Prunella and the Haunted Locker

Prunella and the Haunted Locker is the second half of 8th of Season 13. It originally aired on April 7, 2010 with "Fernlets by Fern."

Summary
Prunella is assigned a new school locker, which is rumored to be haunted by "Little Jack Murphy". Prunella has to learn how to be brave and face her fears.

Plot
The episode starts off as a game show called Face Your Fear, hosted by Brain. There are three contestants ( Buster, D.W.,  Prunella), and the objective is to state your worst fear and face it on camera. A fear-o-meter then judges your reaction on a scale of one to ten. Buster goes first, stating his fear of poached eggs. A covered platter suddenly lowers from the ceiling and Buster screams a 7.5, but he ends up finishing them. D.W. is next, fearing a made up creature (half octopus, half kitten). Brain says her fear is fake, and he walks away leaving her to think of another fear. Then Brain leads Prunella to a backstage curtain covering her fear. The curtain opens and Prunella screams loud enough to break the fear-o-meter. Her greatest fear turns out to be a normal school locker. Buster ends the introduction by saying, "You'll see why".

Prunella and the Haunted Locker

Prunella goes to school one morning and notices that her locker door is missing. Principal Haney explains that it has to be repaired and she'll be using locker number 237 temporarily until hers is fixed. Fern overhears this and tells Prunella a story about locker 237's haunted owner: a Lakewood student from the 1950s named Jack Murphy, who's smelly locker gave him bad luck and eventually made him disappear. Prunella tells Fern she doesn't believe the story and she goes to the locker anyway. Locker 237 stands alone at the back of a maintenance hallway. It looks extremely old and dirty, but Prunella puts her stuff in it anyway, scoffing at Fern's story.

At recess that day, Prunella collects a popsicle stick from Buster for her shop project due tomorrow: a model of the Eiffel tower. Francine suddenly jumps in to get a picture of Prunella for a story about the haunted locker in the school newspaper. Prunella storms off, angry at Francine for believing the story. After school that day, Prunella notices that her temporary locker smells like onions, but she pretends she just imagined it and heads home. Marina helps Prunella with her shop project that afternoon, but Prunella stops working and starts to worry about the haunted locker. She asks her crystal ball if any bad luck will come because of it but knocks the ball over, wrecking the popsicle tower.

Shop class is cancelled the next day, and Prunella is very upset because she had to stay up late to repair her project. When she gets to locker 237, she smells cabbage and hears laughing. Prunella starts to get nervous about the locker and decides not to store her popsicle tower in it. She carries the project with her all day and various mishaps crush it because it's not protected.

At home that night, Prunella gets a call from Francine. Francine no longer believes Fern's story because she found what she thinks is 237's original owner: a boy from the 1970s named Jay Mayberry. Prunella is initially relieved, but gets worried when the school records say that Jay only attended the school for one year. She has a dream that night about locker 237 coming alive and eating her and her wood project, but Marina convinces Prunella to ignore it and face her fear the next morning. Yet, the locker smells like apple pie and Prunella hears more voices. She nervously asks what the ghost wants and hears "more salt!" as a reply. Confused, Prunella discovers a vent behind locker 237 that leads to the school kitchens. She talks to Mrs. MacGrady and realizes she was just hearing voices from and smelling the food of the kitchen.

Francine updates her story, now titled "Prunella Unlocks Haunted Locker Mystery". It makes the front page of the paper and forces Fern to finally reveal that she made up the story and the name Jack Murphy.

Trivia

 * Arthur doesn't appear in this episode.
 * This episode marks the final appearance made by Marina. Marina was never seen in Seasons 14, 15, and so far the first half of Season 16 (subject to change pending future seasons/episodes).