School for Ghost Girls Read online

  As ever, for Nelson.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Sneak Peek

  Also Available

  Copyright

  Gong! Gong! Gong!

  “Oh my goodness!” CJ cried. She sat up in her bed and pushed the hair out of her eyes. “I’d forgotten how loud the alarm gong is!”

  It was the first day of the new school year at Boo Academy, the School for Ghost Girls (affectionately referred to as Boo La La). The ghost girls were in their dorm room in Coffin Hall.

  “It sounds like it’s right outside our door!” Tiny complained from the next bed. She sat up and twisted around. She preferred sleeping with her feet on her pillow and her head where her feet belonged. Being a basketball-player-sized ghost wasn’t always easy!

  Gong! Gong! Gong!

  “We’re up!” Maude grumbled from the third bed in the room. She took off her frilly pink sleep mask and rubbed her eyes.

  “I was dreaming that it was still summer vacation,” she said. “But I’m glad that we’re all back at school.” She looked around sleepily. “I think we did a good job decorating last night!”

  Tiny and CJ followed her gaze. In their new room, three twin beds were lined up in front of large windows, and three identical dressers faced the beds. The black ceiling paint was flaking off in patches and the gray stone walls had lots of beautiful cracks. Lovely cobwebs hung in every corner. Their door, like every door in the dormitory, had a large banner saying GHOST GIRLS RULE! Their room was perfectly gloomy.

  Tiny had hung three posters of her favorite basketball player, Caspera Jones, above her bed. Maude’s purse collection was neatly lined up on a bookshelf. CJ’s stuffed bat perched on her headboard.

  Still lying in bed, Tiny said, “I can’t believe we’re finally back! It was a long summer without you guys!”

  CJ nodded. “I’m happy that we’re back together, but I’m afraid third grade is going to be so hard!” she said. “I heard that Mrs. Graves is a really tough teacher. I am not looking forward to her Undead Language Arts class! I mean, how much work can she expect us to do? Someone told me that last year her class had to write a paper that was four pages long! And they didn’t even get to choose their own topic—”

  “CJ,” Maude interrupted. “Don’t worry! We’re together again and we’re going to have a great year!”

  Maude, CJ, and Tiny had been best friends since almost their first day as preschool ghosts.

  Now it was the first day of third grade. Maude headed to the closet to pick out her first-day-of-school-outfit. As she looked, she tried—and failed—to stifle a huge yawn.

  “What should I wear?” she muttered. “It’s so important to make a good impression.” Maude was very fashion-forward.

  “We’re already impressed with you, Maude!” Tiny said. “If anyone, Ms. Finley is the one to wow!”

  “Piece of cake,” Maude said confidently.

  Ms. Finley was Coffin Hall’s new dorm mother. Coffin Hall was nestled next to the cemetery, just inside the gates of Boo Academy. Where humans saw only open parkland, any ghost could see the old redbrick buildings surrounding a grassy courtyard. Classroom buildings and dormitories were tucked under huge, dark, ancient trees. The school’s cemetery was perfect for haunting practice.

  Yesterday, the school’s ancient, battered, and enormous school bus had traveled to airports, train stations, and bus terminals to collect students coming from quiet villages, frantic cities, and everywhere in between. Ghost girls came from far and wide to attend Boo Academy.

  When that bus had pulled down the gravel driveway to the school, a beaming Ms. Finley had been waiting for the third graders in the academy’s cavernous entry hall. She’d worn a white shirt and a long black skirt, and her graying hair had been pulled back in a messy bun. Her glasses had thick black frames with a pattern of scattered white skeleton bones. She knew each third grader’s name and gave each girl a big hug as she got off the bus.

  “I like Ms. Finley so far,” CJ said. “But why did we need a new dorm mother again?”

  “I know why,” Maude said. She usually did. “Last year, Miss Glider was caught passing out Halloween candy to human children. So of course she was asked to leave the school, because even kindergarten ghosts know the first rule of ghosting: No direct contact with humans!”

