“It’s in Lisa’s head that she is super-special,” Brook said. “She feels entitled, like we’re all peons here and she is a higher being. Nobody likes being treated that way.”

“Does she get picked on?” I asked.

Barka shrugged again. “Nothing too bad. She doesn’t get invited to hang out. Nobody wants to sit with her at lunch. But that’s just pure self-defense, because she doesn’t listen to whatever you have to say. She just waits to tell you about her special parents. I guess she finally got her powers.”

“Did she get them about the time Ashlyn disappeared?”

“Yeah.” Barka grimaced. “Then she started sensing Ashlyn’s presence everywhere. Who knows, maybe Ashlyn is really dead.”

“Location spell says she is alive. Besides, there is no such thing as ghosts,” I told them.

“And you’re an authority on ghosts?” Brook asked.

“Trust me on this.”

Ghosts might be better. I had this sick little feeling in my stomach that said this was something bad. Something really bad.

I could call Kate and ask her what would cause the magic of two different colors to show up. The colors weren’t blended or flowing into one another the way Kate’s colors did. They were distinct. Separate. Together but not mixing.

Ehhh. There was some sort of answer at the end of that thought, but I couldn’t figure it out.

Calling Kate wouldn’t be happening. This was my little mission and I would get it done on my own.

I tried to think like Kate. She always said that people were the key to any mystery. Someone somehow did something that caused Ashlyn to hide and Lisa really didn’t want me to keep looking for her. “Did Ashlyn have a best friend?”

Brook paused. “She and Sheila hung out sometimes, but mostly she kept to herself.”

“Can we go talk to Sheila?”

Brook heaved a long-suffering sigh. “Sure.”

“You’re leaving? In that case, Brook, hold this for me for a second.” Barka stuck the pen he’d been rolling between his fingers at Brook. She took it. Bright light sparked and Brook dropped the pen and shook her hand.

Barka guffawed.

“Moron!” Brook’s eyes shone with a dangerous glint behind her glasses. She marched out of the class. I followed her.

We went down the hallway toward the staircase.

“He likes you,” I said.

“Yeah, sure,” Brook growled.

Sheila turned out to be the exact opposite of Ashlyn. Where Ashlyn’s picture showed a petite cutesy girly-girl, Sheila was muscular. Not manly, but really cut. We caught her in the locker room, just as she was going out to play volleyball. It’s not often you see a girl with a six-pack.

She sat on a wooden bench by the small wooden room inside the locker room that said sauna on it. I wondered what the heck sauna meant. It was a first-class locker room; the floor was tile, three showers, two bathrooms, “sauna,” large lockers. The clean tile smelled faintly of pine. Special locker room for special snowflakes.