♪ Demons come from every side ♪
♪ In the darkness is the light ♪
♪ Out of the shadows of my life ♪
♪ In the darkness is the light ♪
♪ Surrender will win the fight ♪
♪ This girl's walked on fire and ice ♪
♪ But I come out On the other side of ♪
♪ Paradise ♪
OK, first book we're going to be reading this semester is The Old Man and the Sea.
It's one of Hemingway's most well-known novels...
Hi. Uh, sorry I'm late. I'm transferring from Composition class.
OK, Miss Thelen. Find a desk and sit down.
Uh... There is no desk.
Ah...
OK. Then go down to the storage room and ask Bud to bring a desk up.
OK.
[woman] OK, next on our list is Brave New World...
[Annie] Bud?
Mr. Bud?
Bud?
[children singing]
[singing stops]
-[desk clattering] -[gasps]
[Annie] We all know about ghosts.
Some people have even seen them, while others hope they never do.
I hoped I would never see a ghost, either, but that was before I met Eddie.
Annie, the only strange thing down in the furnace room is Bud.
He works in a school and hates kids. How strange is that?
Well, he's sure going to hate that kid. He's a ghost, I'm telling you, Jack.
Annie, this morning, you were wanting to be accepted by everyone.
This afternoon, you're talking about ghosts.
I don't think that's part of the "how to fit in" rules.
Well, I can't just pretend I didn't see it.
[chuckles] Come on.
Actually, I think I'm just going to hang out here for a while.
Annie...
What?
OK, suit yourself.
Later.
[car horn honking]
[Jack] Hey! -[Clu laughing]
Hey, man. Hey.
When did you get back from college?
Dude, I just got in today. I'm back for a couple of weeks.
-[Jack] Sweet. -Yeah, yeah.
So, hey, how's Annie?
Oh, fine, except for she's seeing ghosts in the school.
Cool. Doing the Fi thing, huh?
I told her there's no such thing as ghosts. I don't know...
Hey, when you see her, you tell her, too.
I can't do that, Jack.
That would be diminishing her opinion in favor of my own,
for which no empirical evidence exists.
Philosophy major.
Right. How are your studies going, Clu?
Well, Jack, I could give you my subjective view on that,
but I fear that you're more interested in the objective societal standard,
which I believe does not tell the whole story.
So, like, a "C" average?
It's not about grades, Jack.
Guys? Any time.
[Clu] Yeah.
[Casey and Clu groan]
[Annie] Eddie.
Eddie J...
[Bud] Hey!
What are you doing down here?
Just... getting a desk for English class.
-Who are you? -[Annie] Annie Thelen.
-[Bud] What grade? -Ninth grade.
You already got your desk. Ms. James sent me a note.
Oh. Thanks.
Do you know anything about this old desk?
No.
Because I'm pretty sure I saw a ghost sitting in it.
There ain't no such thing as ghosts,
and even if there were,
there ain't no such thing as haunted desks.
-Well, yeah, but -[Bud] "Well, yeah, but..."
You kids, you never stop.
Just keep on and on and on.
Can't leave well enough alone.
Can't leave people alone.
In any case, I'm retiring in two days.
From then on, it'll be good riddance to you all.
I think I should go now.
I think you should.
Right.
-Thanks. -[Clu sighs]
So...
Ghosts...
Incomplete souls yearning to finish that left undone,
to fulfill the heart left unfilled,
to catch the wave...
uncaught.
-You... You believe? -Oh, a hundred per, yeah.
A ghost is just a soul without a body.
I mean...
If you can have a body that's without a life,
why not a life that's without a body?
Yeah.
Why not?
Philosophy thing.
-Rocks, huh? -Rocks.
Be true to yourself, fellow traveler.
OK.
Bud?
Edward?
[Annie sighs]
Look, Eddie...
A friend of mine said to me that ghosts...
You know, like you...
No offense.,,
That you're incomplete.
That you yearn for something.
Did you leave anything unfinished, Eddie?
[children singing]
OK. OK, OK, OK.
[singing continues]
[Annie] I'm sorry.
Wait.
Eddie?
This cannot be good.
Clu, you've just got to help me.
It's not that I don't want to help you, Annie. It's just that I...
You said you believed in ghosts.
OK, well, while I did say that on a semantic level,
it would nonetheless imply
an artificial structure around my belief system,
which encompasses all modes of belief...
Or, wait, wait... Non-belief.
Clu, it's not like I'm asking you to do something terrible here.
Annie, it's...
What... what are you doing?
All right, Annie, I'll be honest.
Last year when I was here, I sort of had an incident of my own.
OK, what sort of incident?
A Home Ec incident.
Home Ec? You mean like cooking and sewing and stuff?
Hey, guys can take Home Ec. Those are useful skills.
[Annie] What happened?
Well, uh, it's a long story.
It started out with baking a cake.
-It ended with... -A half a dozen fire trucks.
-Whoa. -Yeah.
I don't think Mrs. Farfanella's totally gotten over it.
Clu, please. OK, Eddie is in there right now,
and if you don't help me, something terrible could happen.
Annie, I can't.
That would be like asking me to stand in the stream of inevitability...
Clu!
[Clu groans]
Do you want to eat at the cafeteria?
Maybe.
Wednesday...
-Fish sticks. -Fish sticks.
You'll never guess who called me last night.
Brandon Adams.
