“BOO!” 

I jumped. I couldn’t help myself. The mysterious voice bellowing from behind me just wasn’t possible. I mean, I’d only just barely gotten back from a visit to FOB Field, and all I was doing at this moment was looking out the window in my new bedroom. Nobody had been in the room at all ten seconds ago when I’d walked over to the window, so there was absolutely no reason to expect anybody to talk to me, let alone holler at me. I instantly froze in place. 

“Son of a gun!” the voice continued, “You can actually hear me. Nobody has ever jumped before, not in a hundred years.” 

I didn’t like the way that sounded. A hundred years was a mighty long time, and this guy didn’t sound that old. I was starting to get a suspicion what was happening here, and it wasn’t making me happy. I decided to remain frozen to see if the voice would go away. No such luck. The unknown person was in the mood to keep talking. 

“Son, I am sorry to have scared you. That was not my intent, but after all these years I gave up all hope of anybody ever hearing me. I quit being polite a long time ago. I must say I am awfully glad to meet you. Gol-dern it, I’m almighty glad to meet anybody from the world of the living who has your power.” 

                Uh-oh! Those words confirmed my worst fears. I was dealing with a spirit, a ghost, a non-living creature, and it caused goose pimples to spread all over my body (Even the bottoms of my feet. How weird is that?)

                Oh sure, this spirit sounded friendly enough, but that was of no real comfort. I’ve seen a few ghost movies in my time, and the one thing I’ve learned is the friendly specter usually only remains nice while it is amusing itself. Once it gets tired of playing games it suddenly rips you to shreds, and the mess it makes is just horrible.  

That thought brought an unhappy vision to my mind. Mom is something of a neat freak, and I knew she’d have a fit as soon as she came home and saw the shambles the ghost had made of my room. I could just see her going around the house yelling for me to, “Clean up your room this instant, young man!” and I wondered how long it would take her to realize I hadn’t made the mess in my room, I was the mess in my room. 

I made up my mind I’d go to the courthouse on Monday and apply for a private investigator's license. In the meantime, I got out all my old detective comics, plus some of dad's old mystery novels, and then I spent the rest the day reading through them studying how P.I's talked.  

I found it was real easy stuff to pick up. Guns were called gats and rods; bad guys were called thugs and rats, and women had a wide variety of interesting nicknames. They were referred to as dames, dolls, tomatoes, cookies, and, my own personal favorite, cupcakes. Boy howdy, this was fun. Good thing, too. I knew if I was going to be a real detective, I'd have to know how to talk the way they did, and the fact the words were fun made them easier to learn.  

I also discovered I needed another name change. As cool as the name Cruncher was, it still lacked a little oomph. For a guy with my qualities the name would require a special-something added to it to make you think ‘private eye’ as soon as you heard it. The addition of the name Joe solved the problem. It gave me exactly the tough-guy type name I needed, and it was easy for any client to remember. Joe Cruncher, private eye; yeah, that had a real good ring to it.  

After school Monday I went down to the city courthouse and headed straight to the licensing department. However, things there didn’t go as easily as I had hoped. The dame behind the counter gave me a bunch of lip. Said I was too young to be any kind of a detective, and then she told me I’d better stop calling her “doll” or she'd issue me a dog license. 

   I needed to show this dog who was boss, and this was too good an opportunity to let pass. He had tried to eat me, and he was preventing me from solving the case. Therefore, he had to be dealt with. Oh, sure, he had won the first round, but what he didn't know was I was packing heat. Round Two was absolutely going to be mine. I took out my trusty slingshot, and a walnut, then I loaded up.
   However, make no mistake, what I was about to do was a special case; I would never do this to an ordinary dog. Yet, let's face it, this particular dog-like creature was definitely not ordinary. As a matter of fact, if he was anything at all it was pure evil. I felt no guilt whatsoever about dishing out some justice to this menace. 

    I slowly drew the band of my sling shot back to my elbow, sighted in on his backside, and at this point I felt a stupid need to start giggling. I didn’t want a fit of laughter to mess up my aim, so I quickly let the walnut fly.

    Bull’s-eye! That walnut hit him so hard it shattered into smithereens.

    "Take that, Rover," I softly chuckled.

    I'd laughed too soon. For all the effect the walnut had, I might as well have shot him with a spit wad. Fido didn't even budge. He just kept chewing this big, old rawhide bone. Clearly, this was no ordinary dog.



    There were three bedrooms upstairs: one big one and two smaller ones. I decided the big one was the place to start. I spent several minutes in this bedroom pounding the floor and all the walls. Then I crawled on my hands and knees in its closet, looking for loose floorboards.

    I was right in the middle of wondering if this house also had a ghost, and, if so, was it as friendly as Robert, when something, or someone, fell right on top of me. I merely gave a slight grunt and jumped out from under it. My reflexes are in tiptop shape, so the object barely even touched me before I was safely on my feet.

    I stood there in the hallway a few moments catching my breath and wondering what the object had been, a dead body or something, when a sudden thought struck me. "What am I doing in the hallway?" I’d been in the bedroom closet a couple seconds ago. Heck, I couldn't even remember leaving the bedroom.

Believe it or not, thinking about the box of doughnuts in that way gave me strength. Their very presence made me feel as if I was now protected by a magnificent chocolate shield. I swear I almost detected an invisible force field emanating from these delicacies. In my mind they had stopped being mere pastries. I now considered them “Doughnuts of most dreadful power”. As I headed to her house I was bold, I was fearless, I was a valiant knight venturing forth upon a great crusade of the heart, and I was armed with a mighty talisman capable of ensuring I would successfully fulfill my gallant quest.

I marched heroically all the way to the door of Andrea’s house and it was there the stupid talisman suddenly lost its effectiveness. I’m ashamed to admit this, but my normally calm demeanor simply evaporated. I was so overcome with anxiety I couldn’t even push the doorbell.

What happened to my bold? Where was my fearless? It had all completely vanished! Oh no, these doughnuts of formerly dreadful power had inexplicably let me down, and I found myself feeling entirely defenseless. The only power I could now wield successfully was power puke! 

With much despair I realized that particular weapon system had just been initiated. Worse, I was absolutely certain it was loaded to maximum capacity. I know there’s no such a thing as a worser worse, but that’s the only way to accurately describe the next serious problem. Not only was my Barf Bazooka currently activated and fully loaded, but mine was an extremely dangerous “Point and Shoot” weapon system, and it had a hair trigger! I would merely have to look at a target area, say the enemy flowerbed skulking beside the porch, and I could instantly bury it.

I was actually turning that way, totally prepared to wipe out some treacherous posies and carnations in a horrible tidal wave, when the front door suddenly opened.