Ghostcoming!

by Orli Zuravicky

  Through my feet.

  “Oh my god, did you see that?” some girl loud-whispers.

  “I couldn’t do that for a month!” someone else says, though I can’t tell if it’s out of praise or jealousy.

  “Look!” another voice cries out.

  The room erupts in more questions and shocked expressions, until all I can hear is the soft, blurry buzz of airy voices all around me.

  But no one is more surprised than I am. I look down and notice that my “current state of solidity” (as Ms. Keaner calls it) has shifted. I don’t know what percent of me is solid now, but I’m visibly less transparent. I’m also suddenly exhausted.

  I have no idea what just happened, but whatever it was stops everyone in their tracks, including Georgia.

  “What’s going on?” Coach Trellis calls, finally finished with her private conversation and able to rejoin the class.

  No one says a word. With all eyes on me, I think briefly about ratting my new friend Georgia out, but decide to stay silent. I’d rather scare her off myself than raise an army of teachers to do it for me, and for some reason my ball-stopping abilities and slightly increased solidity appear to be tipping the scale in my favor.

  At least for now.

  * * *

  When I get out of my fourth period History of Paranormal Activity class, Colin is leaning against the wall, waiting for me by the door to my classroom. He keeps brushing his hair away from his eyes with one hand, which is when I notice the silver ring he’s wearing on his middle finger.

  This makes my heart squeal. Everyone knows that boys who wear silver rings are totally existential (aka super sensitive and thoughtful!). He’s also wearing this professional-style camera slung across his chest, which makes him look all creative and artsy.

  We make eye contact as I reach the doorway, and I’m excited to use my carefully crafted opening line.

  “I like your—”

  Then I notice Georgia eyeing me from across the hallway and I lose my train of thought.

  “You like my … what?” Colin says, intrigued.

  I get nervous and switch tactics. “Uhm, I like your punctuality. Right on time, mister!” I reply, and pretend to tap my wrist awkwardly as if it’s olden times and we’re playing a game of charades.

  Pathetic.

  Colin laughs. The kind of laugh that says, “This girl is a big ol’ bag of crazy.” Then he heads into the classroom to collect my books.

  “Ready for lunch?” he asks.

  Oh goody. I’m starving (jeez, I hope ghosts eat!) and in serious need of a break.

  “Ready,” I say.

  “So, how’s your first morning at Limbo?” Colin asks me as we make our way down the hall.

  “On a scale of one to ten—one being the worst, ten being the best—I’m going to go with a .009, give or take a one thousandth.”

  “Aha!” he cries out triumphantly. “That’s not a number from one to ten.”

  “Math prodigy, table for one!” I joke back.

  “Right. I’m lame, sorry,” he says. “Why’s it been so bad?”

  “Well, every time I forget that I can’t touch anything and I try to open my book or pick up a pen, people explode with laughter. And, I mean, I literally saw someone explode from laughter—which is super weird by the way and we’ll have to get into that more later—and someone moved my chair in Debunking 101 without me noticing and when I finally looked down I was hovering right through the middle of the desk and I didn’t even know it! Oh, and this horrific mean girl who I met earlier this morning is in my third period P.E. class, and she and her evil sidekick just kept throwing balls through my head. THROUGH MY HEAD! I mean, really? Of course, she pretended she wasn’t doing it on purpose, but she can’t fool me. And, actually, that’s when something kind of strange happened.”

  I’m not sure why I confide in Colin, exactly. I guess I’ve been a lot lonelier here than I expected. And it’s only been, like, six hours! I can’t imagine going on like this for much longer. I feel like my brain is about to burst, which doesn’t exactly seem like a medical emergency here, but I’m pretty sure if it did, the embarrassment alone would kill me all over again!

  Besides, Colin is my tutor for the week, so if anyone can help me sort this out, he can. Guess I might as well tell him everything.

  “I couldn’t help but notice you look less invisible than you did three hours ago,” he says when I’ve finished my horror story, “but I wasn’t sure if you knew. I didn’t want to say anything to freak you out.”

