Okay, so that was really embarrassing. To have my dad walk in and pull me out of the mall like that? I’ll never live it down. Not to mention the fact that I have to hear it all the way home in my dad’s truck. (“I trusted you, Kendall. I can’t believe you would go behind my back like that, Kendall.” Blah, blah, blah, blah.)
Cindy Pollack is such a tattletale. Cindy Pollack, btw, is this very annoying blond woman who’s friends with my dad. They went to high school together, and now she lives down the street from us. I keep trying to tell my dad that she wants to be more than friends with him, but he’s totally in denial.
Anyway, by the time we get home, my dad has calmed down a little bit. In fact, I think he feels kind of bad that he embarrassed me in front of my friends, because he doesn’t say anything about me being grounded or anything. He just makes me promise that next time I’ll let him know where I’m going to be.
Promise made, I run up to my room, pull on a comfy sweatshirt, and then grab my red notebook out of my bag and head over to the cemetery across the street.
The cemetery is where I go to think, to write, to hang out. I know spending time in a cemetery probably seems weird, and I guess it is, a little. But the cemetery is quiet and calm, and it’s where my grandma is buried. She was the closest person to me until she died a couple of years ago, and there’s a wooden bench right near her grave. I swear, when I’m there, it’s like her spirit is calming me or something. Weird, right?
I settle in on my favorite bench, and then, all of a sudden, there’s Daniella.
“I come here because it’s peaceful,” I say to her. “And since you’re here, that’s ruining it. So go away.”
She sighs. “Travis Santini has moved on,” she says, all dramatic. She flings herself onto the bench in despair.
I roll my eyes. I mean, I get it that it sucks that she’s dead and the guy she likes has moved on. But let’s face it, Travis Santini is no prize.
My phone beeps with a text. Ellie. OMG, R U GROUNDED?
I quickly text back, No—what happened? What did B say? And why were u holding hands w/K????
“Did you hear me?” Daniella yells.
“Yes,” I say. “Travis Santini has moved on.”
“Don’t you even care?”
“Travis Santini was your boyfriend?”
“Well, no,” she says. “Not exactly. But he was about to be.”
“About to be doesn’t count,” I say, then turn back to my phone.
“Yeah, well . . .” She trails off and looks into the distance. “All I know is that I have to find Jen. And tell her it’s not her fault. And then I can move on.” I don’t say anything. “And you have to help me, right?”
I want to say no, because she’s kind of a brat. But the problem is, if I don’t help her, she’s just going to hang around and become more and more agitated, like, every single second. I tried to ignore a ghost once last year, even going so far as to pretend I couldn’t see or hear her, but it didn’t work. I never got even a moment’s peace, and the whole thing culminated with her screaming at me in the middle of the school-wide chorus concert, which totally distracted me and made me sing the wrong lyrics.
“Yes,” I say, sighing. “I’ll help you.” And then I add, “Not like I have a choice.” Just in case she thinks it’s her sparkling personality or something that’s making me change my mind.
I pull out my red notebook, placing my phone on the bench just in case Ellie texts me back. “So,” I say. “Can you please tell me who this Jen person is?”
“I don’t know,” she says, and shrugs her delicate little shoulders. “I just know that she’s very important.”
“Okay,” I say. “And do you know who you are?”
“I’m Daniella,” she says, and then rolls her eyes. “I already told you that.” She’s giving me a look now like she can’t believe I’m the one that’s supposed to help her move on. I want to tell her beggars can’t be choosers, but if I annoy her too much, she might not remember what I need her to tell me.
“I know,” I say, smiling tightly. “And you obviously remember Travis Santini, but do you remember anything else about your life? Where you lived, when you died, your last name, that kind of thing?”
“Well.” She chews on her lip. “It must have been recently, because Travis and I are about the same age.”
“Right,” I say. “And since you remember him, he must have something to do with your unfinished business.”
“Travis Santini does?” She frowns. “But what about Jen?”
“Jen does too.”
“What, though? And who is Jen?”
“Well, I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?” she shrieks. “Aren’t you supposed to know all this stuff?”
“No,” I say. “Unfortunately, I have to figure it out.” I look down at my notebook. One Travis Santini, a maybe boyfriend. One mysterious girl named Jen. And one ghost with an attitude. I sigh. So not how I wanted to be spending my October.
• • •
The next morning at school I’m really, really dreading seeing Brandon. What if he thinks I’m completely lame now that he saw my dad hauling me out of the mall? What if he realizes that no matter what, he could never get involved with me since my dad is obviously way too overprotective and might freak out on him? What if he thinks I’m a total immature baby who’s not allowed to date? (Note to self: Ask my dad if I can date.) What if—
“I like Kyle again,” Ellie says in homeroom.
“I didn’t know you stopped liking him,” I say. “I mean, I figured you had, because you always stop liking people. But then you guys were holding hands.”
“I went off him for a second,” she says. “In the hat store. I mean, did you see what he was doing with that tape measure?” She wrinkles up her nose like she can’t believe someone would act that way. “But then, after you and Brandon left, he was being really funny and sweet. He kept sharing his licorice with me, and when he was checking out, he asked me if I wanted anything from Lids. And then, when the cashier gave him two dollars extra in change, he returned it.”
Hmmm. Asking her if she wanted anything is kind of cute. But still. “Are you sure you like him again?”
“Positive,” she says. “And I think he likes me, too.”
“Well, obvi,” I say. “You’re fabulous.” I look down and play with the edge of my notebook. “Um, so what did Brandon say?” Ellie never texted me back yesterday, leading me to believe that she doesn’t want to tell me what Brandon said.
“Brandon?” She looks uncomfortable.
