Well, I wasn’t a third-grade dodgeball survivor for nothing. I’d mastered a few tricky moves in my day.
I feinted right, then moved left, fast, and—
“Get out of my way!” I yelled at the ghost, who was standing mockingly in front of me.
There was an awful silence as I realized what I’d done.
“I was wondering how long it would take to get you to talk to me,” he said. “Five days might be some kind of record, if anyone bothered to track that kind of thing.” He sat down in the rocker and leaned back comfortably. “So, now that you have, why don’t we get to know each other?”
I looked at him for a long moment.
“Damn,” I said.
“Mmm,” the ghost murmured sympathetically. “You were doing such a good job blocking me out, too. Just goes to show what having a bad temper will do.” He shook his head sadly.
“I don’t have a bad temper!” I snapped, sounding (I realized too late) extremely bad-tempered.
“Of course you don’t,” he said solemnly. “My mistake.”
I bit back a sharp—well, all right, bad-tempered— remark and took a deep, calming breath instead. “Look,” I said evenly, “I know you’re only here because you want something from me.”
“You make me sound so selfish.”
I raised an eyebrow in polite disbelief. “If you didn’t want something, you’d be drifting around in the afterlife somewhere, thinking ghostly thoughts,” I pointed out with devastating logic. “You wouldn’t be hanging out in my history class. Or the cafeteria. Or my bedroom.”
“Point taken. But—”
“Ghosts never come back to answer questions,” I continued, warming to my theme. “It’s always a oneway conversation with them. Tell my wife I love her, I buried the silver in the backyard, don’t let the fire insurance lapse, blah, blah, blah. It’s always about what they want.”
“Yes, but I think that if you heard about my particular case—”
“And I might as well tell you right now. Whatever you want, I can’t help you.”
He raised his eyebrows slightly at that. “Can’t?” He stood up and wandered over to my dresser. He bent down to look in the mirror, which reflected nothing but the room. He shook his head. “I never know how my hair looks anymore,” he remarked absently.
Then he turned back to me. “Can’t, as in it’s physically impossible for you to help me because you don’t have the skills or the talent or the intelligence?”
He paused, as if he were really waiting for an answer.
When I didn’t respond, he went on, “Or can’t as in I could if I wanted to, but I won’t?”
“Well, since you ask. Won’t. It’s a matter of policy,” I explained.
“That sounds very official. But aren’t you being a little unreasonable? Considering that we just met?” He smiled in a way that I think was supposed to be winning. I scowled back. “You don’t even know my name.”
I sat up a little straighter, folded my hands in my lap, and gave him a demure look.
“You’re absolutely right,” I said. “So. What’s your name?”
“Luke.”
“Luke. Very nice to meet you,” I said formally.
He matched my tone. “Likewise, I’m sure.”
“And how long have you been dead?” I continued, still using that ultrapolite voice that adults bring out when they talk to people they barely know.
“Almost a year now. See, we’re getting to know each other better all the time.”
“Not to be rude or anything,” I said, “but I don’t want to know anything more about you. And I don’t want you to know anything at all about me.”
He leaned back and squinted at me. “Oh, I already know a great deal about you.”
“You do?” That made me feel uneasy. “Like what?”
“Well, your name, for one thing. And that you’re a sophomore in high school. It’s a new school, so you’re nervous. You want to make friends without revealing too much of yourself, a terrible plan, by the way. Doomed to failure. You worry too much about all the wrong things. Your best subject is English, your French is très misérable, you need to pay more attention in biology, and—let’s see, what else? Oh, yes, you’ve got a tremendous psychic gift, which you’re determined not to use. How am I doing so far?”
After a long moment I said, “I’m doing just fine in biology.”
“Mmm. Well, you’re going to have a pop quiz next Friday,” he said. “So we’ll see.”
My pulse jumped a little at this news.
“But enough about you. Let’s talk about me.”
“Oh, yes. Let’s,” I muttered sarcastically.
“You see,” he announced, “I have a mission.” He hummed a few bars of the Mission: Impossible theme song.
