By Bailey Banak
Terrible times in room 131. Kids left and right are stealing precious artifacts from Mr. Bryan Bossler’s personal stash. One after the other they vanish without a trace. Not very long after, Mr. Bossler gave up being his own detective and called the local police and asked them to investigate.
* * *
As another thief dashed out of the classroom, Mr. Bossler yelled louder than a yodeler on a hilltop in Germany. “Darn kids, you get back here with those!” The criminal chuckled and kept running. “AAARRRGGH!” Bossler growled. “I’m done! No more of this.” He mumbled and grumbled. He stood up from his seat and sat down again in frustration. After he counted back from ten – which really never worked – Mr. Bossler picked up his cell phone. He crushed the numbers (see, told you it didn’t work) and dialed 9-1-1.
When the receptionist on the other end answered, “Hello, what is your emergency?” in a nice, calming voice, Mr. Bossler replied with a sturdy “I need you to get your rear-ends over here now! I’m being robbed!”
“Okay sir, calm down,” she encouraged.
“How can I be calm when multiple thieves have stolen my property?!”
The receptionist cut in, “Multiple thieves?”
“That’s what I said, correct.”
“Yes. Now sir, what have these thieves stolen from you?”
“My Dum Dums! Didn’t I say that already?!” Now Mr. Bossler was agitated on top of infuriated.
“No sir, I don’t believe you mentioned that. Are you talking about the lollipop Dum Dums?”
“Of course. What other Dum Dums are there?”
“Are these Dum Dums of great value or importance?”
“Yes,” Mr. Bossler finally began to calm and relax.
“What is it?” the receptionist asked.
“They are my lifeline. I’m a teacher at the Daniel Boone Middle School and I give my students Dum Dums to keep them from getting too smart. If they get too smart, then I’m out of a job.”
The receptionist was quiet for a second, then she spoke. “Wouldn’t you want the kids to take them, then?”
“The problem with that is that it’s the dumb kids stealing the pops. I’m running out fast and cannot trick the smart kids. I need those pops.”
“Sir, we cannot send out officers for something silly like this,” the receptionist concluded.
Mr. Bossler was again growing angry. “Maybe you didn’t hear me. No Dum Dums, no job.”
“I’m sorry, sir. This conversation needs to end. Someone who is actually in need of help might be trying to get through and you’re wasting my time.” With that, she hung up.
Mr. Bossler made the classic angry face and threw the phone into the wall, shredding it to a pile of wires and gears.
“Fine,” he said as he marched to his bookshelf in his classroom, “if no one will help me, then I just have to help myself.” The eighth-grade teacher took his right index finger and slightly pulled back one book. After a glimpse, Mr. Bossier smiled mischievously. “And this is how I’ll do it.”
The book was entitled “Fortune Telling and Summoning for Beginners.” He flipped to the beginning of how to summon a ghost. The first step for summoning a ghost is to gather all the materials stated: a pink cloak, a see-through ball on top of a bowl, and warm vanilla-scented candles. Mr. Bossler ran to Mrs. Raudenbush’s room to borrow the sparkly pink robe she has hidden in the back of her closet. Then he borrowed a bowl from Mrs. Fleagle’s room down in the F&C science wing. He already had the four vanilla-scented candles.
Now he could begin.
He pushed all the desks against the walls. He left one desk in the middle to act as a table. “Alright, let’s get summoning,” he said, looking around and rubbing his hands together.
Reading from the book, he chanted in a strange voice:
Halloo Hallay, I summon Fae.
Come to this world, transport this way,
With candle life decreasing,
and me making this easy,
I summon you to terrorize,
do your nasty deeds. Come snuff out the light
and conclude my mind with ease.
As Mr. Bossler continued to chant, desks rumbled and creaked. Books smacked the sensitive floor. Pencils were thrown like darts. Paper shattered like glass. Mr. Bossler raised his arms. The lights flickered as if an earthquake were at its highest peak. Mr. Bossler’s eyes were white, pure as pearls, gazing at the heavens. Then, out of nowhere, the world… went… silent.
Mr. Bossler shivered in agony. He was confused. “What went wrong?!” He started to blame himself, but as he grabbed hold of his bag to put things away a loud booming shriek forced him to the floor. The only objects that remained standing were the one centered desk and the now foggy crystal ball that rested on the kitchen bowl. However, that did not last long. The ball ― overwhelmed by the weight of continuous forming swirls of storming clouds — burst like a balloon and left stranded, shattered glass carpeting the floor. The ball was unusable, broken, and useless. The bowl disintegrated, never to hold another bowl of breakfast cereal. There was a large, burning hole where the desk used to be.
Mr. Bossler stared wide-eyed at the hovering monstrosity bobbing above it all.
Her body was in standing position, motionless. Her head flopped forward in a slumber fashion. Arms and legs dangled down, aiming at the floor. Her feet were bare. Her hair was tangled and wretched. The only clothing on her 10-year-old body was a raggedy old gown torn by the depths of her grave.
And she had hatred in her deathly hallowed eyes.
They resembled Mr. Bossler’s as he summoned this poor, unwanted girl. He spoke slowly.
“A-Are you Faye?” All of the sudden, everything on her faint blue, glowing body jumped as if electrified and shot toward Mr. Bossler and pinned him against the wall.
