Shadow School: Dehaunting

by J. A. White

  “Those are the ghosts in Pac-Man!” Agnes exclaimed. She shook her head. “I’m disappointed in both of you.”

  They got back to work. It wasn’t the most exciting job in the world, but Cordelia didn’t mind. Nothing seemed boring when she was with her friends. As they neared the end of the first passageway, however, Cor-delia began to grow worried. When the ghosts are gone, will we keep doing things together like this? It’s not like we’re that similar. Benji’s a jock. Agnes is a genius. And I’m just . . . me. What if the ghosts are the glue that holds our friendship together?

  “I’m kind of zonked,” Cordelia said as they walked toward the supply closet that led to the second set of pyramids. “Why don’t we finish this tomorrow? Or next week, even.”

  Cordelia knew that they would use the dehaunter eventually. She just wanted to keep things the way they were for a little while longer.

  “I’m not leaving until we’re done,” Benji said with the determined look he usually reserved for soccer tournaments. “But no worries if you’re bushed. We can finish up without you.”

  “Besides, Dr. Roqueni said I should drop by her apartment before I go home,” Agnes said, “and I’d really like to tell her we’re ready to go. This way we can start freeing the ghosts tomorrow if we want!”

  Cordelia stopped in her tracks. “Tomorrow?”

  “Isn’t that a good thing?” Agnes asked.

  “It’s kind of fast.”

  “The faster the better,” Benji said.

  Cordelia looked back and forth between Benji and Agnes, wondering how they could be so excited about the dehaunter despite all the strange things that had been happening. Is it me? she wondered. Am I just making things up in my head because I’m worried that my friends won’t want to hang out with me after the ghosts are gone? She thought about it for a moment and decided there was more to it than that. Something about the entire situation felt off to her—and it had nothing to do with their friendship whatsoever.

  “I think we should wait,” she said.

  “Why?” Benji asked, scoffing.

  “Because if there’s one thing Shadow School has taught me, it’s that you shouldn’t mess with things you don’t understand. And right now, there’re a ton of things I don’t understand. Why are more and more ghosts refusing their Brightkeys?”

  Benji slapped his forehead. “This again.”

  “Where are they going afterward? Can they all just leave their ghost zones and roam around the school like the gardener? And another thing.” She turned toward Benji. “Maybe you haven’t noticed because you’ve been so distracted, but some of the teachers have been acting kinda weird. There’s the headaches, and the whole Mrs. Machen staring out the window thing, and Dr. Roqueni—”

  “How have I been ‘distracted’?” Benji asked. “Are you talking about Vivi?”

  “I meant the dehaunter,” Cordelia said, hands on hips. “But now that you mention it—”

  “She’s not a distraction,” Benji said. “She’s my friend. Am I not allowed to have friends now?”

  “Of course you’re allowed to have friends!” Cor-delia exclaimed, feeling her insides start to boil. “And don’t worry, once you get rid of the ghosts you can spend lots of time with her! I know that’s why you want to dehaunt the school so badly!”

  “Are you for real?” Benji asked.

  “We’re not getting rid of the ghosts,” Agnes said. “We’re freeing them. That’s a big difference. Sometimes you forget that Benji and I want to help them as much as you do.”

  “Please,” Cordelia said. “You just want them to go away so you can go to your smart-kid class.” She spun on Benji and jabbed a finger in his chest. “And you just want to play all-star soccer so you can impress your new girlfriend. Everything was perfect. And now it’s all falling apart. I wish we’d never found that stupid machine!”

  She ran off, leaving her friends in stunned silence.

  That night, Cordelia tossed and turned in bed, wishing she could rewind eight hours and undo her harsh words. It had been unfair to claim that Benji and Agnes didn’t want to help the ghosts. They had proven otherwise time and time again. Besides, after hours of thought, she had finally figured out the real reason she was so worried about attending a Shadow School without ghosts.

  Back in San Francisco, Cordelia had been one of the most popular girls in school. She wore the right clothes, hung out with the right kids, said the right things. Everyone wanted to be her friend. Then she moved to Ludlow and found out that she was someone else entirely. It was more than just being able to see the ghosts. She had discovered that she could be brave and selfless. Maybe even a little heroic.