  Tiny shuddered.

  “After all,” Maude continued, “how could Miss Glider help us be the best ghosts we can be if she breaks that rule? Imagine if humans learned that Boo Academy existed! It would be horrible.”

  “I don’t want to think about it!” CJ said.

  “Don’t worry. I heard that Ms. Finley is a Boo La La girl herself, so she’ll know the rules,” Maude told them confidently.

  “You’re probably right,” said CJ. “At least I hope you are! What do you think they’ll serve for breakfast? What if Lucinda sits next to me at lunch? Do you think she’s still upset that I outscored her on the Levitation final last year?”

  “CJ!” Maude and Tiny said together.

  “Oops!” CJ said. “I’m sorry! You know that when I get nervous, I can’t stop talking!”

  “We know,” Tiny said. “And we love you anyway!”

  “Besides,” Maude said, “Lucinda cheated and you still outscored her!”

  “I don’t know about her cheating,” CJ said.

  “I know,” Maude said firmly. “I saw her using her foot to keep that chair in the air. I don’t know how Mr. Vex missed it! You have a real talent for levitation; most adult ghosts can’t even do what you do!”

  “But you know Lucinda,” Tiny added. “No grudge like an endless grudge.”

  “Are we ready to head down to breakfast?” Maude asked her friends. She had dressed carefully in a new pair of jeans and a colorful top.

  “Let’s go!” Tiny answered. “I’m starving.” As usual, she was wearing basketball shorts and a T-shirt.

  “I’m ready,” CJ said. “Do you like my shirt?” She was wearing gray pants and a T-shirt that said LEVITATION IS MY THING!

  Maude and Tiny laughed. “It’s great!” Tiny said.

  Maude pulled open their door and they joined the other third-grade girls heading down to the dining hall. But there was a terrible smell in the air!

  “Ugh!” Tiny cried. Everyone was plugging their noses.

  “What is that horrible stink?” Maude cried. “Can’t we open a window somewhere?”

  “Excuse me! We’re trying to get down to breakfast!” a loud voice called from behind them. It was Lucinda and Helen, who pushed their way past. Lucinda just had to be first in everything.

  Maude, Tiny, and CJ looked at one another and smiled. Apparently, summer hadn’t changed Lucinda.

  Ms. Finley hurried up behind them, a warm smile on her face. Today, her glasses were red, with tiny BOOS scattered all over them.

  “Good morning, girls!” she cried. “I’m so happy to see that you all heard the morning bell! Of course, I’ll wake you up if you ever miss it, but it’s good to be independent as soon as possible!”

  “Oh my gosh, Ms. Finley!” Maude said, waving her hand in front of her nose. “What is that smell?”

  “What smell?” Ms. Finley asked.

  Lucinda pushed Maude to the side and complained. “It’s cruel to make young ghosts suffer like this. Everyone knows our noses are especially sensitive!”

  “I need some fresh air!” CJ said. “This is really bad. I mean
, what could be making such a bad smell? You don’t think there’s a fire, do you? What if it is a fire? Where are the fire exits? We forgot to talk about them last night—”

  Tiny tapped CJ on the shoulder and shook her head.

  “Stop talking and save your oxygen,” she whispered with a smile.

  “Achoo!” Ms. Finley sneezed.

  “Boo!” her students answered, because that’s what polite ghosts do.

  “Thank you, girls. I’m sorry, I don’t smell anything. But if it’s bothering you all so much, let’s hurry down to breakfast!” Ms. Finley herded them down the stairs and into the dining room.

  Faint gray smoke curled around the exposed beams on the dining-room ceiling.

  “Why is there smoke?” CJ asked in alarm.

  Now Ms. Finley looked concerned. Principal Von Howl glided toward them across the empty dining room, beaming. His black suit was rumpled and stained, and his stovepipe hat perched jauntily on the side of his head.

  “Good morning, girls,” he boomed.

  “Good morning, Principal Von Howl,” the students answered.

