Crossing Over (10 page)

“She sat down next to Ben.”

Jac’s little red eyebrows shot up.

“Are you kidding?”

“I’m serious,” I said. “I feel like half the ghosts in Montreal are trying to come between us.”

“That actually sounds romantic,” Jac said.

“Not to me.”

“Okay, guys,” I heard. I straightened up and gave Sid my attention. He was standing at the front of the bus. Before he could
continue, Lady Velma came up the aisle and stood in front of him.

“All right, young ladies and young gentlemen,” she said.

It was the weirdest thing. Sid was a good head taller then Velma, and I could see the rest of him—his leather jacket, his
black and white fringed scarf—right through her navy blue suit.

“We’re about to get back to the hotel,” he said.

“In approximately two minutes we will be arriving at our lodgings,” said Lady Velma.

“You guys have some time to hang out in the hall or in your rooms and chill out, or whatever.”

“Please use this time to freshen up. A clean tourist is a happy tourist,” Velma said.

“You know the rules. Stay where you’re supposed to be, and keep it under control. Do your school proud,” Sid finished. He
plopped back down into his seat.

“Comport yourselves like proper young ladies and gentleman at all times. You are little ambassadors of your nation.”

Lady Velma surveyed the seats solemnly. Her gaze rested on me for a moment. Then she walked regally toward the back of the
bus
and sat down next to Ben again. I had been watching her go, and when she sat down, Ben caught my eye. He waved. I waved
back, and Lady Velma instantly stood up, like a gopher popping suddenly out of its hole.

“Young lady, please refrain from waving,” she called to me. She gave Ben a disapproving look. “Particularly to a young gentleman.
It does not behoove you.”

Behoove me?

Ben looked perplexed and completely unaware that a spirit from the Disco Decade was sharing his seat.

“I’ll explain later,” I mouthed.

I saw Lady Velma’s head snap toward Ben, and I dived down in my seat.

“Man, she is one uptight old broad,” I whispered.

Jac was too busy pouring Smarties into
her mouth to ask what I meant, and anyway, we were pulling up to the front entrance
of our hotel.

The hotel containing the hall containing the vending machines contained in the alcove where I had agreed to meet Ben Greenblott
in mere minutes.

“How do we make them go away?”

We. He said we. As in the two of us. I’m part of a “we.”

I stared intently at a can of Diet Pepsi in the vending machine to help keep my expression neutral.

“It’s different with every spirit,” I said. “Plus they have to want to move on. Well, first, they have to realize that they’re
dead. Actually, before that they have to realize you can see them. Oh, it’s complicated.”

We had taken cushions from the couch,
which tended to consume people and make it impossible for them to stand back up when
they wanted to, and were sitting on them on the floor below the window.

“No, I think I understand,” Ben said. “So we’re going to have to come up with a completely different plan for each of these
ghosts.”

Oh. There was that “we” again.

“Yeah,” I said.

“How do you start?”

“You figure out everything you know about them in life. Lady Velma, for example. We know she’s a tour guide, obviously, and
we know she’s stuck in the seventies.”

“Drag,” said Ben.

“Yeah. And Britches. I have a theory that he’s from Jacques Cartier’s time. I’m not sure what time period—”

“Sixteenth century,” said Ben.

“Okay then,” I replied.

I had forgotten Ben was a brain, due to my focus on the rest of him.

“And he’s looking for someone named Hochelaga. So that’s a place to start with him,” I said. “Beige Girl I have no idea. She
could be from the sixties or from last year. She doesn’t speak, though I’m sure she knows I can see her. It’s hard to know
what she wants.”

“Maybe if we can help Britches and Lady Velma move on, she’ll get the idea and offer us a clue,” Ben said.

“Exactly,” I said.

We. We. Wheee.

Sorry.

“And once we’ve figured out how to help them, we’ll have to find a way to get back on the bus when no one else is there without
getting ourselves expelled.”

“Yeah, Jac’s mom doesn’t exactly belong
to the ‘bake fudge and hug it out’ school of parenting. Or chaperoning,” I added.

“I hear Jac is like a prodigy level cellist,” Ben said.

I nodded, filled with pride.

“She is,” I said.

