“Why?” I ask immediately. “What did he say?”
“Nothing,” she says. And then she gets busy fiddling with the bottom of her shirt.
“Ellie,” I say, taking a deep breath and putting my hands on my hips. “What. Did. He. Say?”
“Well, I didn’t hear him say anything,” she says, “but he told Kyle that you’ve been acting weird lately.”
“I can’t believe he said that,” I say. I haven’t been acting weird! I mean, just because I keep asking him about the color green, and just because he caught me talking to myself a couple of times, and just because I went to a gymnastics meet where I wasn’t actually friends with anyone on the team, that doesn’t mean that Brandon has to jump to all sorts of conclusions.
“Well, no offense, Kendall, but you have been acting kind of strange lately.” Ellie looks at me. “Talking to yourself, being on edge all the time. What are you so nervous about? Does it have to do with your dad and Cindy?”
“My dad and Cindy?” Why would Ellie think it has anything to do with them?
“Yeah. Is it weird that they’re getting so close?” She lowers her voice a little, because it’s almost time for the bell to ring for homeroom, and the hall’s getting pretty crowded. I guess she doesn’t want anyone to hear.
God, Ellie’s such a good friend. My stomach flips, and I think about how badly I wish I could just tell her about the ghosts. But instead I just say, “My dad and Cindy aren’t getting close.” Which is kind of true and kind of not. I mean, they’re not, like, dating or anything. But I guess they are kind of getting close in the sense that they’re . . . well, hanging out a lot. Cindy was over until really late on Saturday night. Not to mention their secret pot roast dinner.
“Okay,” Ellie says. But she says it more like, Oh, look. Kendall’s in denial about her dad and Cindy, instead of like she actually believes me. And then I realize that this is a chance for me to be resourceful.
So I hang my head and say, “Actually, Ellie, you’re right. It could definitely be about my dad and Cindy. It’s just really hard, you know, my dad hanging out with her, especially since I’ve never even really known my mom.” Ellie reaches out and squeezes my arm, and I feel horrible for lying to her. But I can’t have her thinking I’m some kind of lunatic.
“It’s going to be fine,” Ellie says. “I promise.”
“Yeah,” I say. But I’m not so sure.
• • •
Brandon is kind of . . . distant in school. He’s not exactly unfriendly, but he’s also not really friendly either. He’s nice. And polite. But he was definitely a lot nicer to me before he came over to my house and caught me on the floor under my table, talking to myself and acting crazy.
A breakdown of our interactions in math:
ME: Hi, Brandon.
BRANDON: Hi, Kendall. (Smiles, but then sits in his seat and faces forward, effectively ending the conversation.)
ME (not giving up): Sorry about that dinner. My dad’s not usually so overbearing. (Lie, lie, lie.)
BRANDON: It was fine. (He turns around and smiles again when he says this, but I can tell that it’s not really that fine. His smile doesn’t reach his eyes, and his tone sounds strained.) I had fun.
ME (knowing that he’s lying): Yeah, well, I’d love a chance to make it up to you. (Random side note: I cannot believe I said that. I somehow morphed into crazy forward dating girl. But I couldn’t help it! I like him! And why should the fact that I see ghosts and that my dad’s a little overprotective wreck that for me? Isn’t that like some kind of discrimination or something?)
BRANDON: Yeah, definitely. I’m kind of busy this week, but I’ll text you.
ME (knowing when someone’s blowing me off): Oh, okay. Cool.
In the halls between third and fourth, passing by each other:
BRANDON: Hi.
ME: Hi.
At lunch:
KYLE: Kendall, are you going to eat your bologna sandwich?
ME (slightly miserable): No, take it.
KYLE (starts to eat sandwich): This is delicious. Did your dad make it?
ME: No. I did.
(Ellie gives pointed look to Kyle.)
KYLE (slows down eating, then wipes his mouth): Thank you so much, Kendall. I really appreciate you sharing your sandwich with me.
BRANDON (packing up the rest of his lunch): So, I should get down to Mr. Jacobi’s room. I need to ask him a question about math club.
