Breaking News! Local Middle School Student Mysteriously Hallucinates; She Leaves, in Her Wake, a Harassed Math Teacher
Yep. I can deny it no longer. It has become increasingly obvious. I shift my gaze from the big, red headline up to my parents. Dad had an impressively raised eyebrow, and mom knitted her brows. She worked as a computer analyst and seemed to be trying to find out what was wrong with me, and why I suddenly decided to hallucinate and not return to my senses. Like, “who on earth is this Nola person???” No one, of course. No one really important. Just a ghost I unwillingly inherited on my thirteenth birthday.
See, it is quite a shock when someone hollers for you to get out of bed.
“Oi- You’re STILL not up yet? I get that it’s 2022 and all, but can’t you at least give ME something to do???” Someone complained loudly at me. I groaned a little. The clamor continued and I suddenly realized that someone was in my bedroom, my parents always wake up later than me, and that this voice was completely unfamiliar.
My eyes flew open, and I reached for anything to use as a weapon. My table was as clean as my school record (cleaner than clean, hah!)
“AHHHHH! ROBBERY! Who’s there!?” I screamed. This was a big house, so I hope dmy parents would come running up the stairway to my calls of distress. My eyes swiveled to the figure. I nearly choked on my spit.
She was floating. Floating. A floating figure that faded away gradually into nothingness, that seemed to come right out of an old picture. The same white that wears into yellow, the same dark brown that used to be black.
“Oh…What in the world-? I must still be dreaming. Pinch me, someone please do. Because there is a floating person in my room. A—a floating person in my room. In my own room.” I didn’t know if I was stating it to her or reassuring myself. I rubbed my eyes again. Yep.
She looked at me weirdly. Confused, maybe with a little hint of fear. Maybe she doesn’t even realize the state she’s in. Messy hair, a little dirt on her face, and maybe the nightdress used to look pretty.
“AAAAAAH!” she suddenly yelled. I instinctively scrambled back, breathing hard and trembling. “This is freaky. You can see me,” she raised an eyebrow. “Have you always been able to?” The room was surrounded by a tenseness that somehow seemed to mute everything and sharpen it all at once. My nerves were shot.
I looked her up and down. There is a possibly demonic being in this room who might’ve followed me longer than I would have liked.
Ahah. A ghost. This ought to be fun. Or terrifying. I had to leave it at that, because right then the world blackened before my eyes.
It turned out to be quite infuriating.
“Argh-! Are ghosts usually this annoying?” I whispered, crumpling up a sheet of notebook paper. Mr. Brewling, our algebra teacher, was probably the most boring teacher I know. He has a long, droning voice that you might expect from a sloth, if they were to speak. With the heat turned up to just a little above 90 degrees, it was enough for anyone to fall asleep. Now, in addition to battling with my increasingly drawn eyelids—algebra was always a mystery to me; I needed to listen—I also had to deal with a very distracting ghost. The person (somewhat) in question was currently hanging from the ceiling, sticking two pencils in her nose. During the summer, we discovered a witty little trick that enables Nola (the ghost’s name, apparently) to turn items invisible as long as they remained in contact with her. So, only I could witness this disturbing sight.
She started humming, and I struggled to focus. She mimicked Mr. Brewling, I’m about to lose it. It was block day, so we had an entire hour and a half of class. Almost halfway through, I burst out laughing because of the small, silly face Nola drew on the blackboard.
I felt my face heat up, and with the silence that came shortly after combined made a perfect brew of awkwardness. Brewling, with his thick mustache and nearly balding head, raised an eyebrow. “Is there a problem, Miss Becker?” it’s basically the equivalent of parents saying, “You’re in big trouble, young lady.”
I tried as hard as I could to round things up. But being the clumsy person I am, I accidentally let it slip that “I thought” there was another person there. (“Well, it really isn’t my fault when she was the one running around the classroom with a mop-beard thing on!” “No one except you and your classmates was present.”) So now the media is raving again.
