Ghostcoming!

by Orli Zuravicky

  We walk in silence for a few more minutes. The longer she goes without answering, the angrier I get. How dare she make me feel bad about this when they aren’t even together? I mean, why else would she evade the question—twice! So typical.

  “Answer me, Georgia!” I bark, a little too loudly, as we make our way into the administration office waiting room.

  “Girls, quiet, please,” the secretary says. “Remain silent until Ms. Tilly is ready to see you.”

  We sit in angry silence for what feels like an eternity. I can’t believe I’ve barely been here a week and I’m already in trouble. This is so not part of my do-over plan.

  On the other hand, I literally NEVER got in trouble at Parker Reilly—not once. So … I guess I really am doing things differently this time around.

  “Ladies, please step into my office,” Ms. Tilly says, peering out into the waiting room through her open door. We go in and sit down in two armchairs facing her desk. “I don’t know what you were fighting about—”

  Georgia butts in, “It’s all her fault! Ever—”

  “Buh, buh, buh—that was not an invitation to tell me,” Ms. Tilly continues, holding her pointer finger up like adults do when they’re trying to look serious. “I do not want to know. I am not here to help you problem solve. That is what your guidance counselors are for, and I encourage you to take advantage of their knowledge to get to the bottom of this problem you are having. I am, however, here to tell you that violence and unwanted physical contact are not permitted at any time for any reason at Limbo. There are no exceptions to this rule. Is that understood?”

  “Yes,” I say, immediately.

  “Yes,” Georgia agrees, reluctantly.

  “Now, who would like to tell me who threw the ball at whom? And before you speak, perhaps knowing that I already know the answer will help entice you to tell the truth.”

  After a moment of silence, Georgia mutters, “I threw the ball.”

  “Thank you very much for your honesty, Ms. Sinclaire,” Ms. Tilly says. “Do you understand that no matter what the circumstance, using violence to express yourself is unacceptable?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “And do you apologize for your behavior?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Then by all means, Ms. Sinclaire, please do so.”

  Georgia turns to face me. “I’m sorry for the way I behaved,” she manages to squeeze out through clenched teeth.

  “Excellent,” Ms. Tilly trills. “Now, I can only imagine the insurmountable pressure you have been under as the chairperson of the Ghostcoming Dance committee, and I have therefore decided to chalk this lapse in judgment up to that and forego any punishment for the time being.”

  “What?” I screech before I can control myself.

  “Ms. Chadwick, when you become the principal of Limbo Central, then you can have the honor of choosing how to discipline your students. But until that day comes, I think it’s best that I remain in charge of that task. Don’t you agree?”

  I hate these kinds of questions because they aren’t really questions at all.

  “Yes, I agree,” I say reluctantly.

  “Wonderful!” she cheers. “Do we understand one another?”

  “Yes,” Georgia and I chant in unison.

  “I’m so pleased. You can see yourselves out. Ms. Chadwick, please go to the infirmary to get checked out and lie down. Ms. Sinclaire, please proceed to your next class. And one more thing, Ms. Sinclaire—next time, I won’t be so forgiving.”

  Back in the hallway, we walk side by side in silence, and for a moment I think the war is over.

  Silly me.

  “You better brace yourself, new girl,” Georgia says, as she turns the corner toward what I assume is the direction of her fourth-period class. “Colin and I are going to dance circles around you at the dance-a-thon, and when we’re crowned Ghostcoming king and queen, you’ll wish you never died.”

  “Doesn’t everyone kind of wish that?” I reply.

  But without another word, she’s gone. And I’m left feeling bitter. And unsettled. Maybe she and Colin really didn’t break up? Maybe Colin and Georgia aren’t quite sure where they stand, and I actually did try to steal someone else’s boyfriend? Maybe Georgia has every reason to want to skewer me … I haven’t seen or spoken to Colin all day, so honestly, anything is possible.

