The Ghost and the Goth

  With a grimace, I looked up and met Brewster’s gaze. His dark eyes shone with amusement and eagerness. He was playing a game.

  “He wins if you react,” she said. “Haven’t you ever had a parent pull this kind of crap on you?”

  No, I hadn’t. My mother, emotional and overwrought as she could be, could never direct her emotions in such a manipulative manner, and my dad … well, he had too much going on as it was to mess with my mind. But it certainly gave me even more insight into Alona’s home life. Scary.

  “Very well, Mr. Killian. We’re honored you could join us once again today.” Brewster leaned in a little closer. “You will, however, serve two days of in-school suspension under my supervision for your attitude and mouthing off yesterday in my office. And”—he smiled—“there is the small matter of your tardiness this morning.”

  “I have a note,” I protested.

  “It says nothing about being late here.” He turned the note from my mother over, pretending to look for additional writing.

  “You want another note?” I asked dully. This being cooperative was far more exhausting than simply beating his face in.

  He tucked his hands behind his back and rocked forward on his toes. “I think a detention would serve nicely as punishment, don’t you?”

  An extra hour in this hellhole? “I think you’re full of—”

  Alona jabbed me sharply in the ribs, and I flinched. “Buttons,” she hissed.

  Brewster watched me with a raised eyebrow.

  “Fine, detention. Whatever,” I mumbled.

  “Good.” He nodded sharply. “After you.” He pivoted and extended his arm toward the school in a sweeping gesture.

  I swallowed back a sigh and started toward the building again. I hated doing anything, though, that seemed like his idea or his request.

  “See?” Alona whispered in my ear. “That wasn’t so—”

  “Before I forget, Mr. Killian,” Brewster said behind me, “I must compliment you on your … interesting taste in music.”

  I froze.

  “I expected much more screaming and thrashing about, but Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, and Pachelbel? Not exactly stars of the MTV today.”

  First of all, it was MTV2 today. They don’t even play music on MTV, and it’s not “the” MTV. Second, he’d been listening to my iPod? Marcie’s clean white earbuds had been in his crusty old man ear holes?

  Clenching my fists, I started to turn. Brewster maybe would get his fondest wish of kicking me out. It would be worth it to hit him just once. To feel his jaw collide with my knuckles and know that the resulting bruise on my hand would be a trophy worth showing off.

  Alona was whispering something frantically in my ear. “… Falling right into his trap. God, you’re terrible at this. Don’t you have any self-control?”

  “Say something nice,” I said to her automatically.

  “What did you say?” Brewster drew up even with me, frowning.

  “Oh, for crying out loud,” Alona muttered. “Fine. I think you’re doing the right thing, standing up for yourself against a bully, but this is a game and you have to learn to play by the rules if you want to win.”

  Technically, I wasn’t sure if that counted as something nice given that she was still criticizing me… .

  As if reading my thoughts, she continued, in a rather grumpy tone. “Your eyes aren’t nearly as creepy-looking as I first thought they were. They’re kinda … nice.”

  “Gee, thanks,” I said.

  “What?” Brewster was starting to sound a little annoyed. “Mr. Killian—”

  “I said, you said something nice. Thanks for that,” I improvised. It was close enough to what I’d actually said that he probably wouldn’t catch it, and throwing him off his game even just this little bit had dramatically reduced the urge to hit him. Or maybe it wasn’t just throwing Brewster off, but also what Alona had said. “Kinda nice” from the Queen of Put-downs and Dirty Looks was practically a song of praise.

  Brewster looked taken aback.

  “I’ll burn you a CD if you want,” I offered, just to watch him squirm.

  His mouth worked silently for a long moment as he stared at me. Before he could pull himself together enough to lecture me on federal laws regarding unauthorized copying of music, Jesse McGovern’s car sped past us into the parking lot, throwing up bits of gravel and a huge cloud of dust as he spun into one of the last remaining parking spaces.

