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“I don't like this at all,” Anita said.

Tamsin glared at her. “Then you don't have to play.”

“Where did you get this?” Fiona asked.

“I got it at a garage sale, but the lady I bought it from said it had been in her family for generations, and that it was very lucky.”

“If it was so lucky,” Alex said, “why was she selling it at a garage sale?”

Tamsin shrugged. “I guess it had already brought them all the luck they needed. Are we going to do this or what?”

“You're all going to get possessed by ghosts,”
Anita said, moving back away from the board. “Maybe she was selling it because it's haunted.”

I looked closely at the board, wondering if it was legit. “Hey,” I said. “It says Parker Brothers on it. I bet you can buy this at Walmart.”

“Still…” Anita was obviously freaked out.

“I think it's all hooey,” I said, but quietly under my breath.

“It is,” my grandmother answered, giving me a little shiver.

“Oh. Okay. Good to know.” I leaned toward Alex. “Bubby says it's all a crock.”

She nodded. “I thought so.” She winked at me, though. She had that look in her eye that told me she was up to no good.

“Okay, girls,” she said loudly so everyone would pay attention. “Let's get this started.” She moved closer to the board and nodded at the rest of us to do the same.

We shuffled in. Well, all but Anita.

“Tamsin, it's your birthday party, so you should get to go first. Do you have a question ready?”

“Yes,” she said, bouncing a little in her seat.

“Okay,” Alex said, obviously taking over. “Everyone put your fingertips on the thingie.”

We all did. Of course, except Anita, who was watching from her spot in the corner.

“Okay, Tamsin. What's your question?”

Tamsin took a breath. “Who will I marry?”

Everyone gasped. We all knew Tamsin was currently crushing on Tyler Landis, an eighth grader. He was an excellent hockey player who hoped to one day make it to the NHL. Alex liked to tease Tamsin that her future boyfriend wouldn't have any teeth, but Tamsin said with his NHL contract, he'd be able to buy himself a whole mouth full of teeth.

Personally, I'd rather my husband have his own natural teeth, thank you very much. But I guess Tamsin wasn't bothered by dentures.

All of a sudden, the plastic thing started to skitter and move under our fingers.

“Oh!” Anita yelped.

It was moving over toward the left side of the board.

“Where's the
T
?” Tamsin said. “Oh. Never mind.”

Suddenly the piece started moving back toward the center. Toward the
T
.

I glanced at Alex, who looked at me and we both knew: it wasn't being guided by any spirits. It was totally being guided by Tamsin.

“She won't be marrying him,” my grandmother said. “He likes Emily Hadley.”

I nodded. Figures he'd like an eighth grader.

Alex nudged me. “What?”

“Tyler likes Emily Hadley,” I whispered.

“No kidding?” Alex whispered back.

I nodded.

“Well, she does have boobs,” Alex said.

“Oh, it's spelling out T-Y-L-E-R!” Tamsin squealed.

Fiona, Sherise, and even Anita squealed along with her.

“Okay, my turn,” Alex proclaimed. I wondered why she would bother, since she knew it wasn't real.

“Who will I marry?”

Under my fingertips, I could feel the thing moving towards the
M. M
as in “Mark.” Surprise, surprise.

“Stop pulling it, Alex!” Fiona said with a cluck of her tongue.

“I'm not! It wants to move to the
M
.”

“
M
?” Tamsin said. “Who's an
M
?”

“Your brother.”

Tamsin frowned. “No, you can't marry my brother.”

“Why not?”

“Because you can't, that's all.”

Alex got mad. “You think I'm not good enough for your precious brother?”

“That's not it. He's older than you.”

“Only by two years. So who cares?”

I looked at Sherise, who shrugged.

Then I looked at Anita, whose eyes were so full of tears, they were going to spill over any second.

“Anita?” I said, bringing all the attention to her.

She looked down, causing two big tears to fall out of her eyes onto the carpet.

“Tamsin,” I said, turning to her. “What's going on?”

“Nothing.”

“Come on, what's wrong?”

