Girl Meets Ghost (2 page)

Still, I try not to get too upset with them if they get cranky. They are dead, after all.

Anyway, it becomes pretty obvious that Blond Gymnast is going to be the kind of ghost that tries my patience, because as we head out of math, she starts to freak out.

“Hello!” she's shrieking as we walk down the hall to my next class. “Are you going to help me or what?”

Sometimes the best thing to do with ghosts is just ignore them until they realize that shouting and stuff won't get them anywhere. They also need to understand that I have to work with them on my own time. You know, when I'm alone and can talk to them without people thinking I'm crazy. Usually they get the message pretty quickly, but not this time. Blond Gymnast is pushy.

“I know you have
sooo
much to think about,” she says, all snotty, “with your little study date and all, but this is important. Life-and-death stuff.”

I seriously doubt that, because she's already dead. So it can't
really
be a matter of life and death. Unless she's talking metaphorically, which I guess she could be. Even though she probably doesn't even know the meaning of the word “metaphorical.” I laugh to myself, but this makes Blond Gymnast angry. “Hello!” she shrieks again. “Over here, Lady Gaga!”

I gasp. I know exactly why she's calling me Lady Gaga. Lady Gaga is known for her crazy sense of fashion and hairstyles. And today I'm sporting my hair in a very cute style of three tiny braids to the side, then pushed back off my face and held with three tiny glitter clips. I like to do my hair to match my mood, and this morning I was feeling
very whimsical. It's all I can do not to dignify this with a response, and I just keep marching to French class.

“Fine!” she says, throwing her hands up in the air. “For some reason you are pretending not to hear me.” Um, maybe because if I talk to you, people will think I'm crazy? “I'll meet you after school. In the library.”

Great. Looks like my date with Brandon is now going to be a double.

In French I pull
out my cell and text my best friend, Ellie. I decide to do the text in the French language, because I promised my dad that I wouldn't text during class. Technically we're not even supposed to have cell phones in school, and I've already gotten detention for it once. But I figure that if I'm texting in the language I'm supposed to be learning, it's okay. Like bringing what you learn in the classroom to your real-world experience.

ME:
Bonjour mon
amie!

ELLIE:
Stop txting in French! I take Spanish. No clue what u r saying.

ME:
Je suis desolee!

ELLIE:
Bye.

ME:
No, jk jk jk! 911 emerg! Have somehow asked Brandon Dunham to study w me after school!

ELLIE:
Nooooo!

ME:
Ouiii!!!!
Even Ellie knows that one.

ELLIE:
Kendall!!!!!!!

ME:
Just 1 thing—do u know who Kyle is?

ELLIE:
Kyle = Brandon's new BFF! Semi-new kid. V. cute!

I rack my brains and have a faint memory of a Justin Bieber–haired boy being introduced to us in my earth science class.

ME:
He is coming too
.

ELLIE:
I heart him, omg.

ME:
U heart kyle?

ELLIE:
Oui!!

ME:
Wanna come?

ELLIE:
Yes, perf! Double date!

ME:
Yay! Adios, senorita! Ly xxxo.

My double-date gymnast friend just got bounced for Ellie. Although, something tells me she'll still find a way to show up.

•  •  •

“How does my hair look?” I ask Blond Gymnast. It's eighth period, when I have independent study. (Our school's fancy way of saying “study hall.” It's a total waste of time, since I never do my homework because I'm usually too amped up from the day and/or the anticipation of going home.) I'm in
the English office. My English teacher, Mrs. D'Amico, lets me hang out in here during my free periods.

There's a big, cozy chair in the corner with a red glittery slipcover that I brought in myself, and one of those super-fancy coffeepots that make one cup of coffee at a time. I'm not really supposed to be using it, but Mrs. D'Amico doesn't care. She's, like, seventy-five and was BFF with my grandma before my grandma died two years ago, so she's known me since I was little.

“Listen,” Blond Gymnast says, ignoring my question about how my hair looks and grabbing me by the shoulders. “This is important.”

I walk over to the corner and start getting ready to mix up a mocha latte. I'm a caffeine addict.

“It's always very important,” I say, sighing. While the machine roars to life, I pull a notebook out of my bag. I'm a very big fan of notebooks. I have a bunch of different colors for different things. My pink one is for possible book ideas, so that I can write them all when I grow up and become a famous writer. My green one is for pasting or drawing in pictures of hairstyles that I've seen in different magazines and/or have come up with in my head. My blue one is my journal (although I'm never completely honest when I write in it, because I'm always afraid I'm going to lose it and someone will read all my secrets). And my red one is where I keep all my notes for different ghost problems.

I open to a crisp page in the red one, then curl up in the chair and wait for Blond Gymnast to get started.

“It's Jen,” she says. “You need to—”

Then she closes her mouth.

“Yes?” I ask, sighing. “I have to what?” I grab my latte from the beeping machine. Yum. Just the right amount of everything. I reach under the chair for my special shaker of cinnamon and shake a little bit on top of my drink.

“I . . . I . . . I don't know,” she says. And then she stamps her foot. “I don't remember! All I know is that you have to find Jen!”

“
Find Jen
” I write in my notebook. “And you?” I say to her. “Do you have a name?” I might as well know who she is if I'm going to become all intimately involved in her life.

“Of course I have a name,” she says. She vaults up onto Mrs. D'Amico's desk and onto a big pile of papers. She really likes sitting on things, this girl. “I'm Daniella.”

“Nice to meet you, Daniella,” I say. Not.

