Free No Ghouls Allowed by Victoria Laurie Page B

we used magnetic spikes, which, when driven
     directly into the center of a spook’s portal, would cause total havoc with the electromagnetic
     energy that held the portal open, and it would disintegrate and collapse, leaving
     the spook safely locked on the other side.
    Heath, Gilley, and I had encountered more than our fair share of these rather rare
     entities, and all of them had been incredibly difficult to deal with, but somehow
     we’d managed to shut them all down. Each really creepy spook taught us something about
     dealing with the next, and I had to admit that we’d become very good at tackling even
     the scariest of entities.
    And even though we’d only encountered a bunch of slamming doors and a big creepy shadow,
     something told me that whatever was haunting Porter Manor would require all of that
     expertise and, of course, some ghostbusting equipment.
    For added protection we usually wore our bubble vests, which were ordinary down vests
     with much of the down in the front removed and replaced with magnets. “We’ll need
     to get some bubble vests,” I said, thinking out loud.
    “Where the hell are we going to find a bubble vest during the summer?” Gilley complained.
     “It’s June, M.J. It’s not like they’re at the local department store.”
    “I might have the perfect solution,” Mrs. G. said with a sneaky grin.
    I eyed her curiously, but she didn’t give up any more details.
    “We’ll need more than just the vests,” Heath said from the back. “Maybe we should
     have someone in Boston send us some of our equipment.”
    “Yeah!” Gil said. “M.J., call Teeko and see if she can send us our stuff.”
    Teeko was my best girlfriend, Karen. She’d gotten the nickname Teeko from Gilley,
     who’d elongated it slightly from TKO, total knockout, which appropriately described
     my bestie.
    “I’ll call her as soon as we get back,” I said.
    “Have her send the Smasher!” Gil insisted, tapping my shoulder.
    “The Smasher?” his mother repeated. “My goodness, Gilley, what’s that?”
    “It’s an invention Michel came up with,” Gilley told her, realizing that if he explained
     what the Super Spooker Smasher really was (an improvised tennis racket strung with
     magnetized wires), she’d catch on that we were dealing with something pretty intense—aka
     dangerous.
    “What kind of invention?” Mrs. G. pressed.
    “One that compresses the electromagnetic frequency of any ghost we come across,” Gil
     replied easily. I had to hand it to him; the explanation was both accurate and a bit
     misleading.
    “Why would you need to do that?” she asked next.
    “If they’re in a heightened state, Mama, it calms them down.”
    I almost laughed. By “heightened state,” Gilley really meant “about to kill us,” and
     “calms them down” was code for “squishes them like a bug.”
    “Ah,” said his mother with a nod, and I swore everyone else in the car breathed a
     sigh of relief.
    Mrs. G. chatted with us amicably for the rest of the ride and at last we arrived at
     her home, a lovely sprawling ranch with a stone facade, black-stained trim, and the
     most gorgeous garden both in front and back. Mrs. G. loved to get her hands dirty,
     and nothing gave her greater pleasure than playing in her massive gardens. That love
     showed, because everywhere I looked, flowers were bursting with blooming joy.
    The scent of gardenia, a favorite of mine, hung heavily in the air, as dozens of monarch
     butterflies flittered drunkenly on the fumes while feasting on the coral blooms of
     butterfly weed, purple coneflower, and blue salvia.
    For a moment I stood at the entrance of the walk leading up to Mrs. G.’s and simply
     allowed myself to drink in the scene with all its beauty and heavenly scent. In that
     moment I felt the softest touch on the edge of my energy and I knew my mother was
     close. She had loved to garden too, and it was one of the things that had made me
     feel especially close