Girl Meets Ghost

by Lauren Barnholdt

  I feel almost bad that my sister is fake. “Well,” I say, “I’m supposed to give a message to this girl named Jen. From, uh, my sister. But I forgot Jen’s last name, and the only thing I know about her is that she’s on the gymnastics team.”

  At least I’m hoping she is.

  “You mean Jen Higgins,” he says. “She should be across the hall in the other gym. They practice at the same time we do.”

  “Thanks!” I say. He’s nice. Daniella’s totally wrong about him.

  “He’s only being nice to you because he thinks your fake sister likes him,” Daniella mumbles. “He’s totally girl crazy.”

  “Hey,” Mitch calls after me when I’m almost out of the gym. “Who’s your sister?”

  “Umm . . .” I rack my brains. “Ellie Wilimena!” Ellie’s the closest thing I have to a sister, so it’s not exactly a lie, right?”

  “Ellie Wilimena,” Mitch says thoughtfully. “I think she’s in my math class.”

  “God, what a jerk!” Daniella gets all up in Mitch’s face. “You were a jerk when I was alive, and you’re still a jerk now. Jerk, jerk, jerk, jerk, jerk!” Wow. Talk about being judgmental and over the top.

  “Later!” I call to Mitch. Daniella follows me out of the gym, but she’s still muttering under her breath.

  “What’s so bad about him?” I ask. “He seemed nice to me.”

  “Nice?” she says. “You think he was nice? He’s totally self-absorbed. He always wears tight shirts to show off his muscles.”

  “Maybe he’s just proud of his body,” I say, shrugging.

  “Ugh,” she says, looking me up and down. “I weep for the future.”

  “You know what?” I say. “I’m getting kind of bored of this. I think I’m going to go home now. I have a lot of math homework anyway, so . . .”

  “No, no, no. I’m sorry.” She bites her lip. “I know I’m being a brat. This is all just . . .” She looks around. “A little overwhelming.”

  “Whatever,” I say. I’m at the other gym now, and I peek in. There are about ten or twelve girls, all in their gymnastics uniforms, flipping around. Wow. They are really flexible. Now I just have to figure out which one Jen is.

  “Good job, Jen!” an older woman with curly hair, who I’m assuming is their coach, yells as a pretty girl with long blond hair goes tumbling down the mats.

  “Oh my God,” Daniella says. “It’s Jen.” She starts to say something else. But before she can, she disappears.

  Whatever. I mean, I’m kind of used to that. Ghosts disappearing when they get all overwhelmed. It’s like their brains can’t handle it or something, and so instead of fainting like a normal person would do, they just kind of . . . fade away. It’s actually better for her. That she’s gone. And better for me, too, since now it’ll be a lot quieter.

  I have to hang around until practice gets out, which almost gives me a heart attack, because I need to get back to school so that I can take the late bus home, or else my dad will definitely ground me.

  I sit on the floor outside the gym (which is actually surprisingly clean—the custodians at this school must be way better than the ones at my school, since the floors there are super-disgusting) and work on my homework until the practice lets out. When it finally does, I’m totally ready for Jen. Jenny? Should I call her Jen or Jenny? Probably just Jen. No need to get cute.

  “Hey, Jen!” I yell as she walks by, her backpack bouncing against the back of her dark purple hoodie. She turns around and looks at me. I haven’t really figured out what I’m going to say to her. Which is okay. I’m always better on the fly.

  “Yeah?” she asks.

  “I just . . . um, I’m a gymnast.” As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I realize I shouldn’t have said them. I mean, I know nothing about gymnastics. I mean, I’m not totally unprepared. I did some quick googling, so I know a few of the basic moves. And I’ve used some of the equipment, like the balance beam and uneven bars, during our gymnastics unit in gym class. But that’s about it. “And I was wondering if you could give me some pointers? Some very basic ones,” I add quickly. “I’m kind of just starting out, so nothing too, ah, technical.” Hmmm. So much for being better on the fly.