“Of course you do,” I said, rather pleased with the way I had colored my voice with a bitter, knowing edge.
Then I had a sudden, brilliant thought. “Why don’t you contact my mother? Or my sister Oriole? They would love to help you!”
He tilted his head, considering this. “I could do that,” he said thoughtfully.
I relaxed a tiny bit.
“I’m sure they’d understand why you had to give me a referral, instead of using your gifts to help a poor lost wandering soul.” He smiled innocently at me. “Is that really what you want me to do?”
I glared back. Somehow he knew that this was the last thing I wanted and that he had just got the upper hand. “Oh, forget it,” I snarled.
“Then I guess we’re back to Plan A.” He added woodenly, “Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope.”
I gave him a cool look. “That’s a terrible Princess Leia impression.”
“The worst in the tristate area, if not the entire eastern seaboard,” he said cheerfully. “Unfortunately doing bad impressions of pop culture icons is pretty much my only party trick. Although,” he added, “people did seem to like it when I flipped my eyelids inside out.” He demonstrated.
I winced. “Yuck.”
He shrugged and flipped his eyelids back to the position that most people consider both normal and desirable. Then he gave me a melting look (one that I’m sure worked on all the girls when he was alive, one that I’m sure he used to practice in the mirror every night). “I’m serious, Sparrow. I need your help.”
I propped my book on my lap and put my hands over my years. “Doing homework,” I said in a singsong voice. “Ignoring you.”
“Hanging around,” he said, mimicking my singsong exactly. “Still haunting you.”
I stared furiously down at the page, trying not to smile. “I’m only going to say this one more time,” I said as clearly and distinctly as I could. “I . . . will . . . not . . . help . . . you. Now, go away.”
“Oh, right.” He snapped his fingers, as if suddenly remembering something. “That reminds me of another thing I know about you. You’re incredibly stubborn.”
“Yes, I am,” I said proudly.
He nodded, as if pleased. “Good. So am I.”
As he shimmered out of sight, I heard him say, “This should be fun.”
Chapter 10
The next morning I found myself looking over my shoulder, wondering when and where Luke would pop up next. I felt jumpy and paranoid, like a spy who knows her cover has been blown and is just waiting to be taken in for questioning. But when several days went by and nothing happened, I decided that he had found some other psychic. Someone more agreeable. Someone more helpful. Someone altogether more charming and friendly and fun.
Which was a good thing, I kept telling myself. Because that, after all, was exactly what I wanted.
Then one morning I woke up to find every chair and table in my bedroom upside down. The battered cigar box that held my makeup, the chipped vase that occasionally held flowers, the plaster pig that was a souvenir of a long-ago trip to the county fair—all the little knickknacks that I kept on my dresser were also upended. The few pictures I had hung in m
y room now faced the wall. All my books had been turned around so that their spines were toward the back of the bookshelf.
I jumped out of bed and glared at the mess. “Very funny. But if you think this is going to make me change my mind,” I informed the air, “you are completely wrong.”
I pulled a sweater and some sweatpants from my dresser, then stomped over to the closet, muttering, to grab my sneakers. I shoved my right foot into the shoe. My toes encountered a thick, gooey substance. I pulled my foot out and saw what looked like blood dripping to the floor. For a single shocked moment, I thought it was blood. Then I smelled a sweet fragrance that brought to mind crisp toast and melting butter and my brain finally figured out what my toes already knew: The sneaker was filled with raspberry jam.
“Ahhhh!”
Ten seconds later Dove was at my door. She opened it a crack and peered in at me with a worried expression on her round face.
“Sparrow? Are you all right?”
“Fine,” I growled as I wiped the goo off my foot. She started to inch her way inside. I hopped to the door, holding my sticky right foot in the air.
“Halt,” I commanded.
She blinked, her gray eyes brimming with owlish sympathy behind her glasses. “I thought you might need some help,” she said. “I just wanted to give you a hand.”
She sounded hurt, but I held firm. This room was my sanctuary. No one was allowed inside.