ME: I didn’t know you were going to be in math club.
BRANDON: I’m not. I mean, I can’t, because of baseball. The math club has most of their meets in the spring. But Mr. Jacobi wants me to, so I have to talk to him about it.
ME: Oh.
(Brandon leaves, and I have to spend the rest of lunch with Ellie and Kyle holding hands and making goo-goo eyes at each other. Ugh.)
• • •
“You’re not going to just give up that easily, are you?” Daniella yells. It’s later that afternoon, and she’s in my closet, looking at all my clothes. “You need to get a cute outfit on and go after him! Get him back! Right this instant! Come on, let’s go!”
“Daniella, I don’t even know where he is,” I say. “And besides, even if I did, I can’t stalk him like that.”
“It’s not stalking,” she says. “It’s like that time when Lewis Marchone thought he didn’t want to take me to the junior prom because I was a freshman. He just needed a little convincing.” She nods emphatically, probably remembering some crazy stunt she pulled to get him to ask her.
“You went to the junior prom with a boy named Lewis?”
“Shut up,” she says. “You should wear your black skirt with your white—” And then suddenly her face goes pale. “Oh my God,” she says, and her hands fly up to her face. “I just remembered something.”
“What now?” I’m so not in the mood to deal with this. In fact, if I’m being completely honest, I’m starting to wonder if I should even really be talking to Daniella. Like, at all. Now that I’m in seventh grade and this whole talking-to-ghosts thing is starting to interfere with my social life, I’m beginning to think it might be time to retire. I want the ghosts to be able to move on, I really do, but I’ve been helping them for years, and I can’t just give up my entire life for them. At some point I have to start looking out for myself.
“We . . .” She falls down to the floor. “We buried something. In the cemetery.”
“I know,” I say. “And we’ve been through this. I can’t just go around digging up the cemetery.” The more I thought about it, the more I started to think that digging up the cemetery was so not a good idea. I mean, it would have been one thing if Ellie had agreed to help. Then we could have pretended it was some kind of fun adventure. But after seeing her reaction, I realized what a completely dumb idea it is. I really don’t need to get arrested.
“Not ‘dig up,’ ” Daniella says. “We probably didn’t dig all that deep. We just probably dug a little bit down and then dropped whatever it was into the ground.” She bites her lip. “It was something shiny. Something important. If you found it, I know Jen would believe that you and I were friends.”
“I don’t have a shovel,” I say. It’s true. Even if I wanted to dig up the cemetery (which I don’t), I don’t have the proper tools.
“Your dad does.”
“How do you know?”
“Kendall, I’ve been all over your house.” She rolls her eyes, like she can’t believe how naïve I am.
“That’s creepy,” I say, imagining her floating all around the house while we sleep at night, checking out all our things. At least she can’t touch anything. Or turn the pages of my notebooks.
“And seeing ghosts isn’t?”
“Good point.”
“Commme oonn,” she says. She throws herself down onto my bedroom floor dramatically. “Don’t you want to get rid of me?”
“Another good point. However, digging up the cemetery is illegal.”
“It is?” She
bites her lip and bats her eyelashes at me.
“Yes,” I say, turning back to my computer. “And while that look might have worked on Lewis, it isn’t going to work on me. We are not digging up the cemetery.”
“But they bury people there! How can digging be so wrong?”
“Yeah, they bury people there, but you can’t just go around digging things up yourself.” I swivel back around on my desk chair and look at her, my eyes wide. “Besides, what if we were digging and we dug up some bones?” How scary would that be? Ghosts are one thing. Their remains are another. I shiver, imagining all kinds of decaying bones and skulls caked with dirt.
“We won’t dig up any bones,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Jen and I didn’t. I’d remember something as traumatic as that, for sure.”
“But you and Jen were digging somewhere you knew,” I say. “You want me to just go and start digging up the land in random places. Random places that could have skeletons.”
“We’ll stay away from the graves,” she says, like it’s that easy.