  “Oh, don’t worry. I’ve got freaking out covered all on my own,” I reply.

  “Okay, then. Well, the good news is that everything you told me is actually really great,” he says, trying to be reassuring. “You’re a lot stronger than you think. And a lot more powerful than most of the kids I’ve seen here. The more you learn, the more it’ll make sense. You just have to be patient.”

  “I don’t know—judging by how everyone in my class reacted, you’d think I was a total leper. At this point, it can only go up from here, right?” I add a smile, trying to look sweeter than I feel.

  “Nice tights, Swan Lake!” some burly kid screams out as he passes me in the hallway, which elicits laughter from every angle.

  I stop smiling. This outfit is like wearing a bull’s-eye on my back that says, “Fire away!” It’s basically impossible to be invisible while you’re walking down the hallway wearing a tutu. And I like being invisible sometimes.

  “Actually, I take that back,” I say, raising an eyebrow at Colin. “That’s probably the twentieth time this morning someone’s made fun of the tights, which brings my ranking down to a whopping .007.”

  “Don’t take it personally,” he says, with the coolness of a movie star. “That’s just Jonah. He’s like that with everyone.”

  “A friend of yours?” I ask, surprised.

  “I feel like the wrong answer will get me in trouble,” he jokes.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” I reply, not realizing my tone. “It’s not like that. I mean, he did just humiliate me in the hallway in front of hundreds of students on the first day of the rest of my afterlife,” I say with fake casualness, “but I’m sure he’s a swell guy and all.”

  “He’s just a clown,” Colin insists. “You’ll like him once you get to know him. Would it make you feel any better if I told you what I was stuck wearing when I got here?”

  “Exponentially, I’m hoping.”

  “Okay,” he says, with a smirk, but then his face gets serious. “But I warn you, if you tell anyone about this I’m going to have to kill you.”

  I burst out laughing. “As long as you let me choose a better outfit first.”

  He laughs too. “Deal.”

  “Okay, now spill it,” I continue.

  “All right, all right. When I crossed over I was dressed as Boba Fett.”

  “Bless you?”

  “Very funny.”

  “Okay, so … I’m guessing I’m supposed to know what a Boba Fett is?”

  “You can’t be serious!” he replies, outraged. “You have to have seen Star Wars? You know, ‘A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away … ’ ”

  I say nothing.

  “Every human being—alive or dead—has seen Star Wars at one point or another and knows who Boba Fett is. Those movies are so classic that my dad has them on video—you know, what old people used before DVDs?”

  “Not this human,” I say, feeling embarrassed. “Not alive and not dead. Not on old-people video, or DVD, or anything.”

  “That decides it, then. You must be an alien.”

  Then he does some fancy footwork with his hands (I guess that makes it fancy handwork) and conjures up a hologram in midair—which is see-through, kind of like me—of what looks like a toy action figure wearing armor from head to toe, including this full-coverage mask-helmet thingy that completely covers the face.

  “This is Boba Fett—the most revered bounty hunter in the whole galaxy,” he says. �
�I must have been going to see one of the new movies. That’s the only time I would get dressed up like that.”

  “So … you’re a big nerd, then?” I say with a smile.

  “Very funny, Swan Lake. It was the worst thing to cross over in. I couldn’t even take off the helmet. People didn’t know what I looked like for two months.”

  “But didn’t most people know who you were dressed up as? I mean, since every other human has seen Star Wars but me, didn’t they just pat you on the helmet and tell you how awesome you looked?”

  “Not exactly,” he says, and I can see him blushing.

  “Come on, spill.”

  “Okay, fine. Yes, some people thought I looked awesome. But only the hardcore Star Wars fans. No one else would come near me! It was really embarrassing. I mean, just because I like Star Wars doesn’t mean I want to talk about it twenty-four hours a day or walk around school dressed like a bounty hunter.”

  “I’ll give you that,” I admit. “You should try walking around dressed like a ballerina—it is so delightful.”

  He chuckles. “Anyway, there you go. I still think my story is worse than yours, and remember, it took me two months to get out of it!”

