“So what’s the message I’m supposed to be getting?”
“Who knows? It’s about as clear as any fairy-tale riddle. But I’d say there’s something you’re supposed to be remembering. Some door you thought you’d closed, but it turns out you forgot to turn the key.”
“The key,” she repeats.
“I mean, there’s unfinished business happening here,” I say.
“I guess ...”
She sounds unconvinced, and I don’t blame her. I’m not so convinced either.
We sit there on the steps for a while, watching the people go by on the sidewalk below, the pigeons doing their synchronized air show. We finish the apple we’ve been sharing. Imogene sets the core on the ground by her knapsack.
“What if it’s the dead kid?” she finally says.
I’d been going to my new school for a little over three weeks when I realized that someone was watching me— and it wasn’t Ken or Barbie, or any of that crowd of theirs.
Well, really, why would they bother? Sure, they liked to rag on people like me, but it was only when we invaded their sphere of influence. It wasn’t like they needed to go stalking the people they considered to be losers. One or another of us was forever stumbling into their proximity to be tripped or mocked.
No, this was someone else, and I wasn’t imagining it. I have a sixth sense for that kind of thing. I just know where people are, if they’re checking me out, and I never get lost. It’s one of the reasons Jared always hated playing games like hide-and-seek with me. He felt I had an unfair advantage— which, let’s face it, I did.
So anyway, I knew I was being spied on, but for the longest time, I couldn’t get a fix on who it was. That feeling would come to me and I’d turn to look, fast, but there was never anyone there. Or at least no one who seemed to be paying any particular attention to me.
I thought I was losing my touch until, a week or so later, I finally spotted him not too far from my locker, right near the hall to the gym and auditorium.
He was this pale, nerdy guy—sort of like a tall Harry Potter, the way the character is pictured on the books and in the films, you know, with the black glasses and the kind of messy hair, but gawkier and with a narrower face. Actually, Jared insists the image was stolen from a Neil Gaiman comic book, the one about the kid who discovers he’s this great magician—wait a minute, that’s the basic plot of the Harry Potter books, too, isn’t it?
But I digress.
I dumped my math book in my locker and grabbed what I needed for my next class. Closing the door, I gave the combination lock a spin, acted like I was going to go the other way, then quickly turned and headed for my stalker.
He ducked down the hall, and by the time I got to the corner, he’d disappeared. Not poof, disappeared. He just managed to slip off before I could see where he’d gone.
I wanted to ask Maxine about him, but I didn’t see that much of her during the day except for lunch and after school.
It took another week before I spotted him again—while Maxine was with me, I mean. I’d caught glimpses of him, but he always managed to duck away before I could confront him.
“Who’s that?” I asked.
I nodded to where a line of kids were waiting to be served what passed for food in the cafeteria. And Jared was right. The music they piped in here really did suck. But the Barbie girls really seemed to like the old Backstreet Boys song that was playing, at least judging from the way they bobbed their heads to the beat.
“Who’s who?” Maxine replied.
“The tall, pale guy with the Harry Potter glasses?”
“I don’t see a tall, pale guy, with or without glasses.”
I glanced at her, then looked back, but he wasn’t there anymore.
“Though I’m surprised,” she went on. “I would have thought you’d reference Buddy Holly. Or at least Elvis Costello.”
“That’s funny.”
“It wasn’t that funny.”
“No, I mean, funny-strange,” I said. “He’s gone. But where could he have gone? He was right by the end of that line, and it’s too far to the door for him to have slipped out. I only looked away for a second.”
Maxine got an odd look. “You must have seen Ghost.” This was good, I thought. A nickname was a start. “How’d he get the name?” I asked, though I could guess from the way he kept disappearing on me.
“Because he really is a ghost. People have been seeing him for years.”
I waited for a punch line, but it didn’t come.
“You’re kidding,” I said.
“Why would I joke about something like that?”
“I don’t know.”
“If you don’t believe me,” she said, “ask somebody else. Though I should warn you, popular wisdom has it that only losers ever see him.”
“Oh, great.”
Maxine smiled. “I’ve seen him, too.”
“Really?”
“But only once. It was last year.”
“Well, I see him all the time. He’s always lurking around, spying on me.” I sighed. “And now you’re telling me my stalker is a ghost.”
“Sorry.”
“Not your fault.”
I looked around the cafeteria, but I still couldn’t spot him.
“So how’d he die?” I asked when I turned back to Maxine.
“I don’t know the whole story,” she said. “I suppose nobody except Ghost really does.”
“What’s his real name?”
Maxine shook her head. “I’ve never heard him called anything but Ghost.”
“That’s okay,” I said. I could find out. “So what happened?”
“I heard he was like us—got pushed around by other kids—except it was worse for him because everybody ragged on him. Even some of the teachers.”
* * *
That night, while we were making supper—Mom was staying late at the university again—I asked Jared if he’d heard about the ghost haunting our school.
“Yeah, Ben told me about him.”
