The Ghost and the Goth (2 page)

Ashleigh and Jennifer had been friends since kindergarten, and they did everything together, including buying matching—or at least color-coordinated—outfits for the entire year. It stopped being cute in about seventh grade, but they’d figured out their gimmick and they were sticking with it, no matter what. Just one of the many reasons Leanne called them the Idiot Twins. To their faces. Their response? “Duh. We don’t look anything alike.” Um, yeah. Leanne might be a bitch, but that didn’t make her wrong.

As it turned out, Leanne wasn’t wrong about much.

“God, Misty’s such a whore. Alona’s not even cold yet,” Leanne said to Miles, just as I passed by.

I froze at the sound of my name. In that moment of distraction, Ashleigh—Jennifer right next to her—darted through me; they were trying to get Jeff to chase them. The sensation of her all-too-solid and warm body passing through me stole my breath and rocked my stomach. But even that was not enough to let me miss Miles’s response.

He snorted. “Alona was cold even before she was dead.”

“True dat.” Leanne grinned at him, her freckled face crinkling by her eyes.

I stared at them, stunned. Neither of them had ever talked about me like that before … at least not to my face. I wouldn’t put it past Leanne to talk trash when my back was turned, but Miles? I was the one who freaking brought him into the Circle when he was new here last year. He was the only black kid in our school who wasn’t an athlete. He’d actually been a member of the chess club, for God’s sake, before I saved him. Not that it was entirely selfless or anything. He’d helped me with trig, and in the process, I discovered his ability to run wicked commentary on just about everyone in school. Including me, it seemed. God, what else had he been saying about me?

“Ungrateful dork,” I said in disbelief.

Years of habit had me striding toward Misty to tell her what I’d overheard, before two very obvious things clicked with me. First, Misty wouldn’t be able to hear me. Second, the Leanne and Miles bitchfest about me had actually started as an insult about Misty. Leanne had called her a whore, something Misty would deny, despite her string of one- or two-week relationships with fraternity boys from Milliken, the college in town. High school boys weren’t worth the effort, according to Misty.

I couldn’t figure out what would have triggered Leanne’s assault on her character. It wasn’t like there were any college guys here or that I would have been interested in any of them, even if there were.

But then, when I finally ducked and dodged my way to Misty, everything became clear.

Misty’s black armband with my name on it stood out crisply on the white long-sleeved T-shirt she wore under her cheerleading uniform top. Her black and glossy ponytail (“Condition with mayonnaise and rinse with beer,” she used to advise me) still bobbed with her movement. But she wasn’t talking. She was kissing. My boyfriend.

“Misty!” I shrieked. Of course, she didn’t react. She just kept kissing Chris in front of the whole school. ONE day after my funeral.

I didn’t know if it made me feel better or worse, but he, too, was still wearing his armband. Misty looked exhausted with dark circles under her closed eyes, and her mascara had dried on her cheeks in long tear tracks. But they were
kissing
.

“Do you think Alona knew about them?” Leanne asked Miles, her words drifting back to me. “I mean, I heard that’s why she threw herself in front of that bus. She found out and couldn’t face them and everybody knowing.”

“I did not throw myself in front of anything,” I shouted at Leanne, though I couldn’t tear my gaze from Misty and Chris. “It was … an accident.”

“I kept waiting for her to see them, and come here and throw some big screaming fit.” Leanne paused. “Now, that would have been something, right?” Her voice held as much disappointment as evil glee.

“Please, Alona didn’t see anything but Alona,” Miles said.

Pushed to my breaking point, I turned away from Misty and Chris, feeling like I was going to throw up. It didn’t seem likely considering I hadn’t actually eaten anything in three days now, but I wasn’t about to bet against it, given how things had been going. Cold sweat covered my skin, and my stomach lurched alarmingly. I swallowed hard.

“Why else would she be running away from school in the middle of zero hour?” Leanne continued.

“Shut up!” I bent in half, arms cradling my stomach, and realized I could see through my legs. As in, completely through them, like they weren’t even there. From the knees down, I’d started to disappear.

“No!” I howled. This wasn’t fair. I was being taken away now? Why not yesterday when I could have died, or passed on, or whatever, in happiness? And there wasn’t even a white light … not anywhere!

“Maybe she forgot her backup mascara and had to run home for it,” Miles offered, a sneer in his voice.

I jerked my head up to glare at him. I’d told him about my backup-makeup theory in confidence.

Leanne snickered.

I tried to run, to get out of there, but my legs, half gone as they were, wouldn’t work. I collapsed on the grass, watching the line of invisibility climb to the bottom of my shorts. At this rate, I’d be gone in less than a minute.