  Brewster’s mouth snapped shut, and he stalked off toward Jesse without another word.

  “Not too shabby for a beginner,” Alona observed near my shoulder, the ends of her silky hair brushing my arm.

  “Thanks.” I stood still, hoping foolishly that she’d stay close, but she glided away, just as smooth and graceful as she’d been in life. “That was the easy part.”

  She frowned. “What do you mean?”

  I pointed to the front doors of the school, where even from this distance, I could see a crowd gathering. A flash of a pink dress, the dull gleam of a mop bucket being pushed toward the front, an early-eighties Afro standing several inches above the heads of the rest … no question who was waiting for me, even if I wasn’t close enough to see their faces.

  “Oh, them.” Alona waved her hand dismissively. “I can handle them.”

  I raised an eyebrow at her. “Without being cruel?”

  Her shoulders sagged. “But I’m doing a nice thing by helping you out… .”

  I shook my head. “If you want to risk it …”

  She gave an exaggerated sigh. “All right, all right. Keep them away from you and not be mean to them.” She rested her hands on her hips and tossed her hair back. “I mean, how hard can it be? I was elected homecoming queen three times, you know. Winning people over comes naturally to me.”

  Right. I should be prepared to run, just in case.

  “Ready?” Killian asked under his breath as we reached the sidewalk leading to the main doors.

  “Sure.” I rolled my eyes. He was acting like we were going to war, or something. Whatever. Unless Killian’s dad showed up all dark, twisted, and shadowy again, in which case all bets were off, they were just people. Dead people, but still. I am a people person. Let’s face it, you can’t win popularity contests—which is pretty much what high school is from orientation to graduation—if you don’t know how to work the crowd.

  Speaking of which, the crowd was now headed this way, swarming through the doors—literally walking through the glass and metal, of course—shouting and clamoring for Killian.

  “Here we go,” he said under his breath.

  The spirits surrounded him, elbowing and shouldering me back out of their way.

  “Watch it,” I protested, but I doubted anyone even heard me. The noise was unbelievable. All these voices, yelling and pleading, at once.

  “You came back. I told you he would—”

  “Never said he wouldn’t.”

  “One small favor. Please you have to—”

  “My granddaughter needs to know that her mother—”

  I realized I could no longer see Killian in the middle of all of them. They’d swallowed him up.

  “Hey,” I tried. Shouting at them had worked yesterday. “Hey, dead people.” The girl in the fugly pink polka-dot prom dress tossed me a dirty look over her shoulder, but no one else even seemed to notice me.

  This could be a problem.

  I must confess, I’m not exactly used to being ignored. So, I may have gone a little overboard.

  Ducking my head, I pushed my way through the crowd, ignoring all the grunts of pain and shouts of protest as I stepped on feet and my elbows connected with rib cages. Killian stood dead center, his shoulders hunched and his eyes closed, looking like he was praying for someone to save him. Well, I didn’t know anything about that, but I knew that I would not stand for these loser-y types pushing me around. Killian shouldn’t have either, not when he had something they wanted. He should have been the one in control, for God’s sake
, but whatever. He couldn’t take care of himself, so that left me room to do it for him while he helped me. Everybody wins, I guess.

  I spun around to face most of them, putting my back against Killian’s. He stiffened for a second before evidently figuring out it was me. “All right, listen up, freaks.”

  “Freaks? What does she mean by—”

  “—Suffering from delusions of grandeur.”

  “Just ignore her. She doesn’t have any say here.”

  This last bit was from my friend, the creepy janitor, who actually tried to shove me away from Killian while he was talking.

  “Oh, no, you don’t.” I slapped at his hands. “Killian is mine. Mine, mine, mine. You want something from him, you come to me, first.”

  Then the weirdest thing happened. As soon as the words left my mouth, all the ghosts ...er, spirits, froze up. They just went totally stiff, no pun intended. Then this blast of wind came out of nowhere and knocked them all back, like they were dresses on a rack. They hovered, wobbling in the wind, about three feet back from us.