  She liked this new Cordelia a lot better.

  Now that they were on the verge of dehaunting the school, she should have been thrilled—but all she could think about was how different her life would become afterward. What if she went back to being the self-absorbed old Cordelia? Agnes and Benji wouldn’t want to stay friends with someone like that. She wouldn’t want to be someone like that.

  Stop thinking about yourself, Cordelia thought as the morning sun began to slant across her bedroom floor. The important thing is to rescue the ghosts, and the best way to do that is with the dehaunter. If the teachers are still acting weird afterward, we’ll figure it out. And if Agnes and Benji don’t want to stay friends with me? I’ll be really sad—but at least the ghosts will be free. That’s the most important thing.

  After the bus brought her to school, Cordelia waited by the front gate, eager to tell her friends about her change of heart. Agnes’s bus pulled up shortly afterward—but she didn’t get off. Benji wasn’t on his bus, either.

  Weird, Cordelia thought.

  She supposed that they could have come to school early to do some final checks on the dehaunter—especially if Dr. Roqueni had decided that today was going to be the big day. Cordelia felt a little hurt that they hadn’t included her, but after last night, could she really blame them?

  It was only when Cordelia didn’t see them at the lockers that she started to feel the first inklings of trepidation. Where are they? Then, at last, she saw Agnes heading in her direction. Judging by her lank hair and hollowed-out eyes, her best friend’s night had been no more restful than her own.

  “There you are,” Cordelia said with a big smile. She had planned out a whole dramatic speech during the bus ride to school. Now that the moment was upon her, however, Cordelia couldn’t remember a single word. She decided to start with the simplest, most powerful phrase of all.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  Agnes squeezed her eyes shut and set loose twin rivulets of tears.

  “How could you?” she screamed, clenching her hands into fists. “You ruined everything! Everything!”

  Cordelia stared at her in bewilderment.

  “Agnes?” she asked as a crowd began to gather around them. Cordelia saw a bunch of students filming her with their cell phones. “I don’t know what you’re—”

  “You just couldn’t bear the thought of me being the hero for once!” Agnes exclaimed, jabbing a finger at Cordelia’s chest. “You have to be their savior, or it doesn’t count. That’s the real reason you destroyed it. You!”

  Cordelia shook her head. The hallway wobbled beneath her feet.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “You’re nothing but a big fat liar,” Agnes said, bending over with her hands on her thighs. It was as though her uncharacteristic display of anger had drained all her energy.

  “Agnes,” Cordelia said, reaching out for her friend. “Just tell me what’s going on. Please.”

  Agnes slapped her hand away and vanished into the crowd. Cordelia started after her, tears blurring her vision, but Benji cut through the students and blocked her path.

  “Let her go,” he said.

  “Benji!” Cordelia exclaimed, grabbing his arm. “She thinks I did something, but I have no idea what she’s talking about.”

 
; Benji refused to meet her eyes.

  “Don’t deny it, Cordelia. I saw what you did.”

  He left before she could ask him a single question. Not him too, Cordelia thought, backing away until she felt her locker against her back. What’s happening? Why are they both so mad at me?

  As the crowd began to disperse, Cordelia saw Dr. Roqueni talking to Benji and Agnes at the end of the hall. The principal nodded and squeezed Agnes’s shoulder, then approached Cordelia. Her back was straight, her lips taut.

  “Please tell me what’s going on,” Cordelia whispered.

  Dr. Roqueni leaned forward so that only Cordelia could hear her words.

  “I am so amazingly disappointed in you. I think it would be best if you stayed away from us from now on. Don’t go to Elijah’s office. Don’t talk to Benji or Agnes. Go straight home after school. As of now, you’re just a normal student. Got it?”

  “Dr. Roqueni?” Cordelia asked, but the principal had already started to walk away. Benji and Agnes followed her. Cordelia tried to call after them, but it took a few tries before she could force words past the violent sobs racking her body.

  “Will someone please tell me what’s going on?”