Ben Sweetland was on the football team, and that didn’t particularly endear him to me at first. But apparently he loved music as much as he did sports, which explained how he and Jared had hooked up. And to be honest, once I got to know him a little bit through Jared, I found myself liking him. He didn’t fit my jock stereotype, but then most people don’t fit their stereotypes. Oh, he had the look, all right, big and strong, but he had a good mind and a sharp, sly wit.
When I asked him how he put up with guys like Brent and Jerry, he just shrugged and said, “There’s always going to be assholes. When I’m around them, I just focus on the team and the game.”
“They piss me off.”
He nodded. “Yeah, I can see how that would happen when you get on the wrong side of them.”
“I don’t want to be on any side of them.”
“So avoid them,” Ben told me. “They’re on the top of the heap right now, but that’s only going to last another couple of years. Then we’re all going to be out of school, and while your life is going to get way better, all they’ll have while they work at some dead-end job is memories of their glory days.”
“They’ll probably all get scholarships.”
Ben shook his head. “We have an okay team, but no one on it’s going to get picked up by any colleges. Why do you think Brent loses his temper so much when we lose a game? He knows football’s his only shot at something better, but he also knows it’s never going to happen for him. Or if he doesn’t, he should.”
You’ve got to admit that’s a pretty astute summing-up for a supposedly dumb jock. But Ben’s always like that. He doesn’t ever seem to have much to say, but when he does, it’s worth a listen. So I was interested in what he knew about Ghost.
“So what’d Ben say about Ghost?” I asked Jared.
He shrugged. “Just that he was this kid who got a really rough time from pretty much everybody at the school. He either jumped or fell off the roof way back in 1998.
”
That was pretty much what Maxine had told me. “What does Ben think really happened?” I asked.
“It happened before he started here, so he didn’t know the kid.”
Jared was cutting up vegetables for the salad we were making. I was in charge of the paella and the dressing for the salad. When he fell silent, I glanced over to see him looking out the kitchen window, but I didn’t think he was taking in the view of the alley that ran behind our building.
“It must’ve been tough on that kid,” he said finally. “Being ragged that badly”
“And it hasn’t stopped for lots of us.”
He glanced at me. “Is Brent still on your case?”
I shook my head. “Only if I happen to run into him, but I’ve been getting pretty good at avoiding all of his crowd.”
“That sucks. Having to tiptoe around people like that. Maybe I should go have a talk with them.”
I shook my head again. We had an agreement: out of the house, we each dealt with our own troubles. We couldn’t interfere unless we were specifically asked. He’d had a “talk” with some bullies back at our old school—this was before I hooked up with Frankie Lee’s crowd and people knew better than to mess with me—and while it had stopped the bullying for that day, a bunch of them got hold of Jared after school and beat him up really badly. They wouldn’t have done that to me—it’s one of the benefits of being a girl. So long as your bullies aren’t other girls, of course, but that’s a whole other story.
Anyway, to keep it short—or at least shortish—that’s when I made him promise not to get involved in my problems unless I specifically asked him to.
“I can deal with it,” I told him.
“Yeah, but you shouldn’t have to.”
“Well, I could always call in some of my old crowd from Tyson to put them in their place.”
Jared got a worried look, not realizing I was joking. But if I were really going to do that, he would have had a reason to be worried. Frankie’s crowd was a rough bunch. I’d been younger than all of them—kind of their mascot is the way Frankie put it—but that didn’t mean they’d let anyone mess with me. With those guys you were either in the gang, or you were against them. If you were in, they’d literally defend you to the death.
“You’re not really thinking of—”Jared began.
I didn’t let him finish. “I was joking.”
“Good.”
“Not that Brent doesn’t deserve being taken down a notch or two.”
“Yeah, but ...”
“I know. Frankie’s idea of a warning is to put you in the hospital.”
“I don’t understand what you ever saw in those guys,” Jared said.
“They treated me like a person.”
He started to say something, then shook his head.
“You’re right,” he said. “I’ll give them that much. They were bad news, but they never walked all over anybody just because that person was weaker than them.”
* * *
When I finally spotted Ghost again, he saw my gaze find him, and this time he made no pretense at being normal. He was standing by a door. Turning toward it, he simply stepped right through and disappeared.
Not this time, I thought.
I hurried over and saw that it was one of the custodian’s storerooms. I gave a quick look around, but no one was paying any particular attention to me, so I tried the knob. When it turned, I opened the door and stepped inside. I closed the door behind me and leaned against it.
It was impossible to see anything in the dark.
“I know you’re in here,” I said, “so you might as well stop hiding.”
I knew no such thing, of course. I’d only seen him come in. If he could walk through solid objects, he could have walked right out the other end of the storeroom and be anywhere by now.
“This is just stupid,” I went on. “Why are you spying on me? What do you want from me?”
Nothing.
“Well, I’m not impressed. I thought it might be interesting to talk to a dead person, but this is about as interesting as watching paint dry. I guess I’ll just—”
I didn’t get to finish.
