• Blast it with a mix of baking powder and scouring sand: The gritty coating will stop it from floating through walls and slow down its flying speed.
• But don’t bother bonking it on the head with a hammer or a shovel or any other such implement, since it will only turn as limp as a licorice stick.
A POSTSCRIPT ABOUT PAWOGS
(PAle WObbly Ghosts)
• P.S. They’re best combatted with laughing gas.
A TIDBIT ON THE TOPIC OF SCREECHERS
• The screech of the eponymous screecher is so freakishly, shriekishly shrill, it has the power to bend metal objects. This is useful if you happen to be hunting ghosts with either a dented bike tire rim or a twisted ice cream spoon: One screech and they’ll straighten out again. Otherwise, minus the aid of Hyper-Sound Filters (HYSOFs), expect to be rendered stone-deaf for up to thirteen days.
IF SUBJECTED TO A SLURPER ATTACK …
• Take pepper tablets for two months afterward. Side effects to pepper pill-popping include nonstop sneezing, so common sense suggests you stockpile tissues, too. (Nonstop sneezing is still better than being turned into a substandard Slurper with an insatiable thirst for saltwater.)
TO RE-CREATE THE GHOSID
(GHOst SImulation Disguise)
• Paint your face a moldy green (see Hyssop & Co.’s range of “Ghostly Pallor” creams for dry, combination, and pimple-prone skin; available in matte for a dull, lifeless finish or moisturizing for a graveyard-dewy glow).
• Put on a pair of moldy green overalls: To achieve the proper degree of moldiness, break them in by trapping TIBIGs in damp basements and/or castle dungeons. (For step-by-step instructions, see Ghosthunters and the Totally Moldy Baroness!)
• Stink of cellars: another reason to go TIBIG-hunting.
• Stick with your spectacles: Plenty of ghosts wear glasses in the great beyond; yours won’t give you away.
A PROVISO APROPOS OF THIRTEENTH MESSENGERS
(a.k.a. GHODEs or GHOsts of DEath)
• Strap on protective goggles: One look at a Thirteenth Messenger with the naked eye and within the hour you’re ghost toast.
• The protective goggles themselves are only good for a five-minute glance, so … no staring.
• If you’ve made the almost certainly fatal mistake of gazing upon a GHODE without protective gear and you’re not already dead:
– Gather up: cooking oil; marsh clover; red food coloring; lamps with red lightbulbs; the most powerful vacuum cleaner known to humankind; and two fellow ghosthunters, one who preferably is a member of the wrestling team, the other whose favorite hobby just happens to be housecleaning.
– Drink the oil-clover-food-coloring concoction. It will, of course, taste repulsive.
– Gaze into the burning red bulbs to banish flashing yellow lights from your sight.
– Have the wrestler squeeze you till poisonous vapors stream out of your ears while the neat freak sucks up the deadly smoke with the vaccum cleaner.
IN CASE OF AN ENCOUNTER WITH A MINOTAUR DEMON
… you’re probably already a goner, but …
• Be on guard if clocks start turning backward.
• To bait a Zargoroth, set out a bucket of blood. Blood not sold by the bucketful in your neighborhood supermarket? Sprinkle a few sachets of Artificial Blood Aroma (a standard component of the ghosthunters’ kit) into a fake-out potion of grape juice and ketchup.
• To corner a Zargoroth, surround it with a ring of fire. (It burns, burns, burns, the ring of fire.)
• To defeat a Zargoroth, slice it clean in half with a sword. Once halved, the beast will dissolve into thin air with a supersonically stinky howl.
• If you’ve already forgotten everything you just read, no worries: With the exception of Tom, Hetty, Hugo, Hornheaver, and Eugène de la Motette, no one has ever encountered this demon without losing his or her life or sanity. Best of luck, see you at the insane asylum.