“I heard her last year, that one time that she played—remember? At that pre-dance talent show thing Shoshanna Longbarrow threw
together.”

Oh, I remembered it okay. I lured Jac there under false pretenses knowing she hadn’t played her cello in a year, and tricked
her into performing a duet with the ghost of a student who needed her old teacher to hear her in order to be set free. It
occurred to me that I could tell Ben about it—tell him about all the things that had happened—the dark entity that had stalked
Jac’s mom at the Mountain
House, the lost boy in the abandoned house next door to mine.

But I was here with Ben now, with a bus downstairs rapidly filling with ghosts. Maybe the other stories were best left for
another time.

“Wait, I think I have an idea, actually,” Ben said. “This person Britches is looking for. Hochelaga, right?”

I nodded.

“That might be a good place to start. Do you have wireless Internet?”

I shook my head. I didn’t have a laptop either, but it seemed pointless to get into that much detail.

“Okay, well, I do. I’m going to get online and do a little research about that time period. Google that name. Maybe I can
come up with something.”

“That’s a great idea,” I said. And it was, except for the fact that it would involve Ben going back to his room, where I was
not allowed to follow. I needed a task, too, so Ben could see that I was a busy medium, not merely a lovesick eighth grader.

“I’m going to read through some of the handouts about the Biodome and the Olympic Complex,” I said. “Maybe I’ll get some insight
into Lady Velma that way.”

“Great,” Ben said, flashing a grin that should definitely be qualified as a lethal weapon. “Let’s see if either of us can
come up with something before final check-in.”

He was already standing. Raring to go.

Or raring to get away from me?

Stop it
, I told myself.
It was his idea to meet you here in the first place. Don’t be ridiculous
.

“I won’t,” I said.

“Won’t what?”

Oh, great. Had I said that out loud? There
was
something worse than hearing voices. It was hearing your own voice, saying something you didn’t mean to say.

“Won’t give up till I’ve figured it out,” I said.

“That’s my girl,” Ben said. Then he turned on his heel and walked quickly toward his room.

My? Girl?

My head was swimming.

It’s only an expression. Stop planning your wedding
, my inner voice commanded.

Then another inner voice immediately began singing “My Girl.”

Sometimes the inside of my brain is a really terrible place to be trapped.

I stood up slowly, still nursing a bit of a Ben-induced head rush. Then something truly hideous, something spine-tingling
and
100 percent evil, loomed into view in front of me.

Brooklyn Bigelow.

“Talking to yourself?” she asked. “You and Cello Girl are a couple of freaks. Do you know what you get when you put two freaks
together?”

“I don’t want to tax your math skills, Brooklyn,” I said. I held out my purse. “Here. I think there’s a calculator in here
somewhere.”

She made an ugly face, on top of the ugly face she usually had.

“Rumor has it you got busted for going through people’s backpacks on the bus,” she said. “I guess when you can’t afford stuff
of your own you’re tempted to steal from people who can.”

I knew she’d make it something bad.

“Actually, Ben and I didn’t see any back-packs
on the bus,” I said, emphasizing Ben’s name.

“Everybody knows the truth about you, Kat. Everybody. Knows.”

“Enjoying the food in Montreal, are you?” I shot back. “Looks that way. Hey, listen, I could probably conjure up the spirit
of a personal trainer for you, no problem. Get you some help with your muscle tone issues. Should I go ahead and do that for
you? It’s no problem, really. I could have someone following you around 24/7.”

I wasn’t supposed to make threats like that, I know. It sort of violates the medium’s code of conduct. But the step back that
Brooklyn took was so gratifying.

“Shut up,” she said. “You’re a sick person, you know that? Just like your mother.”

I pressed my lips together tightly as the blood rushed to my face. I had no snappy
comeback for that. When Brooklyn brought
my mother into things, I just saw red.

“I’ve been thinking about your mother, actually,” Brooklyn said. “Since I’ve been seeing her every day and stuff. I mean,
I keep as far away from her as I can. Everybody does. But people can’t help noticing those disgusting old thrift store clothes
she wears, and stuff. Not much money in the spook business, huh?”

I glared at her.

“That is my grandfather’s sweater.”