  Benji turned around. Unlike Agnes, he didn’t look angry. He looked sad.

  “You made a choice, Cordelia,” he said. “You could have kept your friends or the ghosts. You chose the ghosts.”

  He slipped his arm around Agnes’s shoulders and led her away.

  When Cordelia had finally gathered her senses, she realized the only possible meaning of Agnes’s words—That’s the real reason you destroyed it!—and hurried down the long ladder to the dehaunter. It was nothing more than a mound of dust and splinters. A black sledgehammer leaned haughtily against the wall, looking satisfied by a job well done.

  Mr. Derleth was sweeping the debris into a black trash bag. He had already accumulated five of them, lined up against the wall. When he caught sight of Cordelia, he stopped sweeping and glared at her.

  “Come to revisit the scene of the crime?” he asked.

  “It wasn’t me,” Cordelia said with a hint of anger. She was growing tired of being blamed for something she didn’t do.

  Mr. Derleth scoffed and went back to sweeping.

  “‘I wish we’d never found that stupid machine,’” he said. “Your words. Agnes told us all about it.”

  “I was mad. I didn’t actually mean it.”

  “You expect me to believe that?”

  “Actually, yes,” Cordelia said. “You know me, Mr. Derleth. I do a lot of stupid things. But I’m not, like, a bad person. I would never destroy something that could help the ghosts.”

  “Who did it, then?” he asked, tying the bag in a tight knot and adding it to the others. “Me? Dr. Roqueni? Benji or Agnes? We’re the only five who know this room even exists. And of the five of us, who’s the one who never seemed sold on the idea of dehaunting the school?”

  “Because I think there’s something weird going on,” Cordelia said. “And this only proves my point! First the ghosts start refusing their Brightkeys. Then someone destroys a machine that’s basically one giant Brightkey. Do you think that’s a coincidence? I sure don’t. Someone—or something—doesn’t want the ghosts to go into their Brights.”

  For just a moment, she saw a flicker of astonishment in Mr. Derleth’s eyes, as though Cordelia had hit upon a truth he’d never expected her to find. He looked away, but it was too late.

  “Do you know something about this, Mr. Derleth?” she asked.

  He scowled and took a step in her direction, before seeming to catch himself. Cordelia shuddered. For a moment, she had glimpsed something unsettling in Mr. Derleth’s usually gentle features. Something she had never seen before.

  “The only thing I know,” Mr. Derleth said, his voice soft and measured, “is that you’re the one who destroyed the dehaunter. Now get out of here and let me finish cleaning up your mess.”

  Cordelia hurried back up the ladder. Behind her, she heard the swish swish of the broom.

  14

  Experiment

  Bulletin boards, a school’s true calendar, had shed their orange skin in favor of football brown. A parade of thankful essays marched in five-part harmony. Occasionally a breeze—or something more than a breeze—fluttered the pages.

  Cordelia trudged past the displays without really seeing them. She wasn’t feeling particularly thankful. Although she had tried to explain herself on multiple occasions, Benji and Agnes still refused to talk to her. Eventually, she had given up. Benji seemed happy enough hanging out with Vivi and his soccer buddies, but she was worried about Agnes. Dr. Roqueni had given her permission to skip all her classes so she could work on an “enrichment project” all day long. After days of searching, Cordelia had finally found Agnes tucked away in a tiny classroom, hunched over a table covered with blueprints. Mr. Derleth sat with his feet on the desk, watching her work.

  She must be building a new dehaunter, Cordelia thought, ducking beneath the window so Mr. Derleth wouldn’t see her. After their last encounter, she had avoided him altogether. Although she wanted to trust him, Cordelia couldn’t shake the suspicion that he knew more about the entire situation than he was letting on.

  Could he have been the one who destroyed the dehaunter? she wondered. But that doesn’t make any sense. He’s our friend! And why would he be helping Agnes build a new one, then?

  Cordelia figured that if she kept tabs on Agnes’s progress, she might uncover some answers. But when she came back the next day, the window in the classroom door had been covered with black paper.