I put one hand on the doorknob to balance myself. “I don’t need any help, but thanks anyway.”
She leaned on the door a little more. “Are you sure? You look a little . . . frazzled.”
“I just, um, have a big test today. And I don’t have anything to wear. And doesn’t everyone scream when they’re feeling totally frustrated?”
She paused to consider this. “Well,” she said slowly, “I usually have a good cry.”
“No kidding,” I said, deadpan. Dove has a good cry about three times a week, because someone spoke sharply to her, or she read a really, really sad book, or she found an earthworm drowned in a puddle. Almost any reason will do. We’ve learned just to hand her a tissue and go on with our lives.
“I don’t cry,” I said, barring the door more firmly with my body, “and I’m fine.”
“Well, all right,” she said reluctantly. “But if I can help in any way, please, please, please let me know. Do you promise, Sparrow?”
“Yes, yes, all right, I promise,” I said. The door closed, finally, and I leaned against it, heaving a huge sigh of relief.
My relief was short-lived. Seconds later I heard hooting laughter from the front lawn. I leaned out my window and saw five of my bras festooned on tree branches in the front yard. And not just any bras. Back in the spring I had snagged an unusually lucrative babysitting job (holding the Thompson twins at bay for five hours, a task so onerous that their mother had guiltily doubled my fee when she returned home). I could have used the money for many dull and worthy items. Instead I had splurged at a Victoria’s Secret sale.
Now my flaming red bra waved from the treetops like the flag of a defiant army, and the leopard-pattern bra fluttered saucily from a lower branch.
Lark and Linnet were dancing beneath the trees, their long blond hair flying as they jumped up, trying to grab the bras. They were laughing insanely, as if they had never seen underwear before. (To be fair, they had probably never seen it dangling from tree branches, but I wasn’t in the mood to be terribly fair at that moment.)
I raced down the stairs two steps at a time and burst out the front door.
“Sparrow, are these yours?” Lark yelled, jumping in the air and trying to grab the super low-cut version in bright purple. “Ooh, you are a sexy lady!”
“Give me that!” I snatched a sunny yellow bra from Linnet’s hands. “Stop laughing! Stop yelling! Just . . . stop!”
Fortunately Wren and Dove, alerted by the noise, came out of the front door, instantly figured out what was happening, and sprang into action. Wren ran for a broom and used it to dislodge the bras that still dangled from a high branch; I grabbed each one as it fluttered gracefully to the ground. Dove gently but firmly made the twins hand over the bras they were waving in the air. Ten minutes later I had an armful of underwear and a bright red face.
“Thanks,” I muttered to my two good sisters.
“Thanks a lot,” I snarled at my two bad sisters.
Wren looked from me to the trees, then back to me. Even after all that running and jumping and waving of the broom handle, she looked neat and composed. Every glossy hair of her short brown bob had fallen back into place, her crisp white shirt was still tucked into her skirt, and there wasn’t a grass mark or smudge of dirt to be seen on her gleaming white sneakers. “How in the world,” she said, “did your bras end up in the trees?”
Ah. Good question. I opened my mouth, then closed it again when I realized that I had no good answer. And now all my other sisters were staring at me with bewilderment gradually dawning on their faces as well.
I was saved by, of all people, Raven. She stomped out onto the porch, her black hair flying around her head like a thunderstorm. She had worked the late shift at the convenience store again and was clearly not happy about being awakened by all the commotion. In fact she looked like an ancient goddess, the kind that strikes people dead with lightning bolts just for fun.
“Dr. Snell,” she hissed.
Everybody’s face cleared.
“Of course,” Lark said.
“This is just the kind of thing that stupid ghost would think was funny!” Linnet said.
“I keep telling Mother we should hold an exorcism,” Wren said, automatically leaning down to pluck a weed.
“I could get the whole thing organized in a few days.”
“That seems a bit harsh,” Dove said. “Grandma Bee does like him so much—”
“Talk about a match made in heaven!” Raven snapped. “I’m going back to bed, and nobody’d better wake me up again!” She stormed back inside, slamming the door behind her.
