“Alright, Mr. Schultz, here’s the address of your new assignment,” the case manager said as he handed over the piece of paper. A picture of the residence was attached. A quick glance was all the agent needed to figure out the scenario.
          “Let me guess; a suburban, white, nuclear family. The father’s all: ‘this move will be good for us’, yadda yadda yadda…” Mr. Schultz groaned as he rolled his eyes.
          “Yeah, well, there’s one more thing I have to tell you. Come on in,” the manager requested. Mr. Schultz followed his gaze and turned around in his chair to watch the young boy walk through the doorway. He was noticeably nervous, and wrung his hands while he averted his gaze. “This is your new apprentice.”
          “Hello,” the boy mumbled. The manager walked over and put his hand on the recruit’s shoulder.
           “He’s fresh, so you’ll have to show him the ropes.”
It was always a shame to see someone die so young. He still hadn’t gotten the hang of presenting himself properly, and even the other ghosts could see through to the door behind him. That would be the first thing to work on during training.
          “Hi Charlie, I'm Robert Schultz. I'll be your mentor for your first haunting.” He held out his hand and the boy hesitated to shake it, as if he was afraid his hand would phase right through. If he was going to scare that family into leaving the house, there was still a ways to go.
…
          The boy and his mentor arrived in front of the house at midday to take over the previous ghost’s shift. “Remember what I told you about transformation,” Robert pointed out as the older ghost floated through the window of the house. The boy nodded.
          “You two are handling the next family, right? Do you have a picture of the originally deceased?” the ghost inquired.
          “Yes. We’re all set to go.” Robert handed over an old, black-and-white portrait of a young woman’s face to Charlie and the boy stared at it intently. Then he lifted it up and compared the photo to the ghost. They matched perfectly. As he looked on, her face started to morph back into her original visage, and she winked at the amazed little boy with one wrinkled eye. The old lady smiled and floated past them.
          “I'll be on my way, then.” Robert waited until the apprentice turned back around and showed him the transformation process.
           “First you focus on the face really hard, then try to visualize yourself as this person. You have to really get in the zone…” he trailed off as an intense look of concentration crossed his face. “And there you have it!” he exclaimed as his face wavered and shifted into the exact image of the previous ghost and the photo. It wasn’t until the next day that the family arrived.
          “First, we start out small. Maybe move around some books or make the lights flicker. Then we start slamming doors and making loud sounds. They should be out before we have to do anything too drastic.” He looked towards the little boy. “Don’t worry, I have a feeling these folks will be out in less than a month.”