  “Unfortunately, as you can tell, there was a kitchen incident this morning,” he explained. “Cook Eerie forgot a vat of porridge on the stove, and the whole pot burned. It’s a shame, because she made her special porridge for your first breakfast. But there are plenty of other good things to eat.”

  He led them out to the dim, gloomy entry hall, where the long wooden dining-room tables and chairs had been moved. They were already starting to be filled by girls in other grades. At the back, several tables groaned under the weight of the food spread out on top. Gentle steam wafted up from stacks of pancakes and waffles. Fresh fruit was piled in giant bowls, and pitchers of juice stood next to boxes of cereal. High above it all, brown bats swooped and darted through the air.

  “Does it smell better out here?” Ms. Finley asked, and the girls nodded.

  “How can she not notice the smell?” CJ whispered to Maude as they walked over to the food. “I thought even adult ghosts had a great sense of smell.”

  “I have no idea!” Maude answered. That was unusual for Maude.

  Tweet! Tweet!

  A loud whistle startled the girls. It was Mrs. Von Howl, Boo La La’s gym teacher and dining-room monitor. She was the principal’s wife, and she was little but very strong. While Principal Von Howl was known for being strict but fair, Mrs. Von Howl was mostly just known for being strict. She always wore her whistle around her neck, and seemed to use it as often in the dining room as on the playing field.

  “Dig in, girls!” Mrs. Von Howl urged them. “Time waits for no ghost!”

  “I see Mrs. Von Howl is still whistle-happy,” Maude whispered to her friends.

  CJ surveyed the spread. “Yummy! Pirate Bones cereal, my favorite!” she said.

  “I’m trying the pancakes,” Maude decided.

  “I think I’ll have both,” Tiny announced.

  They heard Lucinda’s voice behind them. “Hurry up, Helen! We have to get to the food before Tiny does, otherwise there might be nothing left!”

  As Lucinda and Helen pushed past them, Maude growled, “That’s not very nice!”

  Tiny sighed. “It’s okay, Maude, just let it go.”

  “There’s plenty of food for all of us,” CJ said staunchly, glaring at Lucinda and Helen.

  Lucinda just stuck out her tongue.

  “Oh, that’s mature,” Maude noted. Tiny and CJ giggled.

  They all finished getting their food and sat down. Except for the strange smell, their first morning of third grade at Boo Academy was off to a great start!

  The soft squeaking of the bats was the loudest sound in the entry hall as the hungry ghosts settled down to eat breakfast.

  Gong! Gong! Gong!

  Principal Von Howl led the girls into the auditorium for the welcome assembly. As was Boo La La tradition, the assembly started with the Pledge of Haunting. The ghost girls recited the familiar words with their arms crossed on their chests, right hand on left shoulder, left hand on right shoulder:

  It is my duty, stated intention, and

  greatest wish to be the

  best ghost I can be.

  I solemnly swear to haunt

  to the very best of my abilities

  at all times and in all places.

  “Now, ladies,” Principal Von Howl said from the stage, “before we take our seats, which school is the best school?”

  “Boo La La!” shouted sixty girls in unison.

  “Thank you. You may be seated,” the principal told them as he took off his hat and placed it on the podium. “Welcome to the start of Boo Academy’s 1,358th school year! We know it’s going to be an exceptional year for each one of you.”

  He gave a big smile, then abruptly became more serious. “There are just a few administrative issues that I’d like to bring to your attention. As you know, fitness equipment is to remain in the gym. We cannot have a repeat of last year’s disaster, when chains were borrowed and never returned.

  We understand that you want to practice rattling outside of the classroom, but you must be responsible for the items you’ve borrowed. The grounds crew was finding chains all over the campus, all summer long! Now, if I could turn your attention to the code of conduct …”

  As Principal Von Howl continued his careful description of appropriate and inappropriate behavior, Maude’s mind started to wander. She was confident that she knew the rules of Boo La La even better than the principal.

  Glancing to her left, she saw Ms. Finley at the end of their row, paying rapt attention to Principal Von Howl. She had one leg crossed over the other, and peeking out from below her long skirt was the tip of what looked like … a scuffed brown shoe!