Unable to help myself, I turned my head to see my former best friend tangling tongues with my former boyfriend, something that was not even a new development, apparently. How long had they been hooking up? How long had they been laughing at me? Misty knew almost everything about me, stuff I didn’t want anyone else to EVER know. She was the only person I’d allowed to come over to my house for years. Had she told Chris all about it? Had Leanne been mocking me behind my back this whole time? Worse yet, what if people had felt sorry for me, Alona Dare?

Hot tears slipped down my cheeks, but when I reached up to wipe them away … no hand.

“No, no, no. This is not fair. This is such bullshit. I do not deserve this. I did everything right!” I sobbed, losing control completely. Crying ruins your makeup, not to mention the eventual cascade of snot you have to deal with, which was why I’d never allowed myself to shed a single tear in the company of these people. But none of them could see me now, and I’d never see any of them again, so who cared, right?

The bell rang, and everyone around me scrambled to gather up backpacks, purses, and guitar cases. Then they walked right through me on their way to the door. First, Jeff, who was quickly followed by Ashleigh and Jennifer (whose minuscule purses did not have any room to hold any kind of candle-wax sculpture, no matter how small). Then Ben sauntered through with an arm around his two chosen underclassmen virgin sacrifices. Leanne actually stood on me and checked her lipstick in her reflection on the shiny surface of her cell phone.

“Bitch,” I spat.

Chris and Misty, holding hands, did not walk through me, but only because they were already close to the door. And besides, hadn’t they walked
over
me enough?

With only my head left, I watched as the entire school paraded past me, laughing and joking and worrying about pop quizzes like I’d never even existed. Like I hadn’t just tragically died only THREE days ago.

“This is hell. This must be hell,” I said, my voice nasally and clotted with tears.

As if to confirm that fact, Will Killian, the biggest weirdo loser of all time, looked right at me and smirked as he ambled by, just ahead of his pot-smoking buddies.

“Hey,” I shouted, furious. Like he had the right to laugh at me! Even dead, I was more popular than him. He was total loser material, skin so pale he practically glowed, and shaggy black hair that hung down in front of his creepy blue eyes. Seriously, they were so pale, they were almost white. And hello, he acted like such a freak, always wearing headphones and pulling the hood of his sweatshirt up, even inside the building. Rumor had it he’d even spent a summer in some mental hospital somewhere. There wasn’t a tier of popularity low enough to signal where he belonged. And he was laughing at me?

Killian looked away quickly, hunching his shoulders in his sweatshirt and staring at the ground, his usual antisocial, psycho-in-training behavior.

Wait … wait. Something about that …

I frowned, even though I was pretty sure my mouth was gone, and my thoughts were getting fuzzy. If he was laughing at me, that could only mean that he could see me. And that meant …

L
aughing at the dead is never a good idea. But I couldn’t help it. The great Alona Dare, reduced to a crying, runny-nosed bobblehead? How often do you get to see stuff like that?

Not often. Unless, of course, you’re me. Lucky, lucky me.

But it was also me who, above anyone else, should have understood that laughing at someone else’s expense always comes with a karmic price.

“Mr. Killian.” Principal Robert “Sonny” Brewster greeted me as soon as my foot crossed over the threshold into the school. “Glad you could join us today. Though you seem to be running late … again.”

“I’m not—” I protested.

Brewster pointed at the ceiling, and, as if he’d willed it, the bell rang.

“Late,” I muttered.

Behind me, Erickson and Joonie scrambled to get through the door and to class, leaving me to deal with Brewster again. Joonie gave me an apologetic look over her shoulder, but I didn’t blame her or Erickson. They were just glad he’d decided to focus on me and leave them alone. After all, they were just as late as me, but apparently, they didn’t set off Brewster’s “freak-detector,” as he called it, like I did. I found that a little hard to believe, considering the number of piercings Joonie wore in her face and how bloodshot Erickson’s eyes were. But, for whatever reason, I was just Brewster’s favorite.

Brewster smiled, an expression that did nothing to soften the hardness of his face and the brutal line of his buzz cut. Former military all the way, that was Brewster. Oh, and don’t forget barely repressed homophobia, testosterone driven violence sprees, and a hard-on for following rules because they are RULES.

“I think it’s time we have another conversation about your future, Mr. Killian.” He caught his hands behind his back and rocked back on his heels.

“Again? People are starting to talk.”

His hand snapped out, snatching the shoulder of my sweatshirt and crushing the cloth in his fist. I stumbled toward him under the force of his grab. His dark eyes gleamed with fury and eagerness.

“Go ahead,” I said. If he hit me, he’d be fired. He knew it. Everyone knew it. There’d already been a couple of complaints against him for his temper. So what if I helped him along a little? My life would be so much easier with him gone.