  “So they’re really serious about no one being able to change our clothes for us, huh?” I ask. “We have to do it all ourselves?”

  “Technically, someone could alter another person’s appearance if they harnessed enough energy, but it’s definitely against the rules. I guess they figure if someone did it for you, you’d have no reason to learn. It’s kind of like a rite of ghost passage.”

  We walk into the cafeteria and I get flashbacks from my first first day of middle school. I don’t know what I’m more worried about—whether or not I’ll be able to eat, or who I’ll be stuck sitting next to if Colin chooses to ditch me.

  Not that I would blame him. (Okay, I’d blame him a little.)

  “I usually sit over there … See that table all the way in the back corner?” He points to the other side of the room and I scan as quickly as I can to get a sense of his crowd.

  Based on his Boba Fett story, I expect to see a bunch of boys with glasses and T-shirts that say things in Klingon and have pictures of SpongeBob or Einstein on them. Don’t get me wrong—I don’t mean any of this in a bad way. Nerds are awesome. Felix’s favorite television show is Doctor Who, and even though I refused to partake in any of his sci-fi activities, I love that he loves that stuff.

  But at Colin’s table I see a bunch of kids who look like they stepped out of a Hollister catalog, a couple of muscle-y guys (including Jonah) wearing various professional athletic jerseys, and out of the corner of my eye, I swear I catch a glimpse of Georgia’s sidekick, but I hope I’m wrong.

  “Those are your friends?” I ask.

  “Well, they aren’t my only friends,” he replies. “But yeah. Let’s go get some food.”

  “So ghosts do eat?” I ask, wanting it to sound more sarcastic than it actually does.

  “Yeah, we eat. Food gives you energy, and you’re going to need it. A lot of it. Otherwise, you’ll stay this see-through forever and you won’t be able to do anything, pretty much.”

  We go through the food line and Colin piles his plate high with everything from chicken fingers to mashed potatoes to pie. But he suggests that I just get a fruit-and-yogurt smoothie and puts one on his tray for me.

  “So, your boy-plate is fully loaded with every delicious food under the sun and my girl-plate consists of one sad, lonely fruit smoothie?” I say, skeptically. “This is looking an awful lot like the start of an afterschool special.”

  “Trust me,” he says. “I would love nothing more than to watch you devour a plateful of meatloaf and pie in your tutu, but you’re not ready. A smoothie is the only thing you’ll have the strength to ingest. Even if you can manage to pick it up, you’ll have to work really hard to get it into your mouth to convert it. Eventually you’ll be able to eat three pieces of pizza, a bucket of fried chicken, and an entire pint of ice cream if your heart desires it,” he promises.

  “Well, my heart might desire it, but this leotard sure doesn’t,” I reply.

  “Oh, did they not tell you food here doesn’t change how you look? I mean, aside from making you look more or less see-through. It’s just an energy thing.”

  Say what now?

  Afterlife just got infinitely better than life.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t think I heard you right. Did you say ghosts can’t gain weight?” I confirm, just to be sure.

  “Nope. Just like we can’t age, we can’t get heavier or thinner either. More food makes our abilities stronger, less food weakens us. That’s all.”

  “Okay,” I say. “I can get behind that logic.”

  As we walk through the cafeteria, Colin points to the different groups of people clustered at their respective tables, and I realize how very similar life and afterlife really are.

  “Limbo has its cliques just like every other school,” Colin begins. “It’s totally predictable, but that’s afterlife, I guess. Ghosts can be divided into five main categories, although you could argue that here, at least, there’s one main category, and then four subsets.”

  “Did you want to draw me a Venn diagram?” I say, smirking.

  “Maybe later.”

  We make our way through the cafeteria as he’s giving me my first lesson in ghost social politics, and I try my best to divide my attention between listening and gliding as gracefully as possible.

  All eyes are on me: the new girl. Or, should I say, all eyes are through me. Colin’s right … I can’t even touch the ground, how am I going to lift my lunch, let alone eat it?! What if I spill the smoothie all down my leotard because I can’t find my mouth? I think being new is even worse than being dead. Seriously.