  “You’re a gymnast?” she says, shaking her head. She sounds confused. Which makes sense. After all, I’m just accosting her outside of practice, telling her I’m a gymnast looking for pointers. Not to mention that I really don’t look like a gymnast. I’m short, at least, like gymnasts are, so that’s good. But I think they wear their hair in ponytails a lot. Or buns. How boring.

  “I’m sorry. What is it you’re asking?” Jen asks, still sounding confused. She looks over her shoulder, like she’s late for something.

  “Yeah,” I say. “I’m, um, a gymnast. I used to go and watch your meets all the time. I really admired your teammate Daniella.” I look down at the ground like I’m all sad about her dying, but I’m looking up at Jen from below lowered lashes so that I can see her reaction.

  “You watched Daniella Hughes?” Jen asks. Her voice softens, and I know I have the right Jen. Her whole face looks like she’s longing to have Daniella back. I think about Ellie, about what I would do if anything ever happened to her, and my heart catches in my throat. This is the difficult part about what I do. Dealing with the dead people is easy, because they’re all fine. Happy, even. It’s the people that are left behind that are the ones that are hard to talk to.

  “Yes,” I say. “She was amazing on the beam.” I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I’m taking a guess, and also since I know hardly anything about gymnastics, this is the best I can come up with.

  Jen just stares at me.

  “Wanna walk together?” I ask, forcing my voice to sound all friendly and not like I’m going to pump her for info about Daniella. “I have to be back at the middle school to catch my late bus, but I would really just love to talk to you.”

  “I can’t,” she says, looking over her shoulder again. “Sorry, but I don’t have my mom’s car today and I’m about to miss my own late bus.”

  “Oh. Right.” I force myself to sound really disappointed. She’s afraid of missing her late bus? She’s sixteen. I’m sure her dad isn’t going to freak out if she comes home late, like mine would. “Sorry, I just . . . I really was hoping to get some pointers from someone I admire.” I look down at the ground like I’m devastated, and then turn and start walking away.

  My gamble pays off, because I hear her sigh, and then she yells after me, “Wait! Where do you live?”

  “In Briarwood,” I say, turning around.

  “Well, you’d be on my late bus,” she says. She bites her lip and thinks about it. “I could probably get you on. The driver doesn’t even know who’s coming or going half the time.”

  I think about it. It’s a risk, because if for some reason the driver doesn’t let me on, I’ll miss my middle school late bus, and then I’ll be stranded. Of course, I guess I could always just walk back to the middle school and then call my dad and tell him I missed the bus. But I don’t know if he’d believe that after the whole fiasco in the mall yesterday.

  I hesitate, but then Daniella comes back. “Oh my God,” she says, her voice full of sadness. “It’s Jen.”

  And her face looks so sad and her eyes fill with tears. And so when Jen says, “What’s it going to be?” I follow her out the door and toward the bus.

  Chapter

  5

  Wow. The high school late bus is kind of crazy. I cannot believe that this is what I’m going to be dealing with in a couple of years. No one’s even pretending to sit in their seats, they’re talking super-loud, and there are three kids in the back that are bopping a soccer ball around with their heads. I’m really not surprised that Daniella’s bus driver got into an accident if this is how the kids were behaving. Talk about distracting.

  “So,” Jen says once we’re settled into a seat in the middle of the bus. Someone’s iPod goes flying over my head, followed by the sound of a k
id yelling, “RYYYAAAN! THAT WAS MY IPOD, AND IF YOU BROKE IT, YOU’RE GOING TO PAY!” I clutch my bag a little tighter against my chest. “What do you want to know about gymnastics?”

  Right. Gymnastics. Crap. How am I going to figure out what the heck happened between her and Daniella if we’re talking about gymnastics? More importantly, how am I going to talk about gymnastics when I hardly know anything about it?

  “Well,” I say slowly, “I used to come to your meets and watch Daniella. She was my favorite gymnast.” I pull out of my bag the picture of their team that I printed off the internet. “I wanted to have her sign this, but I always chickened out before I could ask her. She was so good that it was just . . . It was intimidating.”