  I go to the nurse’s office to rest. My head is throbbing, and I can’t tell if the cause is the ball Georgia threw at it, or if my heart is just trying to send my head a message. Either way? I’m damaged goods. Also, if I stay here I get to skip lunch with Georgia and Colin, so that’s a BIG plus.

  Two birds with one stone.

  I head straight home after school ends and send a Holomail to Colin telling him I can’t make our afternoon tutoring session. Georgia will probably find some way to turn my considerate gesture into a marriage proposal, but there’s nothing I can do about that, so I’m not going to waste any energy worrying about it.

  I need all the energy I have for important things. Like eating.

  I so cannot face him right now. I can’t bear to hear him tell me he got back with Georgia, or ask me about our fight today. I would totally lose my cool. And that already kind of happened once today. Once a day is my limit.

  When Cecily gets home, I tell her everything.

  “So, what are you going to do about the dance-a-thon, then?” she asks me. “I mean, if they did get back together and he is going with her, are you still going to go?”

  “Of course I’m going,” I say, feeling newly empowered. “And you are, too. I’m sorry things didn’t work out for you with Marcus, but we’re going to enter this thing together. It’s like you said this morning: We don’t need boys to dance. We’ve been dancing on our own for years. We’re better dance partners than any of these guys. And you and I? We’re going to dance Georgia so far off the floor she’ll need a map to find her way back.”

  “Welcome back, friend,” Cecily says, with a smile.

  We spend the rest of the afternoon hanging out in the room, and I practice changing our appearance for a few laughs. I know it doesn’t count for much, since we can’t be seen this way, but it feels really freeing to get out of these pointe shoes, even if it’s only for a little while. Not to mention how killer I look in a leotard, tutu, motorcycle boots, and a leather jacket. And seeing Cecily in fishnet tights and a top hat? Well, that’s just …

  Priceless.

  It’s Thursday afternoon, and school’s just let out. Colin still hasn’t said anything to me about whether he’s:

  a) Back together with Georgia

  b) Going to crush me by turning my offer down

  c) Going to the dance with her instead

  OR

  d) All of the above!!!

  It’s perfectly fine that he’s decided not to go with me—I’m over it. I just wish he’d actually tell me.

  “You should totally do cheerleading as your required team,” I hear Georgia tell Cecily as I approach her locker.

  “I’ll think about it,” Cecily replies, to my surprise.

  “We’ll have so much fun together!” Georgia continues animatedly, until she sees my face. Then she completely clams up.

  “Well, that’s my cue,” she says.

  “Wait!” I say, before I can talk myself out of it. This cold war between us has reached frigid temperatures, and I’m done living afterlife in a freezer. “I’d really like to put this fight to rest. We don’t have to be friends, but can we just be civil? I’m sorry I asked Colin to the dance, okay?” I offer her my hand to shake. Seems like the most official way to do this kind of thing.

  “No, you’re not,” she says, coldly. “But you will be.” Then she walks away.

  “Wasn’t that fun?” I say, rolling my eyes and leaning up against the lockers.

  “Why did you apologize to her?” Cecily asks.

  “Well, with you joining the cheerleading squad and all I figure making peace is the least
I can do.”

  “Don’t do that,” Cecily says in a slightly irritated tone.

  “Do what?”

  “Don’t get all judgey without even asking me what I want or hearing my side.”

  “Okay, I’m sorry. What’s your side?”

  “I like being cheerful. It’s my thing! Your thing is being broody and sarcastic, my thing is being happy. Also, cheerleading is, like, the closest we can get to dancing here,” she says.

  “I think I just heard Balanchine roll over in his grave.”

  “Uhm, he’s not in a grave, remember?” Cecily replies, smartly. “Because he’s a ghost. Oh my god, OH MY GOD, Balanchine is a ghost! Field trip??”

  “Keep your tights on, dancing queen. Don’t you want to at least be eighty percent solid when you meet him?”

  She looks down at her feet. I can see my joke landing on her like a jab to the jaw, but I’m powerless to stop it.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, immediately. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “It’s not my fault I’m so far behind you,” she retorts. “I’m doing the best I can, and everyone knows you have the better tutor.”

