Sharon Sala - [Lunatic Life 01]

by My Lunatic Life (epub)

  Blurb

  Something is wrong somewhere close. Someone is dying.

  Tara bolted out of her seat and headed for the teacher as fast as she could go.

  “Mrs. Wyatt, I need to be excused.”

  Tara was out the door and running up the hall toward the teachers’ lounge. She burst through a door without knocking. Several teachers looked up from their papers, some were frowning. Others just appeared surprised.

  “Please. You’ve got to help me! A boy is having a seizure in one of the boys’ bathrooms. He’s going to die if he doesn’t get help.”

  They were on their feet within seconds.

  “Where is he?” Coach Jones asked.

  “I don’t know. You have to hurry.”

  “What do you mean you don’t know? If you don’t know where he is, then how do you know what’s happening?”

  “I just do.”

  He’s on the north end, Millicent whispered in her mind.

  OMG, Tara thought. Why didn’t you tell me earlier?

  “He’s at the north end!” she screamed, and headed that way. Coach Jones darted into the north-end boys’ bathroom. “In here!” he yelled from the doorway. “And call 911.”

  Tara flew in behind him and slid down on her knees beside the boy.

  “Is he still breathing?” she asked.

  The coach was checking for a pulse.

  “No . . . God help us, no. He’s not.”

  A teacher began performing CPR while another was on the phone. Tara flattened herself against a wall, then glanced over and found herself staring at the spirit of the boy who was lying on the floor.

  Is that me? he asked.

  Tara nodded.

  Am I dead?

  “I think . . . I think you’re somewhere in between,” Tara whispered.

  There was a sad expression on the boy’s face. I don’t want to die.

  “Then go back,” Tara said.

  The spirit disappeared.

  All of a sudden, the boy on the floor gasped, then coughed and groaned.

  “He’s breathing on his own!” the coach cried.

  Tara shut her eyes. Tears slid down her face.

  She was still crying when someone touched her on the shoulder. It was Coach Jones.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir,” she said, swiping at the tears.

  “You’re new here. What’s your name?”

  “Tara Luna.”

  “So, Tara Luna, tell me something. How did you know?”

  “Sometimes I just . . . I just know stuff, okay?”

  “Are we talking psychic, here?”

  “You might be, but I’m not going to talk about it,” Tara said.

  “I see,” Coach Jones said.

  “Sometimes I wish I didn’t,” Tara said quietly, and walked away.

  My Lunatic Life

  Book one of My Lunatic Life Series

  by

  Sharon Sala

  Bell Bridge Books

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead,) events or locations is entirely coincidental.

  Bell Bridge Books

  PO BOX 300921

  Memphis, TN 38130

  eISBN: 978-1-61194-038-1

  ISBN: 978-1-61194-042-8

  Bell Bridge Books is an Imprint of BelleBooks, Inc.

  Copyright © 2011 by Sharon Sala

  Printed and bound in the United States of America.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

  We at BelleBooks enjoy hearing from readers.

  Visit our websites – www.BelleBooks.com and www.BellBridgeBooks.com.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

  Cover design: Debra Dixon

  Interior design: Hank Smith

  Photo credits:

  Girl (manipulated) © Stanislav Perov | Dreamstime.com

  Graveyard (manipulated) © Sandra Cunningham | Dreamstime.com

  :Elml:01:

  Dedication

  For all the girls who are a little bit different—

  just know that’s what makes you special

  And for Chelsea, Logan and Leslie

  Now you can finally read my books

  Also By Sharon Sala

  The Lunatic Detective

  Chapter One

  The alarm that Tara Luna had set with such confidence last night yanked her rudely from Channing Tatum’s arms, just when he was about to kiss her.

  OMG . . . did the universe have a wicked sense of humor or what?

  She rolled over to the side of the bed and turned it off.

  “What a mood killer,” she muttered, and sat up.

  She was rubbing sleep out of her eyes when a blob of gray ectoplasm floated from the corner of her room and across her line of vision.

  That would be Henry, one of two ghosts who had been with Tara for as long as she could remember. While his presence might seem startling for most teenagers, it wasn’t for Tara. She’d always been able to see ghosts. As for Henry, the ghost in question, he’d appeared to her at the age of three, after she’d fallen from a swing and broken her arm, and he hadn’t been far from her since. Usually, he appeared to her as a somewhat dim version of what he’d looked like when he’d been alive, like with a head and body—arms—legs—the usual. But when he was irked, which her and Uncle Pat’s move from Denver to Oklahoma had caused, he didn’t bother. Sometimes this was good. Sometimes it wasn’t. Right now, it was disconcerting to strip in front of what had once been a living, breathing male, no matter what gray-blob shape he picked.

  “Go away, Henry. I’m about to take a shower.”

  To show his displeasure, Henry rolled Tara’s new ink pen off the edge of her desk onto the floor, then vaporized.