“You question who I am?” Her voice was one of the underworld. It was coarse and unused for centuries. Mr. Bossler croaked, “Uh, no. Of course not. There’s just a lot of Faes nowadays and I just wanted to be sure I summoned the right one,” he tried to smile.
The dead eyes glared straight into his, “Hmph.” She backed off and went back to the center of the room and said, “Why have you summoned me, Mr. Bossier?” He wondered how the ghost knew his name, but he decided not to question it.
“The students I teach are constantly stealing my property.” Mr. Bossler then told Fae the whole story.
She replied, “I understand. See you tomorrow morning, Mr. Bossler.” And with that, she snapped her fingers and everything went back to their regular positions. Desks were pulled back. Pencils were in one piece again. Even the phone was repaired! She smirked and vanished into the floor of the school. Bossler – pink-cloaked – stood powerless and stunned. Again, his body met the floor. He crumbled; for he had reached his breaking point. The impossible was accomplished.
* * *
The next morning, Bossler woke and looked around. “No ghost, no kids, five minutes to the bell.” He changed into his teacher clothes. The bell rang and students flooded the hallways. The first student came in ready for her day. She had so many books and binders it was an avalanche waiting to happen. The avalanche came and every last thing cradled in her arms dropped to the floor .
“Lexi, are you okay?” he asked. It was Lexi Rios, probably one of the least coordinated students in eighth grade. A nice girl, but she couldn’t hit water if she fell out of a boat.
“Yep, I’m okay, Mr. Bossler,” she said.
“That’s good,” Mr. Bossler said. He was relieved. More people started coming in.
“Yeah, I have a friend that does this a lot. And I mean a lot,” Lexi added.
Bossler was confused at her reply, but he decided to ignore it. He pushed through the group of kids. “Come on people, go do your thing and sit down,” he said. But when they did, every chair was pulled out from under them.
“What the heck!” the kids hollered. One boy said, “It was like magic.”
Another boy next to him made fun and teased, “Or maybe it was a ghost, oooooo.” Everyone laughed.
Later that morning, Mr. Bossler was teaching and, suddenly, the door randomly creaked open – no one was there. Most of the kids just blew it off because it happens all the time in every other class, but Mr. Bossler knew.
“Fae,” he whispered. Thankfully, the kids didn’t hear him.
“Now, let’s take some notes.” The kids moaned and groaned. “Ah, stop it. You’ll live.” Once his students began writing, pencils were ripped from their hands and thrown to the side one at a time. They lay in pieces on the ground. Students began to panic and scream.
The kids all gathered to one side of the classroom. The lights began to flicker and go out one after the other.
Mr. Bossler saw that his students were terrified, “Fae, that’s enough!” he yelled.
Everything stopped shaking, crumpling, and breaking, with the exception of trembling kids. Just like before, the world went silent followed by a loud, threatening, booming shriek. Following it was Fae.
When focus became clear again to the students, they saw her. But all her attention was on Mr. Bossler. “Giving up on me, are you? You must learn patience, Mr. Bossler.”
She flung herself at Mr. Bossler, but he ducked out of instinct and she missed him. When he rose from the floor, Fae screamed, “You cannot win, Mr. Bossler!”
Objects flew wildly — they seemed to have a gravitational pull around Fae. “Remember why you summoned me here in the first place? Those Dum Dums weren’t going to get themselves back!”
The kids gasped and stopped trembling. They all reached into their pockets and launched handfuls of Dum Dums at Bossler.
He chuckled and smirked at Fae.
“Looks like I no longer need your services,” he said.
This just infuriated the ghost. She growled and flew at Mr. Bossler. Before she could even touch him, Mr. Bossler held up his hand and Fae froze. It was the power from a crystal ball that Mr. Bossler used to capture Fae and stop her reign of terror.
“But, how? I destroyed the other ball.” She was stunned.
“Yes, but there is more than one see-through ball in the world and you only ruined one of many.” Mr. Bossler held the ball to the skies. Outside, the sun became dim. The earth began to rumble. Fog seeped through cracks in the walls. It swirled around Mr. Bossler’s feet and coiled up his arm. Nothing had happened to Fae… yet.
“You fool! Tears of children are what run through these lifeless veins, nothing scares me – anymore.”
The ball in Mr. Bossler’s grasp took hold of the evil spirit and started to suck away her second chance at life. The toxic gas rolled up in a spiraling tube and transported the snarling demon in the ball. “You can’t keep me in here forever Bossler! For I am Fae! I terrorize and always get my way.”
She shouted and shrieked, but the crystal ball kept her contained and held her tight.
“Now, you see Fae, I strive to teach my students a few very important things.” He smiled – and dropped the crystal ball. It shattered on the floor. “Oops,” he said as his fingers let loose. That ghastly creature was no more. All the fog had sunk into the floor. The earth ceased its shaking. The sun brightened again.
Mr. Bossler chuckled and then noticed his cowering students in the corner. “Well class, I think we learned a valuable lesson today,” he said as he walked a few steps closer to them.
“Don’t mix me with magic and voodoo and what not,” Bossler laughed in a deep tone, “’cause that’s what happens when you steal my pops.”
On April 25th, the Daniel Boone Area School District Board of Directors approved a plan to enroll all incoming kindergarten students at Monocacy Elementary Center and all second grade students transitioning to third grade at Amity Elementary Center. The district administration believes the plan will maximize learning opportunities for students and faculty while maintaining fiscally responsible operations.