  I shivered, but the wind didn’t move me. “What is going on?”

  Killian didn’t answer.

  I elbowed him in the back, and he grunted. “Ouch!”

  “I asked you a question. Open your eyes and tell me what’s going on.”

  His back moved against mine as he straightened up and looked around. He drew in a sharp breath. “That is so …”

  “Weird? Freaky? Utterly random?” I tossed adjectives at him, hoping to keep him talking and explain what we were looking at.

  “I don’t know,” he said finally. “I’ve never seen anything like this before. Except …” He paused.

  “Oh, my God,” I snapped, “talking to you is like pulling a backflip into the splits.”

  “What?”

  “Awkward, painful, and not particularly useful in a routine.” I spun around to face him. “Except what?”

  “Yesterday,” he said slowly. “In the hallway. When you got them to back off …”

  I frowned, trying to remember. “Yeah, you’re right. This weird breeze totally kicked up from nowhere, but it wasn’t anything like this.” I waved my hand at the stiffened stiffs.

  “What did you say?”

  I stared at him. “I said, what happened yesterday wasn’t anything like—”

  “No, I mean, what did you say yesterday when it happened?” Killian looked like a man with an idea.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t remember. ‘Hey, you dead people, back off ’?”

  He looked around as if expecting a wind, but nothing happened. He sighed. “What did you say today? Do you remember that?” he asked with some sarcasm.

  I made a face at him. “Bite me.”

  “I’m serious. What did you say?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Nothing special. You were right there. You heard me.”

  “Just …”

  “All right, all right. I said that they’d have to come through me to get to you.”

  A light wind kicked up again, blowing Killian’s hair back from his face. I held my breath, waiting for it to toss me away like the others, but the air simply flowed around me.

  “That is so cool,” he murmured. He looked at me, his pale eyes lit with delight.

  I folded my arms across my chest, taking in the frozen faces with a shiver. “Don’t thank me yet. What does it mean?”

  He shook his head, turning in a circle to see them all. “I don’t know. I think it might—”

  “Second thoughts, Mr. Killian?”

  We both spun around to find Brewster striding up the sidewalk, a sullen Jesse McGovern in tow.

  “Shit,” Killian muttered. Then in a louder voice, “No, sir, Mr. Brewster.” He looked over at me with a questioning glance.

  “What?” I shrugged. “My work here is done. They aren’t going to bother you. Ever again, it looks like.” I frowned. “So, go to class or suspension or whatever. Find me when you’re done, and you can teach me more stuff.”

  “You sure?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. At the same time, Brewster, now a few feet from us, asked, “Sure of what, Mr. Killian?”

  Killian gritted his teeth and started toward the building.

  Oddly enough, I felt a little … sad to see him go. Now that he wasn’t being quite so annoying and trying to run away from me, it was kind of nice to have him around, a relief to be not so alone anymore. Even if it was with weird Will Killian. He hadn’t even made me feel bad about what he’d seen at my house.

  I edged around the frozen spirits to park myself on one of the wooden benches in the Circle. There was something just a little creepy about standing there by myself in the middle of all of them. Like they were just waiting for something to happen and …

  The doors clanked shut behind Killian, and a ripple spread across the spirit crowd. One by one, they broke free of whatever had been holding them … and they all turned toward me. Some of them seemed, perhaps, a little angry. The creepy janitor guy was actually cracking his knuckles in anticipation.

  I stood up, surprised to find my knees shaking. Hmmm. “You have to come through me to get to him,” I said quickly.

  But … no strange wind, no freezing in place.

  “Gladly,” the janitor said, advancing toward me.

  I threw my hands up to cover my face and gave a much too girlie shriek. Though, if I’d had a chance to think about it, I would have wondered what they could do to me. I mean, I was already dead.

  “What,” a disgusted female voice spoke up, “are you doing?”

