Ghost of a Chance

by Lauren Barnholdt

  I’m so sick of all the lying that I don’t know what to do with myself.

  I ride home slowly, taking my time as I wind through the streets. I know the faster I ride, the warmer I’ll get and the quicker I’ll get home and out of the cold, but my legs have no energy. I should be refreshed from the nap I took on the bus, but I’m not. I’m lethargic and woozy. It’s like my emotional energy is so low, it’s starting to interfere with my physical energy.

  When I finally get to my house, there’s a note in the kitchen right next to the one I left my dad this morning. He’s out doing some furniture shopping with his girlfriend, Cindy, at the outlets.

  So while I was worried about him worrying about me, he was out having fun with Cindy. They were probably picking out furniture for some new house they’re planning on moving into without me. Maybe even a crib for a dumb baby they’re going to end up having, and it won’t see ghosts because it won’t have my mom’s screwed-up genes, and they’ll love it so much that they’ll totally forget about me.

  I’m being dramatic and going into a complete shame spiral, and I don’t even care.

  All I want to do right now is feel sorry for myself.

  So I decide to really wallow.

  First I run upstairs and change into my favorite pajamas—pink-and-maroon-plaid pants and a matching shirt. Then I slide on a pair of soft and cozy lime-green socks. I pull my hair back into a simple ponytail, because honestly, what’s the point of doing my hair? It’s not like I have anyone to see or anywhere to go.

  When I’m all dressed, I head back downstairs and pour myself a big glass of milk, then pull a package of cookie dough out of the refrigerator. I know it’s totally cliché to be gorging myself on disgusting food, but I don’t care. I plop the whole roll of dough into a bowl and then bring it upstairs, where I turn on my computer and start streaming a cheesy romantic comedy.

  I watch and eat, the whole time realizing how completely unrealistic the movie is. I mean, really, who thinks it’s a good idea to send these kinds of messages to young girls? That some guy who’s super-good-looking and popular is going to fall in love with them even though they’re “normal”? It’s all a big joke of a lie.

  Still. These Hollywood types might be onto something, because I’m kind of into this movie. The popular guy is really hot. He looks like a young Channing Tatum. And he’s not even that much of a jerk. He’s just, you know, misunderstood.

  Soon I’m at the part of the movie where the “nerdy” girl is about to get a makeover from her friends, causing the hero to realize the girl was beautiful this whole time, she just needed to take her glasses off and learn how to use some eye shadow.

  I kind of hate myself for liking this movie, if you want to know the truth. How can taking your glasses off make you beautiful? Glasses are super-cute and trendy. I’ve even thought about getting some of those fake Kate Spade ones. Although they’re really expensive, and I’d probably break them because I’m always—

  DING-DONG.

  The sound of the doorbell ringing causes me to drop my cookie dough spoon. I look down at the almost-empty bowl. Wow. I didn’t realize how much I’d eaten. The label says it has sixteen servings. Yikes.

  The doorbell rings again. Probably a door-to-door salesman. Solicitors aren’t supposed to be allowed in this town, but sometimes they don’t listen. Like this one cable company that’s always coming around, trying to get people to switch their service. My dad has called the police on them, like, five times, but no one ever does anything.

  I turn the volume on the computer up a couple of notches to drown out the doorbell. A blob of cookie dough falls onto the keyboard. I pick it up and pop it into my mouth. It’s official—I’ve hit a completely new level of disgustingness.

  After another minute the doorbell rings again, followed by the sound of someone pounding on the door.

  I glance out the window to see if I can spot a truck with the name of a company on it. I’m in just the right mood to call the town and lodge a complaint.

  But there’s no truck in the driveway.

  I crane my neck so I can look down the street and see if there’s a truck parked down the block. Sometimes these scoundrels try to get creative and hide their vehicle so people think they’re Girl Scouts or something.

  There’s no truck down the block.

  But there is a purple bike parked in my side yard.

  A purple bike I would know anywhere.