“What? Oh gosh, is your grandfather a medium, too? That is so, so sad. I actually feel really sorry for you, Kat. I mean,
you can’t help being what you are, can you?”

“I guess that makes two of us, Brooklyn. What are you doing out here anyway? Oh, right, I remember now. You’re not welcome
in Shoshanna’s circle right now. You know,
once you’re out it can be very hard to get back in. Remember Lanie Bingham? Shoshanna
kicked her out, and that was the end for her. She ended up in the math club,” I added meanly. “Before she transferred to another
school, that is.”

“What makes you think I’m out?” Brooklyn said. Her eyes had gotten huge and dark, like a lemur I’d recently seen in
Extreme Bush Babies
on Animal Planet.

I hadn’t really thought that, actually. Only wondered about it after Brooklyn ended up sitting by herself on the bus after
spilling the Kat and Ben story to Shoshanna. But judging by Brooklyn’s expression, I’d hit kind of close to home.

“Oh, everybody is saying that,” I lied. It was so easy to lie to Brooklyn. Something else I had to be careful about.

“Everybody as in who?” she asked. She
looked more scared by this than she had by the prospect of a dead personal trainer being
assigned to her.

“You know. Everybody,” I said. “Actually, I think they just feel really sorry for you,” I added, borrowing another one of
Brooklyn’s lines.

“Yeah? Well, that’s ridiculous. Anyway, if there’s anyone people feel sorry for, it’s Shoshanna Longbarrow.”

“Is that a fact?”

I turned around. Shoshanna was standing behind me, in the doorway of the alcove. She was barefoot, wearing tiny low-riding
jeans and a little Aeropostale T-shirt with a monkey on it. Her glossy dark hair hung perfectly straight around her face.
Her pink lipstick was impeccably applied. Her expression was unreadable.

“I asked you a question, Brook. Why is
everybody feeling really, really sorry for me?”

I looked over at Brooklyn, half amused and half embarrassed for her.

Well, maybe not half. She had brought it on herself, after all.

“No, Kat said that,” Brooklyn said suddenly. “I was just repeating it back to her.”

“That’s lame,” Shoshanna said. “You’re usually better a much better liar.”

“I’m not a… She’s the one who…”

“No, I’m done,” Shoshanna declared. “I am so done with you, Brooklyn.”

“Sho, let’s just go and—”

“Which word didn’t you understand? I’m done. That’s your cue to go away.”

Dang. I wasn’t even close to being a Satellite Girl, but I could feel the authority in Shoshanna’s voice. This girl was a
born leader. At least, in a country of eighth graders.

Brooklyn made a sort of half-whine, half-protest. After a moment’s hesitation, she ducked her head and stormed past both of
us. Shoshanna watched her go, shaking her perfect head.

“Whatever,” Shoshanna said. The word didn’t seem to be directed at me, or at anyone in particular. But the cans of Diet Pepsi
in the vending machine looked like little silver soldiers standing at full attention.

“So,” she said, looking at me.

“So,” I repeated.

Shoshanna nodded, like I’d said something very deep and unusual. She rummaged around in her pocket, pulled out a Canadian
dollar bill and some change, and inserted it in the soda machine. The machine accepted Shoshanna’s dollar on the very first
try. Even the vending machines did her bidding.

Diet Pepsi in hand, Shoshanna turned
toward me. I assumed she’d simply walk back to her room, but she stood where she was.

“So you and Ben,” she said after a moment.

I didn’t know where this was leading, so I just looked at her. I tried to keep my expression totally blank.

“Did they really bust you two on the bus?” Shoshanna asked.

She looked curious and almost sympathetic. So I nodded.

“That bites,” Shoshanna said. “Did you get detention or something?”

“No. We weren’t really doing anything. Just talking. It was no big deal. They basically let us off with a warning.”

“Cool,” Shoshanna said. “He’s nice, that guy Ben.”

“Yeah, he is,” I said.

“Cool,” Shoshanna repeated. “Anywayz. Catch you later, Kat.”

And she walked out of the room, clutching her Diet Pepsi while all the other unchosen cans watched jealously from the vending
machine.

I really had no idea what had just gone on between me and Shoshanna Longbarrow.

But whatever it was, I couldn’t wait to tell Jac.