  God, Daniella would love this if she were here. Even though I’ve never actually even seen her do any gymnastics (except for the splits and stuff she does to show off), she seems like the type that would eat up every compliment. But she left again when we got on the bus. I think she was afraid to hear what Jen would say. I don’t blame her. I’m kind of afraid of what Jen might say too, especially if it’s going to be “You’re a liar, and you don’t know anything about gymnastics, so leave me alone, you psycho.”

  Jen takes the picture and runs her hand over the printed faces. “You shouldn’t have been intimidated,” she says. “Daniella would have signed it. She loved her fans.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet she did,” I say without thinking. Jen looks at me funny, so I quickly add, “She just seemed like she would be really nice, you know? I looked up to her so much.” Wow, I’m really laying it on thick. So thick that for a second I wonder if I’ve gone too far.

  But Jen just nods and hands the picture back to me. “A lot of people did. Daniella was amazing. Did you see her at the Central Square meet?”

  “Yes,” I lie. “She was awesome.”

  Jen looks at me and frowns. “That was the meet where she fell off the beam and had to be taken to the hospital.”

  “Oh,” I say, smacking my forehead like I just got confused for a second. “That’s right! I’m always getting her meets mixed up, since I went to so many.”

  “Anyway,” she continues, “Daniella was right back out there as soon as the doctor said it was okay. I would have been scared, but not her.”

  “She was daring,” I say, nodding my head.

  “She was,” Jen says. She smiles, remembering. “So what was your favorite move she did on the beam?”

  “Oh, I liked them all,” I say. For some reason my voice cracks. I really should have done a little more research on gymnastics before I came here. But I was assuming Daniella would be around to feed me info. But I guess not.

  “Yeah,” Jen presses, “but which one was your favorite?”

  The bus is getting closer to my house now, and so I start to panic. Not only haven’t I gotten any good information, but somehow Jen is the one who’s interrogating me. “I liked her cartwheel,” I try. Daniella was doing cartwheels the first time I saw her, so I’m hoping maybe it’s, like, her signature move or something. Plus who can really mess up a cartwheel?

  “Daniella’s cartwheels on the beam were horrible,” Jen says quietly. Oopsies. “And the beam was her weakest event.”

  “Yeah,” I try, “but that’s why I liked Daniella so much as a gymnast. She never gave up trying to make those cartwheels better.”

  The bus is getting closer to my stop, and I’m starting to lose it. I have to get back on track here. But something’s telling me I need to back off talking about Daniella and abort this mission, fast. “So we never really got a chance to talk about your gymnastics goals,” I say in an effort to change the subject. “Are you hoping to get a college scholarship?”

  She turns to me, her green eyes cold. “Are you looking for gossip or something?”

  My mouth flops open. “Gossip?”

  “No, of course not,” she says, sounding like she’s talking more to herself than to me. “You’re too young to know any of us, but maybe you have an older sister or someone who sent you?”

  “No,” I say, shaking my head. “I don’t have an older sister. And I’m not looking for gossip. I don’t know what you’re—”

  “Then why are you so interested in Daniella?” she asks. The bus is turning onto my street now, and I have about thirty seconds before I have to get off.

  “I told you,” I say. “I’m a fan of hers. I love gymnastics, and—”

  “Oh, please,” she says as the bus pulls to a stop at the corner near my house. “You don’t know anything about gymnastics.” She stands up, giving me an icy stare. “And I don’t want you to bother me ever again.” And then she gets up and moves to another seat. And I’m left to run up the aisle of the bus like a crazy person so that I don’t miss my stop.

  • • •

  Wow. So that whole thing was a complete and total disaster. I mean, Jen was onto me! Who knew Daniella’s friends would be so smart? Once I’m off the bus, I run up to my room, grab my red notebook, and then head over to the graveyard. I’m hoping I’ll be able to come up with some new plan to help Daniella. Preferably without ever having to see Jen again.

  I settle down on my fave bench, open to a fresh page, and write “PLAN B” in big letters across the top. Now I just need to come up with an actual plan B. I’m still racking my brains when Daniella shows up.

  “Oh, fancy seeing you here,” I say, kind of snotty. “Where the heck have you been? She was asking me all those stupid questions about gymnastics! You had to know she was going to do that!”