Ew! I know.
[girl 1] I mean, can you believe he actually asked me out?
-He's got... pimples. -[girl 2] Well, he is kind of nice.
Nice?
-Like that makes a difference. -[bell rings]
[indistinct chatter and yelling]
[girl 1] Ew! Help me! Ew...
Get it off! Ew!
Help!
Why, Cluett Bell.
Hello, Mrs. Mansfield.
Has Mrs. Farfanella seen you?
-Uh, no. No, no. - [Mrs. Mansfield] Oh, good.
So have you found a job?
Well, no, actually, I'm in college.
Isn't that...
-Remarkable. -Yeah, yeah, totally, totally,
which is sort of why I'm here.
There's this college, uh, project...
Well, good for you, Cluett. What is it you're studying?
-Philosophy. -Philosophy...
And what is the assignment?
Well, there's this philosophical argument called Dinglemeyer's conundrum,
and, uh, basically, it asks the question,
does someone exist before you meet them,
or does your meeting them cause them to exist?
For instance,
say you were to just, uh... punch any old name into your computer,
Like, you know, say it was Edward or Eddie...
Like, say were to do that...
Like, uh, maybe you should do that.
Hmm.
Over a thousand in the past 50 years.
All right.
Now,
let's say that his last name began with a... J.
-38. -All right. Astonishing, astonishing.
Now, say his middle name began with a B.
I don't understand what this is proving.
You're gonna.
Edward Burton Johnson.
1952.
-Dropped out. -Ah-ha!
Now, here it comes. Are you ready?
Is he dead or alive?
Well, he's definitely not dead.
-How do you know? -[Mrs. Mansfield] I have work to do.
No more horseplay. Just run off to college now.
Oh, and watch out for Mrs. Farfanella.
Thanks, Mrs. Mansfield.
[screaming and crashing]
[Clu] Hi, Mrs. Farfanella.
Hey, Brandon... Buddy.
Mind if I grab a fish stick?
Aww...
Thanks, dude.
[bully laughing]
[kid laughs]
[laughing]
What's going on here?
[Annie] He's not dead?
That's what Mrs. Mansfield says, and she was positive.
So how could he be a ghost, then?
Looks like you'd better find yourself another ghost.
[Clu] If Fi doesn't have an answer, no one does.
[Annie] Annie has a question for Fi.
Tell Fi I say hi.
No time, Clu.
[Clu] There's always time for "hello."
[Annie] "Clu says hi."
"I have a problem, need an answer."
"Hi, Clu." All right!
"Annie, what is your problem?"
"I think I have a ghost of someone who's not dead.
Impossible, right?"
"No, not impossible."
How?
"A doppelganger."
"A ghost..." -[Annie] "...of a living person.
A divided part of a single personality.
A missing piece of a living person."
[Clu] "Only when the doppelganger "and its living person are united
are either whole again."
A missing piece of a living person.
Hey. What's up?
Annie, honey,
if you ever need to talk, I'm always here for you.
I know you think i've been acting weird lately,
but, really, I'm fine.
You don't have to be any one way for me.
The thing is, with all our traveling,
I've always been the new kid wherever we went,
and I'm used to it, really.
I don't even think I'd be happy being part of the crowd.
Well, it seems like a lot of people your age want to be a part of the crowd.
Actually, it seems like a lot of people my age want to be part of the crowd.
[Annie laughs]
Do you ever get the feeling things are never the way you want them?
Yes...
And then... sometimes you discover it's never even what you wanted after all.
What about people...
People who never ever get what they want?
That's a tough one.
I don't know,
but I do know that you are a very kind soul, Annie Thelen.
Where are you going?
To help someone get what they want.
[Annie] So that's just it?
Pack up your stuff and leave after all these years?
No goodbyes?
No goodbyes.
Can you tell me about Edward Johnson?
How... How do you know about Edward?
[Annie] You knew him, didn't you?
Yes.
I remember Eddie.
Poor kid from the wrong side of the tracks.
His mother worked hard all the time.
She did whatever she could to...
dress him in second-hand clothes and send him off to school with...
a peanut butter sandwich in a brown bag.
And at school, all he could look forward to was teasing.
School bully made his life miserable every day.
He couldn't think.
He couldn't study.
He couldn't sleep at night...
And it got worse and worse.
Finally, he dropped out.
Never got his diploma.
Who knows how his life might have been different?
Hey, Bud, will you come with me so I can show you something?
Young lady, just leave me alone. I don't want to see anything more.
You'll want to see this.
It's... it's about eddie.
It's all about Eddie.
Bud?
Would you please come up to the front?
Nice to meet you...
Eddie.
How did you know?
I know what it's like to be an outsider.
I could feel something, I just wasn't sure what.
[man] Bud...
Bud,
for everything you've done for all of us these many years,
students and faculty wish to say thank you
and present you with this honorary Hope Springs High School diploma.
-Ey? -[kid] Yeah!
Here you go. Congratulations.
[cheering]
Well, school isn't going to be the same without you.
Yeah. I mean, we kind of got used to all the... excitement.
Thanks.
We're gonna miss you.
Yeah, but we'll see you when you get back.
-Bye. -[both] Bye.
All right, 25 cities in 8 weeks.
-Is everybody ready? -Yeah!
-Number one? -Captain.
Make it so.
Full speed ahead, Mr. Bell.
Let's rock 'n' roll!