by Amber Benson
“Something’s attacking Noh,” Trina cried, but just as the words left her mouth, the nasty thing swallowed Noh whole. “Oh no, it just ate her!”
The nasty thing, its face a corpulent mass of squirming darkness, turned toward Trina and smiled horribly at her, revealing sharp gray teeth and a slavering red tongue.
“The ants!” Nelly said, her voice full of authority. “They can help us.”
Trina raced over to the physics teacher and tried to shake him into action, but her ghostly hands slid right through his shoulders.
“How do you make the ants work?” she almost screamed. The nasty thing was slowly moving toward them, its tongue lolling out of its mouth like a big red slug. It watched them with a nasty look on its face, like it wanted to eat all of them whole too.
“I don’t know what you mean,” the physics teacher said, looking truly mystified by her question.
“Your pockets,” Trina yelled. “It’s in your pockets! Please, hurry!”
Caleb DeMarck wrinkled his brow, uncertainty flooding his face, but he did as Trina asked, sinking his hands into his pockets.
“My goodness,” he said, “you were right!” He held up a handful of the fluffy white stuff, a big smile transforming his face. “Tell me what to do, because I can’t see a thing!” he said, getting into the swing of things.
“The monster’s at two o’clock,” Nelly cried. “Throw it there!”
The physics teacher let loose with the white stuff. It landed almost at the nasty thing’s feet. The ants went crazy, squirming all over one another to get to the stuff first, but they didn’t stop there. They instantly sensed that there was more for them to feast on than just concentrated aphid milk. They began to climb up the nasty thing, covering it with bites as they tried to make it their evening snack.
The nasty thing let out a gargantuan roar and began to swing its body back and forth like a dog trying to shake the water out of its fur after a bath. It stamped its feet like thunder as it reeled around the room, its steps grinding into the floor and shaking the whole place like an earthquake.
“It’s working!” Trina cried, dizzy with happiness, but the happiness didn’t last very long.
The ant bites might have made a human girl like Noh itch with pain, but the nasty thing was anything but a human girl. It continued to hold Noh captive inside its big belly while the ants swarmed all over its furry body, biting away with every ounce of energy they had inside them.
“Noh!” Trina screamed, fear for her friend’s safety making her ghostly form shimmer in the darkness.
But it was too late. The ants had failed, and now her friend Noh was going to be the nasty thing’s lunch.
Hubert Was Here
Noh opened her eyes to find herself sitting in a familiar place: the special spot by the lake Hullie had shown her earlier in the afternoon. Of course, now that the light had fled for the day and evening was upon them, the woods seemed a whole lot more ominous than they had back then.
The place gave Noh an icky feeling down in the pit of her stomach, but she tried to ignore it so she could focus on more important things.
Like getting back into her body.
She had realized her precarious position almost immediately. Hubert might’ve saved her spirit, but he’d left her body to molder away inside the monster that had swallowed her. Now all she could do was watch as the wind danced through the canopy of trees above her, scattering a few errant leaves to the ground. It was very disheartening to see the wind blowing around you but not be able to feel it. It made Noh’s heart sting to think about never hugging her dad or eating a bowl of yummy tomato soup again.
“You don’t like it here?” Noh heard Hubert say, and she turned at the sound of his voice to find him sitting in the grass across from her, picking at the clover, head lowered so she couldn’t see his eyes.
“I don’t not like it,” Noh offered. It was the best she could do. If she said anything of a more positive nature, it would be a lie, and she did not want to be a liar. To keep herself safe, she decided to change the subject instead. “Why are we here?”
Hubert shrugged. “I dunno. I like it here, and it’s safe from prying eyes.”
Noh had to agree with him. It was safe from prying eyes, but only because it was so creepy at night that she couldn’t imagine anyone else wanting to bother with it.
“I appreciate you helping me,” Noh continued, “but I really need to get back to my friends before they start worrying about me.”
