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I rolled my eyes and shoved him out the door.

“So,” I said to my grandmother. “You think it'll go okay?”

Silence.

“Bubby?”

Still nothing.

And that's when it occurred to me.
She went with him!

Not that I blamed her. I would have done the same. And at least she could report back on the disaster it was sure to be. But she could have at least said something before she left.

Just as I turned to go plant myself on the couch to wait for Alex, there was a knock at the door.

“Hey, Li. Your dad looked really good tonight,” she said as she pushed past me, her bloated backpack whacking me in the shoulder.

I let out an
oof
and closed the door behind her. “What do you have in your bag?”

She headed right into the den and sat on the couch, bending down to open her backpack. I followed, repeating my question.

Alex looked up at me as though her bag was see-through and I could see for myself what was inside. “Uh, duh, Lilah.” She held up a stack of multicolored pages. “Flyers, of course.”

“Oh yes,” I said. “Of course. Flyers.” I sat down next to her. “Uh, flyers for what, exactly?”

“Oh, Lilah, you can be so clueless sometimes.” She shook her head. “For our new business.”

Oh. Right.

“You did up flyers?” I grabbed the top page, a lime-green sheet, off the pile.

Do you miss a loved one?

Want to know your future?

Wish you could talk to the dead?

Now you can…

JUST $5

FOR A FIFTEEN-MINUTE READING!

Located in the library

—media room 6—

daily at lunch.

“So?” Alex asked, giddy and almost to the point where she was clapping her hands in excitement.

I returned the sheet to the top of the pile. “I
don't know. I can't tell people's future. How can I say that?”

Alex waved me off. “It doesn't matter. People won't care. When they hear their dead Grammy telling them to eat their peas, they'll be so shocked, they'll forget the rest.”

“We could always haunt people,” a boy's voice said. I looked around, knowing even as I did that no one else was in the room.

“Haunt people?” I asked.

Alex blinked. “Can you do that?”

I shook my head. “No, there's someone here who's talking about haunting people. But no, I'm totally not into that.”

“Are you sure?” the boy said. “It could be fun!”

“No,” I said firmly. “Please go away. I'm not going to do that.”

“Humph,”
the boy said. But after a few minutes, he didn't say anything else, so I figured he was gone.

“So,” I said to Alex. “When am I supposed to eat lunch if I'm spending all of my lunch periods doing readings for people?”

She stared at me like
I
was the one being ridiculous.

“I just don't know, Alex. I'm really not comfortable with this. You know, the flyers and everything. I was
thinking if we were going to do this, it would be a little more low-key.”

“I thought you wanted to help people?”

“I do,” I said. “But it's just… this is a lot to take in. Maybe later, once I'm more used to it, you know?”

Alex seemed to get it. “Okay, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to push you. I was just hoping to start making some money so we could start our band.”

“Well, have our babysitting certificates, why don't you make up some flyers for
that
, and we can put those around the neighborhood?”

Alex scrunched up her face. “Babysitting is not glamorous. Being a
medium
is glamorous.”

“No, babysitting isn't glamorous, you're right. But it will get us instruments. Means to an end, Alex.”

“Fine. Okay. I'll make up some babysitting flyers.”

“So, what movies did you get?” I craned my neck, looking in her bag to see what DVDs she had brought over.

“Look! I got this out of the bargain bin at Walmart.”

“Bargain-bin movies, Alex?”

She smiled and handed me the case. “Don't be a movie snob.”

I groaned. “
Ghostbusters
?”

She shrugged, obviously quite pleased with herself. “Consider it educational.”

“Whatever. You put it in and I'll go make popcorn.”

Not much later—
Ghostbusters
was still on and you know what? It was pretty good!—Dad was back.

“We're in here,” I hollered. Alex and I exchanged glances as we waited for Dad to take off his shoes and join us in the den. “It's too early; this can't be good,” I said quietly to Alex while I stroked Salvatore Lasagna's soft fur.

“It's not,” Bubby said.