  A purple bike that belongs to my best friend, Ellie.

  My hearts leaps into my throat.

  Ellie’s here!

  Ellie rode her bike all the way over here, which only means one thing. She wants to make up!

  Oh. Right. In addition to all my other problems, I forgot to mention that Ellie and I are in a fight. See, I was helping this ghost named Lyra, and I needed to get close to her brother, Micah. But obviously I couldn’t tell Ellie the reason I needed to spend time with Micah. So when she caught me hanging out with him at the bowling alley, she was mad because I’d lied to her about where I was. Also she thought I must have a crush on Micah, which is totes ridiculous because hello, I like Brandon.

  I throw a sweatshirt on over my pajama top and fly down the stairs.

  She’s still pounding on the door. Wow. She must really want to make up.

  I fling it open mid-pound.

  Ellie stares at me.

  “Hi!” I say brightly.

  She looks me up and down. “You’re in your pajamas.”

  “Yeah.” I shake out my ponytail and smooth my hair back. “I was watching a movie.”

  She blinks. “It’s only four o’clock.”

  “I wanted to be comfy. You want to come in? I have extra pajamas and socks. We could watch movies together. I’m eating cookie dough.”

  “I know,” she says. “You have some on your cheek.”

  “Oh.” I reach up and brush it off. It falls onto the porch with a plop.

  Then I notice there’s a big cardboard box sitting behind Ellie on the porch. She picks it up and holds it out to me.

  “Here.”

  I take it. Wow. This thing is heavy. “Wow,” I say, “this is heavy. You rode this over here all by yourself ?”

  “Yup.”

  “Okay.” I’m having trouble seeing her over the top of the box. “Do you want to come in and open it with me?”

  “Open it with you?” she asks, sounding kind of aghast.

  “Yeah. It’s a present, right?” What else would it be? Although I’m kind of embarrassed that she brought me a make-up gift. I didn’t get her anything, and I’m the one who should be apologizing. Maybe I can bring her shopping so she can pick out her own present. Or maybe I’ll make her a scrapbook or something.

  Ooh, or one of those coupon books that you can trade in for, like, an hour of BFF time or something. I used to think those were kind of lame, but if I make the coupons worth something really good, it could definitely work.

  “No, it’s not a present,” Ellie says. Then she reaches out and yanks the box right out of my hands and drops it onto the porch. Wow. It sounds like something might have broken in there.

  “Then what is it?” I ask.

  But I get my answer soon enough, because Ellie’s down on her knees now, pulling things out of the box. My red sweater. A picture of us together at the beach. An orange sundress we each bought so we could dress like twins. A copy of an essay we wrote about bullying that got published in the school newspaper. My old iPod that I left at her house, the one that has this awesome playlist on it that we use to have crazy dance parties.

  And then I get it. This isn’t a make-up box at all. It’s a BFF breakup box.

  “It’s all here,” Ellie’s saying as she pulls more things out of the box and drops them onto the porch. One sleeve of my red sweater dangles over the edge of the porch and falls into a mud puddle. Ew.

  “Um,” I say. “Okay. But, um, don’t you think we should talk about this?”

  “Here’s your p
urse that you left at my house after the sixth-grade dance, and I have your watch somewhere, but I couldn’t find it, so I can give it to you when I see you at school.” She stands up and brushes her jeans off and then looks at me. “Or maybe I’ll just mail it to you.”

  I don’t say anything, mostly because I don’t know what to say. I’ve never seen Ellie so angry before. It doesn’t make sense. She’s usually so levelheaded and calm. And now she has shown up at my house like some kind of crazy person and has begun throwing my stuff all over the porch.

  “Well?” she demands. “Aren’t you going to give me my stuff back?”

  “Your stuff ?”

  “Yeah.” She pulls a piece of folded paper out of her jeans pocket. “You have my fuzzy gray slippers, my dangling heart earrings, and my curling iron, plus that book I lent you, the one about the girl who lives in Victorian England and falls in love with the servant boy.”

