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It had taken far too long for the spotted rhinocerous to come along and distract me from the novel, but when it did, I found myself alone. The dining hall was dead silent, and the remains of a horrible food fight lay on the ground. Somewhere in the distance I heard a large amount of high-pitched screaming and splat sounds, so I bounded to my feet and into the hall. It seemed I had read far through the night and into another day.

As I walked quickly down the hallway (I always walk quickly) the screaming and squealing got louder. It sounded as though  the other CBers were having an enormous amount of fun without me, and I was feeling very dejected. I sped up, eager to take part in the fun. 

Suddenly, I turned a corner to see an unripe cantaloupe smash into the side of Air's head and fall to the ground. Air collapsed, lifeless, and I turned back around and dry heaved. Then I made sure I really had witnessed a death, and felt so ill that I didn't bother going to the wailing and mourning lessons. Instead, I ran into the nearest CBer's room and hid under the light fixture n the ceiling. (The rooms are upside down, if you forgot.)

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Come on, come on, lift up…!

~Curio~

Air is gone. I suppose I'll have to get used to that, but it's hard, even on the Tiny where everything is illogical, distracting, and hilarious. Air's death may be the one thing so far that was not funny to whoever is recording this for posterity. If there even is anyone recording this for posterity. I return to my room, more than a bit shaken (both by Air's murder and by the unexpected test of an earthquake machine), to find BookWizard sobbing softly underneath my light fixture. It has decided to be a Louis XIV chandelier today, complete with real candles, which is why BookWizard's hair is looking a little singed. I crawl underneath myself, consoling her and offering her a cup of hot Earl Gray tea. 

Three cheers if you get the reference!!!!

Fandora's Pedora – wait, that's not right. Fedora's Pandora! Botheration, that's wrong too. Um . . . Gobbledygookbingbangbongblagobbledygook! Okay, one more time.

Pandora's Fedora has struck again! Much better. Now, to continue the story! Who is today's victim? Who is the murderer? Where is my breakfast? All these questions! Will the answers ever be revealed? MWAHAHAHA!!!!

Oops, I meant to say: what a lovely day it is today! Nothing but pink unicorns and bright fluffy rainbows! No evildoers lurking up my sleeves, I can assure you! Everything is happy in Ba-Boo Land!

-The Ominous

"It was a dark and stormy…um….early afternoon. The unsuspecting CBers were on a ghost hunt! They snuck through the dark corridors, whispering quietly to each other and blinding each other every other minute with their flashlights. Suddenly, they heard a loud creaking noise, right behind them. They all whirled around, and there it was!"

Amy paused for a minute to add dramatic effect. The other CBers leaned forward, the flames of the campfire casting strange shadows on their faces. The fire popped and crackled, burning through another layer of my delicate wood flooring, and browning the banana-flavoured marshmallows that they were roasting over the fire.

"Go on! What did they see?" Maplesyrup asked eagerly, nibbling on a pancake covered with marshmallows.

Amy frowned. "Let me think!" A loud creak sounded from down the hallway. Amy continued. "There it was, shrouded in darkness and silhouetted against the bright, ghostly light that glowed through the doorway. It was–"

The door swung open with a bang. There it was, shrouded in darkness and silhouetted against the bright, ghostly light that glowed through the doorway. It stepped forward into the light.

"Hello darlings! Would anyone like some roasted prunes?" An old lady hobbled into the light of the campfire, smiling jovially.

Everyone gasped in astonishment, and BookWizard almost fainted.

"W-who are y-you!" Everinne finally managed to stammer out. "A-and what d-do you want? You nearly scared us half t-to death!"

The old lady frowned. "You want a ref? What are you doing, playing hockey?"

Let's back up a little bit, and I'll tell you how the CBers came to be roasting banana-flavoured marshmallows around a campfire that was beginning to burn me so much that I was contemplating dumping a bucket of water on it labelled "Fires Cause Ships Pain, You Know!" Anyways, courtesy of Yours Truly, all the lights had turned off at once. The CBers had been telling scary stories to each other all morning, and it was finally Amy's turn. Then the old lady came in, and…I'll just continue from there.