Hubert looked up at her now, his eyes shining, and Noh thought he looked like the saddest boy she had ever seen.
“You don’t want to stay here with me?” he asked, wrinkling his brow.
Noh shook her head. “I’m not a ghost yet, so I don’t think I’m really allowed.”
“But if I don’t take you back, then the whatsit will finish eating you, and then you can stay with me forever,” Hubert said plainly. “You can be my friend.”
Noh realized that if she didn’t step in and take charge right then, Hubert might make the choice for her, sealing her fate forever. She could see he was a very lonely ghost, but she didn’t think sacrificing herself to make him happy was a smart decision. She knew from experience that the only person you could ever make happy was yourself.
“What if I promise to come visit you every week while I’m here at New Newbridge?” Noh offered. “I could be your alive friend—and that’s way better than being a ghost friend.”
She could see Hubert thinking about her suggestion, weighing it in his mind.
“Why is it better?”
Noh had her answer down pat.
“It’s better because an alive friend can go anywhere and do anything. They aren’t stuck in one place like ghosts are. I can be your spy and tell you about all the things that are happening in the world outside of New Newbridge Academy.”
Instantly Hubert’s face lit up, and he grinned at her.
“You’d do that? You’d be my secret spy?”
Noh nodded.
“And you wouldn’t tell anyone about me,” Hubert added, the light in his eyes fading a bit as he spoke.
“Not if you don’t want me to,” Noh agreed, “but I know for a fact that there are a lot of other ghosts at New Newbridge who would love to meet you.”
Hubert shook his head vigorously. “Only you know about me, and I want to keep it that way,” he said.
Noh didn’t argue with him. If he wanted to keep himself hidden away out here by the lake, she wasn’t going to rat him out.
“Okay, it’s a deal then,” Noh said, holding out her hand for Hubert to shake. He reached out to grasp her fingers, but as soon as they touched, she felt a funny prickling sensation all over her body like she’d been plunged into a freezing cold shower.
“Don’t forget your promise,” Hubert said softly.
And then Noh disappeared.
The Evil Eye Stone
It was still black as night inside the hidden room, so the physics teacher, who couldn’t see in the dark, didn’t know that the ants had not succeeded. Instead, the man who had once been Caleb DeMarck—but was now someone else entirely—was much more interested in the hot, uncomfortable sensation he was feeling in his right hand—the one that was still clutching the girl’s magic stone!
He knew exactly what the stone was and what it wanted from him—and that was because he had helped to create the stone in the first place!
Release me! the stone sang in his head. Let me fly and save the girl! The ants have failed!
“Of course, my friend,” the man who had once been Caleb DeMarck whispered to the stone. “But first, I want to see the beast in its true form.”
It only took the stone a moment to understand what the man wanted, but when it did the darkness immediately lifted away from the former physics teacher’s eyes like a curtain, and he could see the nasty thing in all its glory.
He had never seen anything as strange or ugly as the monster standing in front of him, and
he almost yelped in fear. The nasty thing caught him staring, and it hissed at him like an angry house cat.
The nasty thing, which was really nothing more than an accumulation of all the fears of all the children who had ever attended New Newbridge Academy, had spent its whole life hiding away from prying eyes, lingering on the edges of where the living world and the dead world connected, and it was wholly unprepared for the fear it felt at being seen by a real live grown-up human being.
The evil eye stone sensed the nasty thing’s terror and began to grow even hotter. The former Caleb DeMarck let the stone sizzle in his hand, the pain a reminder that he was human again after all these years.
Throw me! the stone cried in his head. Let me fly! Let me save my new friend!
This time, the words were like a magic spell. They weaved themselves inside the former physics teacher’s brain, and with a twinkle in his eye, he wound up his arm, took a step forward, and threw the most perfect fastball the world would never see, shooting the evil eye stone right into the nasty thing’s mouth.