  And it’s not even one o’clock yet.

  “Most of us are Intelligent Spirits,” he tells me. “Some of us are more intelligent than others, though,” he says, pointing to a table all the way in the front of the room.

  I look over and see six guys who are wearing matching T-shirts that say GHOSTS = ½ M (MASS OF OBJECT) V (SPEED OF OBJECT)2 and playing chess with a holographic board and game pieces.

  “Nerd spirits, check!” I repeat.

  “Next up, you have your classic Poltergeists.” He nods in the direction of the table on our left, filled with delinquents. One kid is aiming spitballs at random ghosts across the cafeteria, while another has created a catapult with her spoon and is currently shooting blocks of Jell-O at the ceiling to see how long they will stick. A second passes before a pile of cherry-flavored goop falls from the sky and finds its way right onto Colin’s tray.

  “Our resident troublemakers. They are always in and out of the principal’s office, constantly getting suspended, you know the type.”

  “Fascinating,” I say. “Who’s next?”

  “Recurring Haunters.”

  I look over and see a table full of dark, black-haired, black-nailed kids with sad eyes and giant platform shoes. One kid is drawing on a girl’s arm with a marker, while another sits huddled over a copy of Dracula.

  “The Shadow People sit at those four tables over there,” he says, and points to tables full of different athletic groups, which spill over onto the original table he pointed out as his own. Football players, basketball players, soccer players, lacrosse players, even wrestlers.

  “Obsessed—and I mean obsessed—with sports,” he says.

  “School spirit, rah, rah!” I say sarcastically.

  “And last but not least, the Doppelgangers.” He points to the table next to the chess players. “Our resident drama queens.”

  I look over and I see a table mixed with guys and girls who each seem to be totally in their own world. Some of them are singing, some are sitting on each other’s laps, and at least two of them appear to be holding what look like scripts and reciting lines back and forth while a slew of friends listen intently. Just then, one of the girls reciting lines stands up
and offers the crowd a bow. They all clap. When she stands back up, I see she is wearing a T-shirt that says ACTING IS MY AFTERLIFE.

  “Here we are,” he says, sitting down at the table he pointed out earlier as his.

  “And which group do you guys belong to?”

  “The super-awesome, totally normal, and non-nerdy Intelligent Spirits group.”

  “Ha-ha.”

  The moment we sit down, a lady approaches the front of the room with the microphone in hand.

  “Who’s that?” I whisper.

  “That’s the principal, Ms. Tilly,” he says.

  “Please be seated and quiet down everyone,” Ms. Tilly says soothingly into the microphone. “I know you have all been waiting patiently for weeks to find out more details about our Limbo Central Middle School Ghostcoming weekend festivities—and here to tell you all about it is our supremely talented party planner extraordinaire and head of the Ghostcoming committee, Georgia Sinclaire.”

  The school claps as I see my nemesis—Ms. Blue-Eyed Crazy Pants herself—approach the stage.

  I lean in to Colin and whisper, “Say hello to the person who spent all of third period hurling balls through my head. She’s gotta be a Poltergeist, right?”

  He looks at me like I just kicked his dog. Ouch. I feel like I’ve just stepped over some invisible line in the sand, but I’m not sure where it is or how I’ve crossed it. Maybe being a Poltergeist is more serious than I imagined? Maybe I shouldn’t be joking about it …

  I start to ask him if I’ve said something wrong, but Georgia’s voice is suddenly blaring through the microphone, so I stay quiet.

  “Thank you so much, Ms. Tilly. Exactly one week from Friday we will celebrate Ghostcoming with a football game between Limbo Central Middle School and North Limbo Junior High at 6:00 PM, followed by the Ghostcoming dance on Saturday, starting at 7:00 PM. This year’s theme will be Famous Couples in Literature!”

  Whispers break out across the gym.

  “Find your perfect partner and get ready to dance!” she continues. “This year’s dance is special because it’s not only a dance—it’s a dance-a-thon! The winning couple will be crowned Ghostcoming king and queen! You must be part of a famous couple from literature in order to participate in the dance-a-thon.”