The Exhibit

The Plan

                          Onyx 🤐:
Three minutes ago

Hannah and Josie finished reciting the words. I stared at them in horror. Then I started to feel sick. Like, EXTREMELY sick. It felt even worse than when I had pneumonia.

And then all at once, it felt like I wasn't in my body anymore.

I looked down at myself. Oh my gosh... I was a spirit.
Snapping me out of my disbelief, Kendra screamed in horror as she realized what had just happened.

"WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER?!" she shouted at the pirates.

Josie, Hannah, and Kendra looked at the scroll again. "'You will lose one,'" recited Kendra.

"EXCUSE ME?! They tricked Hannah and Josie! Y'all did something to the scroll so that we wouldn't read that last part!" I yelled. Blackbeard laughed.

"Well, your two friends were apparently dumb enough to fall for it!"

And before any of us could say or even DO anything, the pirates took the treasure under their portraits and walked out of the exhibit, as they were now in human form.

I stared at them leaving. "You guys are so idiotic!" Kendra shouted.

"How could you guys FALL for that?! THREE PIRATES who have been DEAD for CENTURIES just suddenly APPEAR in SPIRIT form and tell you to read a scroll to release them!"

"W-we're sorry!" stuttered Josie. "We didn't know!"

"Yeah! They were nice! A-and maybe they put, like, a spell to make themselves charming."

"NO! NOW OUR GROUPMATE IS A SPIRIT! AND IT'S YOUR GUYS' FAULT!"

"Don't blame us!! It's not OUR fault they decided to crawl out of their portraits!"Josie objected.

"What?! It's your fault in the first place we walked in here! Onyx and I felt something BAD the moment we set eyes on this place and you STUPID GIRLS ignored us and said we were being 'paranoid'."

"WELL, WE DON'T PARTICULARLY LIKE FOLLOWING WHAT FOOLS SAY!" Hannah screeched.

"ENOUGH!" I yelped. "We have to figure out how to change me back and how to put the pirates back in their paintings."

"Fine... I'll check behind the portrait again," groaned Josie.

She walked over and lifted Black Bart's portrait off the wall and produced another scroll. She read it aloud.

"To catch them, you have to outsmart them. To outsmart them, you must think like them."

We all looked confused. I thought for a second. Then I got an idea. "Wait," I said.

"Don't pirates LOVE treasure and all that stuff?" They all nodded.

I turned to Kendra, but as a spirit I was hovering over the ground so I wobbled a bit.

"A plan. We need to think of a plan to trick them."

She nodded. "How about we... yeah, I got nothin'."

I pondered this. After a few minutes, I had a plan. I turned to the whole group.

"Okay, so y'all will pose as pirates. Then, you try to defeat them in battle. Does that sound fine?"

Josie stared at me as if I were a penguin, but knowing I was a transparent white spirit that levitated, I understood her expression.

"Yeah, that is super crazy, Onyx. God, I think you turning into a spirit messed up your brain even MORE. I didn't think that was possible."

I attempted to claw at her neck but I just passed right through her. I sighed. "Well, it's all we have."

And before we could discuss more about this, we heard a loud boom! coming from inside the museum.