“Oh no, what did he do?”

My grandmother sighed. “Let's just say we have a lot of work to do.”

I looked at Alex and shook my head. “Apparently it didn't go well, but don't let on.”

Alex zipped her lips and pasted a smile on her face just as Dad appeared in the doorway, still looking good, except for the huge grease stain down his front.

And the hunched shoulders.

Oh, and the frown of the defeated.

“Oh no! What happened?”

Dad didn't say anything as he stepped into the room and sat on the big recliner.

“Mr. Bloom, is everything okay?”

Dad gave Alex a half smile. A very unconvincing half smile. “Well, I didn't kill her, if that's what you're asking.”

“Oy.” I cringed, afraid to even hear what happened.

“Did you like her? Was she pretty?” Alex asked, obviously not getting that none of these things mattered, since it was clear Dad wouldn't be going out with George's sister again, no matter how pretty she was.

Dad looked at Alex, as incredulous as I. “She was a nice lady.”

“So what happened, Dad?” Maybe we should just get this out so he could move on. Date one was just for practice, anyway. “She wasn't a vegetarian, was she?” I could almost see Dad ordering a big T-bone and his tree-hugging vegan date picking it up and throwing it at him in protest.

He shook his head. “No, it wasn't that. We were at the bar, waiting for our table, and she dropped her keys. When she bent down to get them, she tripped a waiter and guess who got a plate of fried calamari down the front of him?”

“Yum, calamari,” Alex mused, quite inappropriately.

“Oh, Dad, that's awful.” I shook my head, sympathetic to his first-date bad luck. “Did you at least like her?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I thought she was nice, but I'm sure I blew it.”

“He did,” Bubby said with a huge sigh. “He talked about earthquakes and asteroids.”

“You didn't talk about natural disasters and probabilities and stuff, did you?”

He nodded, obviously realizing he'd made a mistake. “I couldn't help it. I was nervous.”

Even Alex cringed.

“That's it. No more Discovery Channel for you.”

“I forgot how hard dating is.”

I shook my head. “No, you didn't.
Knowing
how hard dating is, is precisely what kept you from doing it all this time.”

He looked at me and nodded. “You're probably right.”

“I'm proud of you, though, Dad. You got out there and that's the hardest part. The next one will be easier.”

“Next one?” he asked, looking a bit green. “There's going to be a next one?”

“Yes, next one. We're not giving up on you just yet.”

“That's my girl,” Bubby said. “We'll find him
another girl to go out with. I think my old bridge partner, Marjorie, has a daughter who's divorced since I died.”

Is it wrong that I totally pitied Marjorie's daughter?

Tamsin McNeil's birthday party was on Sunday. And it was a sleepover, my absolute favorite kind of birthday party! It was Memorial Day weekend, which meant no school on Monday, so it worked out perfectly.

The extravaganza was to begin with dinner on Sunday night, so Dad drove me to Tamsin's house (stopping to pick up Alex on the way) at five.

“What are you going to do tonight, Dad?” I asked, a little concerned.

“Oh, I don't know, soak my favorite shirt in Oxi-Clean?”

“That's sad,” I said.

He looked at me. “I was just kidding. Since my mad dad skills are not required tonight, Fred and I are going out to a movie.”

Mad dad skills? Oy.

I didn't comment. Thankfully, by that time, we were in front of Tamsin's house.

“I'll call tomorrow when we need a pickup, okay?”

He nodded. I leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Have a nice time at the movie.”

“See you, Mr. Bloom,” Alex said as she got out of the backseat.

“Have fun, girls.”

We walked up to the house together, each of us with our gifts, sleeping bags, pillows, and overnight bags in tow. “What does she have planned?” I asked Alex.

She shrugged. “She said something supersecret but guaranteed to be awesome.”

“Everyone says that.”

