Ann Swann was born in the small West Texas town of Lamesa. She grew up much like Stevie-girl in The Phantoms series, though she never got up the nerve to enter the haunted house.
Ann has done everything from answering 911 Emergency calls to teaching elementary school. She lives in Texas with her husband, Dude, a rescue cat named Oscar, and a part-time box turtle named Piggy.
When she’s not writing, Ann is reading. Her to-be-read list has grown so large it has taken on a life of its own. She calls it Herman.
Stevie asks Jase to help her find out why the ghost of a girl keeps appearing in her mirror. They think it has something to do with the new student at their school, a boy who has Tourette syndrome. Both the boy and the phantom seem to need some kind of help. All is revealed when the new kid falls prey to the school bullies.
Will Stevie and Jase be too late, or will a tragic moment in their school's history be repeated on Halloween night?
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Snippet:
Mrs. Flint took a deep breath. She’d tried to prepare us, but maybe that was part of the problem. We could sense her uncertainty and it transferred to us as if by electrical current. “Class,” she said. “This is Derol Pavey. He is the new student I told you about from The Philippines.”
Ahhh, so that explained it. Not only did the kid suffer from something called Tourette syndrome, he also suffered the dreaded curse of being from “somewhere else.” His skin was a dusky bronze color and his night-black hair was shiny and razor-straight.
He peered at us from eyes almost as black as his hair and then the oddest thing happened. His left arm flew up and he barked like a hoarse dog. Rarf. Rarf.
Mrs. Flint grabbed his arm as if to hold it in place, but that only made his other arm fly up. His notebook hit the floor and popped open scattering loose-leaf paper everywhere.
Susan Jansen and Juanita Silva were in their customary front row seats. They immediately jumped up and began to gather the paper. They attempted to stuff it back into the sprung clasps of the blue canvas-covered notebook, but Derol, still barking, suddenly began to pirouette like a stout canine ballerina. Mrs. Flint was dragged around in a circle a time or two before she got wise and turned loose of his arm, but it was too late. The class was in tatters, some giggled, others gasped in shock, and some of us simply sat in stunned and silent disbelief.