“Well, at least he makes life more interesting,” Lark said. She spotted a garden gnome that had tipped onto his face in all the excitement and cried out, “Oh, no! Dudley!” As she knelt to place him upright, the rest of us rolled our eyes at one another. A few years ago Lark began collecting tacky garden ornaments at garage sales. There are now fifteen gnomes scattered across the front yard. We think they’re supposed to be ironic.
Linnet was gazing thoughtfully at me. “Spar-row,” she said, a delighted sparkle beginning to shine in her eyes, “when did you get a Wonderbra?”
I looked down at my armful of underwear and blushed. I looked up to see Luke leaning against the tree, laughing, and blushed even more.
“Never mind!” I snapped.
Then I ran inside, mentally cursing all ghosts, those in my past, those in my present, and those, I was sure, lurking somewhere in my future.
The Upside-Down Bedroom Incident, closely followed by the Raspberry Jam Affair and the Underwear in the Trees Scandal, made me late getting ready, late catching my bus, and late for the first bell.
I race-walked to my locker. I feverishly twirled the combination, missed the number nineteen on the last spin, and, cursing under my breath, started over. I flung the locker door open, reached inside for my history textbook, and gasped as my hand encountered a solid, gummy mass. At first I couldn’t even understand what I was seeing. Then, gradually, the details seemed to fill in, like a photograph developing in a darkroom.
Somehow, my entire locker had been filled with a shimmering block of blue Jell-O. Even as I was registering the fact that my books, papers, and gym bag were, thankfully, not entombed in gelatin but stacked neatly on the floor; even as I distractedly wiped my sticky hand on my skirt; even as I wondered how the Jell-O had solidified, given that my locker was not refrigerated; even as all those thoughts were running through my mind, I was dimly aware that this was the not kind of event that would go unnoticed. I grabbed the lock
er door, preparing to swing it shut, but I was too late.
“Hey, what’s that stuff in your locker?” A boy was peering over my shoulder and grinning with delight. I knew him vaguely. He played football, he was a junior, his name was . . . Clay? Ben? Jayson with a y? “Cool! I’ve seen lockers filled with Ping-Pong balls or whipped cream or Silly String, but Jell-O! Man!” He nodded appreciatively, a connoisseur of pranks acknowledging the work of a master. “Now that’s original.”
“Well, I’ve always wanted to go down in history for something,” I said tersely.
I grabbed the door again, but the football player held it open with his mighty football-playing arm and bellowed across the hall, “Hey, Reggie! Come over here, and take a look at what someone did to this chick’s locker! It’s awesome!”
Reggie sauntered over. “Dude, how did they get the Jell-O to, you know, gel?” he asked. Well, at least he was bringing scientific inquiry to bear upon what was turning out to be one of the top ten most embarrassing moments of my life.
The football player looked puzzled. “It’s Jell-O, man,” he explained.
Reggie slapped him on the side of the head. “You gotta mix it up and stick it in the refrigerator for hours, you idiot! Haven’t you ever made Jell-O?” He prodded the blue mass experimentally. It quivered but held its shape. “Hmm. Pretty solid consistency . . .”
“Hey, Deemsy, come over here! Take a look at this!” Clay or Ben or Jayson yelled. “It’s awesome, dude!”
Within moments I was surrounded by a dozen of my fellow students, most of them members of the football team, a jolly bunch that apparently considered a lockerful of Jell-O the height of sophisticated humor. They all were laughing loudly and jostling for a better view and speculating about who could have pulled off this amazing prank and how they did it and why they had picked on me.
“You sure you don’t have a clue about who did this?” Deemsy said to me. “You gotta have some idea. When Mark Rabucci put itching powder in my jock, I knew it was him right away. Within seconds.” He stopped grinning long enough to add grimly, “And then I pounded him.”
“Yeah!” a couple of his buddies said together, their eyes lighting up at the memory.
The Secret Life of Sparrow Delaney Page 8