The nasty thing yowled with anger and pain as the evil eye stone burned the insides of its gullet. When the stone reached the nasty thing’s stomach, it made a loud popping sound and the nasty thing howled in frustration. Eating something big wasn’t supposed to be this much trouble!
The nasty thing unhappily realized that it was no match for a magical stone that so badly wanted to be back with its mistress. It let go of its hold on Noh, and with its tail between its legs, it scurried out of the hidden room as fast as it could go, shrinking itself to the size of a flea as it made its way out of the building.
Noh blinked, surprised to find herself standing in the middle of the hidden room, holding the evil eye stone tightly in her hand. In the darkness she reached out for Hubert, but she couldn’t find him anywhere.
“Hubert?” Noh said weakly, but there was no answer.
Her savior was gone.
“Where did Hubert go… ?” she started to say, but then words failed her. The weight of all the crazy things that had happened to Noh since she’d arrived at New Newbridge began to sink in, and she fainted dead away just as a loud banging sound trickled down through the ceiling.
With a discreet click, the secret doorway opened to reveal first Hullie, whose bushy hair shone like a halo around his head, and then a tidy young woman who could only be Noh’s aunt Sarah, peering into the secret room with only a flashlight to illuminate the darkness.
“Thank goodness I replaced those old sprinkler heads when I did,” Hullie said as he shone the beam of his flashlight down onto the charred wreckage of the machine. “It could’ve gotten pretty hot down here, otherwise.”
He moved the light away from the machine, letting it slide across the floor and over to the spot where Noh’s unconscious form lay. The man who had once been Caleb DeMarck was kneeling on the ground beside her, looking very worried.
Following the beam of the flashlight, Aunt Sarah scampered into the secret room and crouched down beside her unconscious niece. Hullie was fast on her heels, pulling a brand-spanking-new lightbulb from his pocket at the same time.
“Thank you so much for looking after her, Caleb,” Aunt Sarah said, smiling up at the former Caleb DeMarck. She might’ve acted differently had she known the man before her wasn’t the real physics teacher anymore, but she didn’t, so gratitude was all he got.
“She was very brave,” the former physics teacher managed to say before looking down at his hands so no one would see the scarlet blush creeping up his cheeks.
Luckily, Aunt Sarah didn’t notice his embarrassment because she was too involved in her own thoughts.
“Oh, Hullie, I know it’s important to let her find her own way, but what if something truly terrible had happened,” she said, her voice thick with worry.
Hullie finished putting the new bulb in place, then turned the light back on, letting a warm glow expose the mess that was once the secret room.
“You know the rules, Sarah,” he said, popping a fresh toothpick into his mouth as he moved to stand beside her, placing a reassuring arm on her shoulder. “No interference, unless it’s specifically asked for.”
Aunt Sarah nodded, but it was apparent she didn’t wholly agree with his words.
“Besides,” Hullie added, giving her a wink, “that’s why I keep both my eyes wide open. So creatures like that old nasty thing don’t get too out of hand at New Newbridge Academy.”
And with that, Hullie reached down and picked Noh up, lifting her over his shoulder as if she was the lightest thing in the world.
“Let’s get this girl cleaned up and off to bed before she catches cold,” he continued, making his way back to the secret door with Aunt Sarah right behind him.
Trina and Nelly watched silently as the procession of realies left the room. To their surprise, (the former) Caleb DeMarck stopped in the doorway and gave them a small wave good-bye. He couldn’t see them anymore, but somehow it didn’t matter. In his heart he knew they were there, waving good-bye to him in return.
It’s All in the Soup
Noh sat up in bed with a tray of tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwich squares resting gently on her lap. The tomato soup was better than amazing, Noh decided as she took another spoonful. It had just the right amount of cream in it so that it wasn’t too tomatoey. She picked up one of the grilled cheese squares—it was made with a hefty amount of American cheese and toasted white bread, no crusts—and took a gigantic bite.