He released me and wiped his hand down his suit coat, like touching me had covered him in slime. “My office, now.”

He stalked across the main hall toward the administrative offices without even checking to see if I followed. It was tempting to ditch and leave him sitting there alone, but I only had a few weeks left. Just twenty-eight more days, and I’d be eighteen and a high school graduate, both conditions for accessing the little bit of money my father and grandmother left me. Once I had that, I’d be out of here, bound for someplace with only a few people and, therefore, even fewer ghosts. Like some deserted island … or Idaho.

If Brewster suspended me, that would be the end of that plan.

So, I followed him, as he’d instructed. I just took my own sweet time about it.

See, here’s the bullshit about high school, and believe me, I’ve had plenty of time to think about this. Teachers, parents, guidance counselors … all of them are always pushing this crap about how it’s okay to be different, just be yourself. Don’t give in to peer pressure, blah, blah, blah. The truth is, it’s really only okay to be yourself if that self is within an accepted range of “normal.” You like soccer instead of basketball, Johnny? Well, okay, I guess, so long as you still like sports. What’s that, Susie, you want to wear the blue sweater instead of the red? You know we’re all about expressing individuality here … so long as it’s still a sweater.

How can you expect any of us to believe that it’s okay to be different when even the adults don’t believe it? Just because the popular, so-called first-tier kids look “normal” and say the “right” things, no one even looks twice at them. Ben Rogers supplies weed for most of the school, but has he ever been searched? This year alone, I’ve been called to Brewster’s office twelve times and had my locker searched once a week.

Brewster was waiting at the door of his personal office when I finally made it to the secretary’s desk. I could see his jaw muscle twitching from where I stood.

I nodded at Mrs. Piaget, the school secretary, who smiled in return but quickly looked away. She always had a soft spot for me, probably seeing all the notes over the years for various doctor appointments and illnesses, but even she knew better than to challenge Brewster.

Brewster slammed his office door shut as soon as I stepped inside, nearly clipping my shoulder in the process.

“Backpack,” he demanded, his hand out.

Oh, please. I resisted the urge, barely, to laugh at him. I’d learned a long time ago that backpacks were, for all intents and purposes, seen as school property. You’d never find anything illegal in mine.

I slid the pack off my shoulders and handed it to him, and then I dropped into one of the blue plastic visitor chairs in front of his desk.

“Who said you could sit?” he demanded.

I shrugged and didn’t move. He’d be far too interested in catching me with something in my backpack than to force the sitting issue right away. I’d been through this routine enough times to know that.

Brewster unzipped the bag and dumped its contents on the immaculate and polished surface of his wooden desk. From the shine on that sucker, Brewster had been working off some serious sexual frustration.

I leaned back in my chair, tilting it back up on two legs. “Do you polish it yourself? That must take a lot of wrist action.”

His gaze jerked up from the now untidy pile of folders, papers, and books to gauge my expression.

I opened my eyes wide, the very picture of innocence. “What?” I’d long ago mastered the art of keeping my true feelings to myself. Trust me, you see the dead walking around, you learn not to scream, laugh, or piss yourself pretty quickly.

“You think you’re clever, Mr. Killian?”

I shrugged. “Not particularly.” I knew it irked him, though, because he’d seen my test scores. Thirty-two out of thirty-six on the ACT last year, and I’d totally blown the curve on all the standardized tests they could offer. I couldn’t help it—just one of the few, very few, benefits of my gift. After all, it wasn’t hard to remember history when I was surrounded by people who’d lived it, and the ghosts who hung around the school all the time were often bored enough to read over your shoulder and do the homework aloud with you, even if no one could hear them. No one, except me, of course.

“You’ve only got a month left here, and then you’re out in the world, far beyond my reach.” He began shuffling through my stuff, like he was looking for something. Dude, there’s nothing to find, I could have told him. “And yet, Mr. Killian, I’ll feel like a failure as an educator—”

“Hey, don’t be so hard on yourself, Mr. B., everybody fails sometimes.” I couldn’t believe he was handing this to me. “Some people more than others, though, I guess.”

He gritted his teeth, and the knuckles on the hand gripping my physics book turned white. “I’ll feel like a failure if you don’t leave here without at least one lesson learned.” He dropped the book back on his desk and dug into my backpack again, this time the small pocket in the front. “Ah, here we are.”

He dropped my iPod nano on the desk with a careless clatter, the tiny headphones trailing after it.

“Hey, watch it!” I set my chair on all four legs again with a thump. The nano (I’d nicknamed her Marcie after the logical and brainy chick in the Peanuts cartoons) was my lifeline these days.

“The lesson being,” he continued as if I hadn’t spoken, “that you can’t always have your way.” He scooped up Marcie, wrapped the earphones around her, and dumped her into his top desk drawer. “No music for a week.”