  It was the first day back from Thanksgiving break. Ms. Jackson was standing at the door, greeting the students, as Cordelia entered room 313. The science teacher hadn’t fled the classroom in several weeks, and while she still wrung her hands whenever a student asked a question, her mumbling had been limited to the occasional “You can do this!”

  There was a lab that day, and Ms. Jackson assigned each student to a specific table. Cordelia found herself sitting with the unlikely trio of Mason James, a studious boy named Henry Gull, and Vivi.

  Ugh, she thought, tossing her bookbag on the floor. Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse.

  “Hey, Cordelia,” Vivi said. “How was your Thanksgiving?”

  “Fine. Yours?”

  “Nice. Benji and his family came for dessert. His sisters are so cute. Have you met them?”

  “Lots of times. They’re sweet. Well, maybe not Sofia. She’s a little much.”

  “Totally. She kept asking if Benji and I were ‘regular friends’ or ‘kissy friends.’”

  Well, which one is it? Cordelia almost asked, but Mason inserted himself into the conversation and started bragging about his family’s lake house in Maine. It was clear how badly he wanted to impress Vivi, who smiled politely while searching her backpack for a pen.

  Not gonna happen, Mason, Cordelia thought. She’s into Benji, not you.

  At least the lab was kind of fun. After reading the directions to the class, Ms. Jackson gave each table a tray of eight Dixie cups filled with different liquids (Cordelia recognized most of them, such as vinegar and milk, but an orange, viscous fluid remained a mystery). Their assignment was to use pH strips and a special chart to determine each liquid’s level of acidity. To Cordelia’s surprise, her group worked well together. She and Vivi dipped the strips into the liquid and tried to match the resultant color to the chart, while Henry recorded the answers on their lab report. At some point, Mason—who wasn’t actually doing anything—wandered off to the windows that looked upon the adjacent classrooms. There were two classes in progress, and he was having a great time smooshing his butt against the glass every time Mr. Langan or Ms. Straub turned around.

  “My friends all say Mason is cute,” Vivi said, “but I think he’s kind of a jerk.”

  “Kind of?” Cordelia asked. “He’s literally the worst person I know. And that’s including my uncle Phil, w
ho smells like damp towels and always pretends he forgot his wallet when we go out to dinner.”

  Vivi laughed. “You’re funny.”

  “People keep telling me that.”

  Cordelia noticed Benji watching them. When he saw that Cordelia was looking in his direction, he spun around on his stool.

  “He’s such an idiot,” Vivi said.

  “Mason?”

  “Benji,” she said. “I don’t know why you two are fighting, but I’ve seen you try to talk to him. He’s not even giving you a chance. What’s he thinking? You guys were inseparable. You don’t just throw that away!”

  For a few moments, Cordelia was too surprised to speak. She had assumed that Vivi would be thrilled that she and Benji were no longer on speaking terms. The last thing she had expected was for Vivi to take her side.

  “He thinks I did something bad,” Cordelia said. “Only I didn’t actually do it.”

  “Did you tell him that?”

  “Many, many times.”

  “He’ll come around,” Vivi said. “If you want, I can help you. I’ll ask him to meet me after school, only it will be you instead, and we’ll lock the door until everything is fixed.”

  “You’d do that?” Cordelia asked.

  “Sure! He misses you. You were all he could talk about when we went sledding yesterday.”

  Cordelia was immediately blindsided by an image that made her stomach hurt. Benji and Vivi on a sled together, falling, laughing . . .

  “Thanks for offering,” Cordelia said. “But this is between me and Benji. You don’t need to get involved.”

  Vivi looked hurt. “I was just trying to help.”

  “Hello,” Henry said, waving his hand back and forth. “This is totally fascinating, but could we please get back to work now?”

  Vivi nodded and bent across the table for the next Dixie cup. Over her back, Cordelia saw the ghost that had just entered the room. It was an old woman wearing a pink robe, her swollen ankles mapped with angry veins. Her grin was toothless, her gray hair wet and glistening. Drops of water fell to the floor and vanished.

  Her Brightkey is a shower cap, Cordelia remembered. I offered it to her weeks ago. She refused.