  “Nothing is your fault! Everyone moves at different speeds. It took Colin two months to change his outfit! Two months. I’m not … I didn’t mean anything by it, honest. It was just a joke. A stupid, insensitive joke. Please? I’m sorry.”

  “Okay,” she says, coming back to herself. “So … do you wanna go on a field trip?”

  “I’m guessing we won’t have time to hunt him down and make it back before dinner.”

  “Party pooper,” she says. “Joining the cheerleading squad would cheer you up!”

  “If I join the cheerleading squad with Georgia McScary, I’ll be a dead party pooper.”

  “You’re already a dead party pooper.”

  “I mean dead, again, I’ll be dead again. Translation? I’ll pass.”

  “Suit yourself,” she replies, but I can tell she’s still thinking about joining. “Are you meeting Colin now?”

  “No, he canceled. Something about one last football practice before the big game.”

  “Yay! Let’s go browse the Dead Man’s Treasure Chest for some costume ideas for the dance.”

  “What’s the point? We can’t wear any of them,” I say.

  “Yeah, but we still need a backstory, you know, when people ask us who we are. And we need to know what couple to sign up as for the dance-a-thon.”

  “I’m pretty sure we can just say we’re two ballerinas and no one will care.”

  “But we have to be a couple from literature. And you know Georgia will care.”

  “Uhm, okay, so we’ll be Odette and Odile from Swan Lake. Everyone called me Swan Lake on my first day here, anyway.”

  “They’re not ballerinas in the book, they’re swans!” she says, with genuine concern.

  “Cece, I hate to burst your bubble, but no matter who we say we are, we’re still gonna end up wearing the same exact thing we’ve been wearing since we got here. You know that, right?” I say.

  “It’s just, I keep hoping that by Saturday we’ll magically be able to change, that’s all,” she admits, wistfully.

  “Yeah, I know. But I don’t think we should get our hopes up.”

  “Can we please go, anyway? I want to go look around. Pretty please???”

  “Sure.”

  * * *

  We open the front door to the Dead Man’s Treasure Chest, and a talking parrot asks us to pay a cover charge of five dollars before letting us through. I’ve never had to pay to enter a store before, but everything in Limbo is an adventure, so Cecily and I don’t bother to argue. Also, it’s a talking parrot. So …

  The inside of the store looks like a scene out of a pirate movie: wooden and creaky, staged perfectly to look super creepy and old. The owner comes out from behind a red, velvety curtain and is dressed like a fortune-teller, which shouldn’t surprise me, based on everything I’ve seen in this place, but for some reason, it still does.

  “Hello, girls,” she says. “Looking for costume ideas for the Ghostcoming dance? We’ve got every costume idea you could possibly think of—and the instructions to go along with them—for just fifteen dollars each!”

  “I guess we’re not the only kids from Limbo Central who had this thought, huh?” I say, rhetorically. “What do you mean instructions?”

  “Well, we only sell the ideas and the instructions on how to make the costumes, love.”

  “I don’t get it,” Cecily says, just as confused as I am.

  “Oh, I can see now,” she says, looking us up and down. “You’re still new.”

  Cecily is still floating her way through Limbo—and looking approximately 50 percent see-through.

  The lady continues. “Well, when you reach your full strength, you’ll be changing your own outfits and such—you know how it goes. So we don’t sell actual costumes here. Seems pointless, since people make their own clothes out of thin energy! But we do sell ideas and instructions for costumes you can go home and create yourself.”

  “Oh, that’s why you charge a fee at the door.”

  “Gotta make money somehow!” she says, with a chuckle. “But it’s all about the instructions. Kids come in here all the time thinking they can see something and just re-create it like that!” and she snaps her fingers. “But it doesn’t work like that, nuh-uh. This takes hard work and skill. Took me weeks to perfect some of these.”

  “Okay, well, mind if we just look around?” I ask.

  “Of course, get your five bucks worth!” she says, and walks behind the counter.

