Free Sunny Sweet Is So Not Scary by Jennifer Ann Mann

wearing a hanger on my head with pencils sticking out of it.
    That might totally freak her out.
    She did not open her eyes.
    Junchao and I made a “that was too close” face at each other.
    Alice was already back at the door with Sunny, done with both her windows. I still needed to get the other corner of the towel over the top of the other side of the mirror. It looked like the best way was for me to stay on the dresser and walk across it to the other side. But the top of my mother’s dresser was a mess of perfume and makeup and papers and pens and junk of all kinds. She really needed to clean more. This was going to be hard.
    I started across. My first step was perfect, right between some keys and a glass of water.
    Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Junchao mouth, “be careful” at me.
    My second step wasn’t so perfect; I stepped right on top of a lipstick or a mascara or something. It killed my foot to stay on it, but if I didn’t, I knew that I’d fall right off the dresser. I quickly took a third step closer to the back of the dresser—
    CLANG!
    Knocking over a tall bottle of perfume.
    Junchao threw herself onto the ground.
    Sunny and Alice scooted out the door of the bedroom.
    I held my breath . . . hoping that somehow this would make me invisible.
    Mrs. Song mumbled. It sounded like it was something about her garden. Then she whispered, “Masha?”
    My heart nearly burst. I didn’t know what to do. Alice was probably dying behind the door—thinking that it was all over, and she was pretty much on her way home right this minute.
    â€œMasha?” Mrs. Song repeated. This time, I could almost feel her opening her eyes.
    â€œYour hydrangea bushes are beautiful,” I whispered. “Especially the blue ones. I love the blue ones.”
    I heard Mrs. Song sigh. She loved her hydrangea bushes. I think the white ones were her favorites, but mine were the ones with the giant light-blue flowers. They were the color of a Cinderella princess dress. I thought it would be better to stick to the truth in the middle of the night.
    It worked.
    â€œHydrangeas,” she whispered. And then she rolled over.
    I couldn’t help smiling. Mrs. Song sure loved her flowers; she even dreamed about them the way I dreamed about horses.
    I looked down at Junchao.
    She was staring up at me.
    I gave her a nod and then took another step toward the end of the dresser. And then another.
    I decided that this was close enough.
    Junchao crawled over to the end of the dresser behind me, grabbed the other end of the towel, and then handed it to me behind my back.
    I pulled it around me on the side of the mirror, careful not to knock anything else over on my mother’s very messy dresser, and then linked it over the top corner of the mirror.
    Done.
    Now I had to get the heck down from here.
    I crouched, found two empty places to put my hands down on the dresser top, and then I sprung offof it, falling onto the carpet into a roll, kicking Junchao accidentally in the stomach and losing my hanger hat. Junchao found it for me. I smashed it back onto my head, scared to be without it. And then the two of us scrambled for the door, squishing out of it together.
    Once I got out, Alice whispered in my ear, “I knew you could do it.”
    I hadn’t been so sure.
    Junchao closed the door so quietly that the only sound was the tiny snap as the tongue of the door slipped into place. And then all four of us collapsed into a heap on the floor outside my mom’s room. We had a bunch more windows and doors to do, but the worst was over.
    Then Sunny’s machine gave a tiny squawk.
    And then another.
    And another.
    Â 
    Positively Sparkly
    Stop that thing!” Junchao cried.
    â€œI can’t,” Sunny whispered.
    The beeping got louder.
    I couldn’t decide which to worry about more, that the sound would wake up Mrs. Song or that the ghost was getting closer and closer to