“You can’t do that,” I said immediately. My palms began sweating, itching for the cool comfort of Marcie in my hand. “I have a medical condition that—”

“Oh, yes, Mr. Killian, I know all about your ‘illness.’” He smiled, all too pleased at having gotten a reaction from me. “Twice-a-week visits with your shrink, during school hours, no less. Permission to leave class as needed. Music allowed during your lessons so the ‘voices’”—he waggled his hands near his head—“don’t bother you.

“But do you know what I think?” He closed the drawer with a snap and pulled a key ring from his inside suit-coat pocket. “You’re a bad seed. Somewhere along the line, you figured out how easy it was to fool everyone and coast through life with a ‘disability.’” He separated a small silver key from the jumble on the key ring and locked the drawer. “But you don’t fool me.”

Without Marcie, I was toast. The dead talk all the time, even when they think no one is listening. The noise is overwhelming, not to mention the effort it takes not to respond.

Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe. Going to class, walking the halls without my music … I’d be curled up in a corner somewhere before first hour was even finished. The week Marcie had been gone, getting her battery replaced, my mother had nearly signed the commitment papers then and there.

I couldn’t let that happen again. I’d have to take the risk with Brewster.

Brewster shook his head, tsking. “Too much coddling at home and self-indulgence in these flights of fancy. If your mother had sent you to military school as I—”

“Like your grandfather sent your father to military school, hoping they’d beat the fairy out of him?” I asked, unable to believe that the words were slipping out despite everything I’d vowed. He really should have left Marcie out of this.

Brewster’s face turned white and then red.

I tensed in my seat but kept my voice steady. “It worked for a while too,” I continued. “Till your mom died and he retired to Florida where he met this nice neighbor guy, Charlie—”

Brewster didn’t even bother to come around the desk. He shot out of his chair, his hand stretching out to close around my throat.

I shoved the chair back in the same instant, and his fingers caught nothing but air.

“You can hear me.” Brewster’s dead grandfather—young again and dressed in his World War II uniform—gaped at me from his seat on the highly polished wooden credenza next to the desk. His unfiltered cigarette, still burning, fell from his mouth to the floor and rolled to a stop next to my foot.

I ignored Grandpa Brewster and the cigarette with the practice of many visits to this office. Brewster’s grandfather hung out here most of the time, talking to his favorite grandson, willing him to mend fences with his father while there was still time for them to have a decent relationship, something he’d never managed while he was alive.

That was the key with the dead. Ignore them long enough, and they’ll give up. Oh, they won’t stop talking … ever, but they’ll stop expecting you to respond, figuring what they took for awareness was just a fluke.

“You retarded little pervert,” Brewster spat. “You don’t know anything. My father is a good man.” He charged around the desk toward me.

I tensed, ready to move, and faked an easy shrug. “I’m sure he is. He’d probably be horribly disappointed to hear his son got fired for trying to choke a student.”

Brewster froze.

“What do you think you’re up to, kid?” Grandpa Brewster demanded. He’d recovered enough from his shock to slide off the edge of the credenza and stand over me. “Messing with my Sonny like that?”

I met Brewster’s glare without flinching. “Give me my music back, and none of this happened.” It was a gamble, but he’d backed me into a corner.

His jaw clenched furiously, and I could see him working through the alternatives. “No one else saw anything. There are no marks on you. It’ll be my word against yours.”

“True,” I said, pretending to consider the possibility. “But at this point, I wonder if it’d take much more than words to convince the school board? I heard it was a really close vote last time.”

Brewster stared me down, but I refused to look away. Then, the pungent stench of something burning reached my nose.

Automatically, I glanced to the floor, searching for Grandpa Brewster’s cigarette, and found the rubber edge of my Converse high-top smoldering, a tiny blue flame lapping at the side. “Shit.” I jumped up, twisting my foot against the carpet to put the fire out.

“Will you look at that?” Brewster’s grandfather said with a note of awe in his voice. “I’ll be damned.”

“No kidding,” I muttered. With the smoke from my shoe lessening, I paused long enough from my extinguishing efforts to grind out the cigarette beneath my heel. A cigarette Principal Brewster couldn’t see.

I stopped and looked over to find him watching me, disgust spreading across his face.

“Pathetic,” Brewster sneered. “Do you really think I’m going to fall for your ‘crazy’act?” Of course. From his perspective, I’d jumped up from my chair to scuff my shoe against the carpet for no apparent reason. Story of my life.

Brewster shook his head. “You tell the school board anything you want. No one is going to believe you.”

Unfortunately, he was right about that. I had a slight credibility problem these days.

“I could call my mother.” I winced inwardly. God, there was just no way to utter that sentence with any kind of dignity.