“So how does this work?” she says. “You find Jen, and then I get to, what, go to heaven or something?”

“Not really,” I say. I set my latte on the little table next to my chair and start pulling the braids out of my hair. They're super-cute, but I don't think they're appropriate for a study date. I need to go for something a little more . . . flirty. French braid? No, too serious. Swingy ponytail? No, too sporty. Hmmm. I wish I'd brought my curling iron to
school. I keep asking my dad for one of those cute little battery-powered ones that you can bring everywhere, but he's says it's an unnecessary expense. I think he's afraid I'll spend all my time doing my hair and never get to class on time.

“Then how does it work?” Daniella demands.

“You have to tell me who this Jen person is, where she is, what you want me to tell her, that sort of thing. Then I do it and you move on.” I shrug. “To where, I have no idea.”

“But—”

The door to the English office opens, and Mr. Jacobi is standing there. “Hi, Mr. Jacobi,” I say happily.

“Kendall!” he says. “What are you doing in here?” He looks around suspiciously, like maybe I'm trying to change my grade or something, which is ridiculous, since English is my best subject.

“Just studying.” I wave the red notebook in his face.

“Well,” he says, “it's highly inappropriate, you being in here. Mrs. D'Amico would—”

“Mrs. D'Amico said I could,” I tell him. “I've been doing it since the beginning of the year. What are you doing here?” I ask. “I didn't know math teachers were allowed to hang out in the English office.”

“He's cute,” Daniella says, walking toward Mr. Jacobi. “In one of those weird hipster kind of ways.” She's looking at
him. “Although, he should really shave. Scruffiness is so last year.” She wrinkles her nose at Mr. Jacobi's apparent lack of fashion sense.

“Math teachers are allowed to hang out wherever they want,” Mr. Jacobi says, looking all indignant. “And not that it's any of your business, but I had a question for Mrs. D'Amico about next month's assembly.”

“He's crushing on Mrs. D'Amico!” Daniella says. I resist the urge to roll my eyes. Mrs. D'Amico is seventy-five.

The bell rings then, and I gather up my stuff. “Time to go!” I say to Mr. Jacobi. “And don't worry about my quiz grade. Brandon and I are going to stay after school and study.”

I check my watch on the way out of the office. Perfect. Just enough time to head to the girls' bathroom and fix my hair into something tousled and flirty and cute. I turn around and look down the hall to see if Daniella's following me. But she's gone.

•  •  •

My trip to the bathroom turns out to be a complete and total disaster, so I have to go looking for Ellie. When I finally find her at her locker, I fling myself toward her and scream, “My hair is a disaster!”

She sighs and grabs her book bag. “Your hair,” she says, “is not a disaster.”

“Come,” I say. I drag her into the bathroom, where I
reach into my bag and pull out my special butterfly clips. “Start putting these all over my hair,” I say. I flip open my green notebook and point to a page. “Like that girl.”

“Oooh, cute,” Ellie says. She starts clipping them all up and down my hair. That's one of the things I love about Ellie. She gets that I need a different hairstyle for my different moods. “I love these clips.”

“Made them myself,” I say proudly. “Butterfly rings, ten for a dollar, so I bought a bunch, ripped off the ring part, and then hot-glued them onto a clip.”

“Brill!”

“Thanks.”

“So it turns out I really like Kyle,” Ellie says after a few minutes of clipping. “I just decided last period.”

“Wow,” I say. “How'd you come to that conclusion?” I'm not rattled by this news. Ellie crushes on a different boy pretty much every week, so the fact that she's decided to like Kyle isn't really that noteworthy, since by Friday she'll probably like someone else.

“Well, I remembered this one time when I overheard him saying that he liked watching that show
Scandals and Secrets
? And you know that's my fave show. Also, I like the way he's always eating licorice.” She blushes.

“You already know his fave show and that he likes to eat licorice? Hasn't he only been here for, like, a month?”

“Yes,” she says, and her blush deepens. “Also, he keeps
a picture of his dog taped to the inside of his math book. Which is adorable.”

“The dog's adorable? Or the fact that he keeps a picture of it?”

“Both.”

I study my reflection in the mirror. My long light brown hair looks wavy and cute, and the butterfly clips glitter and sparkle under the bathroom lights. “I'm ready.”

“Are you going to really work on your math?” Ellie asks as we walk toward the library.

“Of course!” I say. “That's the only reason Brandon agreed to hang out with me.”

Ellie nods, but she looks kind of disappointed. She probably wanted to do something a lot more fun. Ellie is one of those people who never has to study but still gets good grades. It's totally unfair, but she never brags about it. “How come you never asked me to tutor you?” she asks.

“I don't know,” I say. “I guess I hoped I'd be caught up by now.” We're standing in front of the library, and we walk in, whooshing through the turnstiles.

“They're over there,” Ellie says, pointing to the corner, where Brandon and Kyle are sitting, books strewn about in front of them.

“Okay,” I say, more to myself than to Ellie. “Now, be cool.”

“Hey,” Kyle says as we approach. “We thought it would
be more fun to study at the mall. You girls in?” He slams his book shut and slides it into his bag.

It's such an absurd thing to say that at first I think he has to be joking. “Study at the mall? Ha!” I almost add, “Kyle, you're such a kidder,” but decide that would be going too far, since I hardly know him.

“Seriously,” Kyle says. “They have free Wi-Fi in the food court, and we can get smoothies and spread out our stuff. It doesn't get busy there until, like, six.” He pulls a piece of licorice out of his bag and pops it into his mouth, then pulls out another piece and offers it to Ellie.