And to think I’ll probably be stuck with Nola for the rest of my life!
Yep. I can deny it no longer. It has become increasingly obvious. I shift my gaze from the big, red headline up to my parents. Dad had an impressively raised eyebrow, and mom knitted her brows. She worked as a computer analyst and seemed to be trying to find out what was wrong with me, and why I suddenly decided to hallucinate and not return to my senses. Like, “who on earth is this Nola person???” No one, of course. No one really important. Just a ghost I unwillingly inherited on my thirteenth birthday.
See, it is quite a shock when someone hollers for you to get out of bed.
“Oi- You’re STILL not up yet? I get that it’s 2022 and all, but can’t you at least give ME something to do???” Someone complained loudly at me. I groaned a little. The clamor continued and I suddenly realized that someone was in my bedroom, my parents always wake up later than me, and that this voice was completely unfamiliar.
My eyes flew open, and I reached for anything to use as a weapon. My table was as clean as my school record (cleaner than clean, hah!)
“AHHHHH! ROBBERY! Who’s there!?” I screamed. This was a big house, so I hope dmy parents would come running up the stairway to my calls of distress. My eyes swiveled to the figure. I nearly choked on my spit.
She was floating. Floating. A floating figure that faded away gradually into nothingness, that seemed to come right out of an old picture. The same white that wears into yellow, the same dark brown that used to be black.
“Oh…What in the world-? I must still be dreaming. Pinch me, someone please do. Because there is a floating person in my room. A—a floating person in my room. In my own room.” I didn’t know if I was stating it to her or reassuring myself. I rubbed my eyes again. Yep.
She looked at me weirdly. Confused, maybe with a little hint of fear. Maybe she doesn’t even realize the state she’s in. Messy hair, a little dirt on her face, and maybe the nightdress used to look pretty.
“AAAAAAH!” she suddenly yelled. I instinctively scrambled back, breathing hard and trembling. “This is freaky. You can see me,” she raised an eyebrow. “Have you always been able to?” The room was surrounded by a tenseness that somehow seemed to mute everything and sharpen it all at once. My nerves were shot.
I looked her up and down. There is a possibly demonic being in this room who might’ve followed me longer than I would have liked.
Ahah. A ghost. This ought to be fun. Or terrifying. I had to leave it at that, because right then the world blackened before my eyes.
It turned out to be quite infuriating.
“Argh-! Are ghosts usually this annoying?” I whispered, crumpling up a sheet of notebook paper. Mr. Brewling, our algebra teacher, was probably the most boring teacher I know. He has a long, droning voice that you might expect from a sloth, if they were to speak. With the heat turned up to just a little above 90 degrees, it was enough for anyone to fall asleep. Now, in addition to battling with my increasingly drawn eyelids—algebra was always a mystery to me; I needed to listen—I also had to deal with a very distracting ghost. The person (somewhat) in question was currently hanging from the ceiling, sticking two pencils in her nose. During the summer, we discovered a witty little trick that enables Nola (the ghost’s name, apparently) to turn items invisible as long as they remained in contact with her. So, only I could witness this disturbing sight.
She started humming, and I struggled to focus. She mimicked Mr. Brewling, I’m about to lose it. It was block day, so we had an entire hour and a half of class. Almost halfway through, I burst out laughing because of the small, silly face Nola drew on the blackboard.
I felt my face heat up, and with the silence that came shortly after combined made a perfect brew of awkwardness. Brewling, with his thick mustache and nearly balding head, raised an eyebrow. “Is there a problem, Miss Becker?” it’s basically the equivalent of parents saying, “You’re in big trouble, young lady.”
I tried as hard as I could to round things up. But being the clumsy person I am, I accidentally let it slip that “I thought” there was another person there. (“Well, it really isn’t my fault when she was the one running around the classroom with a mop-beard thing on!” “No one except you and your classmates was present.”) So now the media is raving again.
And to think I’ll probably be stuck with Nola for the rest of my life!