“Yes,” I say, “and you better tell me the truth.”
“Weeeell, to be honest, your dad made him kind of nervous.”
Great. I knew I was going to have to do some damage control. Thank God I did my hair in two French braids this morning, with glitter threads all through them, and that I’m wearing a super-cute black skirt that I made sparkly with my glitter gun. “So what should I do?” I ask Ellie.
“Honestly?” she says. “I think you should act like nothing’s wrong, just pretend like—”
But the rest of what she’s saying gets all swallowed up by Daniella. She pops right up next to me, still in her gymnastics uniform, and looking as fresh as a daisy. “Did you figure it out yet?” she demands. “Because I’m not getting any younger.”
I sigh. Seriously? Like I don’t have enough to worry about. Especially since I haven’t figured it out yet. Not Daniella, and apparently not my love life.
• • •
Brandon’s not in math (which drives me crazy, because hello, I look really cute today and need to make him realize how mature and independent I am, the kind of girl who’s totally capable of making decisions without her dad being involved—not to mention I spent all morning psyching myself up to see him), and that kind of makes the rest of the day drag by.
When eighth-period study hall finally rolls around, I skip my usual trip to the English office and decide to go to the computer lab to do a little research on Daniella. I figure it will keep my mind off Brandon and the reason he wasn’t in math. And besides, I do need to get started. Daniella’s driving me crazy, following me all around. She’s incapable of talking at a normal volume too. She’s been screaming and screeching at me all day.
I sit down in the back of the library, making sure my computer screen is facing the wall. No way I want people to see what I’m doing. One time at the beginning of the year someone caught me googling “dead people Boston,” and I had to pretend that Dead People was the name of a new band and that I was checking their tour dates.
“Daniella teenager dead Boston area,” I type now. A bunch of results pop up, mostly about a girl named Daniella who died in 1990. Not what I’m looking for.
Think, Kendall, I tell myself. What else do you know about her? Well, I know she’s wearing a gymnastics outfit. And that might be a clue.
So this time I google “high school gymnast dead,” and that’s when it pops up. An article about the Milford High gymnastics team, who all died in a bus accident earlier this year. They were on their way to a meet in Connecticut when the bus driver lost control of the bus and it went sliding off the road. I really should have remembered that. I know it sounds morbid, but usually I keep up with all the dead people around town. I have to. It’s, like, job training.
I quickly find the Milford High online yearbook and Google “Jen.” Of course there are, like, three million of them. I look for a picture of the gymnastics team, but when I find one, it’s too small and I can’t read the names or see the faces very well. Sigh. It looks like I’m going to have to make a trip to the high school after school.
• • •
I have to lie to my dad again about where I’m going, but I can’t really be blamed for that. I mean, what choice do I have? It’s not like I can just say, “Oh, hi, Dad. I have to go to the high school because I have to find some girl named Jen, and by the way did I ever mention I can still see ghosts? No? Oh, well, I can. Later!”
Luckily, the high school’s within walking distance, so I don’t have to take the bus again. I play with the end of one of my braids as I walk over there and think about Brandon. His smile. The way his hair glints in the sunlight. Well. Not that I’ve ever really seen his hair glint in the sunlight. But it does look like the kind of hair that totally would.
When I get to the high school, there are groups of kids milling around on the sidewalk and the lawn, dressed in cheerleader uniforms and soccer shorts. Great. So basically now I have to find a girl named Jen while knowing nothing about her, including her last name or what she looks like.
“Hey!” Daniella yells, popping up next to me. I scream and drop the notebook I’m holding. A couple of girls sitting on a bench near me turn to stare. “Oh my God,” Daniella says. “This is my school! I remember it!” She looks at me in awe. “God, this is so weird.”
“Yeah,” I say grumpily, brushing my notebook off. “Any chance you also remember Jen’s last name?”
She shrugs. Yeah. I didn’t think so.
“So what are we doing here?” she asks. I fill her in on what I found out earlier, about her team and the accident. “Wow,” she says, her eyes wild. “That’s, like, so dramatic.”
She stays quiet as I plow through the crowd and into the school. Once I’m inside, I follow the sound of sneakers squeaking, figuring that since Daniella was a gymnast, it’s a safe bet that I can learn something if I go to the gym. There’s a boys’ basketball team in there practicing, but I barge right in.
“What are you doing?” Daniella asks. “You can’t just go—”
“Yoo-hoo!” I yell. “Excuse me!”
Daniella starts flipping out. “Stop!” she shrieks. She tries to bat my hands, but she just goes floating right through me. It’s kind of funny, actually. “Stop! You can’t just go around and yell at boys’ basketball practice!”
Actually, she’s wrong. Completely wrong. I’ve been on enough of these spy missions to realize that you have to go in and start yelling and getting your hands dirty, otherwise you’ll never get anything done. Also, it’s always better to talk to boys when you need information. Girls get way too suspicious and start asking all kinds of questions.
True to form, a guy wanders off the court toward me. He’s all sweaty and wearing a basketball uniform. Gross.
“Oh my God,” Daniella says. “I remember him! That’s Mitch Huntsman. Do not talk to him, Kendall! He’s a total jerk.”
“Hello!” I say to him. “You’re Mitch, right?”
“Yeah.” He looks at me. “How did you know that?”
“My sister goes here,” I say. “And she has a crush on you.” I lower my eyes to the ground, like it’s some big secret I shouldn’t be talking about.
“Who’s your sister?”
“I’ll tell you,” I say. “But first I need some help.”
He looks back over his shoulder to the basketball practice in progress, but the thought of my older sister liking him must be too much to resist, because he turns back to me. “What do you need help with?”
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.