  Tara was still muttering beneath her breath as she picked up her pen then headed for the bathroom. Every time she and Uncle Pat moved to a new home, Henry caused trouble. He didn’t like disruption anymore than Tara, but at least Henry had an option. Tara didn’t. Uncle Pat was all the family she had, and Uncle Pat had a gypsy heart. He was always looking for greener pastures, leaving Tara to say goodbye to old friends and hope that wherever she and Uncle Pat were going, she would find a way to fit in.

  She staggered into the bathroom, dropped the t-shirt that she’d slept in, squirted a dollop of shampoo into the palm of her hand, then stepped into the shower. She lifted her face to the water jets, letting the warm water wash away the sleep from her eyes before she started on her hair.

  Today was the first day of school and it was also her senior year. They’d moved from Denver, Colorado to Stillwater, Oklahoma less than a week ago, into an old, bungalow-style, white-frame house on Duck Street. The house had been sitting empty for six months, and it had taken a lot of cleaning to make it liveable. But two nights ago, the last box had been unpacked, and as of yesterday afternoon, the windows had curtains. Tomorrow, the television would get hooked up to cable services, the phone would be on, her laptop would be hooked back up to internet services, and life as they knew it would resume.

  As she scrubbed at her h
air, she thought about the day ahead of her. There was no way it would be good. A new kid—in senior class. How wrong was that? If anyone found out she claimed to be psychic, it would be three strikes and she’d be out before she started.

  The shower curtain jiggled. Tara’s eyes were shut to keep out the shampoo, but she didn’t need to see to know who was causing it. Henry was still acting up.

  “If you get water in the floor, I’m not cleaning it up!”

  The shower curtain billowed toward her, then plastered the thin plastic sheet to her wet, soapy body.

  “Henry! I’m warning you. Back off. Go pester Uncle Pat. It’s his fault we moved again, not mine.”

  At that point, the curtain settled and Tara was able to finish her shower in peace. She could imagine what tricks he was playing on Uncle Pat. She’d be helping her uncle look for his reading glasses or keys before the day was out. Hiding things was one of Henry’s best stunts.

  She dried and dressed quickly, then took a blow drier to her long dark hair to finish it off. A few minutes later she paused to look at herself in the mirror. On the surface, she didn’t appear all that different from any other seventeen-year-old girl. She had an all-right figure, although if she could have picked, she would have opted for legs that weren’t so long and gangly. Her face was heart-shaped, like her mother’s had been. At least that’s what Uncle Pat always said, although Tara wouldn’t know.

  Other than a photo of them taken at their wedding, she had no memory of either one of her parents. They’d died in a car wreck before her first birthday. Uncle Pat, her mother’s brother, was all the family she’d ever known. She realized how amazing it was that a confirmed bachelor with his head in the clouds and his nose always in a book had even bothered with her. But he had. Even when he aggravated her the most, he was still her goofy, loveable Uncle Pat.

  She tweezed a wild eyebrow hair, smeared a little mascara on already dark lashes, swiped some lip gloss on her curvy lips, then squinted at the mirror until she could barely see herself. That’s when she looked the most like Angelina Jolie, who was her all-time favorite actress. It wasn’t about how pretty or famous Angelina was that made Tara like her. It was that she kept adopting kids that no one else wanted.

  That, Tara could identify with.

  A lock of her hair suddenly floated up. That would be Millicent, the other ghost in the house. Millicent never bothered to materialize past the occasional puff of pink smoke, but Tara could hear her voice, loud and clear, unlike Henry, who never bothered to talk.

  I like your hair better up.

  “I’m leaving it down, thank you,” Tara answered, knowing Millicent was just voicing her opinion of Tara’s look. Millicent was not shy about speaking her mind or correcting Tara. It never occurred to Tara that the only mother figure she’d ever had was Millicent, the spirit of a woman who’d been dead for over one hundred years.

  Tara’s life was crazy, but it was all she’d known.

  As far as clothes went, her choice and style was straight out of Walmart and Target. Money was always an issue with them, and while she would have loved to wear designer stuff, the truth was, a tee was a tee. Jeans were jeans. Today she was wearing a pink tee and her favorite jeans. They rode low on her hips, while the fabric was soft and old and frayed at the hems—a great grungy look.

  It was the best she could do considering half of her clothes were dirty and Uncle Pat had yet to hook up the washer and dryer. She stared at her features, so familiar, yet not what she wished they would be, then made a face at herself and left the bathroom. As she started down the hall, she could already smell the coffee, which meant Uncle Pat had made breakfast. Considering the fact that they’d been unpacking for the better part of three days without taking time to stock the pantry or shop for groceries, she was a little anxious as to what breakfast would be. He had a tendency to cook stuff that was beyond what most people considered a comfort zone.

  “Hey, Uncle Pat,” Tara said, as she entered the kitchen.

  Patrick Carmichael was tall and lean—pushing fifty and beginning to bald. When he was younger, he’d been told he looked a lot like Sean Connery. Tara hadn’t known who that was until she’d watched some old James Bond movies. Personally, she hadn’t seen the resemblance, but maybe that was because she didn’t want to think about her uncle kissing pretty women and taking them to bed like that actor had done. Now, the resemblance to James Bond was long gone, along with his hair.