  “Oh. Right. That book was really good.”

  “I know,” she says. “I’m the one who told you to read it.”

  “Yeah.” I swallow hard. It’s just starting to hit me now how upset she is. I never would have imagined Ellie acting like this. It’s like she’s a different person.

  “Listen, Ellie,” I say, “can’t we talk about this? I mean, this is pretty drastic, don’t you think?”

  “Is it?” she asks. “Is it?”

  “Well, kind of,” I say. I sidestep the dress that’s on the front porch and sit down. I’m hoping she’s going to sit down next to me, but she doesn’t. She just stands there.

  I pull my sweatshirt tighter around me. The sky has turned completely gray, and the air is cold against my skin.

  “Unfortunately, the drastic-ness of this situation is not really for you to decide,” Ellie says.

  “You didn’t seem that mad when I saw you at the Y earlier,” I point out.

  “I’m allowed to change my feelings,” she says defensively. “Besides, the more I thought about it, the more I realized how upset I was. It was not cool to lie to me, Kendall Williams. Not cool at all.”

  “I know.” I look down at my hands, shame and horror bubbling up inside me. I don’t know what to do. I want to tell Ellie why I lied to her about being with Micah, but I can’t. I can’t risk her having the same reaction as Brandon. I’ve probably lost him forever, and I don’t know what I would do if I lost Ellie forever too.

  I start to cry, the warm tears making tracks down my face. One of them hits my lip, and I lick it away, tasting the sad saltiness.

  My crying must soften something in Ellie, because she sits down next to me. Her body language is still pretty obvious, though—her legs are tilted away from me and her arms are crossed, her knees pulled up close to her body.

  “Why did you do it?” Ellie asks. “I wouldn’t have been upset if you’d told me you liked Micah. I wouldn’t have cared. You’re my best friend. We’re supposed to talk about everything.”

  “I don’t like Micah,” I say.

  She stands up and starts to walk away, like she doesn’t believe me and she’s done with this conversation.

  “Ellie,” I say, and she stops. “I swear, I don’t like Micah.”

  She turns back around toward me. “Then why did you bother lying about being with him? When you could have been with me and Brandon and Kyle?”

  I take a deep breath. This is the moment I should tell her the truth, about me and the ghosts, and just hope that somehow, some way, she believes me. I mean, if I lie to her now, eventually I’m going to have to lie to her again—there will always be some other ghost, some other situation. And at some point my lies are going to catch up with me. Look what happened with my mom and Julie Dunham.

  So I should definitely tell Ellie the truth.

  Right now.

  “I just . . . I felt bad for him,” I lie.

  “You felt bad for him?” she repeats incredulously.

  “Yeah. I didn’t want him to not have any friends—you know, because he’s new—so I decided to hang out with him.” This excuse makes no sense, and the words sound strangled and hollow, even to me. Ellie knows me better than anyone else in the world, and so there’s no way she’s going to believe me.

  Sure enough, she says, “You wanted Micah to have friends so bad that you were willing to lie to your best friend and your boyfriend about hanging out with him?”

  “Yes. Um, because I knew Brandon wouldn’t really want me hanging out with him. Even as friends. And I knew you’d probably be mad about it too.”

  “You didn’t even give us a chance!” Ellie yells. “You didn’t even try to explain to us what was going on. You just lied and snuck around behind our backs.”

  “I know,” I say, glancing down at my hands in shame. “I’m sorry.”

  Ellie shakes her head. She stands there for a minute, just looking at me. She has an expression on her face that I’ve never seen before. It’s a mixture of sadness and disappointment, and it makes me feel like my heart is breaking in two. I can tell that even though she doesn’t believe me, she wants to believe me. She wants to go back to being friends. She wants to convince herself I’m telling the truth.

  It’s actually pretty horrible, when you think about it. That my best friend cares about me so much that even when it’s obvious I’m lying, she’s still struggling with it because she wants so badly to believe me.