“Oh, right,” I say. “Good idea. But what if the graves are wrong? Like, what if back in the 1800s or something they didn’t mark them right? Or what if they’ve had so many bodies since then that now they just, like, I don’t know, double-bury them, and when we bring our shovel out there, we’re going to be digging and then all of a sudden we’ll hit on something and we’ll—”
“Kendall!”
“Okay, fine,” I grumble. “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll try to dig something up at the cemetery tomorrow.”
“Yay!”
“But you need to stay away from me and Brandon while I’m trying to see if we still have a chance.”
“Deal,” she says. Now I just need to come up with some kind of brilliant plan to see if Brandon and I do have a chance.
Chapter
13
“Okay,” Ellie says the next morning. We’re standing outside of school on the sidewalk in front of the buses. She puts her hands on my shoulders and looks me in the eye. “Do you remember what we talked about?”
“Yes,” I say. “I’m going to go in there and be completely normal whenever I see Brandon.”
“Completely normal,” she says. “No thinking about your dad and Cindy.”
“No thinking about my dad and Cindy,” I agree. Which will be easy, because obviously I’m not even thinking about my dad and Cindy. And it will be easy to be normal, because Daniella is sticking to her promise, and she has stayed away. I don’t know how long that will last, but for now it’s good. I’m totally determined not to get all anxious and nervous. “How do I look?” I ask Ellie.
I do a little twirl. I’m wearing a pair of black skinny jeans, a black and white striped top, black shoes with a low heel, and for a touch of color I borrowed this really amazing shimmery red scarf from Ellie, which I’ve wrapped around my neck in a very cool way. My hair is in a side pony, and I have face shimmer brushed across my cheeks, and the perfect amount of lip gloss on my lips.
“You look amazing,” she says. “Now let’s go find the boys.”
The boys are leaning against Ellie’s locker, so we don’t actually even have that far to go. It’s so cute that Kyle is waiting for her, the way boyfriends do. And it’s just a plus that Brandon’s there, keeping Kyle company.
It’s still so weird, thinking that Ellie has a boyfriend. I never thought she’d have a boyfriend. She loved going through crushes like they were nothing. And I never thought the person who would make her stop doing that would be Kyle. I guess love really is blind.
Although, if that’s true . . . does that mean Brandon doesn’t like me that much? Because if he did, wouldn’t he accept the fact that I’m a little, uh, quirky and just be like, “Oh, that’s just Kendall, ha-ha, I really like her so much”?
“Hi, boys,” Ellie says. Wow. She sounded very flirty when she said that. I might need to start taking lessons from her. I copy the way she’s standing, with one foot angled toward her locker.
“Hey,” Brandon says.
“Hi,” Kyle says. He leans in and brushes his lips against Ellie’s, and then they both blush bright red. God, those two are so cute together!
“What are you doing?” Ellie asks.
“Waiting for you,” Kyle says. Wow. I guess he’s been working on his flirting skills too.
“Um, I have to get to homeroom,” Brandon says.
I shoot Ellie a panicked look. How am I supposed to practice being normal and keeping control of my nerves if Brandon is avoiding me? Luckily, Ellie saves the day. “Wait!” she yells. Brandon looks startled. “Um, I mean,” Ellie says, lowering her voice, “before you go, I was wondering if you guys wanted to go ice-skating this afternoon.”
“Ice-skating?” Brandon asks.
“Ice-skating?” Kyle asks.
“Ice-skating?” I ask. I know of no such ice-skating plan. Why didn’t Ellie bring this up when we were coming up with our strategy earlier? I can’t go ice-skating today. I have to dig up the cemetery.
“Yeah, ice-skating,” Ellie says, elbowing me. “It’ll be fun. They have open skate at the Walden Rink at four o’clock.”
“I’m in,” Kyle says. “I haven’t skated in forever.”
I look at Brandon. Brandon looks at me. I don’t want to say that I want to go, because then what if he says he’s not going? Then not only will I know that he doesn’t want to go because I’m going, but I’ll be stuck going with Ellie and Kyle, and then I’ll be the third-wheel loser who couldn’t get a date.