  The fact that Pat’s clothes still had the fold marks from packing didn’t bother him in the least. When he heard Tara’s voice, he turned and waved a spatula at her, then pointed toward the table.

  “Good morning, honey,” he said. “Breakfast is almost ready.”

  “Good, I’m hungry,” Tara said, as she picked up her juice glass and took a sip. She raised her eyebrows at the taste and then eyed it curiously, wondering what he’d combined to get such an unusual taste.

  “How do you like my latest concoction?” he asked.

  “It’s . . . uh, interesting. What is it?”

  “Oh . . . a combination of several things, including orange Gatorade and some melted vanilla ice cream. No sense in wasting good food, right?”

  Tara tried to identify another less distinctive flavor. “Did you put some almond flavoring in it, too?”

  Pat frowned as he plated their food. “Almond? No, no . . . at least I don’t think so.” Then he swung toward the table with a plate in each hand. “Here you go! Eat up! You’ll need all your energy for your big day.”

  Tara sighed. He had no idea. She hated always being the new kid in school.

  She thrust a fork into what looked like scrambled eggs and took a big bite. It was all she could do not to choke. She managed to swallow without gagging, an eating skill she’d mastered at an early age, and then washed the taste out of her mouth with mystery juice and reached for the plate of toast instead.

  Her uncle frowned. “You don’t like your food?”

  “I don’t know if I do or not,” Tara said. “What is it?”

  Her uncle frowned. “Either you like the taste, or you don’t.”

  She grinned and fired back, “Is it food in its purest form, or is it yet another deadly combination?”

  He sighed then poked at his own plate of food. “It’s perfectly good squash. I found them growing on some plants in that jungle of a back yard. Thought I’d surprise you.”

  Tara leaned over and kissed him soundly on the cheek. “And you did.” She reached for the jelly jar then paused. “That is jelly, right?”

  He sighed. Obviously his attempt to create a gourmet breakfast had failed. “Yes.”

  She grinned as she smeared a good helping of jelly on a piece of toast, then took a big bite. “Yum. Grape-a-cot, my favorite.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with mixing grape and apricot jams. They’re both fruit. They’re both sweet.”

  “And so are you,” Tara said, as she kissed her uncle on the cheek before getting up from the table. “Gotta go. Don’t want to be late the first day.”

  “Don’t you want me to drop you off?” he asked.

  “No, that’s all right, Uncle Pat. Take your time. Eat your breakfast in peace . . . and while you’re at it, you can have mine, too.”

  He grinned wryly. “I’ll shop before dinner tonight.”

  “Get some hamburger meat and I’ll cook,” she offered, then grabbed her book bag and headed out the door.

  “Hey, Tara! Wait a minute!”

  Tara turned. “Yeah?”

  “My keys. Have you seen my car keys? I can’t find them anywhere.”

  Tara frowned and retraced her steps into the house. “I’ll help you look,” she said, and when he left the room, she slammed her backpack onto the sofa and put her hands on her hips. “Henry! Cough them up now, and I mean it!” Uncle Pat
had no idea about Henry and Millicent. Tara had never had the courage to tell him. He was very skeptical about psychics, ghosts, and anything else that couldn’t be explained by logic. She heard a faint jingle coming from down the hall and followed the sound.

  “Now, Henry!”

  The keys appeared out of nowhere and dropped at her feet.

  “Thank you very much,” she muttered, then changed the tone of her voice to light and happy. “Hey! Uncle Pat! I found them.”

  Pat came out of his bedroom. “Great! Where were they?”

  “Oh . . . just laying around.” She dropped them into his hands. “Have a good day.”

  “You, too, honey,” he said, and kissed the top of her head. She retrieved her backpack and headed out the door. She was halfway down the block, listening to Beyoncé on her iPod, before she realized she was no longer alone. Henry was floating along beside her, obviously in a better mood, and Millicent was absolutely bubbly, chattering in one ear while Tara tried to focus on Beyoncé in the other.

  Aren’t you excited about starting a new school? There’ll be some handsome young men there, I expect.

  Tara thought nothing of it. She was used to the company. Henry was bossy, and Millicent was man-crazy. Even if no one else could see them, they were part of her family.

  The day started better than Tara expected. She got all the way through first period without anyone paying her much attention. Henry had made himself scarce, and Millicent was probably in the gymnasium, haunting the boys’ dressing rooms to sneak a peek. Tara didn’t know what kind of life Millicent had lived in the flesh, but as a ghost, she was wicked bad.

  It wasn’t until second period that Tara got a jolt of reality. She was already in her seat and leafing through her textbook when she realized the room had gotten quiet. She looked up to see what was going on and saw a girl standing by the teacher’s desk, glaring at a guy just walking into the room.

  The girl gave the boy a drop dead look. The boy didn’t even acknowledge her. Tara smiled. You didn’t have to be a psychic to figure out they had history. She heard the girl behind her hiss across the aisle.