  But the absolute worst part about the whole situation is that I want Ellie to believe me. I want her to believe my lie. Because I’m too much of a coward to tell her the truth and risk losing her friendship.

  She takes a step back toward me, and for a second I think she’s going to sit down again. But then she shakes her head.

  “I’m sorry, Kendall,” she says, her face hardening. “But I don’t believe you.”

  And then she turns around and walks away before getting back on her bike and pedaling down my driveway.

  I sit there in the cold for a few minutes, hoping maybe she’s going to change her mind and come back. But of course she doesn’t. And so when my hands go numb and my nose gets cold, I finally get up, pick up all the stuff Ellie brought over, and head back into the house.

  Chapter

  3

  If you were to guess that the rest of my weekend is a complete nightmare, you’d be totally right.

  All I want to do is hide out in my room, but instead I end up having to help my dad and Cindy arrange their new furniture. You’d think they’d be able to handle it themselves, but apparently not. Apparently they need the help of a twelve-year-old who’s not even that strong.

  (They really did need all the help they could get, though. They were trying to move a love seat, a chair, and a sofa all by themselves. It was pretty ridiculous, especially since they had to make three trips back to the store to pick everything up. My dad kept saying, “Paying two hundred dollars for delivery is a waste of money when you can just do it yourself !”

  Which I guess is true, but when you accidentally dent the wall in two spots and you’re going to have to spend time fixing it, I’m not sure it’s that much of a bargain. Plus I’m pretty sure Cindy hurt her shoulder when we moved that last chair. She tried to pretend it wasn’t a big deal, but I caught her wincing a few times when she thought no one was looking.)

  Anyway, when I’m not playing mover, I spend the rest of the weekend doing my homework and hanging out in my room.

  The only upside to the weekend is that, as bad as it is, it’s still better than going to school. I mean, how awful is that going to be? Seeing Brandon and Ellie and Kyle, all having fun and being together without me? Shudder.

  When my alarm goes off on Monday, I resist the urge to reach out and throw my clock across the room. I snuggle under the covers and wonder if I can fake being sick. It’s not completely out of the realm of possibility. Yesterday my dad kept asking me if everything was okay, since I spent so much time in my room. I told him everything was fine, but now that I think about it, maybe I was coming down with something.


  I reach for my phone and start to google “diseases that can come on within twenty-four hours and require you to stay home from school” when there’s a knock on my bedroom door.

  I quickly shove my phone under the covers and shut my eyes.

  “Kendall?” my dad asks softly.

  I pretend to be sleeping. Obviously, a sick person wouldn’t wake up right away.

  “Kendall?” he asks, a little louder. I hear the soft creak of the door opening. “Kendall!” my dad says, this time a lot more urgently.

  The kind of urgency that would probably wake up someone who was ill. I open my eyes and blink in what I hope is a sick-seeming way.

  “Oh,” I say, trying to look startled and confused, like I’m so out of it, I forgot the world actually existed. “Hi,” I croak.

  “I’m leaving for work,” he says. “I have an early job.”

  “Okay.” I sit up and put my hand to my head. “Does it feel hot in here to you?”

  “No.”

  “It feels hot in here to me.” It really would have been better to come up with this plan last night. Then I could have maybe put a warm washcloth on my face so I could look all warm and flushed and feverish. Now I’m going to have to depend on my acting skills, which aren’t stellar, especially under pressure.

  “I’m leaving,” my dad repeats. I’m just about to tell him I’m not feeling well when he says, “And don’t even bother to pretend being sick. You’re going to school.”

  And then he closes my bedroom door without saying anything else.

  I sigh and lie back down on my pillow. How did he know I wasn’t really sick? Am I that transparent? And what if I really was sick? Then he’d be sorry, sending me off to school when I could be on my deathbed.

  Whatever.

  It’s just school. I’ve been going to school every day since I was five. And back then I didn’t know a single soul. Of course, my day was pretty awful. I ended up standing by the coat closet for, like, five minutes at recess, because I was too afraid to go outside without any friends.