October 5, 2016.

SPOOKTOBER STORY #4:

The ghost is wearing something with old-timey ruffles. You can hardly believe your luck. "Look!" you exclaim, jabbing at the photograph. "Ruffles!"

Old Man Garrey leans over, across the creaking bannister, his spookometer tucked in his armpit. "I don't see it," he says, and climbs up the stairs. You think, inside your head, "Blind old coot," but you do not say it out loud, because Old Man Garrey is a well respected spookologist, and is your head ghosting professor at Ghosting School.

You walk over to your classmate, Feredar. Feredar has a little moustache which you think is kind of cute but you still wish he would shave, because he is your Ghosting School crush and you do not like it when other people make fun of your Ghosting School crush for his little moustache. "Hi," you say.

Feredar blinks very slowly and turns his head towards you. His spookometer is hot pink plastic and at least two generations old. It is going wild but he is looking at you rather than the dials. "Hi," he says.

"Look!" you repeat. "Ruffles!" He does look, for a long time, at the photograph, then blinks languidly again. "Ruffles," he repeats. "Where?"

Your heart falls out of your guts and into the spooky basement of this haunted mansion. You look at the photograph again. There is the ghost, very clearly, with spooky old-timey ruffles and a face like a gaping hole in a human soul.

"Right there," you explain, trying to hide the tremble in your voice. Feredar looks at you and you can tell that he thinks you are just another foolish underclassman. He looks right through you. Then, he looks back at his spookometer, like you have already left the room.

You are outside and you are crying into your backpack. Everything is the worst. Why did you even come to Ghosting School? You are just a stupid kid. You hate yourself.

The ghost with the ruffles is sitting on the stoop, smoking a long opium pipe, watching you with what would be where its eyes would be if it had eyes. You kick some dirt at it and stomp back inside.

Stupid Ghosting School.