Spookygirl - Paranormal Investigator by Jill Baguchinsky Read Free Book Online Page B

“This is pretty typical. He’s showing off. Don’t react; you’ll just encourage him.”
    But Tim was already backing away. He pressed against the door; when he couldn’t open it, he crossed the room in a panic, gawking up at the furniture overhead instead of looking where he was going. He was headed toward the living room window, and although I didn’t think he could actually go through it, he was moving fast enough to hurt himself if he kept going.
    “Look out!” I said. Before I could reach out and yank him back, the couch flipped down from the ceiling and thudded to the floor in front of him, so that Tim tripped and toppled on to it. While he righted himself, the rest of the furniture drifted back into place.
    Tim was trembling violently; he looked like he might throw up.
    “What was that?”
    “That was Buster.”
    “When you said you had to tell me about him, I thought you were talking about a dog.”
    “That’s not so far from the truth,” I said as Buster’sfavorite toy—a squeaky vinyl hamburger—sailed through the air toward Tim. I grabbed it before it could smack into him and tossed it down the hall.
    “Go get it, Buster!” The burger’s squeaks soon mingled with Buster’s happy cries.
    Tim calmed down after I ushered him into the kitchen. I thought about offering him soda, but he didn’t look like he needed any caffeine, and he looked grateful when I suggested chamomile tea instead. Buster tried to follow us; when I told him to bug off, he acknowledged my command by grabbing my hair and twisting it into a knot. After being threatened with the crate, though, he went back to his squeaky burger.
    Tim stared warily at the kitchen doorway, as though he’d be able to see if Buster came back again.
    “It’s okay,” I said, putting the water on to boil. “You can tell he’s nearby when the temperature in the room drops, but he’d never actually hurt anyone. At least, not intentionally. He just likes to play jokes.”
    “What is he?”
    “We don’t really know. I call him an abnormal poltergeist.” I explained how Buster had come to live with us. “I’m not used to having guests, and I’m so used to him that I forget he might startle other people.”
    Tim raised a brow, indicating that
startle
was too weak a word.
    I suddenly felt a little defensive about Buster, the same way a bulldog owner might feel if someone said his dog’s wrinkled face was ugly.
    “Come on, he’s okay. Besides, I thought you said the whole ghost thing was cool.”
    “That was before I actually met one,” Tim said, but he seemed to be unwinding a little.
    “Ghosts aren’t all like Buster,” I said after pouring the tea. “Most of them don’t cause trouble like he does unless they’re agitated.” Like that awful presence in the locker room. “They’re usually harmless; they just stick around to keep an eye on things.” I told him about Mama Chen. “You’d never even know she was there.”
    Retaining a little of his earlier curiosity, Tim said, “We should go to Mama Chen’s sometime. Maybe I’ll be able to see her like you can.”
    “If you could see ghosts, you’d know.”
    “What about Buster? Can you see him?”
    “No, but he’s not a good example. He’s just weird. There’s no one set of rules they all follow. And not all ghosts are visible, either, so sometimes I can sense ghosts, but I can’t see them. I can see most of them, though.”
    “How’d you first find out you could see them?”
    “I’ve seen them for as long as I can remember. But it took me a long time to understand that not everyone could see what I could, and that ghosts weren’t the same asliving people.” I told him about the time Dad and I were on our way to pick up Mom at the airport; she’d flown out to Texas for a few days to help a cousin with some possible paranormal activity in a new apartment. A big accident had backed up traffic on the highway, and we inched past the remains of a crushed SUV and an