"No, you nearly scared us half to death!" Magic Dragon said slowly, loudly enounciating every word.

"Oh. I see! I'm Beatrice. Uh, what's death? I forget a lot of things, you know." The old lady looked puzzled, but still grinned kindly at the CBers. Suddenly, she shrieked and jumped almost out of her old shoes. Then she quickly hobbled back out the door, giggling maniacally in fear.

The CBers looked at each other nervously. "What scared her?" Book Wizard asked, to no one in particular.

No one knew the answer.

"Maybe she's just crazy?" Brookeira suggested, after an awkward, scared silence.

Bookbug suddenly started singing to the tune of the Ghostbusters song, "When's there's something deranged! On the nice cruise ship! Who ya gonna call? 911!"

"Good idea! I'll just go see if Aldo has a phone we can steal!" Indigo ran off.

Captainread reached into her pocket and pulled out the banana that Bookbug had been holding when she'd appeared the very first day. "I wonder if this thing makes phone calls, as well as pretending to be a gun?" She punched in random numbers on the banana-machine, and suddenly it began ringing. A metallic voice rang out of the banana. "This is 911! What is the stasis of your emergency? Would you like a firetruck, an ambulance, or a police helicopter? Or maybe you'd like our new, antique, double-ended vase! Going once, going twice, BRIIING! The double-ended vase was sold to the two-headed president of the galaxy for 24 crumpets!"

Indigo ran in, yelling, "Everyone! The old lady's in the kitchen! She's got Aldo's phone and she's calling 911 herself!"

Cheesy music was playing out of the banana-machine, and suddenly Beatrice's wavery voice came up, sounding tinny through the banana-machine. "I'd like to bid five-thousand cantaloupes on the helicopter, please!"

The metallic sales-man's voice replied, "Anyone else going to bid more than five-thousand cantaloupes on this a-maz-ing police helicopter? No one? Going once, going twice, BRIING! Sold to an old lady somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean!"

Danie gasped dramatically. "We're in the Atlantic? I thought this was a Mediterannean cruise! At the very least, we can't be further north than the Pacific!"

Madeline grinned. "Oh, the horror! How could you have been so wrong!"

"Let's go get that old lady!" yelled Forrest.

"I don't think this is the right time to go old-lady hunting! Let's go ghost-hunting instead!" said John F.Q.

"It is too the right time! This is the only time that there's gonna be an old lady on this ship anyways, so it's the only time to go old-lady hunting!"

"No it isn't!"

"Yes it is!"

"Okay, NOW it's the right time. Let's go get her!"

I took my cue from this, and procured for the CBers full-out gear for a hunting expedition. They had it all: hounds, horses, riding top hats, dusty monocles, hunting waistcoats, and bushy moustaches. Need I go on?

Within minutes, they were all charging down the corridors on their horses. The hounds howled and raced ahead, soon catching the old-lady's scent. The carpets had obligingly become green and grassy, and the CBers knocked down the paintings with their riding whips as they charged by. It was all very top-hole and spiffingly British.

"Tally-ho!" yelled Masked Piester, with a sudden upper-class British accent that quite contradicted her bedraggled appearance.

"She can't be far ahead now, if I do say so myself!" said Curio.

"Tut tut, of course you do say so yourself. Who else would have said it, eh what?" admonished Everinne, who was grinning wildly.

"View Halloo! The old lady's in sight!" The hound who was in the lead (his name was Charlie) said, his accent even more refined than MP's.

"Oh, isn't this just brilliant? Fantastically top-hole, old friend!" said the dog at the back (her name was Frederick, for some unknown reason), and she barked and howled gleefully.

Beatrice heard the galloping rumpus just as the CBers wre about to trample her, and she looked up, confused, and bumbled out of the way, looking dazed. The hounds and horses charged past, and then turned around (it was a very tight squeeze to get the horses around) and went in for another charge at her. This time, Beatrice simply grinned, snapped her fingers, and grabbed onto a very Tarzan-ish vine that dropped through the ceiling just as the ceiling exploded. She drifted upwards, clinging to the vine, and waved her fingers at the CBers. "Toodle-oo! By the way, it was a spider that made me flee to the kitchen."

