The Ghost of Whispering Willow. Amanda M. Thrasher

absolution and witchcraft . . . what is the other one? What is it, what is it, it’s coming . . . ahhh, I’ve got nothing! He hung his head nervously, knowing that an F was due him!

      “Next question. What event caused the postponement of the coronation of James I?”

      Seriously? I thought that this was English Literature, but it’s sounding more like a history pop quiz to me! Stewart thought as he wracked his brain. Plague; yep, definitely the plague, he said to himself as he scribbled his answer down. Stewart had no choice except to throw himself at the mercy of Mr. Campbell. He wrote down his last and final answer, which was the following:

      Dear Mr. Campbell,

      Please forgive me for being unprepared for class. May I make this grade up or something? If I seriously can’t, my mom will kill me!

      Your bestest wannabe student ever,

      Stewart

      He had no idea if the note would help, but he figured it was worth a try. He slipped his quiz on the bottom of the pile on Mr. Campbell’s desk, gathered his things, and left the classroom as quickly as he could.

      Maggie asked him how he’d done. One look at his face and she assumed that he hadn’t done very well. Stewart didn’t stick around to chitchat; he just kept on walking.

      “He is so weird sometimes!” Maggie said, grabbing Ally by the arm. “Don’t you think so?” Ally wasn’t listening. Her nose was stuck in a modern-girl magazine. Maggie nudged her and pointed toward Stewart. “He’s weird, isn’t he?”

      “I guess,” she said, fumbling with the pages, “But he’s still kinda cute, right?” She giggled.

      “Yes,” giggled Maggie, “but don’t even get me started on Andy. Well, let’s just say, um, cute!”

      ***

      Andy was waiting for Stewart outside the cafeteria, clicking the pen that he held in his hand up and down. He spotted Stewart as he walked toward him. They sat at a table in the corner of the cafeteria and one look at Stewart’s face and Andy knew something in class had not gone well. He didn’t ask.

      They sat in silence for a few minutes as they ate, and then Stewart asked Andy if he would tell him about the ghost or entity touching him again.

      Andy took another bite of his sandwich, chewed for a second and just as he opened his mouth to speak, he shook his head and closed his mouth again. Krista walked right past the boys, heading towards the trashcan, but he noticed that two things seemed incredibly odd:

      1 She was walking unusually slowly, and

      2 She was staring at them while she walked by.

      Andy rolled his eyes. “Seriously? As if that wasn’t intentional!” he said aloud. He took another bite of his sandwich and acted as if he hadn’t noticed that she was walking past them slowly for a second time.

      “Actually, it was,” Krista said, in a very matter-of-fact tone. “Intentional, I mean; I have a message for the both of you.”

      The boys acted as if they were totally uninterested, since they didn’t think that she’d have a single thing to say to them that would interest them at all. They were wrong.

      Leaning in, Krista said, “We saw what you saw!” and then simply turned and walked away.

      The boys’ mouths dropped wide open. Both of their heads turned as they watched Krista walk back towards her friends. The girls were watching her deliver the message, but more importantly, they were observing the boy’s response post-delivery. She had gotten their attention. Their ears had perked right up. And the looks on their faces were priceless.

      “What?” Stewart blurted. “What did she just say? Did she just say what I think she said?”

      Andy looked as stunned as Stewart did. It sounded as if she’d said what he thought she had.

      “Do you think that she’s referring to the you know what?” Stewart asked cautiously as Andy glanced over at the girls. The girls’ eyes locked onto his, and he immediately turned back around.

      “It’s not looking good,” Andy said. “It’s not looking good at all!”

      They boys decided that they would let it go for now and focus on Andy’s personal encounter with the thing in the Willows. They didn’t have time for the girls right then anyway, since they had absolutely no idea what they were going to say to them and they would deal with the girls later if necessary. They might just have been spying on them, which was an issue that would definitely have to be addressed! For now they would stop speculating about the what-ifs and focus on what they knew. They didn’t have much time before the next class, and the girls were the last things they wanted to talk about.

      Andy relayed his experience in a little more detail, and Stewart scribbled down word for word what Andy was saying. Double notes: a “log comparison,” they called it. He visualized the scene as Andy described it. He knew each and every location that Andy referred to, so it was easy to do. “Where was I? Had I arrived yet?” Stewart asked.

      “You had, but you were busy,” Andy replied, in between gulps of water. “Remember, it was late, dark, and we had trouble with Camera Two. If I’m not mistaken, you were resetting Camera Two.” He ran his hands through his hair as he thought back over the evening before. “Yep, you were definitely working on Camera Two!” he said.

      That made sense, since they’d had a lot of trouble with that camera; it seemed that strange things had been happening. One time, the batteries had actually been removed. But how was that even possible? Thought Stewart. He had no idea. Perhaps it was more evidence that they were not alone in the Willows? Since Camera Two was always placed in a critical location, it would make total sense for activity to surround that camera.

      Andy glanced around the cafeteria again and leaned toward Stewart, “Trust me, I wanted to yell, ‘Hey, I’m being watched! Ahhh!’ But knew I’d scare him, her, or it off, so I kept working on setting Camera Three and it wasn’t easy, not easy at all, because, between you and me, I was terrified!”

      Stewart pushed the log toward Andy and threw down the pen. “Here, you double-log yourself. I’m freaked out!”

      The boys hadn’t figured out why the ghost had picked Andy when they had both been there. Andy noted it in the log as ‘needs to be investigated further.’ They were nervous, but excited at the same time, and still had to get through the rest of their day. Plus, they still had to do their chores and their homework when they got home before they could even think about going back to the woods to retrieve the data. If they had captured evidence from the night before, it would be a crucial break in their investigation. Neither one of them could afford OCS. Trouble at school equaled trouble at home.

      “We have one more thing to consider,” Stewart mumbled through a mouthful of sandwich as he watched Andy dive into the biggest chocolate brownie he’d ever laid his eyes on. “The girls. We have to deal with the girls. What if they’ve really seen what we’ve seen?”

      That would be bad, they thought. They discussed possible scenarios and decided it would be best if they took a wait-and-see approach. If the girls knew anything, anything at all, they would come back to the boys eventually. This would buy Andy and Stewart some time to figure out what to do about it. They were girls, after all, and they couldn’t help themselves; the boys were sure they’d want to rub it in. The worst-case scenario, and the one the boys didn’t want to entertain at all, was that they would have to join forces and work together as a group. “Ahhh, can you even imagine,” Andy groaned. He insisted that if that happened, the girls would likely scare pretty easily anyway and give up the hunt. Then they’d have nothing to worry about.

      Stewart thought about that, and it made him feel better. They felt pretty good about something else. If the girls did know anything at all and then blabbed about it – well, seriously, who would believe them anyway? This was a very comforting thought. So