As we see here, Liz is able to rotate her head like an owl and be afraid of the titular ghost behind her. Also, an Aloha shirt is appropriate After-Christmas Scary-Story wear (in California, sure). (This story takes place after Christmas, which is probably Christmas #2 or 3 in the series. Not sure why Christmas is needed to start the story, except to indicate that the carnival comes to town on winter break. Later, the scary stories took place around Halloween, properly.)
When I read this originally, I thought the creepy carnival and the fortune teller (who wasn't creepy in the book, they just thought she was) were more interesting than the boring ghost (who didn't even have a proper back story and was "evil" for no good reason*), so I made my character Piper (the witch from Books #1 and 2) the fortune teller. She and Tobias, who poses as her assistant (who is creepy, but not in child-molester way, natch**), haunt the carnival with the help of some vampire characters created by my childhood best friend, who hold the twins in their thrall, instead of the emotional-abuser ghost controlling Elizabeth. Ghosts are boring in SVT, anyway. (and the Super Chillers were mostly Ghosts, alas). At the end Liz has to point out that vampires are too sexy for books with a fourth-grade reading level, haha (they never did vampires in SVT, only ghosts, curses, Haunted Burial Ground, "Magic" (Haunted) Pen, and Evil Halloween Mask from a Dog's Mouth).***
*also she died on a Ferris wheel before they were even invented, AHAHAHA. bad research skills, ghostwriter!
**It's surprising, when I go back and read these books, how many times there was a "creepy" adult and I didn't think much of it, because I was a kid. Like the books were saying, don't worry your pretty little head about this character, because the twins Always Use Good Judgement (or are fictional characters, so they have a kind of immunity to danger). Snort. Although in Super Chiller #6, The Curse of the Golden Heart, there were TWO creepy males. One of them turned out to be a scuba instructor/ cursed ghost (everyone knows, ghosts are eunuchs, so he wouldn't have tried anything), and the other was just after the treasure (of course there's a treasure). The latter one, the twins met alone on a pier and then were like, maybe we shouldn't have done it that way. Ya think? Luckily Nothing Bad Happened because they are the main characters and it wasn't in the plot.
***Oh, and Fake Zombie Girl Who Didn't Age for 25 years and Mysteriously Haunted Our Dreams.
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