  “I just . . . I couldn’t stay,” Daniella says, ignoring the fact that I’m yelling at her. “It was too hard.” She shakes her head, and I almost feel sorry for her. I mean, Daniella actually looks upset, like she’s going to cry or something. It’s different than when she saw Travis Santini in the mall. That was more like something that made her mad, and this . . . this is like she feels bad for someone else. Maybe she’s not as self-centered as I thought.

  I quickly tell her about Jen accusing me of looking for gossip. “And now . . .,” I sigh, “I have to somehow figure out a way to get her to talk to me. Which isn’t really going to be easy, since she thinks I’m a total crazy person.”

  “Well, Kendall, it was pretty crazy how you tried to track her down at school like that. And after practice! Everyone knows that no one comes to practices! It would have been better if you’d just gone to one of her meets or something.”

  I stare at her, incredulous. Now she’s telling me this? “Now you’re telling me this?” I ask, throwing my hands into the air. “You could have told me that before this whole thing happened! And by the way, if you’re going to—” But I stop talking because Daniella’s face has gotten all scrunchy, and she’s wrinkling up her nose and staring off into space. “What?” I ask. “Are you remembering something?”

  “Yes,” she says, pulling at her hair. “I mean, kind of. I’m . . . I’m remembering . . . digging.”

  “Digging?”

  “Yeah, digging.”

  “Digging, like in the dirt?”

  “Yes.” She looks at me and shakes her head. “And now it’s gone.”

  “Great,” I say. I slide off the bench and flop down in the grass near my grandma’s headstone. I stare up at the sky, watching the clouds drift lazily with the breeze. “We are in so much freaking trouble.”

  Digging in the dirt? What kind of thing is that to remember? Why the heck would Daniella be digging? She’s definitely not the outdoorsy type. Is it possible she’s just remembering her own funeral? Maybe Jen didn’t come to her funeral, and so Daniella’s all mad about it? God, I hate this part. Trying to figure things out can be so frustrating!

  A little boy and a woman go walking by, holding hands. The woman gives me a sympathetic look, I guess because she thinks I’m mourning whoever’s grave I’m at. But even though I’m at my grandma’s grave, and I do miss her more than anything, I’m not sad for her. I know she’s moved on to somewhere better.

  �
��What’s she looking at?” Daniella asks, staring at the woman. “Move it, lady. Nothing to see here!” She waves her hand at her.

  I laugh, and the woman gives me a disapproving look.

  “Come on,” I say to Daniella, sighing and picking myself up off the grass. “Let’s get out of here.”

  • • •

  When I get home, my dad’s at the stove, stirring something really yummy-smelling in the frying pan. There’s a cut-up pile of tomatoes and lettuce sitting on a platter on the counter.

  “Hey, honey,” he says. I peek into the frying pan.

  “Mmmm, tacos,” I say, inhaling the scent of ground beef and spices. “Delish.”

  “Tacos are so good,” Daniella says. “I wish I could have some.” Ghosts don’t really ever get hungry. But they do sometimes crave food. It’s like they can’t break the emotional attachment they have. “Not that I ever ate them much when I was alive.” She sighs. “I was always in training.”

  “Try this.” My dad holds a spoon of seasoned ground beef out to me. “Does it need anything?”

  “Yum,” I say, eating it. “No, it’s perfect.”

  “So how was studying after school?” he asks, turning back to the pan.

  “Good,” I say, feeling a little uncomfortable that I told my dad I was staying after again. But it’s not like I did it to hang out with Brandon. I was on official business. I grab a handful of shredded cheese out of the bowl on the counter and pop it into my mouth. If my dad’s suspicious about me staying after school, he doesn’t say anything, which actually makes me feel worse. Obviously he still trusts me, even after what I did yesterday.

  “Kendall,” he says, “don’t do that with the cheese.”

  “Why not?” I ask. “I washed my hands.”

  My phone vibrates. A text from Ellie. Talked to Kyle abt u and Brandon! He is def into you, will call u tonight with deets!

  Tonight? Is she crazy? I cannot wait until tonight to get deets! I’m about to text her back that she better tell me now, before I freak out and completely die from anticipation, but then my dad says something that makes me forget all about Brandon.