Face to face, woman to woman, I stood in front of Tannell the Terror. Her hair was cut and formed into the typical fifty-year-old bob, low maintenance and out of her face. The Terror’s eyes cut through me like a hot blade through your favorite childhood barbie doll. Their blue was deep and divisive, gave one the feeling that there was more going on behind the scenes then there actually was.

She said, “That was a very interesting piece you worked up. Was that the truth or did you take certain liberties with that work?”

My nerves had made themselves known in the form of goosebumps and fluttering butterflies in my stomach. I suddenly had the odd feeling that there was something disgusting on my face, like a booger that free fell from my nose to my chin or a ton load of rheum in the corners of my eyes. My self-esteem had dropped to the lowest it could without a full system meltdown, but she needed an answer and there was no reason not to tell her the truth.

“Well, Mrs. Tannell, it was the truth. It did happen. I just didn’t realize there was a voice talking to me until we had this writing exercise,” I said.

The hallway cleared as soon as the startling warning bell barked out and gave us all a rather large scare. Tannell did not even flinch, perhaps it was the decades of hearing it ten times a day or it was something more ghoulish that no one knew about.

Pulling a sticky note free from its entrapped place, Mrs. Tannell scribbled down a few words and passed the sticky to me.

She said, “That’s very interesting Naomi. Take this. If it happens again you should call this number and let us see where it goes from there.”

The note read, ‘Paranormal Philosophies of the Peninsula’. Below that, “757-253-7629 Ask for Buster.” This caught me off guard and reinforce all that we had rumored about Mrs. Tannell. None of us knew the depth of Tannell the Terror’s craziness but I had just been thrust into the shallow end of her psycho kiddie pool.

“Thank Mrs. Tannell. If I cannot find the source tonight then I’ll give these folks a call and make sure they are able to dive in headfirst,” I said.

This told me all I ever needed to know about my English teacher. I thought so at least. She handed me her business card next with her personal number on the back labelled ‘EMERGENCY ONLY’.

“If things get bad tonight or something escalates, call this number anytime and I’ll help you out. Do you understand Naomi?” she said.

She was taking this very seriously, but I dared not ask a question. I was not sure if I wanted to hear what she had to offer or if I just wanted to exit this awkward situation. Before I escaped, she stopped me and handed me a hall pass. That was the end of my interaction with Tannell the Terror and the beginning of the rest of my day at Yankee Gifted School.

Jennifer smiled at me as if she had not seen me for a decade as I entered our Pre-Cal class. The only class in the world besides Calculus itself that taught you how X could equal F times R plus Q. It blew my mind how someone developed this as well as how anyone could get an A in this class. I prefer logic-based learning but with this style of math, logic could not be used, it had to be practiced and hope that muscle memory took over from there.

Before hitting my seat and taking a load off something gently brushed my ear. My hair wisped in the air as a voice entered my ear, “Don’t forget. I need your help tonight.”

The goosebumps returned immediately as I peered around my personal bubble to see who had said that and why they thought this was appropriate or funny. No one was near me, not a living soul.

Jennifer could see my panic and she grabbed my hand to guide me to my seat, right next to her. She did not let go of my hand for what seemed like the entire class. Tremors had run laps up and down my forearm flowing through to her hand. She squeezed tighter, reassuring me that everything would be okay even though she had no idea what just happened.

She said, “Naomi, your face, it’s white as a ghost babe. What’s happening?”

A single tear snaked down my cheek. Before everyone else noticed I slapped that tear away along with its snail trail. Jennifer saw and would not let it rest; I knew it. That is why she was my best friend. She really showed caring and affection towards me no matter what the situation was.

The real issue here was determining if the voice really happened or I just imagined it after making that story come to life in front of all my classmates. There was no way to know, not until tonight I suppose. Doing this alone was now infinitely scarier than I had anticipated. The fact that something was talking to me, a little boy’s voice at that, was going to test my mental fortitude and push it to the extreme.

“You think you can stay over tonight?” I spoke.

Without hesitation, Jennifer nodded her head and reassured me that she would be there, and we could tackle this thing together. I hated to invite her into my fear, but I did not want to do this by myself. Hopefully, this stuff, this extremely odd and scary stuff would turn out to be a figment of my imagination. We would find out tonight together.

Jennifer looked over and noticed me examining the sticky note Mrs. Tannell had given me with the Paranormal guys on it. She put her hand out and demanded I pass it over to her. There was no turning back now.

After she looked over the pink crumpled sticky, her face turned blood red. She only turned red when anger was getting the best of her. She looked over at me with squinted eyes and pinched lips, fighting a battle between remaining silent and blurting out some sort of expletives that would certainly find her in the principal's office for a stern lecture.

“Calm yourself, Tunnel was just trying to help,” she said.

Her face resolved back to its normal pinkish hue just as Mr. Hopkins announced, ‘Pop Quiz!’ What a day it had been already and now we had to conquer a pop quiz that could very well have been written in hieroglyphics. None of it made sense and nothing would allow me to earn higher than a D at best. Maybe my little ghost friend knew some Pre-Cal and could guide my pencil to show all my work and get to the right answer. If only that had happened.

After successfully bombing the quiz, Jennifer and I exited the class followed by the rest of the pop quiz victims. We all entered with hope and joy, but we all exited with doom and gloom. That is pretty much how the Pre-Cal days went.

“Are you kidding me with this bull crap right now? Tannell the Terror is trying to convince you that the story you wrote has something to do with ghost and goblins?” she said.

I took the sticky note back from Jennifer, folded it up securely and put in my front pocket. On our trek to Science, we had to pass by Mrs. Tannell’s class. As we approached, I grabbed Jennifer’s arm and tangled it up in my sweater I carried every day. Conveniently, this forced her to stick with my momentum instead of allowing her to fly into Tannell’s classroom and cause a scene over nothing. We were not having that today.

I said, “Nice try Jenn. Not happening today chica.”

Her face glowed red once again. This time, judging by the shade of red and the intensity of the glow, was a mixture of anger and frustration. I could feel the warmth coming from her face as she scowled at Mrs. Tannell on our way by.

“That’s so messed up Naomi. You know it is.” she said.

I disagreed with her and remained focused on the short term, getting to Science without being late, and the long term, figuring out what the hell was going on inside my head. Both tasks would require a significant amount of focus and I needed to have Jennifer by my side for both.

Today we would be dissecting frogs and examining the inner workings of their bodies. I was not doing this without my best friend. Absolutely gross!

A quick text to both of our moms resulted in an affirmation that the sleepover would take place but only because we both lied and said we had a massive project to work on and it was due this Friday. That only left us four days to accomplish the task and gave us some wiggle room with the rest of the week just in case Jennifer needed to stay over again so we could grasp this freakish thumping and little boy voice thing and get it under control.

“Despite my ghoulish reputation, I really have the heart of a small boy. I keep it in a jar on my desk.”