâs eyes looked unbelievably spooky shining happily out from her powdery-white face.
âBut . . .â
âHurry, say it,â Alice said.
Sunnyâs white lips turned up in a grin.
I thought my head would explode. But I thought about Trudy and her monster anger, and I managed to get out a tiny âIâm sorry.â
Alice and Junchao looked around the bathroom, hoping that this little apology would keep the ghost away.
âIâm sure that Masha was just making me extra safe with the powder,â Sunny said. She patted my arm just to rub in the fact that I had to apologize to her. She knew that the touch of her tiny evil hand would totally get to me.
I counted to twenty in Chinese . . . By the time I got to
shi liu
, or sixteen, the danger of walloping little Dr. Freakenstein had faded.
âLetâs start with the mirrors and windows at the back of the house and work our way to the living room,â Sunny suggested.
âDo we have to do your motherâs room?â asked Alice.
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