She sighed. “This is my birthday party and I want to have fun, okay?”

“Fun? Did someone say fun?” a man said.

I looked around, but there were no men in the room.

“Who's there?” I said, before I realized the words were even out of my mouth.

The girls looked at me and then toward the stairs.

“Mark?” Tamsin hollered. “Go back upstairs!”

But it wasn't him. There was a spirit in the room—one only I could hear.

“You okay?” Alex asked quietly.

“Someone's here.”

“What's with all the whispering?” Tamsin asked. “No whispering.”

“Why are you crying, Anita?” Sherise asked, shuffling over to console Anita.

“Never mind,” she said, wiping her tears away. Everyone focusing on her allowed me to find out who was with us. I got up and went into the little bathroom, turning on the light before I closed the door.

“Who's there?” I whispered.

“Chuckles.”

“Chuckles?” What a weird name.

“Chuckles the clown.”

You've got to be kidding
, I thought. “What are you doing here?”

“This is a birthday party, isn't it?”

Involuntarily, I sighed. “Yes, but we're not toddlers. Don't you think we're a little old for a clown?”

“You're never too old for a clown!” He sounded very sure of it.

I certainly wasn't.

“Can't you go find some six-year-old's party to crash?”

He sounded sad when he said, “It's not the same if people can't hear me and know I'm just trying to have fun with them. I'm not mean; I'm not trying to scare anyone.”

“What do you mean?”

“Think about being at a party, and all of a sudden balloons start blowing themselves up and twisting into animals. Do you think you would like that or would you be terrified?”

I thought it would be cool, but saw his point. I guess if I didn't know what was going on, that would be pretty scary.

But I had an idea. “Can you really do that? Make balloon animals?”

“Yes, and I can do magic tricks, although I guess you wouldn't be able to see them.”

“Do you have balloons?”

All of a sudden, about twenty long, skinny balloons appeared in front of me. “Okay, cool. Give me some time to break the news to the girls, and then you can put on your show. How's that?”

“Really?” Chuckles sounded so happy.

“Sure, why not. It's better than that lame Ouija board.”

“Oh, thank you, Lilah. Thank you!”

“You're welcome. When was the last time you did a real party? Like… when you were alive?”

“Oh, it's been ages. It was… let me think… 1964.”

Wow, that was way before my dad was even born.

I left the bathroom after flushing the toilet and running the tap for a second so no one would wonder what I was doing in there.

But they probably wouldn't have noticed, anyway, because when I came out of the bathroom, I walked right into the middle of a fight.

“Why is
she
good enough and I'm not?” Alex said, right in Tamsin's face.

“I never said that.” Tamsin was mad and crying.

“What's going on?” I asked.

Fiona filled me in. “They're fighting over who gets to marry Mark.”

“Okay, this is ridiculous,” I said, trying to drown out the insanity going on in front of me. “First of all, we're hardly old enough to get married. Second of all, Mark gets a vote. Has anyone gone upstairs to ask him what he thinks?”

Gasps of horror erupted around me.

“I didn't think so.”

“So until he is consulted, and we are like twenty, I think this is all a moot point.”

Poor Anita sniffled in the corner. “I'm sorry. I never meant to start a fight.”

“You didn't,” I said. “It's not your fault for liking him. He
is
very cute.”

“Don't tell me you like him, too!” Sherise said.

I shook my head. “No, you all know I'm loyal to Andrew Finkel.”

“Who asked about you after your lightning thing, remember?” Alex was always so encouraging. It was one of the many reasons why we were BFFs.

“Excuse me,” Chuckles interrupted. “Will I get to go on soon?”

“Okay, so, can we all hug and make up? I have something that's going to scare the pants off all of you.”

Alex gasped. “Are you…?”

I nodded. “Go hug Tamsin,” I said to her, needing us to get back to normal before I brought out the entertainment.

Alex complied, and then all the girls took their seats facing me. “Okay. So. Tamsin, I know it's your thirteenth birthday and all, but I thought it might be cool to have a clown come for your birthday party.”