  I lowered my hands slowly and found them all forming a line, some of them pushing and shoving, but nonetheless, a line with me at the head of it. The polka-dot princess was second behind the janitor and leaning out around him to stare at me.

  “Well … what are you doing?” This seemed a reasonable question to ask.

  She frowned at me. “Would you rather we take numbers?”

  “Huh?”

  “No question,” the janitor said, “this one is as stupid as she looks.”

  “Hey!”

  “Look, honey …” The young man I’d seen in the hallway yesterday with Will, the one in the old-fashioned blue military uniform, stepped out of line. “Save my spot,” he said over his shoulder to a young guy wearing a short stubby tie over his white dress shirt, before he walked toward me. A few boos emanated from the back of the line, but he waved them away. “I ain’t cutting. I’m just trying to help her. All of you shut up.”

  He turned to me. “Sweetheart, we all heard you. We have to come through you to get to him.” His voice held tinges of a New York accent, but he looked familiar… .

  He must have seen me trying to place him, because he offered his hand for a handshake. “Robert Brewster the first.”

  I shook his hand automatically. “Brewster as in Principal Brewster?” If the principal was being haunted, that would go a long way in explaining his pissy mood.

  He beamed. “That’s my boy.”

  “Your son?”

  He frowned at me. “My grandson.” He waved a hand at his uniform. “This is World War II. Can’t you tell how old … Oh, forget it. You young people have no sense of history.” He shook his head.

  I shrugged.

  “None of that’s my point anyway. This is. You volunteered to be his guide, so you tell us how you want to hear from us.”

  I stared at him. “I don’t … I don’t understand.”

  “Told you. Stupid,” the janitor muttered.

  “That’s enough out of you,” Grandpa Brewster said over his shoulder, and the janitor shut up immediately. Then he turned back to me. “Look, I’m sure you’re a real nice girl and you got no idea what you got yourself into back there, but you’re not leaving us any choices or helping us out at all.”

  “Sorry?” I offered, still having no idea what he was talking about.

  He let out a deep sigh. “Okay, look, let’s just start at the beginning.
”

  Someone in line groaned.

  “Just shut up,” he shouted at them. He rolled his eyes at me. “So impatient, you wouldn’t think they was already dead, right?”

  I nodded. It seemed the best thing to do.

  “So here it is … We’re all dead and we all have last requests. You with me so far?”

  I nodded again.

  “There are things that maybe are holding us here, keeping us from moving into the light.”

  “Maybe?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “We don’t really know. We’re guessing.”

  “Okay,” I said slowly. Seemed like kind of a bad thing to guess about, but whatever. I wasn’t doing much better.

  “Anyway, it’s pretty rare to find one among the living who can hear and see us, like your boy Will.”

  “He’s not my boy,” I protested, and immediately sensed a sudden rise in tension. I looked and found all of them staring at me, as if I were on the verge of denying something important. Shoot. “Okay, he’s mine, like in the ‘he helps me, I help him’ way, but not in the boyfriend/girlfriend way.”

  Grandpa Brewster shook his head like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Whatever. Point is, you claimed him. He’s yours. So, if we want him to do something for us, we got to go through you. Plain and simple.”

  “Go through as in …”

  “The line, sweetheart.” He gestured impatiently to the spirits standing behind him. “We’ll all wait for our turn to tell you what we need him to do for us, and then you tell him.” He shook his head. “God almighty, I’m beginning to think that bus scrambled your brains into eternity.”

  “Told you,” the janitor muttered.

  “Wait, wait.” I held up my hand. “I don’t understand.”

  “What a shock,” the janitor said, a little louder.

  I switched my attention to him. “You, move to the back of the line.”

  His mouth fell open in protest. “You can’t do that.”

  “She can and she just did,” Grandpa Brewster pointed out. “Move it.”

  Muttering under his breath, the janitor stuffed his hands in his pockets and slouched his way toward the end of the line.