I can't remember which story is supposed to come next

But I'm going to tell the Casper one.

Growing up, my brothers were extremely gullible. I could convince them of just about anything. You can imagine how entertaining this became.

Now, I was not the only person aware of my brothers' naive nature. My best friend and neighbor Katie Bluhm (mentioned in earlier stories) also enjoyed messing with Kevin and Anthony. One day when we were 10, we got together and came up with a brilliant plan--a story that carried on for YEARS before my brothers questioned its validity. This was the story of Casper.

As you can probably guess, Casper was a friendly ghost. A friendly ghost, we told my brothers, that happened to live in our basement. To travel to Casper's "world," Katie and I would stand in the closet and shake the doors for about 30 seconds. Then, still standing in the closet, we would audibly converse with Casper and friends while my brothers listened in amazement.

Unfortunately for Kevin and Anthony, you had to be 10 years old to visit Casper. Crazy, right? They ate that shit up. At the time, Kevin was 8 and Anthony was 4. Both were eager to turn 10 and meet our ghost friends. This went on for TWO YEARS. I'm not exaggerating.

Funny thing is, the day Kevin turned 10 the age to enter Casper's world changed to 12. Kevin was extremely disappointed, as it now seemed he would never get the chance to talk to the ghost that had lived in our basement for the last couple of years. Neither of my brothers ever questioned the inconsistencies in our story. They accepted EVERYTHING.

One day we told Kevin and Anthony that the ghosts in Casper's world were upset, and we wanted to leave the house to get away from them. Katie and I went out the back door and walked to Sarah's house (another girl in the neighborhood). Kevin and Anthony saw us leave. They didn't, however, see us come back and climb down the window well into my basement.

My brothers, curious of course after the tale we had told them, decided to investigate. They started to head down the stairs into my basement, but before they could reach the bottom they heard strange sounds coming from the closet (in which Katie and I were hiding). We banged on the doors, threw things...it was most excellent. My brothers were scared shitless. They ran upstairs and cried to my mother, who told them they were being ridiculous. Meanwhile, Katie and I climbed back out of the window well and walked in my back door, pretending to return from Sarah's house. Wonderful timing. Kevin and Anthony completely bought it.

We didn't tell them the truth for another year or so, when they both insisted that they knew all along.