  Maude did a double take. Then she rubbed her eyes. A shoe?! She’d only ever seen shoes in pictures of humans. Ghosts didn’t wear shoes! They didn’t need to; they simply glided. Besides, shoes would keep you from passing through walls. That was just basic haunting!

  “Look at Ms. Finley’s foot!” Maude whispered to CJ, who was sitting on her right.

  CJ glanced over toward the end of the row, then she, too, did a double take. “What is that?”

  “I think it’s a shoe!” Maude said. “I’ve never seen one in real life.”

  “What are you guys whispering about?” Tiny leaned over to ask.

  “I can’t be sure,” Maude answered. “But it looks like Ms. Finley is wearing shoes!”

  Tiny’s eyes grew wide. “Why would she do that?” she whispered frantically.

  “Would you please be quiet? Some of us are trying to listen!” Lucinda, sitting in the row ahead of them, turned around and hissed. She said it just loudly enough for Ms. Finley to hear.

  Ms. Finley looked from Lucinda’s angry face to Maude, Tiny, and CJ and, with a secret wink at them, put one finger up to her lips.

  The three friends dutifully turned back to the stage, where Principal Von Howl was still talking. “And now, I ask you to give your complete attention to Mrs. Von Howl, your gym teacher. It’s time to talk about Field Day!”

  Everyone cheered. Field Day was an annual event that kicked off the school year. The whole school was divided into six teams, with students from all grades on each team. Every team had two teachers as coaches.

  “I hope my team colors work with the clothes I brought,” Maude muttered.

  Mrs. Von Howl floated up to the front of the stage and blew her coach’s whistle. She was frowning.

  “Good morning, ladies!” she said.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Von Howl,” the students echoed back.

  “Field Day is this Friday, starting at ten a.m. sharp,” she began. “Team assignments are posted by the door. When you have a chance to look at the team rosters, I think you’ll agree that I’ve done a good job of making up equally matched teams. There will be the usual games and contests: gliding races, egg tosses, a tug-of-war, an ectoplasm balloon battle, and, finally, our annual student-versus-facu
lty basketball game,” Mrs. Von Howl said.

  At the words basketball game, Tiny felt both very excited and very nervous.

  Mrs. Von Howl continued. “The winning team will receive homework passes for an entire day—”

  At this, the students burst out in cheers. But they were quickly silenced by Mrs. Von Howl’s whistle and glare.

  “And most important,” she went on, “the victorious team will have bragging rights until next year’s Field Day. I, therefore, urge you to take Friday’s contest very seriously.” With that, she floated off the stage.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Von Howl,” the principal said as he went back to his podium. “I’m sure we’ll have a fabulous day. As always, we will be kind and respectful to one another. Win or lose, we will be good sports. We each have different gifts, and one ghost’s strange is another ghost’s normal. We’ll all try our best, won’t we, girls?”

  Maude, CJ, and Tiny, along with all of their schoolmates, clapped and cheered.

  “One more time, girls!” Principal Von Howl called above the noise. “Which school is the best school?”

  “Boo La La!” shouted the students.

  All sixty ghost girls began filing out of the auditorium.

  “How’s your game?” CJ asked Tiny. “Any chance of us beating the teachers this year?”

  “I hope so,” Tiny answered. “I worked out a lot this summer! But we need to start talking strategy.”

  “You’re right—I need a strategy to survive Field Day!” Maude laughed.

  “You’ll do fine,” Tiny reassured her friend. But they all knew that Tiny would be the real star. Her first love was basketball, and she practiced all the time. Maude’s talent, however, was not athletic—while all three girls were great students (how else would they have been admitted to Boo La La?), Maude was the ghost at the top of their class.

  “I’m in good shape for the races, though,” Maude told them. “I practiced floating drills all summer!”

  Finally, they reached the team roster lists. Maude, CJ, and Tiny were on the same team! They high-fived and cheered, “Boo La La!”