Tamsin was turning thirteen (on Tuesday, actually, but you can't have a party on a Tuesday), which for us normally meant a bar or bat mitzvah and not a regular party, but Tamsin isn't Jewish, so she got a regular party. My birthday is in December and Alex's is in November, but our parents all decided spring bat mitzvahs are much nicer than winter ones, so ours are both next June. I hope I still get to have some sort of celebration so my turning thirteen doesn't go unnoticed until MANY months later. But of course, I'm sure Dad will let me do
something
.

Alex pushed the doorbell and we waited for Tamsin to come to the door and let us in. It wasn't Tamsin who opened the door, but her older brother Mark.

Alex blushed the second she saw him. “Hi, Mark,” she said.

Mark was in ninth grade, so in a whole different school from us. We hadn't seen him in a long time. Well, let me tell you, time had been good to him. He was way taller than I remembered, and his hair was all long and shaggy around his face.
Très
cute! He had a few zits, but they weren't horrible. He still looked good.

“They're in the basement,” he said, not bothering to even say hi as he closed the door behind us.

“How's ninth grade?” Alex asked. She actually had googly eyes.

“S'okay,” Mark said.

I grabbed my friend's arm and dragged her toward the stairs. “Come
on
, Alex.”

She resisted, but then Mark turned and headed down the hall toward the kitchen, so she had no choice but to come with me.

“He got hot!” she whispered.

“You say that about every guy.”

“I mean it. Why didn't Tamsin tell us her brother got so cute?”

“Maybe because she didn't want you ogling him!”

We were the last to arrive. Fiona Stevens, Sherise Thompson, and Anita Yee were already downstairs with Tamsin, sitting on the couches and watching
America's Next Top Model.

“Hey!” I said.

Tamsin jumped up and ran over to hug us both. “Thanks for coming!”

I handed over her gift. “Happy almost birthday!”

“Thanks! I hope it's what I think it is!”

I hoped she thought it was a gift certificate for the Gap, because that's what it was. With the wedding and the lightning strike and all, I didn't really have time to get Dad to take me to the mall to get her something well thought out. Instead, he picked up the gift card on his way home from work on Thursday.

Alex handed her the gift she brought, which was a makeup kit we'd all seen at the mall a few weeks back and had agreed was awesome because it had everything all together in one place AND was coordinated for your colors by season. Tamsin looked best in cool colors, so her kit was called Winter. Mine, which I was hoping to get once I saved up enough money, was Autumn.

“Thanks, Alex,” Tamsin said, placing the gifts on a side table with the rest. “We're going to watch
ANTM
, and then my mom will order the pizza. I have something really special for later.”

She was grinning, so I could tell she was really excited about whatever it was that she had planned for us.

Alex and I took spots together on the floor and joined in critiquing the models' performances. We loved this show. We all had (not so) secret dreams of being on it one day, although we promised we wouldn't be all catty and mean to each other. Sometimes we had little disagreements, but mostly we did all get along.

At least we
did
. Until that very night.

After the pizza, we returned to the basement, all excited for what was to come. Tamsin disappeared into the smelly storage room and then emerged a few seconds later with a box. It looked like a board game and my heart sank. I didn't want to play Monopoly or something lame like that.

But Tamsin had that twinkle in her eye.

“What is it?” Sherise asked.

Tamsin sat down and put the ratty old box down on the floor between us. “It's a Ouija board.”

“What's a Ouija board?” Anita asked.

Tamsin took the lid off. “It's a special communication board. You ask spirits to come and talk to you.”

Alex nudged me with her foot. I glared at her to keep her quiet.

“Oh, I don't like the sound of that,” Anita said, sounding scared.

“Don't be frightened,” Tamsin said. “We get to ask it questions.”

“Who answers?” Fiona asked.

“See this?” Tamsin held up a teardrop-shaped piece of plastic with legs. “We all put our hands on this, and then the spirits guide us to the answer on the board.” She pulled the board out of the box and laid it on the floor. It had all the letters of the alphabet on it, and also a YES in the top-left corner and a NO in the top-right corner. At the bottom it had GOOD BYE. There were also some mystical sun and moon drawings on it.