“A clown?” Sherise shrieked in laughter.

Tamsin groaned.

“No way, a clown?” Fiona asked, her eyebrows high up on her forehead. “Clowns are the lamest thing ever!”

“I like clowns,” Anita said quietly.

“Well, watch this.” I lifted up my arms and closed my eyes. “I wish there was an invisible clown here, and I wish he would make me a balloon animal!”

The girls all snickered.

I opened my eyes and then everyone gasped when a balloon appeared, suspended in the air right in front of us.

“Oh!”

The balloon filled with air and then magically started twisting on itself, turning into a dog.

“Lilah!” Tamsin hollered. “How are you doing that?”

“I'm going to faint,” Anita said.

I looked at her. She was wide-eyed, but she looked okay. I didn't really think she would faint.

“How… what… wow!” Fiona was almost speechless.

Suddenly the dog bounced over to Tamsin, who reluctantly plucked it out of the air.

“For the birthday girl,” I said.

“How did you do that?” she asked, looking up at me with awe and a little bit of fear in her eyes.

“It wasn't actually me,” I said.

We all looked as another balloon, a yellow one, started inflating in front of us.

“I guess I should tell you girls about what happened to me when I got hit by lightning.”

They looked from the balloon to me.

While Chuckles made us all balloon animals, I told the girls my story.

The rest of Tamsin's party, after I swore the girls to complete and utter secrecy, was filled with me answering questions about my ability.

Could I predict the future? No.

Could I talk to anyone I wanted? Not to my knowledge—so far all the ghosts had come to me.

Could I make things move with my mind? I tried it on the Ouija board. A big nope on that.

Could I make people do things with my mind? I concentrated really hard on Alex, but she didn't cluck or strut around like a chicken, so no.

Could I make Andrew Finkel fall in love with me? Well, I was willing to try, but I doubted talking to spirits would help. And falling in love might be a bit of a long shot when he hadn't even asked me to go to the dance with him yet.

“But his father's dead. Maybe he can help you,” Fiona suggested.

I never thought of that. But I wasn't so sure I wanted to go that route.

“I would love to talk to my son,” a man said suddenly. It wasn't Chuckles, either; he had left when we got tired of the balloon animals.

My eyes went really wide.

“What?” Alex asked, obviously noticing my sudden change of expression.

“Who is there?” I asked, looking up at the ceiling.

“Jacob Finkel. I'm Andrew's dad.”

I held my breath, not believing it.

“It's Andrew's father. He wants to talk to his son.”

Tamsin squealed and clapped her hands. “Oh Lilah, this is perfect!”

I wasn't so sure. My stomach was doing flip-flops.

“Mr. Finkel?” I asked. “Do you have a special message for your son?”

There was a long pause and I thought maybe he'd left.

“I'd like to tell him I'm proud of him.”

I blushed. It was a sweet message, but how was I going to tell Andrew that without dying of embarrassment?

“He's a nice boy,” my grandmother said out of the blue.

“He has turned out well, hasn't he?” Mr. Finkel said.

“My Lilah has a crush on him.”

“BUBBY!” I yelled. How embarrassing!

“Well, it's true!”

“Well, you don't have to tell his father that.
Sheesh!
”

Then I realized my friends were all staring at me with wide eyes. “My grandmother is telling Mr. Finkel all my secrets,” I explained.

“Not all of them, Lilah. I didn't tell him about the time…”

“BUBBY!” I interrupted. “Please stop talking!”

She did, thankfully.

“I have a plan,” Alex said. “We're going to get you together with Andrew. We're going to get him to ask you to go to the dance. And you're going to use your new medium abilities to do it.”

I was terrified and excited all at the same time. If anyone could come up with a great plan, it was Alex.

When Alex said we were going to put a note in Andrew's locker, I didn't realize she meant we were going to be performing some sort of covert
Mission Impossible
exercise. After we spent most of Tuesday's lunch hour composing the cryptic note, we headed up to where Andrew's locker was.