After their break on top of the Gerard mall, Ghost Thing got up and skipped around town some more. The water boy’s purple hue mixed well the autumnal orange of the tree leaves, but Ghost Thing grew discouraged that they were going to find anything in the cozy town of Leslieville. What was he doing there? There was no way there could have been trouble around that place.

  While standing in the tree’s split, Ghost looked over his shoulder at Philly. “I’m going to cruise around for an hour, then I’m going home.”

  “Alright,” said Philly.

  Philly’s joking suggestion of asking citizens about the cloud thing had its potential. Ghost Thing had no leads and if somebody could direct him to someone who was possibly connected to the gang after him, that would be progress. And even if the cloud guy wasn’t part of any gang, it still would have been nice to meet someone who was a fellow cryptid. But it was important for Ghost to maintain the reputation of a mysterious superhero and a lot of that mystique would have vanished if he started talking to people on the street like a tourist asking directions.

  While passing by a baseball diamond, Ghost saw some kids hanging out by the fence. Nothing noteworthy until he realized that a few of the kids (looked about twelve years old) were swarming a smaller boy, with the smaller one looking pretty uncomfortable being hounded by the others. The kid was being bullied.

  “What’s going on over there?” Philly asked Ghost.

  Ghost landed in a tree and peered at the group of boys closely. “I don’t know. I think they’re picking on that kid.”

  “You should stop them!” said Philly.

  Ghost Thing was aiming to get out of the superhero business. But dealing with bullies not superhero business. That was just being a crossing guard or a playground attendant. Yep. It was time for Ghost Thing to interfere.

  He took off his backpack, Philly still inside. Ghost dangled Philly out of the tree and then let go, dropping the fox in backpack to the grass below. Philly hit the ground with a light thud. He scowled up at Ghost. “Hey! Watch it!”

  The water boy smiled, bright eyes offering apology, but he had other things to attend to and hopped across some trees.

  “Do you think you’re so cool?” asked Brennan, a bigger boy with his curly hair cut short. “Just because the school put your picture up in the hallways?”

  “No,” said Reggie, he freckled boy backing up slowly and keeping his head down.

  The other kids huddled around Reggie, trying to intimidate him. It wasn’t hard. Each other kid had height on Reggie, let alone Brennan standing a few inches taller than the third-grader.

  Why am I getting picked on? thought Reggie. I do good in school and then people bug me about it!

  “What did you do to get the teachers to put your picture up?” asked Lex, another one of the bullies that joined Brennan in picking on Reggie.

  “I didn’t do nothing!” said Reggie. “I just drew the picture. That’s all I did.”

  Sally laughed and knocked her head in jest. “I bet his momma’s proud that his picture’s up in school!”

  The kids laughed.

  Reggie checked his shoulder to see an opening to run away. The kids circled him pretty well, though, and even if he did take off running, they could catch up easy. What would happen then??? They’d probably beat him up for chickening out and running away! The best Reggie could hope for is that he kept quiet as much as he could and wait for the bullies to get bored and leave him.

  But just then, something dropped from the trees into the middle of the crowd. Reggie wasn’t sure what he was looking at. It was purple. It was tall. It was a person, at least Reggie assumed so. But it was see-through, at least on the parts of its body that weren’t clothed. What was it? Was it some kind of pi?ata?

  When the thing dropped from the tree above, the kids froze, staring in disbelief! For a brief moment, there was the refuge of deniability that the creature was not a living creature, but just a doll or something, but that refuge disappeared when the creature opened his mouth.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  “Cease this bullying!” said Ghost Thing, brandishing a judgmental finger across the score of children.

  The kids screamed, zipping away from the creature. Lex ran behind a tree and poked his head out to see what was going to happen.

  Brennan fell on his butt before Ghost Thing. The kid looked up at the weird water creature and called out to his friends, “Uh-h-h... What is that!?”

  Sally fell back against the fence, staring at Ghost Thing with panicked eyes. “I dunno. It’s a jello man, I think!”

  The water cryptid took his hands to his sides, posing heroically. “I am Ghost Thing!” He immediately regretted calling himself by the name, but he swallowed his disgust and carried on. He said, “I will not abide you bullying this boy!”

  He looked back at Reggie; Reggie, who wasn’t sure or not he was dreaming. The kid stared at Ghost Thing like he had forgotten which day of the week it was.

  The kids were spooked, that was certain. But one of the boys, Gabe, wasn’t going to let a magic waterfall tell him what to do. The boy looked nearby to see a branch, and he took it in his hands, ready to do some monster slaying. He had played Legend of Zelda. He knew what to do.