“Bran?” Kyle asks. “My mom can probably drive you.”
Brandon hesitates and I hold my breath. And then he finally says, “Yeah, okay. I’ll go.”
My breath comes rushing out of my in one big whoosh. “Me too.”
Daniella will just have to deal.
• • •
But Daniella is not, um, really that good at dealing.
“You’re doing what?” she screeches at the end of the day. I’m at my locker, loading up my bag with the books I need for my homework tonight.
“I’m going ice-skating with Ellie and Kyle and Brandon,” I say. “Daniella, I had to! It’s my only chance to make Brandon see that I’m not a total freak with a father who wants to kill him if he even looks at me.”
“But this is my only chance to move on!” She puts her hands on her hips and stamps her foot. “Moving on trumps dating drama.”
“No, it doesn’t,” I say, “and it’s not your only chance. Don’t be so dramatic. Anyway, it’s probably going to take forever to dig up whatever magical item it is you think is going to help you.”
“That’s not true,” she says, glaring at me. “And even if it is going to take forever, then the sooner we get started, the better.”
I’m walking down the hall now, toward the front door of the school, where Kyle’s mom is picking us all up and driving us to the ice-skating rink. My dad’s going to drive us home, which could definitely be awkward, but I’ll deal with that when it happens.
“Look,” I say, “I’m sorry, but I have a life too. You can’t just come in here and disrupt things, thinking I’m going to drop everything to—”
“I think,” she says, cutting me off, “that me getting out of limbo or wherever it is that I’m stuck is a little more important than your dumb middle school romance. And besides, we had a deal.”
“It’s not a dumb romance,” I say, “and just fyi, you’re being pretty mean. You don’t rule my life, Daniella. And if you keep acting like you do, you might have to find someone else to help you move on.”
This must really make her mad, because she disappears. And then I do feel kind of bad, because we did have a deal. I’m about to call her name and see if she’ll come back, but then Brandon is standing behind me.
“Hey,” he says, looking around, “who were you talking to?”
• • •
Okay, so that was a little bit awkward. I mean, I’m supposed to be convincing Brandon that I’m no
rmal, not that I’m even crazier than he first thought. So I told him that I’m going to be in the school play and that I was practicing my monologue. And then he said that he didn’t even know there was going to be a school play, and so then I told him I didn’t either but at some point there would be, and I wanted to be prepared.
“Ellie,” I whisper as we walk down the sidewalk toward Kyle’s mom’s car. “When we get in the car, make sure you mention how I’ve always wanted to be an actress.”
“What?” Ellie’s eyes are about to bug out of her head, probably because the last time I tried to be an actress was in second grade when we did the Christmas play and I ran off the stage in the middle of the performance because I had such bad stage fright.
“Just do it,” I say as we all pile into Kyle’s mom’s car. Kyle sits in front. And me, Ellie, and Brandon sit in the back, with Brandon in the middle.
“So how are you doing with working toward your dream of becoming an actress?” Ellie asks once we’ve said hello to Kyle’s mom and we’re pulling out onto the highway.
“Very good,” I say, nodding. “I’m going to be trying out for the school play.”
“What school play?” Ellie asks. I shoot her a look. “Oh, right, the school play that’s coming up soon.”
“I want to be in the play!” Kyle says. I didn’t even know he was listening.
“Kyle, you have enough extracurricular activities,” his mom says. “You need to focus on your grades.”
“That’s true,” I say. “Grades are more important. Besides, I’m not exactly sure when the auditions are. I just, uh, heard some teachers talking and saying that they’re going to be coming up soon.”
“Kendall’s working on her monologue,” Brandon explains.
Ellie’s eyes pop open really wide. “Your monologue?”
“Yes,” I say, “I have to do a monologue. You know, at the audition.”
“I used to love preparing monologues,” Kyle’s mom says. “It’s so exciting, being up there on the stage all by yourself with the spotlight on you!” She sighs, like she’s thinking about fond memories. Probably because her monologues were real and not fake.