  We take a lap around the store, and this lady isn’t kidding—she has just about every costume idea imaginable. There’s your classic supernatural section: zombies, werewolves, vampires, witches, the whole cast of Twilight and Harry Potter; then there’s the official pirate section, complete with Johnny Depp–style Captain Jack; which leads straight into the pop star section, with Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus, Beyoncé, Ariana Grande, and Nicki Minaj among many others; next, we enter the classic princess/fairytale section, followed by the TV section, with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, SpongeBob and Patrick, the cast of Adventure Time, and a host of others. Then there’s the generic costume section, with things like peanut butter and jelly, mustard and ketchup, doctor, nurse, a lightbulb, and, like, a million others. And let’s not forget the period costumes through the ages section, which spans the whole left side of the store, starting with the caveman and going in ten-year increments all the way up to today.

  I thought this trip would cheer Cecily up, but as we finish our long lap around the store, she looks at me and says, “We’re not gonna be able to dress up as anything, are we?”

  “I don’t think so,” I say honestly, and I can see whatever hope she has left evaporating.

  Cecily’s spirit is fading fast.

  No pun intended.

  I don’t want to give her false hope, but she’s not so good with the whole bad-news thing. Me, I can shrug things like this off with a tasteless joke and a sarcastic temperament. But Cecily? She doesn’t have an ounce of sarcasm in her body. Things are good until they’re bad. And when they’re bad, boy is she down in the dumps!

  “It’s always good to have a goal, though!” I add, trying to brighten her mood. “I think I have an idea—if we can manage to make some small tweaks to our outfits, that is. Altering our existing outfits should be easier than changing their makeup from scratch. At least, that’s what Mr. Chesterfield says.”

  “Ooh, do tell!” she begs, a little perkier.

  “Miss?” I call over to the fortune-teller. “I’d like to purchase two sets of instructions, please.”

  We cross Death Row onto the boardwalk and head down to the beach. Ever since Colin took me here for our first tutoring session, it’s become my go-to place to practice and just relax. And yes, I admit, there may be the occasional daydream about Colin and me surfing together. And our boards kind of crash and we both fall i
nto the water and then he swims after my board and brings it back to me …

  Like a prince.

  Anyway.

  We get situated and Cecily practices walking while I see if I can make a dent in this outfit. I read and reread the instructions for my costume, like, a million times, but after two hours of concentrating, I’m still no closer than I was when I started. I guess I thought the instructions were going to explain to me how to do it, but really all they do is tell me what the costume should look like. I suppose they assume that most ghosts already know how. Which I don’t.

  Shocker.

  I try to think about what was going on in my head when I managed to do some of the other things I can do, like when my solidity changed or when I was able to sit and walk. It’s confusing because half of the time my emotions end up making me more powerful, and half of the time they totally destroy me—for example, by drawing hearts in the sand without my permission! It’s like, when they get too negative, they throw me off and I lose control. I need to figure out a way to separate my positive feelings from my negative ones … I need to visualize what I want without visualizing what I don’t want.

  I close my eyes and try again, keeping my eye on the prize. Or prizes, in this order:

  Making Cecily happy

  Crushing this dance-a-thon

  Looking cute after nine days of wearing the SAME THING!

  “Hey, you just did something! Look!” Cecily calls out.

  I look down and my once-white tutu now has panels of red tulle with black spades on them. The remaining white panels of tulle have red hearts.

  “Sweet!” I say, excitedly. “Dude, you did, too—you’re walking!”

  “Oh my god, I am?!” Cecily squeals.

  “What were you thinking about?” I ask.

  “I don’t know, I was just happy for you, I think.”

  “That’s it,” I tell her. “The key is pushing all the negative energy out and focusing on the positive while you’re trying to make things happen. Anger and jealousy—anything negative—makes you lose control.”

  “That makes sense,” she says, thinking. “Okay, so, I don’t mean to be negative, but I’m starving!! Can we please leave and go get something to eat?”