  Ghost Thing orated for the children, “I will not allow you to hurt and harass this boy!” Ghost pointed at Reggie, who was coming to his senses and, being scared of the creature just as much as the bullies, backed away from Ghost Thing. Ghost continued. “Children in this town who engage in the... deviancy of bullying will face my wrath! I will stop at nothing to punish those who – ow-w-w!”

  While Ghost pontificated, Gabe got up behind him and struck his leg with a branch. It wasn’t a big branch but it smart anyway. Ghost Thing stumbled, then looked around to see who attacked him. He growled at Gabe. “You!”

  “This thing is a monster!” shouted Gabe. “Let’s take it down!”

  The kids swarmed on Ghost Thing. Gabe swung his branch at Ghost’s legs some more. Brennan got up and tried kicking at Ghost. Sally took off her backpack and swung it at Ghost’s body. Lex got out from behind the tree and cheered on his friends attacking the water being, taking the opportunity to shout some curse words he knew.

  “Hey!” shouted Ghost Thing, raising his hand to block Sally’s backpack attacks. “Cut it out!”

  “Go back to your home planet!” shouted Brennan as he rapped his shoe off of Ghost’s legs.

  “This here’s a demon!” said Sally. “We gotta vanquish him!”

  Well, this was a problem. Ghost Thing would have assumed a group of kids would run for the hills if a water elemental appeared in front of him but he was wrong. They were feisty. Ghost didn’t know how to handle that. He could hurt them, but they were just kids in the end, even if they were picking on someone smaller than themselves, they didn’t deserve to get smacked by Ghost’s watery hand.

  But... water... hand. Ghost remembered he could fire water out of his body like a hose. While the children attacked him like a mob killing Frankenstein’s monster, Ghost reached out his hand at Gabe and let water surge out of his palm, erupting a spray like a pop bottle going off.

  “Ah!” screamed Gabe as he dropped the branch and covered his face to shield himself from the hosing.

  Ghost fanned his arm across the crowd of kids and they all got a good dousing. They were quick to back off, yelping at the sudden splash in their faces. The water elemental smiled. He got the kids good. Their faces were dripping wet with Ghost’s indignant soaking. Sally had to take off her glasses to dry them on her sleeve.

  Brennan checked his coat, the collar drenched. “Aw, man! You got my coat wet!” He shook it. “Yo-o-ou su-u-u-uck!”

  Justice had been done, but then Ghost realized being covered in water, in October temperatures; if they remained in the chilly outdoors too long, they could have gotten colds!

  “You’ve learned your lesson,” said Ghost Thing, nodding authoritatively. “Now go home... and dry up. Think about what you did. And get dry.”

  “Man, forget you!” said Brennan.

  “I’m not following orders from some wet martian!” said Sally, checking her backpack to see if it was fine.

  The kids’ lip was really getting to Ghost Thing, so he scowled and barked at the lot of them. “You go home and get dry now!”

  Brennan and his bullies booked it. They ran down the street, shouting things to each other that Ghost Thing couldn’t hear. They were leaving the area, though, and that’s what Ghost wanted. He turned to Reggie. The small boy looked confused, like he didn’t know why a talking water guy would help him ward off bullies. Honestly, who could have blamed him?

  “Are you okay?” asked Ghost Thing.

  “Y-yeah,” said Reggie, very shy to talk to Ghost Thing. “T-thanks.”

  “You better get home, too,” said Ghost Thing.

  Reggie looked up at the sky. “It’s not even curfew! What am I? A baby?”

  Ghost Thing glared at the young one. “Listen, kid, I’ve had enough sass for the night.”

  Reggie sighed, then straightened his backpack. “Okay...”

  He walked off taking a look behind to make sure that he didn’t just imagine a water person coming out of the trees to save him. Nope. The water thing was real. Reggie turned his head back forward and walked down the road. Mom wasn’t going to believe it.

  Philly waited until Reggie was out of sight before he appeared and walked up to Ghost Thing by the fence, the fox carrying the backpack in his mouth. He put the backpack on the ground. The fox said, “That went alright, ya think?”

  “Yeah,” said Ghost Thing. He grinned down at Philly. “Mission accomplished, right?”

  Philly huffed. “Yeah. Correct me if I’m wrong, though–” He stretched a smug smile as big as a boat– “but did you call yourself Ghost Thing back there?”

  The water boy’s face dropped. “M-maybe. By accident.”

  Philly tittered. “Suuuuure. Nice technique by the way. It’s been awhile since I saw you spray someone.”

  Ghost looked at his palm, wiggling his fingers. “Yeah, I can do that. I should remember that.” He looked up. “We done here?”

  Philly nodded so the fox hopped back into the backpack and Ghost took the pack to his back. Ghost made sure the straps were snug around his shoulders, he took a look back to make sure Philly was cuddled in his foxy seat, and then the water superhero hopped into the trees, leaving Leslieville for the night.