“Yummy,” Noh said to herself after she’d swallowed the bite.
There was a knock on her door, and Noh sat up straighter, almost spilling her soup.
“Come in!” she called, but just exerting that amount of energy wiped her out. Whatever nasty creature had attacked her, it had succeeded in stealing a good chunk of her energy. She figured she was gonna need at least two weeks—and lots of good, hearty food—to recuperate, and by then summer would almost be over. Just a few more weeks and she’d be in the library studying for tests, not chasing after secret papers and solving mysterious occurrences… and nearly getting eaten by hungry monsters.
Of course, everyone else believed that there’d been a freak electrical fire down in the basement and that, luckily, the physics teacher had been passing by and had smelled the smoke and rushed in to save her.
Noh figured maybe that was for the best. She didn’t want to frighten anyone by letting out the fact that monsters and ghosts existed at New Newbridge—at least until she could figure out what to do about the monster part.
The door opened and her aunt Sarah, followed by a sheepish-looking Caleb DeMarck, came into the room.
“I hope you don’t mind company, but Mr. DeMarck wanted to say good-bye before he left,” her aunt said as she pulled the chair out from underneath Noh’s desk and moved it closer to the bed.
“Good-bye?” Noh said, looking up at the physics teacher, who indeed was wearing a traveling coat and a gray fedora. He also had a large briefcase under his arm, which he set on the floor beside the chair before sitting down. It had been almost twenty-four hours since the attack—most of which Noh had spent in a dark and dreamless sleep that the town physician said was likely due to the shock she had suffered from so many ant bites—but Caleb DeMarck looked like a different person.
Gone was the know-it-all boy, and in his place was what seemed like a wiser, more thoughtful man. Noh watched as her aunt Sarah gently shut the door on her way out, giving them a bit of privacy.
“Yes, I’m afraid that I have to go away on a very important mission,” he said, taking off his hat and placing it in his lap so he could play with its brim as he spoke. “But I wanted to share something with you before I left.”
Noh nodded.
“You see, I am not who I appear to be,” he began. This made Noh sit up straighter in her bed, the soup almost spilling into her lap.
“When you reversed the polarity on the Matter Re-Former—”
“Is that what the machine’s cal
led?” Noh asked, curiosity getting the better of her.
He nodded. “Yes, that is its given name. Sadly, I cannot take credit for its name or its design because I am not the machine’s inventor,” he continued. “That title belongs to my mentor, Professor Eustant P. Druthers.”
It only took Noh a moment to remember where she had heard that name before.
“Wasn’t he the man who built this school?” she said, her brain sizzling with this new piece of information.
The former physics teacher nodded.
“So, if you’re not Caleb DeMarck, then who are you?” Noh asked, this time actually knocking some of her soup onto the bedcover in her excitement.
The man looked down at his hands as if he were deciding how much information to divulge. Finally, having made his decision, he looked back up at Noh and smiled. “On pain of death you must never tell anyone what I am about to tell you,” he said.
Noh nodded so hard it hurt. “I promise.”
The former physics teacher nervously scratched his chin and then began. “My real name is Karl Freund. I was once a student here at the New Newbridge Academy, but when Professor Druthers realized my talent for inventing, he took me on as one of his five assistants.”
“Wow!” Noh said, loving Karl Freund’s story immediately.
“Yes,” he said, becoming bashful, “it was amazing for me. All the incredible inventions I imagined in my brain were given life under Professor Druthers’s tutelage. I spent years honing my talent for scientific invention under his watchful eye while we built many machines together, and I even had a hand in the creation of the Power Magnifier you carry with you—”
“The Power Magnifier?” Noh repeated. “Wait, do you mean my evil eye stone?”
Karl Freund nodded, pleased she had made the connection so quickly. “The Power Magnifier takes on whatever special power it is exposed to, magnifying it a hundredfold. It is a very useful tool,” Karl added, “so long as it does not fall into the wrong hands.”