Ghost Squad

At Babette’s house, the girls sit anxiously as Babette paces angrily. Finally, she demands to know what they were doing in a cemetery at night. Lucely explains that they were trying to help Mamá Teresa and the fireflies. To the girls’ surprise, Babette knows all about the ghosts: To Lucely, she says, “Who do you think babysat your father when he was your age?” (156).

Lucely describes the spell they intoned and the trouble that followed. Syd hands her grandmother the notebook of spells; Babette finds the folded-up page near the back and reads it. She says only the girls can undo the spell they cast. They should have come to her first, but, now that the trouble has begun, Babette will help them find the counter-spell and “teach you how to catch a ghost” (158).

Babette looks at one of Syd’s ghost-catchers and pronounces it “nothing but a mason jar painted black” (160). She takes them to the secret room behind the bookshelves and retrieves a large book with a set of lighted buttons on it. They return to the library, where she explains the book is a device she built, “the Spectral Master 4000” (161).