Are you dead too?”
The boy who was occupying the dusty old room she had stepped into was about her age. She guessed that some people might think him handsome, but she found her first impression of him to be that of a big, sulky baby. She took in the red-rimmed eye sockets and tear-stained cheeks long before she noticed the large, well-lashed brown of his eyes, the square jaw, and the thatch of straight brown hair.
“No, I’m not dead,” Noh replied. She didn’t like having her leg pulled, and this boy was definitely trying to make her look stupid. “If you’re dead, then you’re not here anymore, and I’m right here,” she said tartly, pinching her upper arm hard enough to make her grimace. “See?” Noh waited for him to answer, but he just stared at her.
Finally, he shook his head and shrugged. “No, I don’t see. I’m dead and I can pinch myself too, if I want to.”
And he did.
Noh glared at him. “You are not dead. I’m not that gullible.”
The boy cocked his head curiously. “What’s ‘gullible’?” At first Noh thought he was being a smart aleck, but then it dawned on her that he was actually being very serious.
“Gullible means that you believe everything that everyone tells you all the time,” she said.
The boy scratched his head. “I don’t think you’re gullible, then. You don’t believe me, even though I’m telling the truth,” he said earnestly. “I wouldn’t lie about something this important. Maybe you’re dead and you don’t know it yet.”
Noh shook her head, but the boy didn’t look convinced.
“Look, I would know if I were dead,” Noh began. “I can promise you that—”
The boy interrupted her. “I’ve seen it happen before. Lots of times. No one really wants to be dead. They’re scared of it.”
He extended a hand toward Noh.
“I’m Henry.”
“Noh. Short for Noleen.”
She reached out a hand to shake Henry’s but found, to her utter amazement, that her hand slid right through his.
“Oh, goodness!” Noh exclaimed. “You really are dead.”