Rules for Ghosting by A. J. Paquette Page A

head. They were bulky and uncomfortable, and the effect was like trying to see underwater.
    He didn’t have time to take them off though, because Wiley was on the move and it was all Oliver could do to keep up. “Hmmm, odd, very odd indeed,” the ghosterminator was saying. “Those readings skyrocketed and then, poof! Just disappeared. Almost as though …” He stood upright and snapped his fingers together. “Of course! The ghoul is on the move.” Wiley spun in a full circle before apparently picking something up on his Spectrometer. He pushed through into the mudroom, the Aspirator knocking against the door in his haste.
    Oliver followed close behind, ignoring Wiley’s ongoing stream of babble, but studying how the goggles warped the air around him. There was nothing ghostly in sight—not that he’d expected there to be—but through these twisted lenses he could almost imagine there was.
    â€œAHA!” Wiley bellowed, snapping Oliver out of his thoughts. They were standing in the sunroom, and the Spectrometer was lit up like a Christmas tree. “What do you have to say now, eh? We’ve hit the jackpot!”
    Oliver shifted his gaze from the Spectrometer to the place Wiley was indicating. “It’s just … a wall,” he muttered.
    â€œBut is it
really
?” Wiley reached over his shoulder and pressed a button on the side of his backpack. A low motor started up on the Aspirator.
    Oliver squinted at the wall.
What
was Wiley going on about? There wasn’t anything there. He glanced back toward thedoor. Would Mom and Dad hear the noise and come investigate? Or could they really imagine this was all part of Wiley’s house-fixing plan?
    And then Oliver froze. What was
that
?
    In front of the door—for the briefest of seconds—through the smudged and warped glass of the goggles, he’d seen the shape of a girl. A foot-stomping, furious, old-fashioned-dress-wearing, completely
see-through
girl.
    Oliver had just seen a ghost.

Chapter 11
    â€œMy cubby!” Dahlia shrieked. They’d had a narrow escape earlier, when the ghosterminator had whipped out his Spectrometer and started yammering on about
ghosts in this very room!
Mrs. Tibbs had whisked her away so fast that she’d actually left a body part or two fully behind her. By the time she’d pulled herself back together enough to check up on Wiley with her Clearsight, the bloodhound was back on the trail.
    And now he’d found his jackpot.
    â€œWe have to stop him!” Dahlia wailed. “All my stuff is in there. You heard him describe that Aspirating business. He’ll suck it all up! I’ll never see it again.”
    â€œWe should not be hanging around him to begin with,” fumed Mrs. Tibbs. “Remember our plan to
lie low
?”
    But Dahlia couldn’t leave now. She wrung her hands despairingly and hovered at the edges of the sunroom.
    Rank Wiley stood in front of the entrance to her cubby. Hehad that weird orange-and-black machine strapped to his back. In his twitching hand, the Spectrometer gave a series of sharp pings. Oliver’s mouth gaped open, and he turned his head wildly around the room, like he was looking for something he couldn’t quite find. Dahlia couldn’t spare a minute for this living boy. Her
cubby
! How many years had she worked to put it all together? She could feel tears starting in the corners of her eyes.
    â€œYou see,” Wiley yelled over the noise, “
that
is the precise direction of the disturbance, right there.” He waved an arm. “There might appear to be nothing in that spot, but my fine apparatus indicates otherwise. Now stand back and watch the Aspirator at work!” He depressed a button on his shoulder strap and the nozzle began to vibrate. He yanked it from its holster, holding it out like a fire hose.
    A faint glowing outline appeared over one side of Dahlia’s cubby. Oliver gasped.