Momo: A Jinx in Pure Heart

Chapter 9: Wearin' the Spirit

Adorabat and Badgerclops watched the ghost closely and silently while said ghost floating across from them did the same. None of them spoke, or at least just Adorabat and Badgerclops, since the ghost itself didn't appear to make sounds at all, let alone talk. Both the bat and badger wondered if it was a good idea at all to release the ghost and see what happened.

"I really hope you're right about this, Adorabat," Badgerclops told the bat.

"Me too," Adorabat said in response, "If I'm wrong, then I'll never try out being nice again."

"Maybe don't go that far," Badgerclops gave a little laugh, even sweating a bit from the little bat's feral attitude. He turned back to face the little ghost which continued to hover above the messy wooden floor, looking at him and Adorabat without a word. Since he already was forced to let the ghost out of the trap he put it in before, he figured he may as well make the best out of it; if the ghost tried to do anything suspicious, he could just trap it again. Badgerclops leaned in a little closer to the ghost, causing the spirit to back away slightly in response.

"Whoa there," he said in his best indoor voice, lifting his hands in front of him to show he had nothing on him, "I'm not gonna trap you again. I mean, I let you out." Badgerclops felt himself running out of important things to say, fast, so he thought he'd better make use of the one important question he still had left. "You, uh, like drawing?" he pointed at the crayon drawing still on the ghostly painting.

The ghost looked the direction of Badgerclops's pointed finger, glancing at the drawing. It nodded.

Badgerclops mentally marked a check on his metaphorical checklist. "Okay, that's a clue." He then looked left and right to examine the other loads of discarded junk in boxes and under tarps scattered about the attic room. "Are you all alone up here?" The ghost nodded again. Badgerclops marked another mental check. "What were you doing?"

The ghost turned away and drifted towards a random box. Badgerclops watched while Adorabat got ready for a fight. But they were both left surprised and confused yet again when they observed the ghost bend over and rummage through that box to pull out a random set of clothes. They then further observed the ghost put those clothes onto its own spectral body, already notably questioning how a transparent nonphysical being could be able to wear clothes without having them fall straight through. Both of them could already get a clue from the way the now-dressed ghost was looking itself over in front of the mirror.

"Why are you trying to wear clothes?" came Adorabat's turn to question the ghost. The ghost didn't say anything but floated back to the crayon picture, which illustrated itself side-by-side with a couple Sweetypie children dressed in similar fashion that was meant to signify a less-than-ordinary occasion. Adorabat was absolutely sure she saw the pictured children holding baskets, similar to the ones Momo and her friends held. That's when it made sense. "Were you dressing up for Harvest Moon?" The ghost not only nodded, but also danced around in the air, doing a loop in the process. That told her all she needed. "Badgerclops! I think it wants to go out candy-hunting too!"

"As if we needed more competition for candies," Badgerclops folded his arms, muttering to no one, "I bet that ghost can't even eat." He looked away just as the ghost switched out one outfit for another, looking itself over in the mirror. Adorabat was also examining the ghost as well.

"Well, I don't think this ghost wants to hurt anyone," Adorabat noted. "You saw the crayon drawing." When Badgerclops still didn't respond, Adorabat occupied a few more seconds of her time by looking through the ghost's junk.

She was briefly startled by the ghost rushing over to her and attempting to shoo her away from its things. "Hey! Back off!" she screeched fiercely. This frightened the ghost enough to back away, but Adorabat calmed down right after seeing that the ghost was already wearing a colorful and different-looking hat. "Oh, I'm sorry," she told the ghost more politely. "I thought you were going to hurt me." She didn't quite expect the ghost to actually look sad, and it made her feel bad compared to fighting monsters that never expressed a lick of emotion.

She took it upon herself to make up for her outburst by quickly finding a discarded knight's helmet in another random box. Without giving the ghost time to turn around, she rapidly placed the helmet over the ghost's head. The ghost turned to her, feeling a bit startled after what she did, but then turned back to the mirror to have a look at itself wearing the helmet.

Adorabat watched with anticipation as the ghost took its time, but then deflated upon the ghost turning back to her and shaking its head. "Phooey! I thought you ghosts liked knights," Adorabat huffed. She went over to another box. But before she started rummaging again, she noticed Badgerclops fooling around with a random piece of junk from another box further to the back of the room. "Badgerclops!" she called to him, "Help me find a costume!"

Badgerclops jumped a little from not expecting Adorabat's sudden use of her outdoor voice, and then looked at the ghost next to her. "Adorabat, you sure it's a good idea to be helping this ghost get out in public? I mean, there are plenty more Sweetypies out there who aren't as understanding of ghosts as we are."

Adorabat examined a dusty fairy wand. "Well, I'm smart enough to see that the ghost doesn't wanna scare us. Besides, the ghost is friendly." She then picked up a clown wig. "Haven't you played dress-up before?"

Badgerclops turned away nervously. "Well, I did, but..." he refused to talk any further. He took a look at the ghost himself, examining its every feature and mannerism to see if Adorabat was right on the mark about what she said it was. Sure enough, he didn't see any way the ghost could be a threat, only that it was harmlessly going through the costumes it and Adorabat chose together, swapping one outfit for another over its spectral body. That gave him an idea. "Hey Adorabat, you think we could get that ghost to hold all our candy while we hold extra?"

That got the little bat intrigued. She turned to face the ghost as it was trying on a full-body suit shaped like a flying saucer. "Can you hold candy in you?" she asked it.

The ghost paused, thinking about what it had been asked, and even poked at itself to test the limits of its tangibility. It didn't quite know the answer and it could sense that Adorabat and Badgerclops were getting the impression it did not, so the spirit hastily grabbed at anything small in the nearest junk pile to change their minds as soon as it could. The ghost did manage to grab a few marbles after a few seconds of scrambling. Without wasting another moment, the ghost shoved them into its transparent form and let go, concentrating on preventing the marbles from falling all the way down. The effort proved more difficult than expected, as the spirit tried to put quite an amount of energy into maintaining some kind of tangibility around the marbles, but it rapidly got easier. After a second or two, the ghost saw that the marbles floated effortlessly inside itself, proving to the badger and bat that it could indeed hold little things in its body.

The positive confirmation was more than good enough for Badgerclops. "That is so perfect!" he giggled with childish gladness while Adorabat and the ghost didn't quite know what to think of that. But Badgerclops wasn't paying attention, not that he cared at the moment as he still processed the just-recent revelation. Rather, he was already knee-deep into a couple stacks of boxes containing unused costumes, digging through the items like he was in a hurry.

Adorabat and the ghost were still stuck thinking about why the badger was behaving so erratically at the moment. It took Badgerclops himself noticing them doing nothing at the moment to snap them out of their stupor using his voice alone. "Hey, Adorabat! Help me find a costume for our little ghost, will'ya?"