The door opened behind me and I went sprawling backward, landing hard on the marble floor, my textbooks flying. But that wasn’t the worst of it.
“See?” I heard Jerry Fielder say. “I told you I saw her go in there.”
I looked up to see the crowd I was usually trying to avoid standing around me. Jerry and Brent and some other guys from the team. Valerie and a coterie of her followers.
Brent stepped past me and looked into the storeroom.
By the light cast from the hallway, it was easy to see that there was no one in there. There were just shelves of cleaning supplies, buckets, mops, brooms—pretty much what you’d expect for a custodian’s storeroom.
I sat up and started gathering my books.
“So what were you doing in there, Yuck?” Brent asked.
“Talking to herself,” Jerry said.
“Jeez, what’s a girl have to do to get a little privacy around here?” I said, standing up.
I was trying to play it cool, but I had about as much chance of pulling that off as becoming a supermodel.
“Maybe she was practicing how to dance with a broom,” someone said.
Brent grinned. “Hell, maybe she was riding the broom. Did it feel good, Yuck?”
“Oh, for god’s sake—” I started.
Brent knocked my books out of my hands.
“Keep your smart mouth shut,” he told me. “Remember: better seen than heard.”
I started to collect my books, but one of the guys kicked them further down the hall.
“And better not seen, either,” Brent went on.
Then, laughing, he headed off, the others behind him.
I sighed and collected my books. This was so humiliating. I don’t mind people thinking I’m weird. I’d just rather be the one to decide when I’m being weird.
* * *
Jared came up behind Maxine and me as we were heading home after school.
“So now you’re talking to yourself in broom closets?” Jared asked when he fell in step beside me.
Redding High was a big school, but it never ceased to amaze me how quickly the gossip got around. I’d seen those looks all day—you know, amused at what had happened to me, glad they weren’t at the center of it. I couldn’t get away from it. Maxine had already heard when she joined me at my locker before we left for home. I guess the student body must really have had nothing much going on in their own lives if the graceless doings of a nobody like me could make the rounds so quickly.
“I wasn’t talking to myself,” I told Jared.
“I heard there was no one in there.”
“There wasn’t. I mean, there was, but he vanished.”
Jared gave me a worried look. “What do you mean, ‘he vanished’?”
“I was chasing Ghost,” I said. “Trying to find out why he’s always spying on me.”
“Oh, Imogene,” Maxine said. “Do you think you should?”
And Jared added, “I can’t believe you think he’s for real.” I shrugged. “I’ve seen him. Or at least I see someone spying on me, someone who’s very good at pulling the vanishing act and fits the description of the late, unlamented Ghost. And today I saw him walk right through a closed door—without having to stop to open it,” I added, directing the last comment at Jared.
“Really.”
“Yes, really.”
“So this is like one of those tall tales like Little Bob used to tell back home?”
“I suppose. Except this time I’ve seen the unnatural goings-on.”
“Really.”
“Will you stop saying ‘really,’ ” I told him.
“I’m just trying to—”
“Oh, crap,” I said, spotting a familiar figure coming around the block up ahead. “Keep walking, Maxine, and don’t look back. You don’t know us. You’re not
with us.”
“But—”
“Just do it.”
And then she saw what I’d seen: her mother. And here was I, gloriously decked out in plaid skirt, combat boots, and a raggedy sweater—all visible because I hadn’t closed my calf-length army jacket. But I only had about ten barrettes in my hair. Yeah, like that would make a difference.
Luckily, I don’t think her mother had seen Maxine with us, and Maxine walked briskly toward her, leaving us well behind because I’d stooped to retie a shoelace that hadn’t needed it.
When I stood up, I linked my arm in Jared’s and turned him around so that we were going the other way.
“What’s going on?” he asked, though he did let me lead him away.
“I spotted Maxine’s mom coming around the corner.”
“Oh. Do you think she saw you?”
He knew the whole story of how I was working on letting Maxine have another life than just the one her mother had planned out for her.
“It doesn’t matter,” I told him. “I’m sure I was too far away for her to make out my features, and it’s not like these clothes are the kind she’d expect to see me in.”
“Good save,” he said.
“I hope so.”
When I called Maxine later, she assured me that we’d gotten away with it.
“What was she doing there?” I asked.
“She thought I might be studying at the school library, so she was coming to get me. She’d forgotten to tell me this morning that we were having dinner at my grandparents’ house.”
“How was that?”
“Like it always is. My mom and Grandma staring daggers at each other while talking like they’re not just family but best friends. Grandpa and I pretending not to notice the tension.”
“Sounds horrible.”
“I guess. But I like seeing my grandparents, and at least nobody was yelling or anything.” Before I could think of something to say to that, she added, “You’ve got to stop chasing after Ghost.”
“Why?”
“Well, look what happened to you today.”
“That wasn’t Ghost’s fault. At least not directly.”
“No, but it’s just ... weird.”