Indispensable Alphabetical
APPENDIX OF ASSORTED GHOSTS
AG Ancient Ghost
ASG Averagely Spooky Ghost
BLAGDO BLAck Ghost DOg
BOSG BOg and Swamp Ghost
CAG CAstle Ghost
CG Cellar Ghost
COHAG COmpletely HArmless Ghost
FG Fire Ghost
FOFIFO FOggy FIgure FOrmer
FOFUG FOggy FUg-Ghost
GG Graveyard Ghost
GHADAP GHost with A DArk Past
GHODE GHost Of DEath
GIHUFO Ghost In HUman FOrm
GILIG Gruesome Invincible LIghtning Ghost
HIGA HIstorical Ghostly Apparition
IRG Incredibly Revolting Ghost
MG Marsh Ghost
MUWAG MUddy WAters Ghost
NAG NAture Ghost
NEPGA NEgative Projection of a Ghostly Apparition
PAWOG PAle WObbly Ghost
RR RattleR
SLUG SLUrper Ghost
STKNOG STinking KNOcking Ghost
SWG SWig Ghost
TIBIG TIny BIting Ghost
TOHAG TOtally HArmless Ghost
TOMOB TOtally MOldy Baroness
WG Water Ghost
WHIWHI WHIrlwind WHIrler
WL White Lady
Miscellaneous Listing of NECESSITOUS EQUIPMENT AND NOTEWORTHY ORGANIZATIONS
ABA Artificial Blood Aroma
ACH Air CHarger
CDEGH Clinic for the DEspookification of
GhostHunters
CECOCOG CEntral COmmission for COmbating Ghosts
COCOT COntact-COmpression Trap
FIGHD FIfth GhostHunting Diploma
GEAS Ghostly Energy Anti-Sensor
GES Ghostly Energy Sensor
GHAS GhostHunting ASsociation
GHASEB GhostHunting ASsociation’s Examining Board
GHUGL GHostHUnting GuideLines
GHOM GHOst Magnetizer
GHOSID GHOst-SImulation Disguise
GSI Ghost-Speak Interpreter
GSU Ghost-Sucker-Upper
HID Heat-Intensifying Device
HYSOF HYper-SOund Filter
LOAG List Of All Known Ghosts
NENEB NEgative-NEutralizer Belt
OFFCOCAG OFFice for COmbating CAstle Ghosts
RCFCAG Retention Center For Criminally Aggressive Ghosts
RICOG Research Institute for COmbating Ghosts
ROGA Register Office for Ghostly Apparitions
SEV Spook Energy Visualizer
SGHD Second GhostHunting Diploma
SPSP SPark SPrayer
THGHD THird GhostHunting Diploma
About the Author
CORNELIA FUNKE is the author of the bestselling novels Dragon Rider, The Thief Lord, Inkheart, and Inkspell. She lives in Los Angeles, California.
ALSO BY
CORNELIA FUNKE
DRAGON RIDER
THE THIEF LORD
INKHEART
INKSPELL
WHEN SANTA FELL TO EARTH
GHOSTHUNTERS
and the Incredibly Revolting Ghost!
GHOSTHUNTERS
and the Gruesome Invincible Lightning Ghost!
GHOSTHUNTERS
and the Totally Moldy Baroness!
Copyright
First published in Germany as Gespensterjäger in großer Gefahr by Loewe Verlag
Original text copyright © 2001 by Loewe Verlag
English translation by Helena Ragg-Kirkby copyright © 2007 by Cornelia Funke
Interior illustrations copyright © 2007 by Cornelia Funke
Cover art © 2007 by Guy Francis
Cover design by Elizabeth B. Parisi and Leyah Jensen
Published in the United Kingdom in 2007 by The Chicken House,
2 Palmer Street, Frome, Somerset BA11 1DS.
www.doublecluck.com
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920, by arrangement with The Chicken House. SCHOLASTIC, THE CHICKEN HOUSE, and associated logos
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available
First Scholastic paperback printing, April 2007
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eISBN: 978-0-545-40603-1
Ghosthunters and the Muddy Monster of Doom! Page 9