Post #2 for this NanoWrimo!

Jeez, is the Nanowrimo website ever going to start working again? I don't know.

I have yet to hit 1,667 words in one day, but I'll keep trying.

Anyway......I don't know much about police procedure. Hopefully my characters didn't do anything illegal!

"Okay,” said Perry, all traces of humor absent from his face. He, Ayu, and Gali waited in silence while the police officer finished getting all of the information he needed from Samantha, Anthony, and Mr. Rhodes. After recommending that they stay away from cemeteries in the future, he left.
“Well, that sucked,” said Perry.
“That’s the understatement of the year,” said Mr. Rhodes. “Do you understand everything that’s going to happen now, Samantha? That cop is going to call your parents. And then he’s going to call the school, and make sure that you get counseling.” Samantha was biting her bottom lip, but she nodded.
“I know. Or…I mean, I knew that. I knew that that would happen when I said it.”
“Why did you say it?” asked Anthony. “You’re putting yourself into a lot of trouble.”
“What else was I supposed to say?” asked Samantha. “Tell him that I had been possessed by a ghost, that this wasn’t the first time it’s happened to us?”
“No, Sam,” said Mr. Rhodes, “But what you did….is going to cause a lot of problems.”
“It’s not my fault!” she said hotly. “He was ready to lock Anthony up from the second he saw him slap me. There needed to be something good – a story that he would believe. Telling him it was ghosts would sound like a really lame excuse. And it’s not Anthony’s fault, either – if he hadn’t slapped me, I don’t know what I would have done….what I was doing. I don’t know what else I could have said….”
“No,” said Gali, “I don’t either. The cop needed to be told something, and I’m actually impressed that it fit the situation so well. It will make things suck for a while, though, even though it’s not your fault. Before Mr. Kozicki let me start this club, told me that if anything weird happened, he would shut it down. And I’m sure that when the cop calls the school, he’ll be one of the people he talks to.”
“But he can’t…do that, can he?” asked Ayu. “I mean…let’s say Sam was suicidal, or whatever. You can’t shut down a school club because of that. It’s not like she would have wanted to kill herself because she’s part of the school’s ghost hunting club. Wouldn’t it be like, illegal to shut down the club if that had happened? We can’t look at it from the point of view that Sam was possessed by a ghost – we know that’s what happened, but they think it’s because she told Anthony she wanted to kill herself.”
“That’s true,” said Perry, “We’ll fight back if they to shut us down. Won’t we?”
“Of course we will,” said Gali, looking excited by the prospect of a showdown between them and Mr. Koziciki, and possibly other school officials.
“I will, too,” said Mr. Rhodes. “I think Ayu’s right – I’m not sure they could shut us down, even if they wanted to. If they try it, we’ll just fight back. And even if they do shut us down….well, you guys have been to my house before.” He smiled.
“Yeah!” said Perry. “Secret meetings of the ghost hunting team! That would be sweet.”
“Anyway, I’m really cold,” said Ayu, who was trying to draw her hands up into the sleeves of her coat.
“Right, we should probably go back to High Glen anyway,” said Mr. Rhodes. “We’re already suspect in the eyes of the law! We can’t hang around and be even more suspicious.” Everyone removed the red lenses from their flashlights and started walking back to the dormitories, Mr. Rhodes escorting them.
Anthony walked next to Sam. “Are you ready?” he asked. “I mean, you’ll probably have to meet with someone tomorrow, already.”
“Yeah, I guess I will,” said Sam. “But I’m not too worried. I mean, coming here has been sort of stressful and everything, and it took me a while to make any friends. Classes are tough and everything, and I do miss my mom a lot. I think she’ll have a hard time believing that I wanted to kill myself – I talk to her like, every day, and she would know if it was that bad. I think I’ll probably be able to play it down to her, though, just tell her that you took it a lot more seriously than I meant it, and it was one rough night, blah, blah.”
“Yeah,” said Anthony, “I guess that it’ll work out okay. Although I am pretty worried about what the fall-out is going to be for the club. Gali didn’t sound very optimistic.”
Samantha smiled. “When has Gali ever sounded optimistic?”
“Haha, I guess you’re right,” said Anthony, returning her smile. Everyone chattered intermittently as they walked back to High Glen, but the general mood was cautious and a bit shell-shocked. The encounters that they had had with ghosts were certainly peculiar and disturbing, but everything had been insulated, with a very clear boundary between the club’s activities and the society around them.
Leaves were falling from the trees as they walked, broken from boughs by the wind, and cradled until they landed gracefully on the ground, making a carpet of death on the grass.

Anthony was in his room in the dormitory, changing his clothes and readying himself for bed. After taking off his shirt, he felt something drop on his chest. Clapping his hand over it, he realized he was still wearing Sam’s cross necklace. He undid the clasp, and held it front of himself, remembering what she had said when she gave it to him. “You can give it back to me as soon as we’re done tonight. I just…want to try something…It’s just a necklace, but I want to try…”
“Hold on…” he said, whispering out loud to himself. “I never wore a cross before tonight….but tonight I did, and I felt it get hot right before Sam started wigging out. Sam never got attacked before tonight, but she’s always wearing this…and I bet Gali always does, she would have thought of that….” He turned around and walked out into the hallway, about to make his way to the girls’ dormitory when he remembered that it was after curfew hours, and that he was already going to be in deep trouble when the morning came and phone calls were made. He ran his hand over his hair, and let himself back into his bedroom. Sitting down at his desk and going online, he started chatting with Gali through instant messenger, asking her what she thought about his theory. In the midst of getting berated for being so stupid as to not have thought about wearing a cross to keep the ghosts from taking over his body, he asked Gali if she had Samantha’s screen name. With it, he was able to chat with her online.
“Hey, Sam. (This is Anthony.) I just wanted to let you know that I still have your necklace, and I can give it back to you tomorrow.”
“Oh yeah, I forgot to get it back from you! Thanks.”
“You should have told me the real reason why you wanted me to wear it, though. What you did was dangerous – we should have tested it with everybody’s help. Something worse could have happened.”
“ You mean that the cross could be protection? We still don’t know if that’s what happened or not, though. It’s a good guess, but it doesn’t mean it’s true.”
“But what if it is true? If everyone had known what you were testing, I could have had another cross with me. I could have put it on you, instead of having to slap you. We could have been in a lot less trouble than we are.”
“I’m sorry, Anthony. A lot of stuff happened tonight, and I guess I could have done things differently. But we can’t change it now.”
“You’re right....I’m sorry, too. Maybe we should just wait and talk about it more once everybody’s together?”
“Yeah, that’s a good idea.”
“Have you called your parents yet?”
“No....it’s really late!”
“Well, you probably should. I’m going to call my parents right away tomorrow morning. Better they talk to me before that cop. It’ll make us seem....responsible or whatever, too.”