Everyone looked upwards, and saw a large police helicopter, all sirens blaring, with murals of swooping birds of prey painted on its sides. Bells rang, horses neighed, hounds howled and barked, and the sirens blared louder than ever. It was all a cacophony of beautifully horrible sounds, don't you think? Personally though, my ears (not that ships have ears, but metaphorically, you know) are still hurting.

And then, it was all over. Silence. This silence was almost more deafening than the previous uproar of hullaballoo-ness. A small mouse scurried out of the corner, holding a tiny sign with the words, "Down with silence!"

Another mouse (who seemed to have stolen MP's bushy moustache) raced across the corridor after it, holding a sign that said, "Hear hear!"

The silence was broken by the sound of the Ghostbusters' theme song, and all the CBers sprang into action. "Let's go ghost-hunting!"

They all started singing Bookbug's variation: "When's there's something deranged! On the nice cruise ship! Who ya gonna call? 911!" and they ran through the corridors, looking everywhere for a ghost.

The only suspicious thing they found was a neon green ooze, which may or may not have been the last night's leftover pudding. While they were examining it, George came up behind them and smiled kindly. "What might you be doing?"

"Oh, we're just wondering what this green ooze is. Do you think it's ghost residue?" asked Winter Firefly.

"I don't know, I can't say I've ever seen a ghost on board this ship. I think there's some sort of shield that prevents it aboard the RMS Tiny, you know." George answered.

Disappointed, the CBers turned back to look at the ooze. Squeak was about to touch it, when he suddenly had an idea. "George, do you know what ghosts like to eat?"

There was no answer. They all turned to look at where George had been standing, but he was nowhere in sight. A tapestry on the opposite wall was swinging ever so gently.

Before the CBers could investigate, tap-dance music started playing out of nowhere, and Danie suddenly spotted a slightly transparent penguin tap-dancing.The penguin started singing: "My name is Roderigo! It was measle-pox that killed me! I was down by the docks, and throwing rocks! My story may seem lame, to those young dames, but it's as true as me name. So there!" The penguin bowed and hopped away around a corner. The CBers followed, yelling, "It's a ghost! Follow it!"

They came around a corner, and there was the penguin, sitting on top of a stone statue of a knight.

Suddenly, the statue moved, lifted up it's visor, and…

BOO!

Amy jumped, clutched at her heart dramatically, and yelled, "Roderigo! Save me!" Then she fell to the floor, which turned out to have been the spot where the CBers campfire had been, and fell through my horribly frail, burnt floor. A splash came from below, and the bright light of my corpse-teleporters could be seen even from where the other CBers stood. 

Far away on the other side of me, the teleporters transported Amy's body to the engine room, where Glennis stood, looking crazed and ready to incinerate someone.

The same cheerfully robotic voice clicked into existence. "It seems that our weeping and moaning lessons have gotten more expensive, but tht's nothing to worry about, because we have a new bonus! For every minute you spend learning how to weep and moan, you get a dollar's worth of free phsyciatric lessons! The murderer's special bonus is an all-free lesson with the most experienced murderers in history! Don't worry, most of them were accidental flops, so the murderer won't learn too much! Rest in Peace, Amy. Rest in Peace." 

Dream:

Sigh. Dreams are so boring. I wonder why Roderigo didn't save me. I belive it was because he was a ghost. But then again, there can't be any ghosts on the ship, so……

Now I'll never be able to finish my ghost story! Ah, well, I forgot the end of it anyways. I will miss you all! (not.) Please come to the lessons! Now we all hate penguins! (You will go after Roderigo, right? But, on second thought, don't. He was my long-lost love from long, long ago…..

Spiffingly done, Ominous! My British accent was top-hole and jolly accurate! Can't wait to find out who the murderer is, what what?